What do Empath’s, Healers, & HSPs all have in common? 

They have what I like to refer to as a FINELY TUNED NERVOUS SYSTEM

After years of identifying as an HSP or HIghly Sensitive Person, the phrase began to leave a bad taste in my mouth. I never felt like it quite captured the essence of what is really going on here. In our culture, being sensitive is often seen as a weakness and not acknowledged for it’s strengths. Over and over again from working with myself and supporting clients for over a decade, I began to realize that people who are “highly sensitive” aren’t just sensitive to their environments and the experiences of others, they are actually finely tuned to the world around them, like a Violin whose notes are so nuanced, it takes a certain level of mastery to become a good player. 

Some people just feel their world more deeply than others.

High Sensitivity can look like: 

Growing up you may have been told you are “too sensitive,” because you react more intensely to the words people say or the things that happen to you.

You may be mistaken as “shy” or “introverted,” because you can be quieter than others and take time to develop close relationships.

Yet this isn’t the whole story.

About 15-20% of the population is characterized as highly sensitive (HS) according to psychologist Elaine Aaron. Those people may experience their world in a slightly different way than others, resulting in both a deeper processing of information and greater sensitivity to physical and emotional pain.

Empathic Awareness: 

You aren’t just sensitive to other people’s experiences, you actually FEEL other people’s experience.

Have you ever walked into a room and just know on a gut level what the energetic vibration is? We all have this sense to some degree, but if you are highly empathic, it can be like your nervous system just got hi-jacked. 

In NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) there is an idea that people operate between 3 stances when in relationship. 

1. Self: when you are deeply grounded in your own experience, with little internal awareness of how the other is actually feeling. 

2. Switch: it’s like you are no longer in your body and are picking up information about the other person’s world as if it were your own felt experience. 

3. Shift. you can easily and consciously move back and forth between feeling the other’s experience and grounding back into your own experience. 

Empath’s often get stuck in what this framework calls “auto-switching.” It’s like you can’t help but be fully engrossed in other people’s realities, sometimes losing connection to your own inner world. 

When people tell you to “just be yourself,” it’s hard to know what that means anymore.

Sometimes it’s difficult to separate where you end and someone else begins. It’s like you know what they are feeling, and you are responsible for their experience.

You avoid conflict at all costs. You often compromise your needs to accommodate those around you.

Over time, you lose track of who you really are and what you really want. Sorting through the noise of all the ways you should feel or should think is confusing. What might it be like to be confident in who you are?

If life has become so overwhelming, you aren’t sure how to get through it…

The Struggle is real and their is not just a light at the end of the tunnel, there is a headlamp right on your third eye that just needs to be turned to the right level of brightness depending on where you are.

I understand the struggle of the deeply sensitive soul, and I know there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. Your feelings are a gift even if they don’t always feel like one. Many people with high sensitivity end up in counseling because it is easy to get out of balance and become anxious or depressed.

If you would like to learn more and discover how I can help you, contact me using the contact form or call me at (720) 582-3570 for a free consultation.