Identifying as HSP – Harmful or Helpful?

Identifying as HSP – Harmful or Helpful?

by | Dec 22, 2018 | Anxiety, Highly Sensitive Person

Have you ever stopped to question whether identifying as HSP could be harmful? Before you throw your hands up in the air wondering what kind of a mess of contradictions I am for asking that question…please hear me out.

When I first learned about the sensory-processing sensitivity trait, it was life-changing. I couldn’t believe that there was an actual personality trait that explained my susceptibility to sensory overload, deep empathy, and complex thinking and processing.

I felt less alone when I read that 20 percent of the population experiences life in similar ways, and even more so when I began connecting with other HSPs.

Not only did I experience a sense of belonging, but I also began to truly understand how to take care of myself and my sensitive nervous system. I started to organize my life in a way that helped me to manage my energy. I became more comfortable with setting boundaries in my relationships and work life.

Little by little, I began to weave “sensitivity” into my writing and retreats until it became a central theme of what I do. I quickly learned about many of the challenges and strengths of my readers and retreats guests, as many of you shared your personal experiences with me.

I wholeheartedly believe that being a highly sensitive person is a true gift. But along the way, I’ve also encountered some downsides to identifying as HSP.

I’ve shared some of the problems with identifying as HSP in the video below.

The Sneaky Problem with Identifying as HSP

 

 

What do you think? What have your experiences been identifying as HSP? I invite you to leave a comment below if you’d like to share your thoughts!

How to Get Out of Your Head and into Your Heart

How to Get Out of Your Head and into Your Heart

by | Nov 17, 2018 | Anxiety, Highly Sensitive Person

Do you find it difficult to get out of your head? This is a common struggle for many highly sensitive people. Despite having an inherent ability to feel, it can be tough to get out of your head and move into your body.

Or you may feel like you spend enough time feeling your emotional heart, which can be pretty painful for many HSPs. But what I’m referring to in this article is different than the emotional heart and I’ll explain what I mean in a moment.

I’ll also share a few tips for moving from your head to your heart, as well as a video with a step-by-step technique.

First, let’s examine why we spend so much time in our heads.

Why It’s Hard To Get Out of Your Head

Highly sensitive people pick up on loads of sensory information and our brains process that information slowly. So, it makes sense that we spend a lot of time in the landscape of our minds. 

We pay more attention to the feelings of others and forget how to listen to our own hearts and bodies.

We’re critical thinkers so we analyze every angle of problems, perspectives, and solutions, which can be a positive part of the HSP trait. But we can also be too cautious in a way where we weigh pros and cons excessively leading to overthinking.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s why we feel so drained in certain environments. If you’re like me, you already feel like you have a court trial, policy debate, and therapy session going on in your brain throughout the day.

So how do you get out of your head and into your heart? Well, first let’s take a look at what it means to be aware from the heart.

What It Means to Get Out of Your Head and into Your Heart

As a human being, it’s normal for your awareness to surround your head. We tend to prioritize intellect and rationality over feeling and emotion in our society. We get consumed by the thinking mind and even identify with our thoughts.

The mind serves us in numerous ways when it comes to learning, planning, and so forth. But your mind only knows the past and future. It doesn’t really commune with the present and it cannot access the deeper presence and compassion you have within you.

Accessing the space of your heart is not about living from emotion. It’s a sense of an inner knowing and calmness that can only be known from the heart. It can’t be understood through the intellect, as it’s a felt sense of compassionate expansion.

When you live from your heart, it becomes easier to connect with your inner truth. You arrive at compassion-centered decisions with ease and openness. You are able to tune into your body to know when it needs rest or exercise. And you tap into a deeper awareness that reflects qualities of calmness and presence.

3 Ways to Get Out of Your Head and into Your Heart

1. Welcome your thoughts and emotions. Rather than shooing away mental chatter and accompanying feelings, allow them to sit with you and practice sitting with them. You may ask your thoughts or emotions to separate from you so you can have some space to breathe. But instead of pushing them away, lean in and get curious.

2. Move your body. Bringing movement into your body through qigong, yoga, dance, a walk in nature, or even simple movements in your hands and feet can help you to not only shift from your head but also become more embodied. You may try synchronizing your breath with movement as we do in many yoga classes or simply shift your awareness to another place in your body besides your head.

3. Practice heart-centered awareness. Learn simple ways to drop into the space of your heart center and become present. As you access your Higher Self, you’ll be able to allow mental chatter to exist but mellow out while remaining aware from a place of open compassion.

The video below offers a tool to get you started!

How to Get Out of your Head and into Your Heart

The exercise in this video is adapted from the work of psychotherapist and meditation teacher, Loch Kelly, and his book Shift into Freedom. I recently attended a retreat with Loch in Italy. I’ve found the techniques in his book to be extraordinarily useful for moving into open-hearted awareness.

Nadi Shodhana: A Breathing Technique to Help Calm Anxiety

Nadi Shodhana: A Breathing Technique to Help Calm Anxiety

by | Nov 14, 2018 | Anxiety, Highly Sensitive Person, Meditation, Yoga

Want to learn a breathing technique for anxiety?

Breathing techniques may not always work to ease anxiety, but that doesn’t mean that breathing never works. Different tools work in different ways for different people. What’s important is that you have options in your toolbox and identify what works for you.

Today I want to share with you a simple technique that is safe for beginners and a wonderful tool to facilitate ground in the fall season.

Nāḍī shodhana prāṇāyāma or “alternate nostril breathing” is a breathing technique I often teach my students.

On the days that I’m not a congested puffball, this practice brings me into a profound sense of ease and awareness. It can really be a powerful tool for a lot of people.

I’ll walk you through this as a breathing technique for anxiety you can do at home, as well as when you’re out in the world,.

First, I’d like to explain nāḍī shodhana and its benefits a little further.

Nāḍī Shodhana: A Breathing Technique for Anxiety

The word nāḍī can be translated from Sanskrit to mean “channel” and shodhana signifies “cleansing” or “purifying”. Nāḍī shodhana is the practice of cleansing or clearing the subtle pathways of your system so that your prāṇa or “life force” can move through you with greater ease. In essence, the practice helps restore balance in your mind and body and supports overall well-being.

This simple technique can be practiced before or after physical postures (āsana). If you choose to do it at the end, practice it after śavāsana. You may also use this breathing technique as a stand-alone practice.

Benefits of Nāḍī Shodhana

Here are some of the potential benefits of nāḍī shodhana according to the yogic tradition:

  • Centers the mind in the present.
  • Supports mental function and concentration.
  • Lowers the heart rate and releases tension.
  • Improves respiratory function and sends more oxygen to the blood.
  • Helps balance the left and right nostrils and hemispheres of the brain.

How to Practice This Breathing Technique for Anxiety

For this practice, you can breathe with a gentle and easy rhythm without needing to make your breath particularly long or deep.

1) Sit in a comfortable position on a chair or on the ground with some cushioning under your sit bones so that your hip and spinal muscles are as relaxed as possible.

2) Bring your index and middle fingers of your dominant hand to the point on your forehead just above the center of your eyebrows. You’ll use your thumb and ring and/or pinky fingers to alternately close your nostrils. Your other hand may rest in your lap with your palm facing up. Start by taking an easy inhale and exhale through both nostrils.

3) At the end of your exhale, close your right nostril and inhale through the left. At the end of your inhale, close left and exhale through your right nostril. Inhale through the right. Then close right and exhale left. Repeat inhaling left, exhaling right, inhaling right, exhaling left. Continue through 6-8 rounds and you will finish exhaling through your left nostril to complete the round.

4) Once you complete the rounds and exhale on your left side, place both hands in your lap and return to natural breathing as you sit in the effects of your practice. While your breathing will be natural, you can invite a sense of subtle expansion and movement into your belly as you breathe, which will also have a calming effect on your nervous system.

5) As your practice progresses, you may begin adding a pause after each inhalation and exhalation. Allow the pause to be brief, so you’re not holding your breathe but simply pausing for a moment in the space between as you transition your breaths.

So how might you bring this technique out in the world when you feel anxiety?

With a steady practice at home, you’ll begin to heighten your awareness of your breath moving in and out of your nostrils. Without using your fingers to close your nostrils, you can bring your awareness to breath moving in the left, out the right, in the right, and out the left. In this way, it becomes a grounding focal point for your attention as you slow your breath and facilitate calm in your system.

If you’d like to learn more breathing techniques and practices, consider joining me for an online yoga class one of these days. All classes are open to all levels of experience, slow-paced, and accessible to all bodies.

Why Highly Sensitive People Overthink Simple Decisions

Why Highly Sensitive People Overthink Simple Decisions

by | Oct 20, 2018 | Anxiety, Highly Sensitive Person

This article was originally written for Introvert Spring under the title: “Why Highly Sensitive People Overthink So Much”.

Do you tend to overthink decisions? Highly sensitive people overthink in a way not everyone understands. Overthinking can make us anxious and self-critical when we feel like we just can’t turn it off.

That’s how I’ve felt most of my life. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told that it would do me some good to not think so much. I agree. Yet, small decisions can still be a struggle…

Deciding on the tiniest details for my retreats can weigh on my mind unnecessarily for weeks.

My partner and I have been known to get wild with spreadsheets before buying a coffee maker.

Sometimes when there are no decisions to make, I’ll create ones if I’m not careful. And then I get down on myself for creating new decisions to overthink.

I probably don’t have to explain much more. If you’re a highly sensitive person, you know just how draining it can be to have a mind that won’t settle.

There are reasons highly sensitive people overthink every little thing. Before sharing them, I want to note the difference between deep thinking and overthinking. After all, most highly sensitive people do both.

Deep thinking versus overthinking

Deep thinking is an HSP strength. When it’s at play, we’re creative without giving too much thought to the best outcome. We put our abstract thoughts together into a masterful work of art that may or may not ever be finished. When we do get solution-focused, deep thinking allows us to explore and analyze details and moving parts before coming to a conclusion.

But when overthinking gets going, we often get bogged down in unnecessary details that keep us stuck. Our mind whirls in frenetic circles, as we stall in executing decisions. Just as we think we’ve arrived at a conclusion, we change gears and continue overthinking the matter. And then our inner critic shouts at us that we’re hopeless.

Why Highly Sensitive People Overthink Decisions

I have to be honest with you. When I began writing this article, I quickly had a couple dozen tabs open in an effort to research HSPs and overthinking.

I struggled to choose a direction and ideas just boomeranged in my head. I began to get frustrated and hypercritical of myself.

But then, as I noticed my pattern, the reasons highly sensitive people overthink decisions were laid out right within me. Here are a few I think you may be able to relate to…

1. We’re deep processors.

One of four HSP characteristics, which author Elaine Aron talks about, is depth of processing. HSPs have brains that process information in a deep, complex way rather than taking words, images, or ideas at face value. We explore multiple angles and paths as we connect ideas to a bigger picture.

This means we need more time to process the multitude of information coming in before arriving at a decision. While depth of processing itself does not equate to overthinking, it can create the breeding ground for it.

Helpful Hint: There’s nothing wrong with processing slowly and taking time to play with options. Try practicing mindfulness techniques to become present with the tendencies of your mind so that you can recognize when you’re simply processing at your pace or unnecessarily overthinking decisions. 

2. We’re maximizers.

Information is everywhere. This means options are too, which is not necessarily a good thing for HSPs. Not only do we naturally take in a lot of information from our environments, we often seek out more information! With a wealth of information at your fingertips in modern society, it’s easy for HSPs to feel confused over too many choices.

When we maximize, we may put off decisions because we’re so wrapped up in analyzing every detail. We want the lowest price, the least environmental impact, the best for ourselves and others, the most efficient…the list goes on, right?

Helpful Hint: There are times you need to choose a path to simplify, rather than create unwarranted anxiety. But remember that the upside to maximizing is that you may be very adept at analyzing and come to sound, healthy decisions rather than settling. The trick is to find the balance.

3. We worry about others.

With such a high level of empathy and sometimes people-pleasing tendency, highly sensitive people overthink because we want our decisions to benefit others. Sometimes this is at the expense of our own needs.

Many HSPs have a fear of letting others down. We may waver about attending a party. On one hand, we fear disappointing our friend, but on the other, our body may be saying no. As HSPs, we need to make a concerted effort to attend to our own needs first to practice good self-care.

Helpful Hint: When you find yourself adding others into your decision-making, pause for a moment and notice your body’s reaction to the two choices. As I’m writing, I just did this with a dinner invitation. As I took a step back, I realized I didn’t want to go and needed alone time. Learn to say no without feeling guilty. 

4. We tend to be perfectionists.

HSPs tend to be more self-critical when it comes to making a mistake or hurting someone. We may hold ourselves to exceptionally high standards, so we do our best to prepare and mitigate any potential for making the “wrong” decision. We shoot for optimal choices and outcomes, even if part of us knows these don’t always exist.

Helpful Hint: Perfectionism usually comes from the unconscious belief that if you do everything right, you’ll be worthy of love and acceptance. So, it helps to bring the HSP empathy you have for others to yourself when you find yourself striving for the “right” answer. Remind yourself that everyone makes mistakes and coach yourself through the matter as you would a friend.

5. We may not fully trust ourselves.

A lack of self-trust tends to show up more for HSPs who were raised in environments that may not have been very accepting of their sensitivity. If we’re taught we should be different or that our needs are unimportant, we learn that there’s something wrong with us and others know better than we do. The result is that many of us adult HSPs still struggle to listen to our own voice and trust our decision-making.

Helpful Hint: Practice listening to yourself and taking action. Begin with some of the smaller decisions and simply alert yourself when you’re overthinking. When faced with some comparable options, use this as an opportunity to make a “good enough” choice and notice how you feel when you do that.

Just because you may have a propensity to overthink decisions, it doesn’t mean you have to continue down that road. You can become more aware of the inner workings of your mind and intuition of your body. And soon enough, you’ll be making more intentional decisions.

And chances are that there are some scenarios in your life in which decision-making comes more easily. Reflect on those. What is it about them that makes it easier to decide?

 

Highly Sensitive People and Relationships

It can be hard for HSPs to navigate relationships and all the possible overthinking, overwhelm, and communication problems. Download my Highly Sensitive Person’s Relationship Guide for tools to create fulfilling relationships as an HSP.

Sunday Anxiety? Do this one thing now to cope with anxious feelings

Sunday Anxiety? Do this one thing now to cope with anxious feelings

by | Sep 23, 2018 | Anxiety

Do you ever face Sunday anxiety? There’s a combination of factors that can cause you to feel anxious on Sundays. Sometimes it’s job stress or uncertainty about the upcoming week. Or maybe you’ve worn yourself to the bone socializing. And then other times, you experience Sunday anxiety when you’ve had a relaxing weekend and you’re just not ready to give up that peace.

Last Sunday, I was in a big ole funk. I’ll share the simple trick that lifted that funk with you in a moment.

But I was just thinking back to my nine to five days as a social worker. On Sundays, I felt this vacuum suck the life out of me, as anxiety took its place.

Then, I remembered that those anxious Sunday feelings were there ever since I was a small child. I learned to manage my Sunday anxiety over the years, but it showed up regularly.

These days my schedule is more erratic, so anxiety comes other days depending on what’s happening. But last week it was Sunday. I was getting ready to leave for a trip and felt like I just couldn’t get through the work I had to do before leaving.

But last week’s Sunday anxiety really came from feeling so darn frustrated with myself. 

I like to have useful anxiety and self-love tools ready to go out to my email subscribers when I’m traveling. And that day, it felt like I had a complete inability to focus on anything.

I sat in front of my computer bouncing from one idea to the next. I’d settle on a topic and then change my mind. I couldn’t get my thoughts in order (a common HSP woe).

I threw my hands up and sat on the couch teary-eyed. I’m sure you’ve been there…

After talking through it, my partner, Jason, suggested we take a short walk outside.

I’m a huge advocate of getting outside and letting nature work its magic. But sometimes, I can be really stubborn if it’s not my idea.

In a huff, I agreed.

After stepping out the door, it only took a few moments for something inside of me to shift. 

Suddenly, I straightened up my posture and paid attention to my two feet on the ground.

As the sun graced my face, I felt the corners of my mouth soften and gently move upward toward the sky.

I started breathing deeper.

After a few blocks, without realizing it, I reached out to hold my partner’s hand.

And then, I burst out laughing…actually, uncontrollable laughter. He thought I was losing it for a second.

When I finally caught my breath, I uttered, “I was mad at you for asking me to take a walk.”

Nature really can have a profound effect on how you feel, even in managing Sunday anxiety.

You know this already. But if you’re like me, sometimes it’s a different thing to put into action. So, allow this to be your friendly reminder.

The next time you’re feeling down or anxious, get your booty outside…even if you feel you don’t have time, or it’s not going to help.

Sometimes making the choice to step into a natural environment for a few minutes is often all it takes to shift your emotional state.

When you do go outside, you might try these techniques.

3 Tips for Coping with Sunday Anxiety

1) Stand actively in mountain pose/tadasana to ground yourself and straighten your posture. If you’re not familiar with this pose, you can read about it in a blog of mine here. Changing the way you hold your body can deeply impact your energy and emotions.

2) Practice 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Technique. It can help to repeat to yourself what you sense as you go through these.

LOOK: Notice 5 things you can see.
FEEL: Notice 4 things you can feel (temperature, wind, warmth, etc.).
LISTEN: Notice 3 sounds you can hear.
SMELL: Notice 2 things you can smell.
TASTE: Notice 1 thing you can taste.

3) Here are 7 other ways you can use nature to treat anxiety in this blog post I wrote for the mental health blog, HealthyPlace, a while back.

Is there something about nature you find helps you to ground and shift your emotional state? Feel free to share in a comment below!

Worrying About What Others Think? What to Know and What to Do

Worrying About What Others Think? What to Know and What to Do

by | Jul 21, 2018 | Anxiety, Highly Sensitive Person

Do you get stuck worrying about what others think? A fellow HSP requested advice on how to stop worrying about what others think of her. I get this question a lot. I want to share what’s helped me personally because, frankly, a lot of advice I hear is too simplistic.

Everyone seeks approval in some way, even those who don’t realize they do. But some of us get more bogged down than others in worrying about what people think.

The woman I referenced above said she was tired of judging herself through the eyes of others and making assumptions about what they think of her. This was a major cause of her anxiety.

Her words struck a chord with me…because I’ve been there. It’s hard to admit, but worrying about what others think has been a source of my own anxiety over the years. It’s taken time to learn how to release this burden.

If you’re seeking approval from others, you may…

  • People please and avoid conflict to gain acceptance.
  • Think others say or feel negative things about you.
  • Find it hard to voice your needs.
  • Have difficulty even knowing what you want.  

I used to worry people would be mad at me if I didn’t do what they wanted me to do. I’d make up stories about what others were thinking.

I felt self-conscious and anxious in so many contexts. I worried others would see the self-doubt that lingered inside me.

When you’re in a constant mindset of seeking validation, it’s easy to start to hate this part of yourself. You might feel out of control because you’re placing your worth in the hands of another. You want to change this pattern, but maybe you’re not sure how.

Why You Worry About What Others Think

As we come into this world, we’re conditioned to seek approval. Validation serves as a survival mechanism that helps us receive nurturing from our caregivers and navigate things like right and wrong and safety versus danger.

But some continue seeking excessive external validation well into adulthood. When you adopt perceptions and moral compasses of those around you, it may feel good to be validated. But then you struggle to hear your true self, which causes you to suffer.

Here’s the thing you need to understand if you’re stuck in this pattern.

When you worry about what others think, an inner dialogue is often happening. Much of the time, the dialogue is with an inner critic who says you’re not good enough. The approval-seeker inside you shows up in an effort to quiet or disprove the critic, so it can say, “I’m good enough!”

These two parts of your psyche are in conflict with one another by nature, but they have something in common. They’re both there to protect you from shame, rejection, humiliation, failure, etc. And the approval-seeker from your childhood continues its job into adulthood if you don’t learn otherwise along the way.

So, what do you do to stop worrying about what others think?

From my experience, trying to will these parts away only makes them more powerful. You have to go deeper into the land of curiosity in understanding these parts to access your higher self.

The steps below are informed, in part, by the Internal Family Systems approach to psychotherapy.

1. Pay attention to how this part of you shows up. Does it agree with others automatically? Does it defer to others for decisions? Does it make up stories of what others are saying? In what situations does this part surface? With what people? Simply start to build the awareness of how this part presents in your life.

2. Get to know the part with this exercise adapted from the IFS model:

If the part shows up at a time when you can take a few minutes of mindfulness, take a moment to practice this exercise. Gently close your eyes and rest in the natural flow of your breath.

Then begin to notice the approval-seeking part of you. You might notice its words, voice, and energy. It may help to visualize this part as a mini version of yourself. As you become aware of its qualities, pay attention to where this part sits in your body and how it feels there.

Notice what you feel toward this part. If you feel something other than curiosity or compassion (frustration, shame, etc.), notice the other parts that may be contributing to those feelings. Acknowledge those parts and ask them if they’re willing to step back for a moment so you can be with the approval-seeking part.

As the other parts step back, begin to grow a sense of curiosity toward the approval-seeking part. What does it want you to know? What is its job? Does it like its role? What is it afraid of?

3. Sit in the space of your higher self. As you practice the exercise above, you may begin to experience more of your accepting, compassionate self that evokes a feeling of peace. Spend some time in that peace feeling your body and noticing that these parts are components of your psyche, but they’re separate from your higher self. The more you can access this higher self, the more you’ll be able to live from a curious, compassionate, and accepting energy.

4. Practice accessing your higher self in everyday situations. When I first began teaching yoga, my head was scattered with performance anxiety. I had trouble keep information straight as I started to practice my teaching skills. I’d constantly feel that I wasn’t worthy of bringing this powerful practice to others. These days I work with the above exercise and similar practices as part of my self-care. By accessing my higher self, I come to my teaching from a place of purpose and showing up for others to support their healing. Practice accessing your higher self in small moments of your daily life, even with tiny decisions. (I just accessed mine when I made the choice to trust my article as is without asking my boyfriend to validate it.)

There are many tips and tools related to boundaries, self-talk, beliefs, and so forth that may support this journey as well. However, my personal path has shown me that learning to access my deepest higher self and understand my various parts is absolutely vital to lasting transformation and self-compassion.

What about you? Have you found a strategy that helps you to let go of worrying about what others think?