Courage: mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty – Merriam Webster I’ve been thinking a lot, lately, about courage. As a kid, I was brought up thinking courage looked like young strapping men fighting off evil sorcerers to win the hearts of fair maidens. For there to be courage, there must…
The Benefits of Hopelessness?
I’m feeling extremely uncomfortable. My chest aches. My stomach is twisted in knots. My back muscles are taught. My jaw is stiff from all the clenching. If I were to name the culprit for all the unease, I guess I would call it fear. But the worst part is I’m not entirely clear about it….
The Right Kind of Problems
(Psssst. If you’re more of a listener than a reader, feel free to listen in to my podcast on this subject ; ) I have this (maybe not so great) habit of looking for things that are going wrong in my life and trying to fix them. Or change them. Or reframe them. ANYTHING…
Traffic
I’m writing this while on a freeway in my car. Definitely NOT a classic HSP move, right? One detail I forgot to mention. I’m parked. There was an accident ahead and all four lanes of the freeway are closed off. I can’t move. Something you might want to know about me is there are few…
How HSP’s Can Improve Their Sleep…
What are the traits that mark a highly sensitive person? Elaine Aron, the lead researcher on the subject of high sensitivity, writes that there are four primary markers that distinguish a highly sensitive person from a non HSP. These four elements are arranged in an acronym: DOES. D: Depth of Processing. Highly sensitive people process…
Change Your Mindset? Or Your World?
According to yogic philosophies…one of the best parts about being a human is that you can learn to adapt to just about anything. But of course…the knife slices both ways. As it turns out, one of the worst parts about being a human is that you can learn to adapt to just about anything. So…
Are Highly Sensitive People “Creative?”
What does it mean to be “creative?” What does it mean to be “sensitive?” Are they one and the same? There was a long period in my life that I didn’t consider myself to be even remotely creatively inclined. I think a big part of that was because my Mom was such a phenomenal artist…
Being Highly Sensitive Isn’t a Problem. It’s a GIFT. (Or At Least it CAN Be)
What Does it Mean to be a Highly Sensitive Person? As science has advanced, our ability to better see and understand how the mind works (both in ourselves as well as with other species) has markedly improved. A person’s temperament, personality, and preferences…aspects of ourselves we used to think of as being some combination of…
A Creature Born of Two Extremes: 10 Reasons Why I Love Being a High Sensation Seeking HSP
I used to think there was something wrong with me. Not the kind of wrong that pushes people off bridges or into emergency 51/50 care. Not even the kind of wrong that has you showing up at your doctor’s office wondering if there might not be a drug to cure a very real ailment. No…it…
12 Tricks to Help Highly Sensitive People Develop a Balanced Workout Plan They Actually Like
Everyone should move their bodies (if they can). Take the “biggest loser” elements out of the picture (tempting though it may be to stir up images of Jillian Michaels and the crying/screaming sessions that come with the show). I’m not speaking from a place that is concerned only with weight. Exercise has been shown to help…
How HSP’s Can Successfully Lose Weight
You know how every weight loss book and blog tells you that they (and they alone) have the secrets to weight loss. And if you just follow their advice…you too will lose weight effortlessly and magically? I have good news and I have bad news. There are known strategies for losing weight. That’s the good news. But…
5 Reasons HSP Don’t Like Uncertainty (And What To Do About It)
If I had to encapsulate the entire breadth of my experience of the past few days in a single word it would be…..sigh No no…that wasn’t meant to be a deliberate or dramatic pause. THAT is the word: SIGH. Right now, my fiance and I are in the middle of planning for a wedding. That…