I didn’t know what a highly sensitive person was, or that I was one, until my mid-20’s. I was 23 years old when I checked myself into rehab for drugs and alcohol. Coming from a good home, being a straight A student in high school, and being a pretty ‘good kid’, I was super confused as to how I had ended up in rehab at 23 years old.

Looking back, 15 years later, I can see it so clearly now. I was overwhelmed from the beginning of my life as I was a highly sensitive person. I didn't have the tools to discharge and process my emotions to completion like I do now. I got overwhelmed super easily, which led to a whole lot of self-loathing and inner confusion, which eventually led to self-medicating as a way to survive and feel somewhat ‘normal’. 

I won’t go too much into the metaphysical explanation of that here, but I do want to state very clearly that I also know my Soul chose being a highly sensitive person as a pathway to learn and grow. When I first learned about my sensitivity in my 20’s, I didn’t  embrace it as a spiritual gift. In contrast, I played the victim for many years and it kept me stuck. Healing the victim mentality was another empowering journey, and one I’m sure many of you sensitive souls can relate to. 

When I got sober, I felt raw and exposed with nothing to numb me anymore. I awakened to the bigger picture - that we are souls in human bodies, playing this game of life as a way to grow and evolve consciously. As a highly sensitive person, you will almost certainly be forced to look at the ‘bigger spiritual picture’ at some point in your life because life can easily become too much to handle. Most of us have to hit a bottom of some kind - addiction, depression, anxiety - to initiate the wake up to our true spiritual nature and begin our healing journey. 

My spiritual journey began at age 23 when I found myself in rehab, and my greatest lesson from that experience was becoming aware for the first time of my sensitivities. It has been a 15 year process of learning more and more about what this means and how to function in the world as a sensitive person, but the healing journey has been well worth it.

Before I get into the HOW of embracing your sensitivity, let me explain a little more about what I’ve learned over the years in regards to “sensitivity” and how I understand it. Then I’ll explain how I’ve learned to live and thrive, being highly sensitive. 

I believe this is an especially important and interesting topic to touch on as the world goes through this massive spiritual awakening. I think that every single one of us could benefit from the healing process I will talk about in this blog whether you are a highly sensitive person or not, simply by the nature of the stressful times we are in right now. 

First of all I want to say that EVERY HUMAN BEING is sensitive. We are all biologically designed to perceive our surroundings and learn to adapt by using our senses - sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. But there are far more “senses” than the obvious ones.

Some of you might have heard of these explained as “6th senses”. These are things like emotional sensitivity, intuition, and psychic abilities. All of us have these senses as well, and if you are a highly sensitive person it will at some point if it hasn’t already, become essential for you to explore how you perceive your environments based on these types of sensitivities because without the awareness and tools of how to handle this intense energy input, you will become overwhelmed easily. 

The process that I will teach you today will allow you to become fully educated on how to embrace your own sensitivities and use these gifts to your advantage. But it takes time, and courage so be patient with yourself. And if you are feeling particularly overwhelmed and unbalanced right now, I want you to know you’re not alone. In fact, I believe that we are all becoming more sensitive as a result of this pandemic and spiritual awakening. Turning your awareness onto these characteristics inside yourself might be the most empowering thing you can do at this time - for yourself and the human race - in our healing processes. 

It is possible to learn how to discharge the overwhelm and you can absolutely find balance, peace and clarity and not have to live over-stimulated forever. The way to do that is learning how to turn toward your sensitive gifts and learning some self-care tools by which you can learn to thrive as a highly sensitive person.

As a highly sensitive person you are by the nature of your biology, more aware of the subtleties in your environment.  Research has even been done to show that highly sensitive people absolutely process information differently. A highly sensitive person is a term created to describe a group of people whose brains process all information very deeply, including emotions, thoughts, and sensory input. This makes us more physically sensitive and emotionally sensitive than other people. High sensitivity is considered a normal, healthy personality trait, although one that — like all personality traits — comes with its own advantages and drawbacks.

One of the most helpful things I have learned to do is how to consciously care for my nervous system. This is a large part of what I share with my community inside the True Transformation Portal. Daily nervous system hygiene has become a part of my daily life and is a large part of what we are practicing this month inside The Portal. 

By taking responsibility for your sensitivities and learning to embody them with love and courage, you will begin to be able to channel your empathy, BIG emotions, and strong intuition as tools versus have them use you as their mosh pit. It’s truly empowering and a game-changer when you gain control and understanding about your body, your emotions, and your life as a highly sensitive person.

Today I may get overwhelmed but it only lasts for a few minutes or maybe a few hours. In the past, my overwhelm and feeling over-stimulated would easily turn into depression, anxiety, lack of confidence and sometimes even just numbness. These “dark times” used to last for months or years and make it so that I was almost unable to function.  

Before learning how to embrace my sensitivity, I could never describe myself as “balanced”, “focused”, “peaceful”, or “grounded”. Now I embody all of those traits and it is SO empowering. It’s also well worth noting that when you learn how to embrace your sensitivity, you will not have to fear living with your heart wide open! You will invite and allow love to flow through every cell of your body. From a metaphysical, higher spiritual perspective, this is what this entire process of embracing being a sensitive person is all about. When you can remain present and open to the experience of this energy running through your body and you can open your heart to life again, you will feel more alive with happiness and joy than ever before!

So let me share with you how I’ve learned to thrive as a highly sensitive person. These are the major steps I have taken in my healing journey and are the things I share about in The True Transformation Portal.

Each step in the process takes some time to integrate and for many it will require that you work with a therapist or coach, but I say from my own experience and seeing my clients  heal from this process as well - this is the path to emotional freedom. 

What I learned and continue to learn through this process not only has liberated me from being prone to depression, anxiety, and addictions, but this process has brought me true inner peace and happiness. It has allowed me to be a present Mom. It has allowed me to have healthy relationships. It has allowed me to create my own business and be of service doing exactly what I want to be doing for work. It has allowed me to embody the experience of relaxation. It has brought me deep inner peace and more self-confidence I knew was possible for me. 

I wish the same for you, and I invite you to join me inside the True Transformation Portal to learn more about this process of transformation and integration of your highly sensitive qualities! 

Here is The 3 Step Process I used on myself and now apply in my practice to help people become empowered and less overwhelmed as they embrace their highly sensitive nature:

1. Trauma Release Work

Most highly sensitive people will have accumulated a lot of stuck energy before they become aware of their hypersensitivities. Trauma release work is where you need to begin to clean up your energetic system in terms of beginning to discharge a lot of this “stuck” energy. 

Trauma is not an event that happened, trauma is the way our bodies (our nervous systems) reacted to that event. As a sensitive person, your body and nervous system from the day you were born likely began experiencing traumas and storing this trapped energy because your system is biologically built that way. 

Trauma can be thought of as a natural mechanism of rescuing the Self in any given moment when we are overwhelmed. Trauma release work is releasing these kinks of “energy stuck-ness” from the system. Most sensitive people have developed patterns that are actually in resistance to releasing the trapped energy because it requires you to allow the energy to run through your body and fully process to completion - this can be a heavy task for many sensitive people. Working with a coach, like me!, makes this first step safer and easier because you will have the support from someone who can guide you through allowing the energy to release in a safe and effective way.

 2. Learning to Navigate Your Emotional Guidance System

Once you have begun to discharge some of the stuck energy you have carried around for years, you will feel a LOT more clear and energized. At this point you can learn how to navigate your own unique emotional guidance system.  

Even though you may be resentful of your emotional guidance system, learning how to navigate it will become your most empowering tool. Inbuilt into the physiology of your body, your emotional guidance system is what is responsible for how you navigate life. If you are not yet friends with your sensitivity and you are a highly sensitive person - you are basically living out of alignment with your Souls Mission and Purpose here. 

Until you learn how to navigate your emotional guidance system, you will experience living out of alignment with your Souls purpose which feels intense, out of control, and like you just can’t get anything right. This is the step that will allow you to come back into alignment with your purpose and allow you to feel happy, joyful and free again!

 3. Nervous System Hygiene

This is the practical daily lifestyle stuff that you simply need to know about and embody on a daily basis as a highly sensitive person. These are the things your Mom and Dad likely didn’t teach you, about you, growing up. This is the practical real-life education about how to survive in a traumatized world as a highly sensitive person, and learn to embrace these gifts as a resource and not feel cursed by your strong emotions. 

With love,

Hollis

P.S. September inside the True Transformation Portal is "Embracing Your Sensitivity & Empathic Gifts". I go into more detail about this 3-Step Process and help you integrate throughout the month the how of embracing your highly sensitive qualities. I hope you'll join our community - I look for ward to seeing you inside the True Transformation Portal.