“The Package Came C.O.D.”

by Heidi Connolly

The package came C.O.D.

The delivery guy said it was for me

I signed for it, opened it, put it on, claimed it

I owned it then; it sure owned me;

I could have thrown it down

Kicked it to the floor

I could have sent it back

And slammed the door;

I could have just said no

I could have stood my ground

I should have watched it leave

Sent it back where it belonged;

’Cause when you live your life in denial

Of who you really are

The light you hold inside you

Sounds like whispers from afar;

You learn of love and how it hurts

For reasons of remorse

It churns and gnaws inside of you

And charts a deceptive course;

When fear is allowed to lead the way

The truth is buried alive

Without a chance to breathe and grow

With no chance to survive;

When doubt grows into hatred

It traps you like a snare

The burden of a thought

That’s really not ours to bear;

If you let it, it will cut you

Your wings clipped in despair

Every minute a sad reflection

Everyday another correction;

When the package came COD

And the delivery guy said it was for me

My life went driving down the street

I lived a lie in defeat;

But now I keep only what is mine

Whatever arrives must be divine

When it’s for me it’s whole, intact

This is a promise and a pact;

I close the door on everything else

I send it back much blessed

For only in the vibration of love

Is fear ever laid to rest;

I lift the veil of denial

I lift the weight of pain

I become the one I’m meant to be

Like a desert freed by rain.

I wrote this song in 2004 and “came upon” it today as I was searching for another file. You might call it a coincidence, but I would much rather land on the side of synchronicity, if for no other reason that it feels good when I do.

Yesterday I posted a poem by Becky Hemsley. Today I found my song. Notwithstanding my lack of songwriting ability and without knowing Becky’s intention for certain, it seems to me that we are talking about similar ideas about accepting who we are. As HSPs. As Highly Sensitive People. As individuals. As humans. As creative souls who live and breathe and identify and share and grow and touch and feel and respond and love and all the rest of it…the whole messy enchilada.

What amazes me is that I wrote this in 2004, not 2012 after my husband died or 2014 when I began hearing from him. Not all these years after discovering that my HSP-ness was directly related to my psychic and mediumship abilities and being witness to my own growth as an author.

I had to ask myself: If I didn’t know then what I know now, where did the words come from? Was I already channeling, if you want to call it that, my higher self? Had I entered some kind of 5^th-dimensional reality or parallel universe? Had I time traveled?

I really don’t know.

Yet here I sit before you today (well, before my computer writing to you) and feeling every word of this song.

I have lifted the veil of denial

I have lifted the weight of pain

I am becoming the one I’m meant to be

.

The post Fear came wrapped in a package and arrived C.O.D. first appeared on Elevate Your HSP-ness!.

It’s no wonder that being a person with heightened sensitivities carries with it an extra charge around the experience of loss. I mean, think about it. Put a person that experiences your deeper than average feelings and sensations and add the death of someone beloved? It’s a recipe for combustion.

But it’s also a recipe for freedom.

It’s really not enough to say, “I’m more sensitive, so of course I’m going to be more affected.” The fact is that we are constantly looking for ways to express how we feel—the freedom to express how we feel—because so much of our time is spent trying not to express how we feel. You  know, all the sticky stuff. The things for other people that may seem all in a day’s work, but for us mean trepidation or panic or pain or exhaustion.

What happens when death is involved

In our society, when you lose someone to death, suddenly an opening occurs. You are offered a sort of reprieve from the “buck up and deal with it” way of life. People are more willing to let you cry openly, talk about your feelings, reveal your emotional state through what you say, do, eat, or undertake. Even if it still makes them miserably uncomfortable.

In other words, grieving becomes a logical reason for your emotional state, which somehow makes it easier and more acceptable for others to handle.

Is grieving a good thing?

The thing about grief is that being in that state also makes it okay for us. You know, the ones who are doing the grieving. It opens the door for our more authentic selves to peek through the curtains behind which we are constantly, dedicatedly, hiding. We get more leeway to be who we are, act the way we might act, and respond the way we might respond when we can point to loss as the reason behind it all.

I’m not saying that we are using death as an excuse! All I’m saying is that it takes an inordinate amount of energy to plug the valve of your state of being on a constant basis. Energy to control, mitigate, calm, or annihilate through whatever means you decide works for you. Is it food? Or drugs? Or isolation? Whatever it is, it takes a powerfully high level of energy to deflect attention from the state of your being. It’s as if we’re storing it up like a bunch of nuts in a squirrel’s hideaway that we never get to use unless something “acceptable” comes along. Something like death.

Death sucks

I’m also not saying that death of someone you love (or have any kind of relationship with) isn’t a big deal. In fact, there’s pretty much nothing like it on the scale of what sucks. Still, I know that if I hadn’t been so weighed down, so burdened by my own need to hide what I felt about everything under the sun, I might not have collapsed so completely upon the death of my husband. The plug in the value came off and out came years of repressed, suppressed freak-out.

The first step in not feeling you have to hide is accepting your HSP-ness for what it is: A true blessing. In order to do that, we need to dedicate ourselves to knowing there is another answer beyond “coping.” A much easier, user-friendly approach that is committed to opening, heightening, and exemplifying.

We all admit that loss and death are part of life, but that doesn’t usually help us when the time comes to deal with it. As a Highly Sensitive Person, though, death does not have to crush us like a bolder on an ant.

Know yourself. Express yourself. Be yourself. Love yourself. That’s where it all starts.

******

Check out my posts on the Psychic Octopus (globbing onto other people’s energy); your UES (how to identify and stay in your Unique Energetic Signature); and your IGS (how to confidently and consistently tap into your Intuitive Guidance System.

Thank you for shining your light into the world!

The post Death, Loss, & The HSP first appeared on Elevate Your HSP-ness!.

Why is it so easy for HSPs to offer love (and compassion and sympathy and empathy and caring . . . and I could go on and on and on…), but so hard to take it in? And, no, it’s not because we don’t want it. In fact, we go out of our way to “get it.” In some place in our minds and hearts, we’re thinking, “Well, if I give enough love, I’ll surely get some in return.”

We end up asking questions like:

• “Why, if I am so ‘sensitive’ and so loving and generous, why do I end up in abusive relationships?”
• “Why do I end up with people who don’t seem to give me credit?”
• “Why do I give compliments so freely and yet find it so hard to accept them?”

My take on LOVE ENERGY

Love energy, IMHO, is quite simply the most powerful energy there is. It’s so powerful that, when it’s removed, it can scar us for life. When it’s rejected, it can destroy us. When it’s overwhelming, it can cause us to run the other direction.

Duh. I mean, if you’re going along being your average Highly Sensitive Person (quiet and/or shy and/or reserved and/or afraid and/or overwhelmed), these kinds of reactions are totally within the realm of obvs. Have you ever known an Emergency Room nurse who’s absolutely great in emergency situations, but smokes like a chimney (as my grandmother used to say), and waves off thanks before they’re even out of your mouth?

Have you ever known someone on your team at work who readily doles out understanding in tough situations, but can’t accept it from other people? “Good job,” you say. Their response? “Well, it could have been better. I mean, if only I’d . . . .”

See what I mean?

Just your typical HSP

You might get tired of hearing me say this, but I’m pretty familiar with this behavior because it was moi. Still is sometimes. If I take on the compliment, do I owe you something? Does it mean I’m not being humble? Will the world see me as vain? Am I really deserving? Again, all the usual questions of your typical HSP.

When I married my husband Randy, one of the very first things he told me was, “You are the strongest because you are the most loving.” What??? Seems like being so caring and loving was what made me the weakest. At least, that’s what the world would have me believe. It took some time for me to see

• that being loving doesn’t mean giving yourself away, and
• that being loving can scare people away because they don’t know how to receive it.

Do they not know how to receive love because they never felt they had it? Do they hesitate to trust it because unconditional love is something they don’t recognize? Are they afraid to love back because it’ll make them vulnerable?

Yeah. All of the above.

The Love-Addicted HSP

So, here we are. You and me. HSPs. Wanting nothing more than to give and receive, to love and be loved, to shine and help others shine. Pouring out love energy like there’s no tomorrow.

But, see,  here’s the thing. If you’re the one sending it out, it feels easy. But if you’re on the receiving end it can feel like being swept out to sea on a giant wave. At first you might like the water on your skin, but then you lose your balance and start flailing around and realize you have no control and freak out!!!

Because everything is energy, and love energy is so powerful, receiving the energy behind the love wave can knock you to your knees.

What happens then? People lash out. They defend. They argue. They deny. It’s as predictable as the pull of gravity.

Energy is not the same as emotion

See your love as energy. See it in the form of an electrical current. Picture it, not as much as an emotional state, but a frequency pattern that you exude. Just remember that people will react/respond to this energetic pulse in direct proportion to the amount you’re projecting—and directly in line with their (usually unconscious) relationship to the whole idea of love and what it means to them.

The key is to live with an open, loving without knocking people flat on their butts. How?

• Be in alignment.
• Love generously.
• Accept deflection gracefully.
• And, finally, accept love directly in proportion to how much you share it.

***

Check out my posts on the Psychic Octopus (globbing onto other people’s energy); your UES (how to identify and stay in your Unique Energetic Signature); and your IGS (how to confidently and consistently tap into your Intuitive Guidance System) to help you practice the 32BYou tools of alignment. Thank you for shining your light into the world!

The post The Love-Addicted HSP first appeared on Elevate Your HSP-ness!.