How about we cut all the BS and get to the real point. Some of us see things differently. Some of us hear things differently, or sense things other people don’t. We come in all different colors, shapes, and sizes . . . and still we’re all human and we all share commonalities.

But, call it what you will, when we’re talking about HSPs, or those who are highly sensitive, intuitive, empathetic, telepathic, and so on . . . When did it become such a shameful thing to call IT for what IT is?

I had a brilliant convo today with a colleague with whom I passionately agreed that since time immemorial—or at least since there have been human beings—there have been people who have such gifts and have been branded in less than desirable ways. In derogatory ways that I choose not to even put on paper. We have reached a point where just about any label is better than “psychic.”

• To some it means charlatan.
• To others, it means you can read their minds.
• And to others still, it means you are plain crazy.

Labels, Schmabels

Well, I’m here to say that I don’t need to couch what I am or what I do in terminology that might make it more palatable for others. Making sure other people are comfortable is a long-time MO of mine, as it is for so many HSPs. (Not that it ever really worked in the long run because people still have to deal with their own you-know-what eventually.)

My recent article on Psychic vs. Sensitive struck a chord with lots of people. The chord got louder when my colleague reminded me about a book she’s reading on HSPs and empathy. The book’s focus (apparently) discusses the similarities and differences between being highly sensitive and being empathetic. I haven’t read the book, so I can’t answer to how valid the author’s point is, especially since the author is a talented researcher and writer. My only purpose here is to pose the question: Why is it important to distinguish between the two? If empathetic means “showing an ability to understand and share the feelings of another,” and psychic means “relating to the soul or mind,” should I apologize for being a psychic or a medium? Would it be easier to swallow if I called myself an empath—which I most assuredly am?

Does different matter?

I’ve already discussed the difference between psychic and mediumship, that the first is perceiving information from other humans and the second is receiving information from the Spirit World (Source/your Higher Self/God, etc.). This is a difference that means something to me because I avoid using my “psychic octopus” to glob about in other people’s minds, hearts, or spirits. If I get a message, I’d rather it be straight from the source, so to speak. But, in the end, the labels only matter as much as we give them credit for mattering. I use the label Highly Sensitive to invite those of us who are any or all of these things to the table where we can honor each other and the greater discussion about who we are, our purpose, and our potential.

* * *

Private coaching sessions with me are available here,  plus multiple healing musical recordings here.

Keep an eye out for my new book, soon to be published: Elevating Your HSP-ness

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 HSP: Sensitive, Empathetic, Psychic, or just plain messed up? first appeared on Elevate Your HSP-ness!.

Negative self-talk

The body cannot distinguish between an actual event and a thought. When you think fearful thoughts, the emotions you feel are the emotions that are saying, “I am in danger; there is an actual danger here.” So what happens? You feel the emotion of agitation, fear, or anxiety, both emotionally and throughout your body. Unfortunately, this kind of useless, dysfunctional thinking has a long-term effect on the us, too,  and actually removes the body’s ability to recover from illness, to stay healthy.

What gets your attention?

Look at it this way. Do the nice things that happen in your life receive a lot of your attention? Maybe you share something good that’s happened today with someone, but after that it’s out of sight, out of mind. It’s the negative stuff that gets all the rehashing. First in your own head, and then outwardly when you share those things with others.

Self-talk is really the issue for HSPs because when the mind constantly generates thoughts of self-judgment and negativity, that’s the way life becomes. Externalizing that feeling about life only brings more of it to us. We talk to people who are happy to complain and whine along with us and get the justification we need to keep whining. We feel supported.

Negative self-talk causes a negative state of consciousness

But here’s the thing. Negative events cause a predominant state of consciousness that’s negative! You’ve probably heard this or similar statements a million times. The difference here is that we take that (not always immediately recognizable) correlation between your mental/emotional state and what happens to you, your associations, your work, etc., and cut that correlation. Sever the cord. Untie the binds. See what I mean?

Who do you judge?

Naturally, it’s easier to recognize negativity in others than it is in yourself. Much easier to judge others than yourself. Easier to want someone else to change so you don’t have to . . . so your discomfort or distaste or disregard will go away.

You wouldn’t be reading this if you were not motivated to awaken from the stupor of discomfort, dissatisfaction, disillusionment, or depression. Being motivated is the first step to conscious awareness. Motivation opens the mind, body, and spirit to a new way of thinking, which causes a new way of feeling, which causes a new way of being and living.

Why affirmations don’t work

It’s not enough to speak or think affirmations if you don’t feel their truth. You need to use tools like the Psychic Octopus to truly understand your HSP sensibilities to the degree that you can benefit from them.

You also need to learn who you are, inside and out, to stay present and aligned (the state of feeling good, of intimately knowing your Unique Energetic Signature), no matter what is going on around you.

Can you do it? Absolutely!!!

Do you have to understand it, know it, do it, have it, see it, live it all at once? Definitely not.

If you’re still wearing your suit of misery, it might be time to give it up

You just have to want it more than you want to stay in the place that feels uncomfortably comfortable—or maybe comfortably uncomfortable. That place where you’ve been wearing the Suit of Misery for so long that it’s the only item of clothing you ever wear. No matter how filthy it gets, no matter how ratty and holey it is, you’d rather keep wearing it than buy a new one because buying a new one comes with too many “problems.” Fit. Cost. Effort. The “breaking- in” factor. I mean, who wants to deal with all that, right?

If that’s your story, you are free to stick to it.

If you want to change your story, maybe it’s time to buy a new suit.

The post It’s time to exchange your old suit for a new one first appeared on Elevate Your HSP-ness!.

Leaping was easy when you were a kid. It’s time to leap into being the brilliant HSP  you were created to be!

How do you get to be a BADASS . . .  the abundantly brilliant, consciously aware, amazingly dynamic, unapologetically adept, and unambiguously sensational being you were created to be?

First, you probably need to have a “psychic opening.”

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend doing it the way I did. You know, the whole dark-night-of-the-soul experience that takes you so far down into the morass of hell that you almost forget there’s any other place that ever exited. Yeah, that place. So, no, if you don’t need to go there, don’t.

On the other hand.

Sometimes that’s what it takes to have the psychic opening you need to crack wide the tightly wrapped egg-like structure (feels hard until it breaks at the slightest touch) of the depths of you.

What happened to me: My psychic opening

There I was, stuck in British Columbia, in a place I knew nothing about, with people I’d never met, working on a book with a medium I had just met, because my dead husband had told her to contact me.

I know. I thought it was nuts, too.

Randy had only died a few months earlier and I was in no condition to travel anywhere. I could barely get out of bed in the morning, let alone think about getting in my car and driving to Canada or to an airport to fly on an actual plane with actual crowds of people. My panic attacks were worsening. I woke up to my heart pounding and went to sleep—eventually and only after sheer exhaustion—with my heart pounding. The incessant, rapid thumping in my chest was telling me, “You’re in trouble. Your life has caught up to you. You’re dying. You’ll never make it–wherever that might be. Give up.”

Honestly, if it weren’t for this woman’s phone call (“Hello, my name is ____ and Randy told me to call you to say we have to work together on a book”) I may have opted out. The discomfort of living in my own body with my own thoughts and my own emotions was so great that shutting down once and for all felt like a viable option.

The Spirit World is on your side.

Without explaining herself with any specificity, this woman I didn’t know told me I was supposed to stay with her in Canada, work with her, and help her write her book. That Randy was guiding the process. Orchestrating on my (our) behalf.

Looking back, I know it was the lifeline I needed. I felt myself moving through the murky waters of grief to renew my passport, buy a suitcase, pack my bags, purchase a laptop for traveling until one day I arrived on Vancouver Island wondering how in heck I’d gotten there. It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I fully began to realize the way the Spirit World and my “gatekeeper,” Randy, was orchestrating so brilliantly to help me live a happier life.

She told me I was having a “psychic opening.”

It took a month for me to hear anything anyone was saying to me, even while I was writing and editing. It took another month for me to hear the words “psychic opening” and understand it had anything to do with me. That everything I knew, believed I knew; felt and believed I felt; thought and believed I thought was pretty much wrong. Or at least upside-down or something other than correct. The first time I heard it I went speechless. They were words, but words that could not possibly apply to me.

What if what you feel is not what you feel?

If you’re reading this, you probably know what it’s like to live life with anxiety and fear and emotional excess. The idea that someone would tell you that it’s because “you’re having a psychic opening” is just as probably not something you’ve ever heard before. But, when I tell you it’s what turned my life around, I’m not exaggerating. I’m not using hyperbole to make a point. I’m simply stating a fact.

When I share the news with clients that this is what is happening to them, most often they look at me like I’m crazy. They’ve been told their emotional states have been “over the top” and “too much” for so long that looking at them any other way seems completely unfathomable. Ridiculous even.

As “HSPs,” It’s time to embrace the concept that YOU can be highly intuitive and phenomenally strong at the same time. . . .

Be the Brilliant HSP You Were Created To Be!

As I said in my last post, it’s time to take the leap into your “BADASS-edness”: you abundantly brilliant, consciously aware, amazingly dynamic, unapologetically adept, and unambiguously sensational–being you were created to be!

It’s about going from unhappy to happy, unempowered to empowered. Into laughing and loving and generally feeling that life is more, not less, than it was cracked up to be. 

Will you feel this way all the time? Probably not. Neither do I. But the pauses in between are getting smaller.

Or you might say that I’m living in the pauses themselves.

Yeah…no. It’s much too far from anything they know, much too off the wall from anything they’ve ever heard, to consider.

And yet, it’s the truth.

Take the leap into your BADASS-edness!

And once you step into the truth and work within its brilliantly high-frequency resolution of competency and awareness, the release is stupendous. The relief is like the biggest breath you’ve ever taken. The renewal is as powerful as the strongest adrenaline surge.

But the best thing about being a brilliant HSP?

You’re one forever.

The post You can be the Brilliant HSP You Were Created To Be! first appeared on Elevate Your HSP-ness!.