I’m Heidi Connolly, aka the Celestial Professor, and I readily admit that there’s no one quite like me. You might ask, “Who Is Heidi Connolly & Why Is She Writing about HSPs?”

The truth of who I was lies in the past

The truth is that I thought I knew who I was for many years: an over-emotional, hypersensitive, albeit intelligent, “creative type” who was unworthy due to weakness, instability, and lack of confidence. And it didn’t matter how functional I became or what I accomplished, that belief, instilled in me by parents, teachers, and the world at large, stayed with me and walked beside me like a constant shadow. It was not just who I believed I was, but I knew I was.

In fact, it wasn’t until the death of my husband in 2012 that the world shifted on its axis as I was faced with either giving up on life altogether or somehow moving on through the pain, desperation, depression, anxiety, and fear that I’d been born with and still lived with every day of my life.

The reality of who I’ve become lies in the lessons

That is when my journey changed direction. I started to hear from Randy and other spirits on the other side of the veil. I learned I was an HSP, a Highly Sensitive Person. Well, I knew that, right? But now I learned it wasn’t a bad thing. In fact, it was the best thing ever, if only I could shift my paradigm, channel my abilities in a new direction, see them as blessings and not the curses I’d been taught they were. Understand the role that intuition, energy, and consciousness plays in everything.

The purpose of who I am in the now lies in the present through conscious awareness

The conundrum in which I found myself, however, was that, in thinking of myself as someone who felt “too much” in some ways, and wasn’t capable enough in others (using logic to navigate the world), I still felt mired in a place of self-victimization. I needed other people to understand my sensitivities and accommodate me. I was triggered by just about everything.

The world was still a dangerous place because of how strongly I reacted to it. Basically, um, not working for me. I needed to understand how to be who I was, sensitivities and all, without requiring massive compensation from the world.

Who Is Heidi Connolly & Why Is She Writing about HSPs?

Listening carefully to spirit

The tide didn’t shift until I fully committed to the opening of my spirit to spirit. The more I listened rather than reacted, the more I trusted the quiet inside of myself, the more the messages could come through. The more carefully I listened, the more clarity I received. The more clarity I received, the more calm I felt. The more calm I felt, the less I resisted and fought against my life, the more my actions played out in results that felt positive and the more I received validation for moving forward.

It’s what I call having a “psychic opening.”

And, yes, it can feel scary at first, which is why it helps to have a support mechanism in place. Someone who fully comprehends the process and can offer tools (like the psychic octopus) to navigate it.

Be the BADASS

I started playing the flute again. I wrote a novel. I created afterlife meetup groups to help other High Sensitive People—what I might call BADASSES–Abundantly brilliant, consciously aware, amazingly dynamic, unapologetically adept, and unambiguously sensational–beings they were created to be!

It’s about going from unhappy to happy and unempowered to empowered and into laughing and loving and generally feeling good about life. Are you going to feel that way every minute? 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.

My approach differs from that of traditional coaches, counselors, and medical professional who deal with the physical, emotional, and psychological, because I use my ability to see things beyond the 3-D to help my clients. I step way outside the box by using my innate abilities as an intuitive medium to work with higher concepts and levels of consciousness. I do this in combination with my expertise in research, writing, and development to explore unconventional yet profoundly concrete solutions. I draw from information that no one taught me, and no one can replicate. In that way, I work with HSPs interested in discovering who they really and the gifts they offer so they can feel the joy of living a higher frequency life—a more woke, fulfilling, satisfying, and divinely driven life—and sharing that amazing invitation with the world.

If you are interested in turning your life around, taking it from miserable to magnificent, the path is calling and I am here if you need me.

The post Who Is Heidi and why is she talking to me about being an HSP? first appeared on Elevate Your HSP-ness!.

It’s important what we name things, how we label them. Whenever we use a prefix such as “over,” for example, it’s to imply that something is too much. Relative to so-called “high sensitivity,” we’re saying simply that we are too much of whatever it is. In this case, emotion, sensitivity, intensity, fear, anxiety, depression . . . basically, too much of everything.

HSPs and SPS Sensory Processing Sensitivity

Although Sensory Processing Sensitivity, or SPS, as coined in the mid-1990s by psychologists Elaine Aron and her husband Arthur Aron, who developed the Highly Sensitive Person Scale (HSPS) questionnaire by which SPS is measured, does not in and of itself imply that if you meet certain standards you’re “too much,” it does directly speak to the idea of sensory overload. The idea that because high-sensitives habitually live in a state of overwhelm, we are equally “too much” and “less than” in comparison with others. Sadly, HSPs like myself have spent a lifetime trying to believe that we’re not too much and refuting that we are too much when really all we want to be is appreciated for who we are and what we bring to the table. By others, but more importantly, by our own definition and standards.

Labeling us doesn’t help…or does it?

Now that the label of HSP and the use of SPS is fairly au courante, the conversation has been expanded. Which is awesome, don’t get me wrong. But once again, though I myself readily admit to using the term as an identifier, most people who hear it are afraid of using it. The word sensitivity alone is enough to make them run in the other direction. As if sensitivity is something you could catch, something to be ashamed of, something unlikeable, unmanageable, and above all, undesirable. Admitting to high sensitivity is like wearing a sign around your neck that says, “Hello. My name is Heidi and I cannot cope with much of anything in the world. Please like me anyway. (But, if you don’t like me, maybe you could put up with me?)”

Switching the paradigm of how we talk about and perceive “sensitivity“

Once again, it’s time to flip it. Flip the language, the paradigm, the perspective. How about instead of “over” everything, we’re “under” all of it. We underscore the necessity of community; we understand—and want to understand—other people’s lens for experiencing life. Essentially, we are under it all in the most literal sense of the word. HSPs are humanity’s foundation. We are the limbs people cling to in times of dire need. We are the baseline for love on a grand scale. We are holding up the world, and have done so for such a long time and to such a degree, that we are often, and our efforts are often, invisible and, without which, there would be no humanity. We support compassionate yet strong and direct leadership. We promote self-confidence and self-esteem because we have been through the wringer ourselves.

HSPs are humanity’s foundation

Recognizing that we are humanity’s foundation as opposed to the fault line, the brilliant as opposed to the bewildered, means that we have become aware that it is now the time to leave “too much” behind and step forward into “too amazing to believe.”

HSPs are not weak; they are saviors of humanity—past, present, and future

High-Maintenance or High-Sensitive…or more capable than we give ourselves credit for?

It’s time to stop apologizing for who we are when we are uniquely . . .

• adept
• dexterous
• thoughtful
• insightful, and yes,
• sensitive

. . . individuals who bring balance to the world. As we talked about in yesterday’s posting, we, HSPs, sensitives, peacemakers, caregivers, artists, we are not the bane of society, but the saviors of humankind.

As long as we are clear that this is true, we will never feel that we are too much to handle ever again.

The post Are HSPs really “hyper-sensitive” or “hyper-capable”? first appeared on Elevate Your HSP-ness!.