The Toughness of Transition When You’re an HSP
In times of transition….
Transitions. Don’t ya just hate ’em?
It’s not really about the actual getting where you’re going, or even the getting there and then being there, or even about thinking about going, about how you’ll get there, and how it’ll all pan out when you need to leave that can make you nuts. I mean, once you learn you have such great HSP tools at your disposal, and how so many of your triggers are of your own making, once you are where you are, you’re good.
It’s the transitions that are the toughest.
J, one of the friends with whom I’ve just spent the last few days—the awesome highway navigator—left today for her LA conference downtown. Before she left, the three of us were talking about her phenomenal ability to make her way through the world. To travel from country to country and never forget her passport or boarding pass or toiletries. (There was the one time she went to the Netherlands to give a presentation and forgot her skirt, but even then she made do with a couple of scarves wrapped around her waist and a long blazer. Talk about resilient.)
Anyway, J looks at us and says, “You have no idea how hard it is for me to actually get going and do the things I do.”
Skepticism reigns.
Naturally, we are skeptical. “There’s no way,” we argue. “Look at what you do and how you do it. You practically beam from one country to another, never with more than one carryon suitcase, no matter how long you’re staying or how much country-hopping you’re doing.”
“But it’s true,” she says. “It’s the transitioning. I sit in my bathrobe at home thinking, “I really don’t to go. I like it here with my mug of coffee. I love being all those places and even the actual traveling and getting there, but when I think about it—about actually getting up and starting the process??—there’s nothing less appealing. It’s like moving through Jello, wading through this sticky slow-motion world.”
What????
Talk about speechless. We’ve known each other forever and never knew this about her. In supermarkets, this is the woman with the right app to get her discounts, the right number of bags to get her groceries home, and the wherewithal to stock her cart in the order of how they will have to leave the cart in order to be bagged appropriately (by food category and where it will go when it gets put away).
“It’s true,” she insists again. “Just because I’ve got great organizational skills and have spent a lot of time and effort to offset the fact that I’m neuro-divergent, it doesn’t mean that I don’t go through those same ‘I wish I didn’t have to do this’ thing.”
L and I are really staggering from this new knowledge. We are all HSPs, of course, in our own ways, but L and I tend to require a whole lot less outside-world influence to feel happy, competent, and sane. You might say the introvert-extrovert analogy would work here, but honestly, it’s much more than that, because being sensitive to the transitions can cause a much different level of necessary coping strategies.
Yet, once again, as much as I don’t want to bang the HSP Toolbox, or the other tools I use, I can’t help it. When you’re aware, and I mean consciously aware, that you’re about to be in a transitional state, that it’s a definite (not made-up) shift of energy created by the physical world that affects your inner world, things change. You may not need help bagging groceries or remembering your passport, but what do you do when you do need help?
Use the handy tools in your toolbox, starting with your Psychic Octopus to stay in your own alignment. Then, as your activities have you interacting with the world, use your Unique Energetic Signature as a reminder to stay there.
Whatever tools you use, the premise remains: Transitions can be appreciated on their own merits, for the opportunities they bring, and the invitation they offer us to celebrate our journeys as HSPs.
The opportunity to take a sidestep.
A big one. Through the Jello.
For the better.
