It’s Time to Elevate & Celebrate Your High Sensitivity with Heidi Connolly, the Celestial Professor!

**** Be among the first 10 people to join this event and you will receive a gift of a completely FREE 15-minute consultation with me, Heidi Connolly, author, intuitive coach, medium, and guided musician. ****

This is the Celestial Professor’s first HSP Summit with expert guests discussing their personal and professional experiences as Highly Sensitive People and how they’ve learned to amplify–and celebrate!–their own HSP qualities for a fulfilling and High-Frequency Life.

JOIN US SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1 PM PT @ https://youtu.be/McDwEL-ISMo

It’s time to choose the life you want by learning what you need. What do I mean by that?

Most people talking about being “highly sensitive” are focused on coping with what feels like a “problem.” But I don’t believe that’s true.

I believe that only when we really begin to understand the meaning of sensitivity–the fact that it speaks to our divinely intuitive natures, our innate abilities, and our critical powers of heart-and-mind-partnered capabilities–are we able to become truly sovereign beings that can use our so-called “sensitivities” to uplift the world.

If you want to learn how, this summit is a good first step. All these speakers are HSPs, all have gone through challenging times to understand who they are, but, best of all, they have learned to utilize who and what they are for their own benefit and the greater good.

Guests include myself, plus:

Irene Weinberg, Grief & Rebirth Podcast;
Jill Lebeau, Spiritual Sandbox Podcast;
Claudia Helt, Center for Peaceful Transitions;
Sherri Cortland, Author and Speaker;
Dana Stovern, Magic of Somatic Money Podcast;
Heidi Winkler, Winkler Leadership Academy

. . . All experts in their fields, ALL HSPs, and all dedicated to uplifting the world.

heidiconnolly.com | f-b: hspness | blog: hspness.com. Upcoming new book: Elevate Your HSP-ness: How to Live a High-Frequency Life that Amplifies Your Vibration, Celebrates Your Sensitivities, & Uplifts the World.

The post JOIN THE EXPERTS FOR THE 1ST HSP SUMMIT OF ITS KIND!!! first appeared on Elevate Your HSP-ness!.

Life After Death

I know what miracles are. I know because I see them happen every day—and because some of them happen to me. I guess you could say that I’m proof, or my life is proof, or, for that matter, my very existence, is proof. There have been so many miracles in my life that choosing just one to write about and calling it the “biggest” would be like loving one of my children more than the other.

I loved my husband, Randy Michael Connolly, until death did us part. So much so that it felt as if I’d died with him. By the time December 2013 rolled around, I’d been praying for my own death for a little over a year, although I still hadn’t conjured the nerve to take my own life, and realized I might never find that nerve, no matter how devastated I was. The only thing that could possibly keep me going, I determined, was a miracle.

I wanted, I needed, some kind of concrete, measurable evidence that he was still with me, just as he’d promised he’d be as he was dying.

Night after night of crying myself to sleep had mitigated neither my desperation nor my depression. Nor had knowing that there were people around me who were hearing Randy, in spirit form, clearly and irrefutably. Sure, I appreciated their loving messages, as indirect as they were. But what about me? I was his wife, dammit. Didn’t I deserve to hear those messages straight from the source?

Then, one night, a night like all the rest where I’d passed out after hours of tossing and turning and abject anguish (I don’t profess to be one of the stoic ones), I was awakened at 3 am by a loud—booming—voice that said, “Get out your pen and get writing. We’re going to write a book.”

I can’t tell you why and I can’t tell you how, but I knew in every cell of my being that this disembodied vocalization belonged to my husband (and not only because I was alone in the house). What I did not realize was that the result of this mandate, and the ensuing half hour of notebook scribblings, would be the basis for our first “ghostwritten” book together, Crossing the Rubicon: Love Poems Past the Point of No Return.

You might think I’m going to say the miracle was that Randy, in spirit form, woke me up and downloaded a book of poems, along with an almost instant comprehension and precisely worded description about how to form a new relationship with your loved one after death, and how to write about it so others would understand and benefit.

You might think it was that since that night I’ve been able to communicate with Randy, and the dead brother of manicurist, and the dead wife of my father’s best friend, and many other spirit beings who so much want to communicate with their own loved ones.

Either way, you’d be right.

But, honestly? The most profound and shocking miracle is that without the gift of Randy’s dying, I would never have discovered, or perhaps I should say uncovered, the brilliant conscious creation practice that has become my way of life.

A celestial life.

Is it possible to recognize a miracle—a blessing, even—while you feel you’re being ripped to shreds? When your soul can’t see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel even if it were wrapped in the glow of every star in the sky? When your heart is gasping for breath in order to survive one more minute, one more hour, one more day?

My answer?

• BRD–Before Randy’s Death: Absolutely not.
• ARD–After Randy’s Death: Absolutely. Even if you’re in the throes of agony. Because once your anguish has been imbued with conscious awareness, the frequency of unconditional love, the vibration of truth, and the resonance of wisdom, nothing is ever the same again.

For me, on that night, even as I wrote in the dark, sobbing over the pages of an old lined notebook, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, fear, grief, and the sense that I had been abandoned to fend for myself in a world I could no longer make sense of, I was concomitantly aware that I was feeling something I’d never felt before.

Even in that state of complete overwhelm, I knew I was experiencing something so enormous, so rock-me-to-the-core powerful, that while I couldn’t name it at the time, I could feel it blooming inside me, as evidential as the scar on the inside of my thigh, the one I’d gotten in a motorcycle mishap in high school. It seemed as if I’d always had this thing that was burgeoning—always known it, always felt it—but would never again fail to recognize it and cherish it.

The wave of unconditional love that flowed through me arrived in the form of complete phrases and rhymes and prose: an unabridged conversation. It arose in the vibration of truth, through the voice of my dead husband. It emerged in the resonance of wisdom, as a new kind of knowledge I was being invited to believe in, accept, and share. It emanated with the awareness that, even as I wept and the lead in my pencil dwindled to a stub, I would never be the same again.

Turns out, it’s true.

Because nothing has been the same since that night.

I no longer have any need to pretend that I have it all under control, or that life makes sense. I don’t and it doesn’t. Which is precisely what makes miracles so…miraculous.

I now understand that all our attempts to control, fix, cajole, maneuver, manipulate, push, and pray are nothing more than miracle-blockers. When viewed through the lens of retrospection, miracles are the fruit of faith, not force.

When I met Randy after my first 40 years on the planet, I knew that was a miracle. The circumstances were too bizarre, too completely without precedent. We agreed that we were two of the truly fortunate ones. We’d prayed for a miracle. We’d gotten it. End of story.

Then he died.

Which compelled to ask, What does that say about our supposed miracle? Was I wrong? Were we wrong? Was this some kind of a joke, a faux miracle? Had I been deceived? If God wanted me to be happy, why take away the one person who made me happy?

Could something that once looked like a miracle of light and love turn into something so sinister and dark, something so obviously not miraculous?

I did not know the answer then. But these questions are what goaded me on, deep into realms that I’d never previously tapped. I explored karma, life after “death,” past lives, meditation, and conscious creation. I acquiesced into what has been so aptly called the dark night of the soul. I allowed myself to be held by those who’d had similar experiences and encouraged me to believe that I would come out the other side…whole again.

I eventually learned that my sensitivity was simply code for being an HSP, a Highly Sensitive Person, and medium for the spirit world, and that tapping into that ability would prepare me for becoming a facilitator for other HSPs.

Finally, ultimately, I learned that miracles are in the eye of the beholder, like these:

1. I contracted with Randy and agreed to be his partner in this lifetime to help him learn that someone (me) could and would love him unconditionally—a lesson that allowed him to cross over knowing he’d achieved his spiritual goal.
2. Randy is now helping me learn, from across the veil, that having trust and faith in what you can’t see is the means by which we can influence the energetic force that determines our ongoing lives.
3. Questioning every core belief you once held deepens your understanding that the spirit world is always communicating with us, and that it’s simply up to us to learn how to listen. For me, this has meant having the ability to share such insights with others.

The biggest miracle of all, you ask?

That’s easy.

There is life after death. On both sides of the veil.

* * * *

MY SPECIAL OFFER THIS MONTH

Purchase a copy of Crossing the Rubicon and receive the complete audiobook version, read by Heidi

and backed by her inspirationally guided flute music, for free! Use CODE RUBICON11 at checkout.

The post Death and Grief and the Highly Sensitive Person first appeared on Elevate Your HSP-ness!.

I’ve been an HSP for a long time. One might even say a very long time. So, I guess you could also say that I have a lot of experience when it comes to my HSP-ness. All those qualities that seemed to undermine me at every turn, every step of the way. Plus all the experiences I have undergone that have revealed all my sensitivities, each and every one, for what they really are: indicators of my amazing abilities to love, honor, respect–once I learned to use them, not let them abuse me.

The thing about sensitivities is that they often present in extremes. For example, if you’re hyper-sensitive to cold, you may be, as I am, hyper-sensitive to heat. If you’re hyper-sensitive to touch, you may be hyper-sensitive to the lack of it. If you’re hyper-sensitive to sound, you may be hyper-sensitive to the empty silence of quiet. Because we’re sensitive to everything. Just hang with 10 people saying nothing for a while and you’ll see what I mean.

Once again, yet another interesting conundrum for the Highly Sensitive Person. How can we rationalize the fact that we may be as uncomfortable in one set of circumstances and equally as uncomfortable in its apparent extreme opposite set of circumstances?

I can only share what I have come to realize.

On a societal level

We live in the age of soundbites and endless possibilities for distraction. Endless opportunities to fill the silence. If we don’t want to be alone with our thoughts, we almost never need to be.

On a community level:

Feeling  uncomfortable in crowds and/or social settings is typical for HSPs. Yet society teaches us that we are supposed to be good little children in the classroom and adept at navigating the world through some kind of inherent charm and know-how. If we aren’t, if we don’t or can’t or are not up to the task, we are made to feel small and inadequate. Our tendency is to seek out solitude rather than engage in frustrating attempts at socialization, even when solitude strikes a heavy chord of loss inside us.

On a familial level

Most everyone I’ve ever known suffers from the Family Syndrome: There’s nothing like being with family that could feel more comfortable, even if the circumstances are miserable; there’s something about having your expectations being fulfilled. While it might not feel like the good kind of comfortable, at least you know Uncle Joe might drink too much and Mom might tell you to get your hair cut. On the other hand, a family dinner can make you feel like running in the other direction so fast and so far that you’d never be seen or heard from again.

On a relationship level

I’ve often said that it’s important to be in relationship with someone you can be yourself with. Someone you can be with without saying anything, just being quiet and being comfortable at the same time. I still feel that way. But, more and more, *I’m realizing that it’s all about being comfortable with myself that matters. I don’t think I was ever truly comfortable anywhere, anytime, with anyone, until I became comfortable with my own being-ness, including my own HSP-ness.*

On a one-on-one level with self. See above*…Your relationship with Self is all that really matters.

QUESTION FOR THE DAY: 10 people go quiet at a party. Suddenly, things get really uncomfortable fast. What do you do?

• Do you rush to fill the silence?
• Do you pour another glass of wine?
• Do you make an inappropriate joke?
• Do you squirm in your seat and wish you were somewhere else?
• Do you make an excuse to leave the room?

There are different versions of quiet and different versions of noise. But there is only one version of you that matters.

The one that is in alignment.

It’s time to stop hiding and start Elevating Your HSP-ness!

Soon to be available at https://www.heidiconnolly.com

The post Is there such as thing as too much quiet when you’re a Highly Sensitive Person? first appeared on Elevate Your HSP-ness!.

(Or . . . Why can’t I just let go and be in the flow like everyone says I should be?)

When I was growing up, everything bothered me. Everything upset me. Everything made me cry. Everything scared me. Everything was hard.

Now, the word of the day is “trigger.”

“It’s such a trigger for me,” we say. “You’re triggering me.” “You know that triggers me.” “If you know that’s a trigger for me, why don’t you stop doing it/saying it?”

What’s the one thing all these ways we express ourselves have in common? Well, I hate to say it, but it’s that all of them are putting the reason (the blame) for our being triggered on the person, place, or thing that’s getting in the way of our comfort.

• “The scent in here drives me crazy; I hate scented candles.”
• “He knows I hate to be yelled at, so why can’t he learn to lower his voice?”
• “I can’t stand green pepper, so why would they put it in the food?”

  

All of these statements have something else in common, too: They all express significantly low-vibration language, use of which, frankly, probably won’t catapult you into a *high-frequency life.*

Please understand that I’m not complaining about other people’s complaining about their triggers–as such. I’m not saying that we all don’t have valid reasons for having developed our triggers. Things like poor parenting, growing up with abuse, feeling ignored, unloved, unappreciated. We could go on and on. Most of us have at least one or two, if not dozens, of things that draw us in like a spider to a fly. “Come on in, you’ll love it in here.” And then . . . ZAP! You’re caught in the middle of something from which not only does it appear there is no escape but that sends you spiraling into the HSP’s Land of the Lost.

What really matters, though, is that at some point in our lives, we start to look at our triggers as something we have at some point decided we are willing to react to instead of something happening to us that we cannot control.

No, we can’t control someone who decides to yell or put green pepper in our dinner. But we certainly have a say about our reaction to it.

I’ve learned the following:

1. Going around all day talking about the things that trigger me only triggers me more.
2. Using language that has a low frequency like “I hate it when you…” “Why is this happening to me?” “It’s not fair…” “They should know it hurts me…” are all downers. Say them out loud or hear someone else say them and immediately the energy in the room goes south. If and when YOU say it, your own vibration has just crashed.
3. Talking about what triggers me triggers me into finding reasons I’m triggered that justify my reaction.
4. Talking to others about the fact that I was triggered by someone or something feels satisfyingly reassuring.
5. I like being reassured because it feels like someone is responding to my need for understanding or love or support or whatever else I want

If I turn my low-frequency HSP language into high-frequency language, the Land of the Lost turns into the Land of the Found.

Let’s start with the triggering episode.

Trigger: My friend is upset and has been talking to me in a louder-than-usual voice.

Response: I’m immediately back in my childhood being yelled at by my father. I can’t hear anything my friend is saying because all I want to do is run and hide and cry and scream. In the corner.

Reaction: I yell at my friend, “You know that I can’t hear you if you raise your voice to me! You know my father used to yell at me and I hate that. Why are you yelling at me?”

What’s really going on: Deflection, Victimization, Defensiveness, Justification, Avoidance, Blame, and Self-righteousness–not that there’s not a whole lot of hurt in there, too.

What I do differently

Trigger: My friend is upset and has been talking to me in a louder-than-usual voice.

Response: I’m immediately back in my childhood being yelled at by my father. I can’t hear anything my friend is saying because all I want to do is run and hide and cry and scream. In the corner.

Realization: Wow. I’m really out of alignment here. I know what brought it on and I don’t particularly enjoy it, but even if it feels uncomfortable, it’s a huge opportunity to work on pulling in my psychic octopus tentacles and practice my newfound awareness that I have the wherewithal to reflect on what I’m feeling even as I’m feeling it. Even a moment of objectivity in that kind of situation can switch off the “I’m freaking out” and switch on the “Oh, how interesting” switch.

One step back = a giant leap forward.

TIP OF THE DAY:

1. Write a list of 10 things that trigger you.
2. Put a checkmark next to all the ones that feel justified based on your life experience.
3. Now erase them.

The post Why Does Everything In the World Seem To Trigger Me So Much? first appeared on Elevate Your HSP-ness!.

“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!.

BREATHE

She sat at the back and they said she was shy,

She led from the front and they hated her pride,

They asked her advice and then questioned her guidance,

They branded her loud, then were shocked by her silence,

When she shared no ambition they said it was sad,

So she told them her dreams and they said she was mad,

They told her they’d listen, then covered their ears,

And gave her a hug while they laughed at her fears,

And she listened to all of it thinking she should,

Be the girl they told her to be best as she could,

But one day she asked what was best for herself,

Instead of trying to please everyone else,

So she walked to the forest and stood with the trees,

She heard the wind whisper and dance with the leaves,

She spoke to the willow, the elm and the pine,

And she told them what she’d been told time after time,

She told them she felt she was never enough,

She was either too little or far far too much,

Too loud or too quiet, too fierce or too weak,

Too wise or too foolish, too bold or too meek,

Then she found a small clearing surrounded by firs,

And she stopped…and she heard what the trees said to her,

And she sat there for hours not wanting to leave,

For the forest said nothing, it just let her breathe.

By: Becky Hemsley

I can relate, Becky Hemsley. I can definitely relate.

I read this poem on Facebook and recognized, as did the person who posted it, how much it reflects the life so many of us have led as High Sensitives (of any gender!).

The image in the post shows a tree (enhanced by an artist, apparently) into the body of a woman stretching upward and outward toward the sky. While some might see the image suggesting a plea of “Why me?” it could also be suggestive of someone reaching to the skies, empowered and alive, and grounded into the earth and a sense of self.

I’ll take Door #2, please.

Today I had a client who arrived to see with with a whole boatload of fear and anxiety. This client is almost 90 years old and has been a teacher and psychotherapist for many years. For a lot of those years she has successfully worked on herself to unravel the emotional issues that seemed to bind her to old ways of thinking about herself and the world, and has helped numerous clients of her own on that journey. That’s why, when she found herself unexpectedly “triggered” bigtime by a situation that came up, she called me.

You see, no matter how much we grow, stretch, and reach for spiritual connection and evolution and the groundedness that goes along with it, we also need to realize that We. Are. Still. Human.

There will always be that part of us—often a deeply subconscious or hidden part—that remembers the way things were in The Past. That great vast valley of old insecurities that arise just at the exact moment we need them to remind us to once again step up to the plate…that it’s time to level up once more on our spiritual path.

Being human also means we cannot, nor should we have to, or feel we have to, go it alone. Healers and light workers and mediums and meditators and caregivers—we all need to connect with others in the community of HSPs when it gets tough to make sure our feet stay planted in the ground on that journey of leveling up.

We may all be human and we may all be individual trees, but we are all one human among other humans and one tree among all the other trees in the forest.

The post Life As An HSP Doesn’t Mean A Life of Going It Alone first appeared on Elevate Your HSP-ness!.

HSPs and Automatic Writing: It’s Good For Who You Really Are

First, let’s set the scene. Sherri Cortland (the amazing author and coach) is my guest speaker for my online Meetup. I’ve been hosting these meetups for several years, mostly on zoom since the pandemic, where I offer mediumship, meditation, and guided music. Sherri and I had been meeting right up through the day before, and had fully agreed on our intention and presentation, and had completed the usual zoom/tech-related checks. Everything should go off without a hitch.

Yeah. That’s what I said.

It seems the Spirit World had a different idea entirely. No matter how many links I sent, Sherri couldn’t seem to join the meeting. No matter which computer she tried, she couldn’t access the class. Finally, using her phone, she made it in, but couldn’t see any of the participants other than me. She couldn’t share her PPT presentation, nor could she play the flute music I’d sent her as background for her meditation.

Technology, right?

Fortunately, given our knowledge of the perfection of the universe — even when it feels as if we’re being thrown overboard without a life preserver — we plowed ahead, and Sherri facilitated all of us, sight unseen, through layers of guided chakra meditation and automatic writing, her tools for direct communication with Spirit. And we all loved it.

Especially me.

Being mostly a clairsentient HSPs , I don’t think of myself as someone who does “automatic writing.” And yet, here I sit yet again, having the words flow through my fingers as if they were written already and I’m just typing them into the computer. As if I’m hearing them for the first, and yet not at all the first, time. Before I do a mediumship session with a client, I sit quietly and write down all the things that come to me, no matter how strange, unsettling, or crazy they may appear to be. I get song lyrics, names, visuals of all sorts of things that don’t make sense to me, but always, in some shape or form, make sense to the client. I’ve had to learn to trust that in order for me to receive validation, I have to have the courage to speak the information out loud. Not an easy thing to do until you keep doing it…and doing it…and doing it.

At the meetup with Sherri, after listening to her incredibly articulate explanation of how auto-writing works and we’d watched as she demonstrated her process first-hand, we got to give it a try ourselves.

When things happen that you don’t expect

What I didn’t expect is what happened, of course. Not only did I receive information in the same way I do prior to seeing a client where words, thoughts, and pictures come through my pen, but Jeremy, one of Sherri’s Spirit Guides, made his presence known. I argued with him that he was Sherri’s not mine, but he insisted he was “on loan.” Five minutes later I had words like “speckled hen” and “thumbtack,” along with a very loving message reminding us all to know how magical we are. To know and own our own magic and share it with the world.

I don’t know about you, but it was the speckled hen-and-thumbtack thing that really got my attention. Not that it made any sense at the time. But, like I said, the stranger the information, the more certain it is that it means something important. In this case, to my new client today, who had just lost her husband. The look on her face when I mentioned the hens was sheer incredulousness, but when I got to thumbtacks, there’s no way to describe her reaction. Words that mean nothing to me meant everything to her.

The upshot?

• Use automatic writing.
• Use meditation.
• Use any tool that feels good.

Just keep doing it.

****

Interested in personal readings, customized healing music, or grief counseling? Go to heidiconnolly.com.

The post HSPs and Automatic Writing: It’s Good For Who You Really Are first appeared on Elevate Your HSP-ness!.

Thought versus Feeling: The great dichotomy

The great dichotomy—and paradox—around being an HSP is that you feel everything, but when it comes time to meditate you find yourself so stuck in your mind’s meanderings that you can’t let go and do what you do so beautifully: feel intensely.

Today we’re going to talk about the actual process behind this dichotomy and what to do about it.

Premise: “I’m too sensitive. I feel everything.”

Okay, so you’re an HSP, a very highly sensitive person. Which, like I said, basically means you feel everything. But it also means you tend to overthink everything. It’s a constant back-and-forth that keeps you tightly wound in insecurity, indecision, and, often, irreconcilable conflict.

Supposition: “Meditation is too hard.”

Meditation is one, if not the, best way to rewire the way you move through life. It can be difficult for the very same dichotomy stated above. The key is to start thinking about the difference between feeling, as in emotion, and feeling, as the somatic sensations caused in the body. Otherwise, you can feel like a big blockhead!

The example:

“I’m upset.” Being upset is an emotional state, an emotion you can name and feel on that emotional level.

“I feel upset.” Your heart is pounding in your chest because you feel upset. The heart’s pounding is your body’s somatic response to whatever you tell yourself you’re experiencing: the sensation.

Identifying the difference and then isolating whatever sensation in your body is taking place is what can help guide you into leaving the mind out of the picture.

In your head, the conversation (at least, if you’re anything like me) can go something like this.

“Okay, I’m trying to meditate. I’m trying to quiet the mind. Stop my thoughts. All the things that everyone says to do. But I can’t. I feel fidgety and my mind is hopping from one thought to the next. Why can’t I stop the thoughts? Why can’t I “focus on my breath” and “relax”? Why is it so easy for other people? I give up.”

I’ll tell you a little secret. One reason why it feels so difficult is exactly because you’re such a brilliant HSP! The very HSP-ness qualities that make you experience everything so strongly are the same qualities that have your mind spinning in response.

Shifting the conversation

The only way I’ve found to shift this conundrum is by focusing on all the things my body is feeling while my mind is carrying on doing what it’s doing. To remind myself minute-to-minute, second-to-second, what sensation is going on in my body as I’m busily labeling, thinking, directing, mulling, whining, reliving conversations, and so on.

Shifting into conscious awareness

Whenever I become aware that I’m having the thought I’m having, I think, “Oh, I’m not meditating. I’m having a thought. Oops.”

“Let’s see. What am I feeling in relation to that thought? What is my response to that thought?”

• The Thought: “I’m remembering the argument I had yesterday with a friend.”
• The Emotion: “I feel angry. I feel like I want to cry (or scream or….)”
• The Sensation: “What is the sensation in my body? Can I isolate it? Is it diffuse throughout? Oh, yeah. My chest feels hard and tight and I feel sick to my stomach.”

Going into your body (Leaving Your Mind Behind)

Already, simply by becoming consciously aware of this process has brought you from 100% mind chatter “into your body.”

I always wondered what people meant by “being in your body.” I believe this is exactly what it means.

To go from a thought state to an emotional state is not enough. You need to take one step further to bring you into your somatic body, which then allows you (invites you) to truly FEEL sensationally rather than emotionally. Not thinking about what I’m feeling, but actually feeling it. Whether it’s tingling or breathing in and out or heaviness or lightness or a fast heartbeat or anything else.

This is where the rubber meets the road, guys. This is where your mind takes a breather. This is where your ability to meditate takes off.

Hallelujah!

The post Meditation: The most powerful way to reach your true self. first appeared on Elevate Your HSP-ness!.

It took me quite a while to get up my nerve. Truthfully? I was almost afraid to ask what it meant, why he’d stuck it there. I mean, who tapes a piece of paper that says “RA YA KOO MA YEE” on it to his back car window?

Randy, that’s who.

The Language of the Emotions

The only thing he’d tell me—my husband who passed in 2012—and only after many months of asking, was that it was the only written bit of “his language,” the one he was born with and had never shared with anyone, the one he’d never heard anywhere else from anyone else. He called it the “Language of the Emotions.” As our relationship grew, Randy used to speak words of this language to me, mostly during intimate moments, but also when verbalizing during times of extreme emotion, as if there were no other way to articulate what he was feeling without its use. Looking back, it doesn’t really surprise me that English was actually his second language, given his dyslexia and problems with spelling and grammar.

The other thing Randy always did that left me wondering who exactly this brilliant guy was that I’d fallen in love with who held a steady job, but was also one of the weirdest people I’d ever met, was to sign his name with little superscripts at the end, like this: Randy Connolly*” Again, I had to be content with the non-answer I usually got until, one day, he admitted that the asterisk and quotation mark were his way of nodding his thanks to the Great Mother and the Great Father of the Great Oneness.

Several amazing events have taken place over time that have revealed just how these things are connected, and just how deep their meaning goes. A few weeks ago, I was listening to a chakra meditation my good friend and author Sherri Cortland has on her website in which she takes you through a chakra clearing and balancing that incorporates chanting syllables that relate to each chakra’s energy. I responded strongly to the meditation, but the real kick came when I asked myself What if….? What if the single-syllabic tonal chakra chants were similar to Randy’s language? What if the syllables of “Ra,” “Ya,” “Koo,” “Ma,” and “Yee” each had a meaning beyond an emotional communication?  And why the heck hadn’t I ever thought of asking that before?

Flashback to about 12 years ago, as Randy made his transition and spoke his language for the last time. Only a few words, but words that would matter more than I can say. I felt the circumstances even more painfully because, as he lay dying, he also kept pushing me away. Literally pushing away the love of his life. His wife. His partner. I was pretty hysterical at that point. Let’s face it, who wants to be rejected at a time like that by the one you love? And so I sat and cried a couple of feet away, not knowing what to do, afraid to watch as he took his last breaths.

Not only didn’t I realize what I was doing with my hands, which, it turns out, were, of their own volition, fiddling with a tape recorder on the table, but, because I couldn’t see through my tears, I wasn’t aware that I’d pressed the PLAY button. In fact, it wasn’t until months later when I turned the recorder back on that I heard the few precious syllables of Randy as he spoke his final words…in “his language.” And it wasn’t until a couple of years after that, at one of the recording sessions for my audiobook of Crossing the Rubicon, the producer said, “Gee, it’s too bad we don’t have any audio of Randy. It would be a perfect way to incorporate his energy into the book since he wrote it with you after he died, right?”

Right.

Which is when I shared the recording with a medium I knew who was able to translate the words for me: “Goodbye, my love…I’m coming home.”

This message was exactly what I needed. The one that would, at long last, shift the energy of shame I had been carrying since Randy’s death.

Randy always said he (we) came from another planet. That his real name was Two Lakes of the Star Clan. When he napped, I found myself imploring him to remember to come back to me because he always seemed to go so far away when he slept. Now I had my answer. He was not pushing me away because he didn’t want my love. He was pushing me away so he could “come home.” Apparently, the more I held onto him, the less his spirit and his body could do what they had to do—leave the physical realm.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. As I said, I’d meditated to Sherri’s guided chakra meditation and suddenly got it in my head to research each of the syllables of “Ra,” “Ya,” “Koo,” “Ma,” and “Yee.” What I found, if revelations are ever really “found,” was both obvious and mind blowing.

Bear in mind that Randy misspelled everything, so I had to be generous with my own spelling as I researched.

• RA: Egyptian sun god, the creator of the universe and the giver of life.
• YA(H): One name for God; YA(A): goddess of fertility and love.
• KOO (KU; also known as Akua): God of war, fishing, farming, with supernatural powers. (And now I appreciate why Randy called himself a “frequency farmer.”)
• MA: Moon goddess; Mother goddess; warrior goddess.
• YEE: As in John 10:34, “As ye are gods.”

To me, and I know to Randy who felt strongly on the matter, one finds the kingdom of God within. So if “ye” is the plural of “you,” we are all Gods…God is within each one of us. We are all God and everything is included in that oneness.

Is the trajectory of these events and discoveries beginning to come together for you as it did for me? Because between the gods and the goddesses and the oneness, we’ve pretty much covered the territory of Randy’s daily reminders: the way to consistently express his powerful belief that he was a spiritual being having a human experience—and was grateful for that opportunity.

It was his way to give a nod of thanks to the Universe.

Every time he signed his name. Every time he climbed into his car. His way to give a nod of thanks to the Universe.

I keep Randy’s original printed 4” x 11” “RA YA KOO MA YEE” sign on my desk. Over the years it’s been on a shelf, in a filing cabinet, packed away, and misplaced. Since chanting the tonalities of the chakras and feeling the frequency of the sounds, however, it has taken on a whole new meaning and will continue to sit front and center in my life.

We are the sun. We are the moon. We are warriors. We are lovers. We are frequency farmers. We are all God. We are all one…speaking the same language.

And, most importantly, as HSPs, the Language of the Emotions is our language,

and paramount to the state of the world.

The post HSPs have their own language–The Language of the Emotions first appeared on Elevate Your HSP-ness!.

HSPs rely on their heart connection to communicate with the world

Today at the gym I was Kindling Louise Penny’s novel The Madness of Crowds when I read: “You’d be surprised how clearly the heart can see,” and was caught up in a moment of gratitude so great I almost stumbled off the elliptical.

It’s not that the statement doesn’t resonate with me, but that it does . . . profoundly. When I read such words of high frequency and high integrity in a novel that I know millions of people are also reading, I pretty much get angel-bumps up and down my arms.

It’s such a simple statement, too. Just nine words, but do they ever pack a punch.

Thinking with your heart

For a long time now I have said that I think with my heart first. Lots of people who hear that look at me as if they must have misheard me. Who thinks with their heart, right? Yet it has become crystal clear to me that my brain is only as worthy of use as my heart, and that the one supports the other.

Mind or no mind

What if we didn’t have an organ called the brain? A brain that houses our mind? I doubt humans could function too well. Or without a heart, for that matter. The important piece here that is so often missed is that regardless of the individual, their socioeconomic status, their race, creed, gender, or genetics, one’s mind will never be able to fully suppress, ignore, or repress the heart.

I mean, we might never really know what “causes” our emotional states. If we subtract the chemistry (the hormones and synapses, etc.), the component that loves, that feels all the emotions, is still a mystery. We certainly can’t know for sure that the physical heart itself is behind all those emotions. We connect them with this organ, the heart, and assign it to be the holding place of all things spiritual and emotional. I’m okay with that assignation, though, so, for our purposes, let’s go with it.

The heart place

The heart is the “place” of true understanding, not understanding that comes through the mind. It’s a place where truth resonates—or doesn’t. The mind may serve our need for logic, but because it is attached to a human being, there will never be any such thing as pure objectivity. We all know that facts can be spun, statistics can be interpreted, and falsehoods can be reasoned into being. Fortunately, we have been blessed with another facet of human nature: the heart. There is always a heart, beating away, inherently clear, inherently pure, and inherently loving. A heart that knows what it knows.

While there may always be those whose hearts have been treated so appallingly that they manage to shut themselves from own heart connection, there can never be a mind that exists without a heart. You might choose to ignore your heart’s calling, you may choose not to listen to its advice, you may decide that you’d rather hide from it than be hurt, but the heart will never shut down until you leave the physical realm this time around.

What the heart wants

The heart wants to keep beating. It wants to keep sending the signals to the mind that the mind cannot conceive of on its own. The heart has strings that tie it to the mind of which we may be completely unaware, but upon which we are completely dependent to keep us anchored in the human world in a way that makes sense.

So, when you hear, “You’d be surprised how clearly the heart can see,” give it a minute to sink in. Let it marinate. Savor it. Embrace it.

Your heart will love you for it.

The post HSPs rely on the heart connection to communicate w the world first appeared on Elevate Your HSP-ness!.