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.

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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!.

OUCH!

For me, facilitating a guided meditation means doing the whole meditation along with all the participants as I’m doing it. What is so interesting is that, even if I’ve done a similar meditation in the past, there’s always something new that comes up. A new thorn, perhaps, or an old one that’s still managing to poke through my skin and cause irritation. Becoming aware that there’s one I never noticed before, or the one that’s still lurking (usually half hidden, at least to my own conscious self), is the key.

As I prepared for my Afterlife Meetup this week (in which we do guided meditation, mediumship, and music) I was struck once again by the power of this Meditation of the Inner Thorn: The One That Keeps On Giving.

This time, as I walked through the meditation prior to the meetup, I put a thorn on the couch that I had been avoiding for a long time. I would not have said I was avoiding it! I would have said, and did say, that I was “dealing with it, finding ways to be okay with it, trying to stop having expectations around it.” The thorn this time is one specific challenging relationship.

It always amazes me to see what happens.

Which Thorn Will You Put “On the Couch“?

As soon as I pictured the thorn of this relationship on the couch, I saw it was yellow. A yellow star. Which surprised me because I never would have conceived of a star as a reflection of such a relationship. Aren’t stars bright and illuminating and awe-inspiring? I asked why the energy of this thorn had appeared as a yellow star. It said, directly, “I’m yellow because I’m both cowardly and sharp-edged. No matter how you turn me, there’s another sharp edge to cut you, wound you, keep you caught in my clutches.”

Okay. Really? All this from a yellow star? Color me shocked.

I asked the star, “Because you’re also a beautiful shining start of light, do you think there’s any chance you could shift your energy…become softer, less harsh, stronger, braver?”

“Only if you’re willing,” said the star, “to free me from your body and spirit once and for all, and invite in the light that I truly am. Stars don’t really have any sharp edges, you know, so seeing me that way is only a reflection of your own fear.”

Transmuting one energy to another is the key to stepping into your light.

Again, wow.

Who Woulda Thought a Yellow Star Would Have So Much To Say?

Since then I’ve been talking to this star of mine. It agreed to softening its edges if I would commit to its removal; it did not want to be there anymore, but had felt stuck, lodged where it didn’t belong in my upper arm. Why in my upper arm?

“Because you hold things in your arms. Develop muscle from the time you held your flute, then held your babies, then held all the experiences that have become you. Putting aside this thorn, a thorn so old and deep, may hurt, but there will be almost no bleeding because it is disintegrating even as we speak.”

The star, the one that started out a sharp thorn, has now become a close friend guiding me to a lighter place.

As so-called HSPs, Highly Sensitive Persons, we need to recognize and make friends with our “inner thorns,” whether they are so-called sensitivities or fears or anxieties.

The post The Inner Thorns That Hurt Us: A High-Sensitive’s Experience first appeared on Elevate Your HSP-ness!.