Concepts To Ignite
Highly Sensitive Souls

CHERISH WHO YOU Are

How many of us as women are taught to truly care about ourselves? Growing up, I was taught a lot about caring for other people and looking out for their needs and wants.

As a 19-year-old, my mom had no housekeeping or cooking skills and got pregnant with me on her wedding night. She had no idea how to care for herself, let alone an infant daughter. On her deathbed her mother asked her husband “Have I been a good wife?”

Eons of culture and women’s training often helps us believe in our lack or that we have no value. When we feel deficient, it hard to reach for our greatest selves. My dear sensitive and very insecure Mom had little ability to show true caring. She often quoted her father who told her to go hug a post.

We are born with basic developmental needs. We learn about ourselves in relationship to our caregivers. When others see us, and tune into us, we feel ‘gotten’; we feel seen heard, & known. When we are worried, anxious, or scared, if we are soothed and reassured, we then learn to regulate ourselves. When somebody expresses delight with us, we develop self-worth and pride. When we are supported as a child to be our unique self, then we learn trust in ourselves. We learn that mistakes are part of our learning. These basic foundational needs are met in relationship. That is how we develop our basic self-worth.

Often some of those basic needs weren’t met; we may not have basic belief or trust in self.  However, as humans we get more chances to meet those needs. When we parent our children, we are parenting ourselves. As sisters, romantic partners, school mates, work colleagues and as friends we get another way to value ourselves. We mirror them, and they mirror us. Coaching often helps. When we deeply care for ourselves, we can care so much more for others.

I placed a photo of Mom holding me as a 9-month-old, and smiling into my face where I could see it every day. I let that image sear into my mind for years. After I divorced and felt alone, I put up pictures of people who had truly loved me.  They served visually as a mirror that I was loved and valuable.

As highly sensitive persons we do our very best to function when we land in human bodies. We try to make sense of our experience. We find ways to cope with our families however they are. These patterns beliefs and feelings are immense creations we make to cope. This is amazing. Our wiring is different, we think deeper, feel deeper, see deeper and care deeper. We have fabulous gifts to share with the world. Cherishing yourself is a powerful tool in empowerment. Hold the question ‘How can I cherish myself?’ The most divine part of your treasures you. Now it is our turn to partner with our divine in the cherishing of you so you can emerge into more fullness of being.

LICKING OUR WOUNDS

Are you a Highly Sensitive Person? I am. We HSP’s have some wonderful superpowers. We care deeply. We connect deeply. We intuit deeply. We listen deeply. We perceive deeply. We think deeply. We feel deeply. We reflect & process deeply. We are deeply spiritual.

And we are vulnerable. When we feel criticized, or rejected – our biggest challenge – it’s like a harpoon into our marrow. Simone, a lovely cat, needed care while her ‘owner’ went on a vacation, because of surgery on her paw. I assured her human companion, worried about leaving, I would take good care of Simone.

Simone was quite disturbed by her hurt paw. She licked at it. She worried it. She licked the underside of the paw. She licked off the hair beside the wound. She left bloody footprints on the floor. Watching her, I realized I did the same thing. When I felt hurt by something, I obsessively thought about it. I wrote letters in my head to the people I perceived who hurt me. I would spend hours or days in my loop of masticating about my hurt. This was illuminating. How much energy and time I had spent ‘licking my wounds!’  I learned powerfully from Simone. I tend to ‘lick my wounds’ in an obsessive thinking loop. Hurts are normal. How we handle our hurts is where we get to make conscious choices.

A deadline for a presentation loomed. It was fulfilling and challenging. This talk was uniquely mine. I was enjoying it. While in that creative zone, I began to receive a series of emails that triggered a recent wound. Seeing how my thought patterns around wounds mimicked Simone’s, I decided to consciously coach myself carefully.

“Darling, you are having this wonderful time creating this presentation. It is to be delivered tomorrow. You know also you have the propensity to spend hours reviewing and obsessing how you were hurt. Which do you choose to do?”  The draw to go down the loop was strong because it was such a deep pattern. But juxtaposed against a time deadline, and the fulfilled feeling inside, it was easy to say “I choose to create.”  All I needed to do was observe, make the choice, and then turn my attention again and again to what I was creating.  It was that simple. Because I did it, I see it can be that simple at other times as well.

I am grateful to have lived with Simone for 10 days, see the impact of grooming that wound, and finally see her healed paw. Those provoking emails at a pivotal moment in my life helped me learn I could make choices how to react, and turn my attention to what I loved to do. We all get wounds. Its part of being human. How do we respond? Consciousness is an evolving process. To let our light and spirit sound through our being, we need to find non-judging, kind, compassionate ways of embracing our sensitive selves into healing.

the power of holding the question

Driving home one day from work, a burning question was answered. I was 23 years old, asking “Who are you, God?” Aflame with red and orange blossoms, a beautiful Royal Ponciana tree touched me to my core with the message “I am that I am.”

Three years later, in a metaphysical church, the message proclaimed many times was “ye are gods” – “you are one with all that is.” I wanted to know this from my inside not just with my mind. One night I dreamed that I came home after sunset. The house was dark. As I came in the front door, I could feel a presence there. Suddenly a male voice reverberated throughout the whole house. “I am here” boomed the voice – my voice. The presence was so huge and terrifying that I woke myself and wanted to fall to my knees. Though both these meetings were seen through my childhood understanding of “God,” there was no doubt they originated from a sacred source.

Eight years later, I adapted a quiet practice to include meditative writing and began a 39-year journey asking my deepest Self “What is wrong with me?” I would splat out my everyday concerns and wait for some wisdom from my higher Self. That very quiet voice would always respond “I am here, Beloved, I am with you always.” Over time, that voice has never judged me or made me wrong. My Beloved Inner Being is always there, with the most precious acceptance and tender caring imaginable.  And here is what that deep Source has taught me.

There is nothing wrong with any of us. Your deepest essential Self loves you as you are. We were given this gift of this lifetime, to come to bring the larger part of who we are out into the world.

The world needs us. We women are the connectors, we see connection, between nature, Gaia, and each other. We know how important it is. It is our role, to come, give our best, and help the world find better ways to be.

We have been trained and hypnotized to doubt ourselves, to diminish and not believe in ourselves.  It is possible to reach through to our essence. We are the ones who have the superpower to see through all that crap and gook.

How? We connect with others. Become tribes and communities who support each other. We give each other a helping hand. We open to our essence. We hold the intention to listen, receive and register the communication from our core. We ask daily how we can embody more of who we really are. We hold space for that communication to emerge.

As connection grows between each other and with that deep powerful eternal presence that always abides within us- that is our true nature; it just lights us up. Then we radiate as lighthouses in the world. We help show humanity how to make the next transformational step.