It is only this year as I have been working on myself that I realized that I am a highly sensitive person, or empath as others call people like me. 37 years to realize I have mismanaged my energy my entire life. I have a hyperactive mind, a sensitive heart and my body feels energy of the living, the dead, objects and houses. So I am pretty much like a human sponge if I don’t protect myself.
Is this familiar with you? I am so glad that we hear more and more about highly sensitive people and empaths these days. It is really creating space for us feelers and intuitive people to recognize that we need to give ourselves extra care and protection and that it is totally OK to hug trees.
Signs you are struggling with being a highly sensitive person or an empath:
As a child (and maybe as an adult too) you were either showing your emotions hard or shutting them down completely. For some it might be hard to feel pleasant or unpleasant emotions. You may either cry easily or have no tears
You struggle with crowds and big groups
Some houses or places don’t feel good to you, you sense bad energies of places
You have suffered at some point in your life with depression, ADHD, addictions, hyperactivity, learning disabilities, bi-polar disorder or eating disorders and you easily burnout at work
People come to you to discuss their problems and ask for guidance and support, you like it, but it also weighs down. You easily overthink the problems of others
You want to fix people or every tensions they are going through
You are a people’s pleaser; it is hard to say no
You often give more than what you receive
You attract toxic people and most of the time you realize too late
Receiving love, abundance, pleasant things is hard
You know when you go in the wrong direction in life, but you struggle listening to your gut feeling
Your mind and thoughts are loud in your head
Your inner critic takes a lot of space in your life, which is often the result of having been a sensitive child that wasn’t listened too.
Some of your senses can be overwhelmed easily and you struggle to manage this overwhelm: you are hyper sensitive to noises, smells or light, touching some textures/material is unbearable.
So what exactly do you need to do to move from an overwhelmed/depleted highly sensitive person to a happy empath? Well, I will say it again, you have to work on yourself! No escape.
The reason you are misaligned with your empathetic nature is that childhood circumstances didn’t allow you to express your sensibility and/or you lived in an environment that didn’t feel safe for your high sensitive self.
Hindering experiences that HSP or Empath may have encountered in their childhood:
Ideas of manhood is about being tough, strong and not show emotions. Growing up in a family where men and boys have no space to feel emotions. Girls and boys growing up in a family with toxic masculinity
Growing up with a deceased or deficient parent (sick or absent or emotionally unavailable), a child was not supported and guided emotionally,
Children having gone through abuse (physical, emotional, sexual).
Basically any situation where children weren’t supported and guided to feel the strong emotions they felt pertaining to specific events or a general toxic/oppressing family system or social situation.
7 Tips to become an empowered Highly Sensitive Person
Know yourself: who are you? What drives you in life? What are your values and beliefs?
Make a list of activities or people that drain your energy and start doing less of that and taking your distance with people who drain you
Make a list of what fills your cup of energy and do that more. Make it a priority in your weekly planning. Basically you need to take your self-care to the next level.
Connect with nature: walk in the forest, wonder in your garden, dwell in the beauty of the plants on your balcony
Learn to say no and set boundaries, not only with people but also with jobs or situations that drain you. Move away from toxic people. If you can’t because of your family/work situation, you will have to distance yourself emotionally and energetically from their drama. Their drama is theirs not yours to carry.
Develop your intuition and your ability to listen to your inner knowing.
Work with life cycles: lunar cycle (can be followed by both men and women) and menstrual cycle for women. Following cycles is such a great way to manage your energy. It provides a guide on energy spending and refilling.
I get that some of these are hard to implement. And I invite you to look at the posibilities of healing and growing, it is totally possible that you become an empowered empath. If you have history of addiction, depression, ADHD, mental illness, you will have to work extra hard, but the little touches here and there will end up making a huge difference on the long term. I also invite you to be kind to yourself as much as possible.
Signs you are an empowered HSP or empath:
Nature resources you. I see you tree huggers!
You spend more and more time alone to recharge your batteries
You know what activities fill your cup and you do check with yourself on regular basis that filling your cup remains a priority
You feel emotions deeply and you know it is actually a great gift because you know how to move through them and manage the situation
You know well your triggers and know how to manage them
You use your ability to empathize with other’s feelings and emotions with the right kind of people (non-toxic and balanced) or in your profession (therapist, coach, healer, doctors, etc)
You know how to listen to your intuition/inner voice and give it priority over the outer voices
You are getting to know your gift of clairvoyant, clair-sentience, clair-audience. or you are already well acquainted with it.
You know you can’t please everybody and you are OK with it
You know how to say no without guilt and set your boundaries with your job or people
I hope this is helpful. It is all about the journey of self-discovery.and getting to know yourself better.
My Happy Moon Guide will guide you to manage better your energy. (if you are already in my mailing list, check your mailbox, the guide is in there)