Archive for Highly Sensitive
Impossible Relationship Blocks
Posted by: | CommentsHave you ever been in a relationship in which you want to love the other person, but you and they are coming from such different places, that all you can do is set a firm boundary and try not to get sucked in to all the drama or manipulation or dysfunction?
In such a relationship, often the other person wants something from you, and will resort to all sorts of manipulation tactics to get it. Some examples might be:
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guilt-tripping and attempting to pull you into the Dreaded Drama Triangle by trying to make you the rescuer or perpetrator of their victimhood
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gaslighting, where they ignore, distort or twist your words, actions or intentions to something other than you meant
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playing on and exploiting your generous or compassionate nature, knowing that you want to think of yourself in these ways so will do what they want to keep up your image of yourself.
Having dealt with a few of these relationships in my life has been an interesting experience. (By the way, as I’ve healed and Aligned more and more with my Divine Design, there have been fewer such relationships in my life. That can be true for you, too.)

Photo by Brands&People on Unsplash
In these unhealthy relationships, I saw all my “buttons” that were being pushed, and that awareness was actually a gift. It was an invitation to more transformation and growth. Self-awareness led to consciously healing the issues, with more of a sense of freedom and personal empowerment as a result.
I want to say a special word to you if you were born with the trait of High Sensitivity. (If you’re not sure, go here to find out more and take the quiz.)
We who are Highly Sensitive seem prone to attracting dysfunctional people. I think there might be some kind of invisible energetic radar that certain people like narcissists and predators pick up on. They can somehow sense the kind-hearted, generous people who will give anyone the shirt off their back.
It was so very helpful for me to become aware of this dynamic. It has led to a lot of discomfort, since I’m not used to being as “hard-nosed” as I’ve had to be in dealing with these kinds of relationships. I’ve had to contend with guilt, judgment (from the other person who knows this is one of my buttons, as well as myself), and the cognitive dissonance of having to “turn off” some of my best traits (like compassion) when I recognized the other person’s attempts to exploit them.
I’ve had to initiate some uncomfortable conversations in which I confronted the person with truths they didn’t want to hear, and who would then berate me to others for it.
And I’ve had to remind myself a lot of the wonderful 12 words I think God gave me awhile ago to deal with my guilt over not rescuing people from their own folly: “You must allow others the dignity of living with their choices.”
I’m also grateful for such painful relationship experiences because I think they help me understand perhaps a bit of what God might feel toward us, his children.
God longs for a close relationship with us. Too often, our distorted thinking and attempts to make him be what we want him to be, rather than who he truly is, make a relationship impossible. Yes, God can do anything. But he won’t do this: he won’t violate our free will. He himself allows each of us “the dignity of living with our choices.”
Even if that choice is to live in eternity without him.
I guess God prizes freedom that much.
(Do we?)
If you too would like to transform some old negative patterns and Align with Your Divine DesignTM , check out my coaching at HealingCodesCoaching.com.
An Empowering Way to Read the News
Posted by: | CommentsDo you watch the news constantly—or not at all?
The continuous news cycle—especially these days—can give one a massive case of Emotional Inflammation, which the authors of that book called a sort of PTSD characterized by what one client called “a dark cloud of energy” around her.
I admit—I never used to watch or even keep up with the news at all. It just felt like too much; I’d always get a bad case of Emotional Inflammation.
Now I’ve found a better way.
First of all, I never watch the news; I only read the news. Images tend to stick in the mind and heart, and are much harder to filter than thoughts.
I skim a wide variety of sources. News sources are so polarized these days, you have to read widely to come to something close to the truth.
Because of my training in subtle energy testing, perhaps it’s easier for me to sense the lies. I can feel it in my body. That helps.
What I do to combat the Emotional Inflammation is to use the news as a springboard for prayer.
I pray this one simple prayer: “God, shine your life-giving light into this [name of situation], to expose evil, reveal truth, and point our feet to the path of peace.”

CC BY-ND by Wendy Longo photography
When I read the news, especially now, I’m always looking for evidence of that prayer being answered. I rejoice when I see answers. I keep praying this prayer into the dark situations I see.
This practice goes a long way to mitigate Emotional Inflammation and keep me in a state of hope, peace, and even joy when I see what seem like answers to this prayer.
But it’s not always enough, especially for a Highly Sensitive Person who picks up on energy easily. So I always include “emotional inflammation” in my own Healing Codes practice.
I invite you to do the same. There is a custom Healing Code for Emotional Inflammation on the Navigating the Times page, just for you. (I ask that you sign up so I can alert you to when I update the page with new resources.)
And if you need help healing the heart issues that come up from living in these unprecedented times, check out my coaching at HealingCodesCoaching.com.
On Being Noboby-but-Yourself
Posted by: | CommentsI’m retiring . . . but don’t worry, it’s not from this wonderful work of helping people heal their heart issues and transform their lives. No, I love that work too much.
I’m retiring from the “job” of being a people pleaser. (You natural rebels can stop reading here.)
I’m done with living by internalized or expressed expectations that are based more on socialization than my own divinely-guided values.
I’m retiring from the “job” “Pharaoh” foisted on me while I wasn’t looking.
Pharaoh was the Egyptian king who enslaved the ancient Hebrews. When God raised Moses up to set God’s people free to be who God created them to be—his special people—Pharaoh said, “No way!” Further, the more Moses pressed, the more tyrannical Pharaoh become. “Now make bricks without straw—and see to it you keep up the same quota!’
I’ve written before about “Pharaoh.” “Pharaoh” can be anything that seeks to squeeze you into its own mold, or discourage you from being who you really are.
One of my favorite quotes is from the poet e.e. cummings (whose unconventional punctuation of his name in itself illustrates the point):
“To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world
which is doing its best, night and day, to
make you everybody else — means to fight
the hardest battle which any human being
can fight; and never stop fighting.”
And oh, is that world “doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else”!
Seems to me, this is the whole thrust of social media. (Apologies to those of you who are SM fans.)
This is why I just can’t bring myself to be on social media much. Business “gurus” do their best to convince me I have to do Facebook Lives and be on Instagram, but somehow, by the end of the day, I find I just never get around to even looking at Facebook.
(I’d love to hear your thoughts on SM. And if you would like to see more of me on SM, let me know!)
Why is it so easy to be caught up in this trap of trying-to-be-everyone-else?
Because of the human need for validation.
We need to know we’re OK. We feel we need to have our experiences validated by other people having the same experience.
But, are they really having the same experience as us? Probably not. Each person has his or her own experience, and it’s unique, and ideally, needs no outside validation whatsoever. If you are truly “nobody-but-yourself,” you don’t need validation.
Yet we do crave validation, usually because we didn’t get it earlier in life. So we looked outside ourselves, and came to believe if we fit a certain mold (good wife, mother, community leader, volunteer, entrepreneur, etc.), then we’re OK.
However, we never quite feel we are OK, because we can’t get that Ok-ness from outward sources. We do need other people, yes. Ideally, other people are loving mirrors who reflect back who we truly are, and provide true validation.
(That, by the way, is one of the things a good coaching program does. It validates you AND moves you to be the “new you” that you are transforming into. I see my clients not as the “caterpillars” they may see themselves as, but as the beautiful “nobody-but-themselves” butterfly that is on the other side of their healing and transformation.)
But loving validation is not what many of us experienced. Many of us saw reflected back only distorted images of who we are, and/or received the message, “You are only OK if you do what I say, if you conform to what I want you to be.”
(Highly Sensitives, People of Color, and anyone who is “different” especially know what I’m talking about.)
So how do you become “nobody-but-yourself”? E.e. cummings says you need to learn how to feel.
Yes, learn how to feel.
Speaking to aspiring poets, cummings writes:
“A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words.
“This may sound easy. It isn’t.
“A lot of people think or believe or know they feel — but that’s thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling — not knowing or believing or thinking.
“Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.
“. . . And so my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world — unless you’re not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die.
“Does that sound dismal? It isn’t.
“It’s the most wonderful life on earth.
“Or so I feel.”*
You don’t have to be a poet to aspire to be “nobody-but-yourself.”
You just need to be honest. Authentic. Willing to feel.
And to “retire” from trying to be “everybody-else.”
YOU are enough.
And if you don’t believe this yet, or you are ready to “retire” from the role of being everybody-else, consider getting some coaching to heal the old patterns that block your being nobody-but-yourself. Experience the freedom of being aligned with your divine design, not anyone else’s pre-defined role.
What to Do When Your Day Gets Derailed
Posted by: | CommentsHave you ever had a day like this?
You start out with a plan, and high hopes of getting something important accomplished.
Then you get a notice of some kind. Let’s say it’s a low balance alert from your bank.
You go to fix that, and notice that there is a charge on your account that is way more than it always has been for like, the last 10 years. Like, more than 10x the amount. Of course, it’s an automatic charge.
You go to the vendor in question, to see if there’s any notification or explanation of when or why this suddenly exorbitant charge came about.
What you find: There’s no way to post a support ticket, no clue as to why suddenly this charge was made or was more than 10x as much.
You open what looks to be a support chat. The bot says they’ll be with you, and the window will remain open for you to keep checking back. (Like, I have all day to keep going back to check.)
You get an email saying, “For the fastest response possible, please do not update this ticket until you hear from one of our advocates.”
The next thing you hear from them is an email saying that you left the chat.
Case closed, apparently.
As you can guess, this happened to me. It reminded me of one of my favorite children’s books.
The incident I described was the first of about 5 things that attempted to derail me from the task I meant to get to first thing in the morning (which was this blog post).
I started to deal with the low balance alert at 10:30am. I finally got back to it at 4:30pm. And by the way, I disputed the charge on my debit card, and stopped automatic payments with that vendor. I don’t want to do business with a company like that.
Seems like modern life is full of such frustrations, doesn’t it? At least, if you have to deal with technology of any kind. (And who doesn’t, nowadays?) Especially, they tell me, when mercury is in retrograde as it is now–whatever that means.
So what do you do when you have a day full of interruptions, frustrations, and technological glitches?
What I did today: I kept re-returning.
I know that seems like a redundant term. But it reminds me that I can come back, again and again and again, to where I want to be.
I can shake off the frustration and refocus on my initial goal. (My Release & Infuse Technique really helps here.)
So that’s what I did. I released “anger, frustration, derailment, lashing out, and giving up. “
I infused “productivity, patience, peace, joy, and focus.”
And I got this written.
If you’d like this tool that allows you to clear negative energy is less than 3 minutes, and re-return to the state of mind you want, just go here. It’s free.
This technique is especially helpful if you’re a Highly Sensitive Person and/or empath who tends to take on other people’s energy.
A client told me yesterday she had one of her headaches come on, and she used the Release & Infuse Technique, and the headache went away right afterward!
Side note: The good that came from this day, which seemed wasted in so many ways, was that I got to write this piece. Perhaps for YOU. I am learning that when I roll with the changes (accept and adapt) and trust God to bring good out of the seemingly bad, I do see good.
The other day my friend told me her whole family was sick with stomach flu or perhaps food poisoning, yet it turned out to be a sweet, peaceful day of being together, despite the yuck.
God can bring good out of any “yuck.” If we re-return to trust and surrender, that is. The Release & Infuse Technique shows you how. My gift to you.
And if you would like personalized help for healing your heart issues, releasing old beliefs and infusing new ones to transform your life, check out my coaching packages at HealingCodesCoaching.com.
Are You Too Nice for Your Own Good?
Posted by: | CommentsI always thought it was a good thing to be a nice person, and strove to be a nice person myself.
Until I read this article by Jason Henry.
Henry says that people who are are “nice” (as opposed to “good”) are people who don’t want to hurt others because they were so hurt and traumatized in the past and didn’t heal, that they make a vow (perhaps unconscious) to never make others feel the way they felt.
Perhaps those who possess the trait of high sensitivity are even more susceptible to this. I’ve often thought that HSPs were the nicest people in the world. Because we feel so deeply and take in so much, including our own suffering and that of others, we often bend over backwards to make sure we don’t cause suffering to other people.
Sounds noble, right? Even, perhaps, “Christian.” Do not do unto others as they have done unto you.
However, Henry says that when you dissect this vow for its ramifications, there are several big problems. Read More→
What Would It Be Like to Never Feel Guilty?
Posted by: | CommentsHeather Dominick, mentor to Highly Sensitive Leaders, is teaching “Weekly Activation calls” on A Course in Miracles, and I’d like to share something that spoke to me from a recent call.
(While I’m not sure what I think of A Course in Miracles itself, I do like the way Heather gleans very practical principles from it and applies it to being Highly Sensitive. I also like the Course’s definition of miracle: “a shift in perception.”)
The Miracle she taught on that so struck me was #30, about guilt. She talked about how so often, guilt is used as a means to control. How many times has someone tried to guilt you into doing what they wanted?
So I asked her: How do you handle it when someone does this—they try to guilt you into something that isn’t right for you? (A situation I was currently experiencing.)
Heather asked me, “What do you usually do?”
I admitted that I usually want to be gracious, so often I give in. (In my case, the person was using all kinds of things, from “we’re family after all” to “A good Christian would….” The latter especially tended to hook me.)
Heather then helped me to see that being gracious does not mean giving in. I could trust that I can handle conflict from a place of grace, which doesn’t mean saying yes out of obligation. It means that I can fully accept that other people have feelings and viewpoints of their own, and they may not like mine, but I can come from a place of “both/and”– which is grace.
“Grace in not an act, but a way of acting,” she said. With grace, I can consider “you and me,” rather than “you or me.”
Coming from a place of “you or me,” someone has to lose, someone has to give in. I was thinking that giving in was somehow grace, but it would be an act. Approaching the situation with grace means I can approach the other person from a “both/and” place. I can access the words that communicate what I need, acknowledge what the other person needs, and be OK with the differing needs being at odds. If I’m in alignment with my own deepest values, I can stand firm, and trust that the other person will be able to take care of themselves.
And if they can’t—if they try to draw me into the Dreaded Drama Triangle of Persecutor-Victim-Rescuer, I can refuse to be pulled into that triangle. So often when people use guilt tactics, they try to pull you into one of more of these roles.
Simple Stress-Reducing Technique
Posted by: | CommentsIn a seminar for caregivers of people with dementia, I learned of a new (to me) technique that switches the nervous system to the parasympathetic (rest and digest) mode.
I’m thinking it would probably be especially helpful for those of us who are Highly Sensitive. (Take the quiz if you’re not sure you are.)
It’s called 5-4-3-2-1 and it only takes a couple of minutes.
When you feel yourself stressed or overwhelmed, stop, notice, and name (actually say the words out loud):
- 5 things you can see.
- 4 things you can feel.
- 3 things you can hear.
- 2 things you can smell.
- 1 thing you can taste.
This will ground you in the present and send your nervous system the signal that you are safe. It will turn off stress and allow healing to happen.
You can also do this with children, or your partner, or a friend who is in distress.
And if you’d like more help in ways to alleviate stress so that you can heal, check out the free resources and coaching at HealingCodesCoaching.com.