Archive for Highly Sensitive
What Happens When You Hit Your Sixties
Posted by: | CommentsI wish someone had warned me about this. It would have made life easier for me when it happened.
That’s why I’m warning you now. I really didn’t want to write this post. (What woman wants to reveal her age?) Yet I felt compelled to, because it’s really important.
Something happens when you hit your sixties.
If you’re in your sixties (or beyond), you will probably nod your head and feel validated. I’ve talked to many of my friends and clients in this age group and they all say, “Yes! That’s how it is.”
If you’re younger, you will have been warned, as I wish someone had warned me. I’m hoping you’ll take to heart what I’m about to say, because it will make your sixties much easier when you do get there. The rumblings do start earlier–late forties and fifties.
So what it is that happens when you hit your sixties?
Simply this: All your prior coping mechanisms quit working.
Whatever you were doing that made life work for you suddenly–doesn’t.work.anymore.
For instance, if you depended on multitasking to get things done–you find you can’t multitask anymore.
If you dealt with emotions by pushing them down and moving on–that won’t work anymore either.
If you skimped on sleep and got by–you can’t do that anymore. Your body will start malfunctioning one way or another (sleep affects so much).
If you got along fine without God or religion, OR if you were comfortable in your spiritual practices and religious beliefs–suddenly you may find yourself either adrift, or questioning the very beliefs that heretofore held your life together.
If you feel like your body starts to fall apart in your sixties, I offer this thought: maybe that’s just an outward manifestation of what’s happening inwardly . . . the coping mechanisms fall apart, then the body follows suit.
What is actually happening, I believe, is that in one’s sixties, ANY unprocessed “heart issues” surface, in any number of forms, including physical ailments.
Not only that, but even the heart issues you thought you healed, if not healed entirely, will resurface and demand to be healed at a deeper level.
This may especially apply to Highly Sensitive People, who possess the traits of depth of processing (the pain and trauma go deep), and also emotional reactivity (the original emotions were strong). Unless a heart issue is healed completely, I can almost guarantee it will pop up again in your sixties.
And then, you will have to find a new way to deal with it, if you’ve just been coping rather than truly healing it.
I think it’s actually the spirit/body’s wisdom that makes all this happen. Your spirit and body want you to be healthy, to heal. The body knows that unless all the heart issues are thoroughly processed, that negative energy will compromise the body.
And Body does not want that at all. Body will send you messages. Body will prevent Soul’s former coping mechanisms from continuing to work.
Also, this is your spirit calling you to a much deeper level of being. It is your True Self calling. She/he may have been trying to get through all these years prior, but you were too busy to listen.
Too busy learning how life works and, perhaps, figuring out how to survive in a dysfunctional situation (growing up years).
Too busy figuring out who you were, what you were going to be when you grew up (adolescence).
Too busy building a career, raising a family (adult years until middle age).
Too busy ignoring the rumblings of your spirit and the messages from your body–and the disappointment of dashed dreams (we all have them by middle age).
Now, you’re in your sixties, and your body is screaming, your spirit is screaming: IT’S TIME!
This time you have to listen.
It’s literally a life or death matter. If you don’t listen NOW, two things will happen.
Your spirit will quietly sigh, and slowly withdraw. (Is this what aging really is?)
When the spirit withdraws, your body will give up. It is the spirit that gives life.
If you’re in your sixties, likely you know what I’m talking about. If you’re not yet there, look within. Can you honestly say you haven’t heard the rumblings of spirit and/or body, trying to send you messages?
Listen to what Body is saying; it will send clues. Example: for months I’ve had an itch in the middle of my back. The dermatologist said it was not a skin issue, but a neurological issue. A kinesiologist said my body didn’t agree with the doctor.
A business coach said that a sign you’re being called to something bigger is when you get the ITCH–when part of you just knows it’s time to go deeper.
My spirit lit up with the AHA when I heard that. My body sighed in relief. “She finally got the message.” That ITCH was about my calling to a new plane of spiritual healing and direction. When I recognized that–the itch went away!
What messages are your body and spirit attempting to give to you? Pay attention. Turn up the volume and really listen.
You are being called to finally shed the blocks to your true destiny. May you heed the call. Preferably NOW. Whatever your age, it will shorten the time spent avoiding, and lengthen the time living out, your destiny.
And if you would like help identifying what your spirit/body is trying to tell you, coaching will really help! HealingCodesCoaching.com
Train Your Brain Away from Pain
Posted by: | CommentsPosture and movement specialist Sukie Baxter was interviewed by Julie Bjelland for Julie’s Sensitive Empowerment group, and I thought what Sukie said about pain was fascinating.
Sukie said if you are not in touch with your body and attuned to its signals, your nervous system can develop a sort of tunnel vision that begins to only recognize pain signals. That then pulls you into a negative loop, where the pain activates the Sympathetic Nervous System (fight/flight/freeze) response), which then makes the pain more pronounced, so that you focus even more on the pain–and so the negative loop goes.
What is the way out? Read More→
3 Lessons from Clients from All Over the World
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Tonight I met with my first client from China to do a Coach-Guided Healing Code.
It got me to thinking about the hundreds of clients I’ve worked with over the past 9 years of being a certified Healing Codes Coach-Practitioner, and what I’ve learned and observed.
First, I have the most wonderful clients in the world. Surprisingly, the vast majority of my clients are also Highly Sensitive. It’s surprising only because Highly Sensitive People only make up around 20% of the population, yet they comprise at least 80% of my clients. Perhaps it’s because The Healing Codes are so attractive to HSPs. It is a gentle process that involves meditation–an approach well-suited to HSPs.
With only one exception (more on that below), all of my clients are remarkably motivated to heal. Many of them have had overwhelming obstacles to overcome–abuse of all kinds, tremendous health challenges, financial hardships, and difficult relationship issues.
Yet they are not giving up! They are not victims. And, because of their commitment to their own healing, they do overcome. Many have dramatic breakthroughs.
These clients bolster my faith in the human spirit. Most people do want to be healthy and happy. God put that desire into us, and I believe he works with us to bring that about. With that commitment and help from God, it’s amazing how much people can overcome.
The one exception? A client with ALS whose doctor brought him to me as a last resort. The doctor warned me that she had little hope of his recovering, and soon I learned why. The man was completely devoid of love for anyone, including himself. I think we got through two sessions. I doubt he ever did his custom codes. He died of his illness within a few weeks of when I talked to him. His doctor said she wasn’t surprised, but had hoped that something could break through to him. Without his commitment to himself, however, no help could get through. Read More→
Your Personal Trainer for the Brain
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I recently attended Julie Bjelland’s class, “7 Steps to Embody the Gifts of Your Sensitivity” and I have to say, it has caused some major positive shifts in me.
Rarely has anything had this kind of effect on me so quickly. Putting into practice just a couple of Julie’s suggestions has also helped my husband (who is also Highly Sensitive). So I just have to tell you about this.
Julie calls herself a “personal trainer for the brain,” and it’s refreshing to see her science-based approach. In the first class, Julie explained how the HSP’s brain is different (more activity in amygdala and insula, which is why we process things so deeply, feel and perceive everything), and how to activate the calming centers in the brain.
She gave us very specific but easy things to do to “drain the container” of all we take in–which is much more than non-HSPs. She explained why we need to process our experiences, how to do that–and what will happen if we don’t. Read More→
Pivotal Memories
Posted by: | CommentsPeople often ask me what kinds of memories to start with to get the fastest, deepest healing.
I always look for the “fractal memories”–those memories in which the core beliefs/feelings will repeat themselves and branch out to affect your life in all kinds of ways afterward. Heal these, and the ripple effects of healing begin effortlessly to penetrate into all the areas of life affected by that memory.
In another post I talked about foundational memories. They are one kind of important fractal memory.
Another kind of fractal memory is what I call a pivotal memory. This would be a memory, usually conscious, that changed the course of your life. Something happened and you came to believe something about yourself that forever after influenced your life. Such memories can form your identity–for better or worse.
On the “better side,” pivotal memories can be quite positive. One important pivotal memory that shaped my entire future happened in college, when I fell in love with publishing. I was always a bibliophile and a writer, and the field fascinated me, so I decided I would major in English, but not teach. I would make a career in publishing.
Everyone told me, “It’s practically impossible to break into publishing.” Especially since I didn’t know anyone, even by the time I was a senior in college. Also, this was at a time when people with PhDs in English were driving taxi cabs. Read More→
Find and Heal “The Keywords to Your Heart”
Posted by: | CommentsIn my coaching, as I listen to clients tell me what’s bothering them most (the starting point for finding heart issues), I want to find the deepest issue their heart is ready to heal at this point in their healing journey.
I’m listening for what I think of as “the keywords to the heart.” These are words that have the most energy, that seem to encapsulate the essence of the heart issue.
When you put these “keywords” into your prayer of intention, your heart, like a search engine, will come up with the memories that need to be healed.
Your “keywords to your heart” could be one or more feelings. Or a phrase (see below for an example).
It could include one or more beliefs. Or a relationship. Or a harmful action–something they’re doing to numb the pain.
Or–all 4! In fact, I call these four areas the 4-part program: feelings, beliefs, relational context, and harmful actions. Most issues have at least three of these elements (not all issues have the Harmful Actions component).
If you want to speed your healing: Read More→
THE Key to Healing Code Results
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If there is ONE THING I can point to that will make the most difference in healing, it’s this: consistency.
I often say, doing Healing Codes or practicing healing prayer (the two approaches I’ve found to be most effective for healing) is more like taking vitamins than taking an antibiotic.
An antibiotic is specific to addressing one kind of ailment–infection–and it can knock the infection out in usually 14 days. Then you don’t have to take it anymore.
Vitamins you need every day, because every day your body uses them up.
You need to address heart issues daily because of . . .
The Stockpile Effect
Heart issues don’t just add up, one on top of another. When you’ve experienced a trauma, your body, soul and spirit record it. (Note: a trauma could be anything from the famous “Popsicle memories” mentioned in The Healing Code, to childhood emotional neglect and the absence of nurturing, to outright abuse.)
That’s not the end of it, though. Whenever something happens to you that’s like the original trauma, the negativity of the memory is intensified and compounded.
Thus you go through life, stockpiling, magnifying and compounding the pain of the original memory–often unconsciously.
When you interrupt that process with The Healing Codes or healing prayer, that’s a good start. But if you spent the better part of your life building on these negative memories, it’s going to take consistent, persistent effort to heal it all the way down.
You will be peeling an onion, layer after layer.
Surprising Results
The beautiful thing about the process, though, is results don’t come only when you have peeled all the layers of that onion. No, results often come quickly, often in surprising and unexpected ways. Read More→
How to Heal and Process an Emotion
Posted by: | CommentsHave you ever wondered what emotions are good for, anyway?
And what happens when you refuse to deal with an emotion?
Let’s say you feel sad about something, now. Growing up, if you showed sadness or cried, it made your parents feel uncomfortable. Feeling sad made you bad for making them feel uncomfortable. (You can substitute any other feeling you “weren’t allowed” to feel.)
If you were male and you cried, you may have been told, one way or another, to toughen up.
If you grew up this way, what are you likely to do with that present sad feeling?
If you let yourself feel it, you might find guilt being added to it (because when you felt sad in childhood and other people didn’t like it, you came to believe your feeling sad made someone else feel bad). Or shame (“I’m bad for feeling sad and causing a problem for someone else”). Read More→
How “Selfishness” is Helping Me Heal
Posted by: | CommentsWhen I was a child, I somehow got the idea from my family that I couldn’t have what I wanted.
When I asked for gymnastic lessons, my mother couldn’t be bothered with taking me back and forth to lessons.
When I asked if I could learn to play the piano, she said crossly, “Where would we fit a piano in this house?”
I’ve written about how I was triggered on Fourth of July by memories of never getting a helium balloon at the parade, and how that and other things led to my forming the beliefs, “I can’t have what I desire. Other people will think I’m selfish and reject me if I do or ask for what feels right for me.”
Which eventually led to a feeling of guilt and shame for even desiring anything pleasurable. Which eventually shut me down.
Hearing teachings by various spiritual leaders only reinforced the idea: It’s selfish to seek what I desire, wrong to seek pleasure and avoid pain. One renowned religious radio teacher even said repeatedly, “If you have a choice between the easy way and the hard way, always choose the hard way” (because it will build character).
Being part of the 15-20% of the population whose nervous system is programmed differently only made things worse. Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) are literally wired to feel both pleasure and pain even more acutely than others. To deny us the pleasure and say we shouldn’t avoid the pain cuts us off from the essence of who we are. Also, to shame us when what we desire or need is different is also very damaging. (I was called “Little Miss Fuss-Budget” by my father because things bothered me that didn’t bother other people, like scratchy clothing. I was supposed to endure things that bothered me because I “wasn’t supposed to” be bothered by them.)
Was it any wonder that I had trouble feeling joy, or indeed, anything?
And was it any wonder that I developed poor boundaries, allowing other people to take advantage of me because I was ignoring the emotions that warned me to avoid pain? (Uneasiness, anxiousness, outrage, disgust.)
Well, I’m healing from all that. Here’s what I’m doing.
Steps to Healing
The first step is to recognize the lies.
As human beings, we were created to seek fulfillment, to go after pleasure and avoid pain.
We seek the pleasure of eating, so we are nourished. We seek the pleasure of relationship, so we seek community, we bond and procreate.
Of course we can seek pleasure in ways that are ultimately destructive. When we seek only our own desires, at the expense of others, we harm them and ourselves. We can try to avoid pain through destructive means, too. But that doesn’t negate the validity of seeking to fulfill our desires and avoid pain in legitimate ways.
In fact, I believe God puts desires into our hearts so that he can feel the pleasure of fulfilling them.
Think about how how you try to find the perfect gift that will really make the recipient feel loved, special, known. Isn’t that what God does for us? I believe he finds joy when we receive his gifts with pleasure and joy. (I wrote a whole book, Abundant Gifts, about the transforming power of looking for and receiving God’s gifts.)
And doesn’t God try to warn us to avoid things that will cause us pain? The Word of God is filled with cautions not to do certain things because he knows they would be bad for us.
The second step was to renounce the lies, and embrace the truth. I did Healing Codes to heal the memories that led to my believing the lies. I infused the truth that it’s OK and good to let my legitimate desires and needs be more of a priority, and to take better care of myself.
The third step was to incorporate the new beliefs into my everyday life. I made a list of things that give me pleasure, and I incorporate those into my life whenever possible. I focus on savoring the simple things.
Not surprisingly, I’m finding my stress load lessening dramatically. My joy is increasing.
Also, I took a good look at what was causing me pain. A couple of key relationships that now felt toxic to me came to mind. Painful as it was, I cut off those relationships.
Again, my stress load lessened by quite a bit. I did Healing Codes to help heal the grief of letting go of the relationships.
I believe that a big part of healing and mastering the stress in our lives has to do with seeking pleasure and avoiding pain in life-giving ways.
The key is recognizing temporary vs. more lasting pleasure and pain, and to find life-giving ways to do both.
Life-giving is key. It often means we may give up a temporary pleasure for a more lasting satisfaction. We’re still seeking pleasure, but it’s a more permanent pleasure. And sometimes that includes embracing a little pain, but again, you’re exchanging temporary pain for lasting pleasure.
An example might be teaching your child to clean his room. He may act ornery, and as if he hates you even, but you are willing to put up with that because you set your gaze on the more lasting pleasure of having a child who knows how to take care of things. (And in the long run, it means less work for you.)
If you can relate to what I’ve been saying, I encourage you to list what gives you pleasure, what is causing pain. Look at the beliefs you might have that are blocking you from embracing pleasure and/or avoiding pain in legitimate ways. See if you can identify memories attached to those lies. Use The Healing Codes or healing prayer to heal those memories.
Then, add as much pleasure, avoid as much pain as you can. Life has enough suffering that we can’t avoid. Let’s not let guilt or shame or a false sense of what it means to be a “good person” keep us from embracing the abundant life God has for us (John 10:10).
And if you need any help with identifying and healing those lies and memories, I’m always available for custom coaching with The Healing Codes at HealingCodesCoaching.com.
Why Can’t I Find Memories to Heal?
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With The Healing Codes, we look for memories that carry the same kind of feeling as the main issue that bothers us. The idea is that what bothers you now is likely attached to something called “implicit” memory (memories hidden in the subconscious mind), and if we find and heal that original memory, the current issue will resolve.
But what if, like many people, you can’t find any memories with that feeling?
Maybe you’ve had that feeling most of your life. Maybe you have very few childhood memories, period.
All the more reason to use something like The Healing Codes, because the original memories are likely so painful, that your Heart wants to protect you from the pain of remembering.
(This why, by the way, a lot of times “talk therapy” alone isn’t very effective. I had a therapist tell me, point blank, “therapy doesn’t heal anything.” We need a way to get at these implicit memories that carry the original lie.)
If you can’t remember much from your childhood, it may well be for yet a different reason. It could be because you grew up with Childhood Emotional Neglect.
Running on Empty
In her excellent book, Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect, Dr. Jonice Webb says that it’s not necessarily what happened to you that can cause problems. What failed to happen for you as a child “has as much or more power over who you have become as an adult than any of the events that you do remember.”
Some call it Type A trauma–the Absence of nurturing. And it can be just as damaging as Type B trauma, where the bad stuff like abuse happened.
Memories are formed when you feel strong emotions around an event. If your feelings were ignored, if no one ever helped you process your emotions, it can have an insidious effect on your life as an adult.
That’s because our brains record events as memories. Things that fail to happen go unnoticed, unseen, and unremembered.
If you have the trait that 20% of the population has, High Sensitivity, where your nervous system is wired to process things deeply (including emotions), susceptible to over-stimulation (sensory or emotional), emotionally reactive, and sensitive to subtle stimuli–Childhood Emotional Neglect does even more harm.
When you’re Highly Sensitive, emotions are your native language. That’s a big part of the trait–emotional reactivity. If your language is not spoken or understood in your family, to them you were constantly speaking gibberish. You may have been shamed or ridiculed. You may have tried to shut down, to turn off those feelings.
Thus you may have few memories, a feeling of emptiness and more likely than not, problems with your health, relationships, and/or career.
Emotion is energy, and that energy has to go somewhere. If it’s appropriately processed, it goes to a memory that becomes part of your life.
If it’s not properly processed, it becomes hidden trauma, and it goes into the body and mind and causes illness and disease. More and more scientific evidence points to emotional issues as the source of many if not most physical problems.
Then of course, there are the mental, emotional, and relational problems that show up because of hidden, unhealed memories. In How We Love, Milan and Kay Yerkovich identify five “injured Love Styles” that can show up in families where there has been emotional neglect or other circumstances that interfere with a strong, secure emotional bond with caregivers early in life.
What’s the solution? How to you begin to heal what Jonice Webb calls “the invisible force that may be at work in your life”?
Reconnect with Your Emotions
First, you may need to relearn the language of feelings. Just allow yourself to name the feelings, to yourself and others. For some, this may not be easy. You may feel shame for having certain feelings, or having feelings at all.
Ask yourself when you felt that way earlier in your life. If a memory comes up, heal it with The Healing Codes and/or healing prayer.
If no memory comes up, don’t sweat it. Just say in your Healing Code Prayer of Intention, “… from the childhood emotional neglect.” Assume that’s the source.
If you have any fear around the idea of welcoming emotions into your life, start with healing that fear. We always start where we are. Ask, “What’s bothering me? What exactly am I feeling? When did I feel like that before”? If the answer to that last question is, “All my life!” then that’s what you put into the prayer: “from a lifetime of emotional neglect.”
These questions will help you move forward in your healing journey.
And if you ever need more help, e.g. with finding hidden memories, just contact me at www.healingcodescoaching.com for some coaching.
