I am standing in the bathroom of a Fortune 500 company hyperventilating, my body buzzing like Iād just downed ten Redbulls, my brain threatening to shut down in preparation for a full blown panic attack. I have no idea how Iām going to get myself out of here in shape enough to teach a presentation skills class to 15 salespeople (all male as it happens) who may be a bit antagonistic toward me Iāve been forewarned, as they see their required attendance in my class as an affront. A big ego blow when speaking is your primary career currency!
The audience was not new to me. Iād successfully handled at least 80 such groups (the uber unreceptive variety) over the previous ten years, and yet, before every such class I felt like my insides were being electrocuted. So what did I do? What I always did: Told myself that every time I walked into that room to teach in spite of my panic, I was winning a huge battle. I was proving wrong, every person who ever doubted me, not t...
By way of recap, here are a few of my own take-aways from The Weight of Mortal Skin post:
If any of that resonated for you, or you were already aware of your HSP status and are looking for ways of making the day to day of high sensitivity a little more manageable, these are a few things Iāve come up with for myself as a starting point of sorts: Simplify, Soften, Slow Down.
First, simplify what I take in. Create ...
Iāve never been easygoing. Not uptight exactly. Not high strung. Just not a dance through the tulips without a care kind of gal.
Now this is not to say that Iām a stick in the mud. No, I am a big fan of fun, laughter, and all manner of silliness when the opportunity arises (as my 4 year old will attest). But between romps through happy land, it's been suggested (alternately as a compliment and criticism), that I err on the side of āintenseā. This is not by choice mind you. Intensity has not served me especially well over the years, and given a chance for a do-over, Iād certainly opt to come back as Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde over say, Cate Blanchett in just about anything (riveting as her intensity always isāand I am a huge fan).
Life has just always felt intense to me. The good, the rotten, even the seemingly innocuous, manages to power right through to my core with something akin to laser like precision. According to my mother, this is how I...
I lived the better part of my late teen and adult years in NYC, specifically the East Village (Alphabet City at the time), back before it became the polished, cultural showcase that it is today. This was the East Village of junkies passed out in doorways, skinheads bragging about their gay bashing jaunts in the West Village, roaches turning up in your $2.50 diner omelet, an entire park (then called Tent City) that served as the āhomeā for hundreds of homeless people, many of whom had been precipitously released from mental institutions. This New York looked like what the inside of my head felt like, a matching mess that I found that oddly reassuring.
However (and this is a big however), it was a mess that I desperately wanted to fix. I was pained by all the pain around me, and felt forever compelled to address it in some way. This compulsion manifested in activism of varying sorts: volunteering for myriad social and environmental organizations, all...
Having travelled many a mileĀ on the twisty, turny (often torturous), path of self-discoveryātripping, stumbling, lurching headlong down many a rocky road and into any number of snake pits in an attempt to make some sense of my existence, Iāvedeveloped something of a nose for what actually works (to lighten, perhaps even elucidate our proverbial load)āand what doesnāt.
As any well-worn seeker, Iāve spent my share of time, energy, and resources (both the internal and hard-cash varieties), in search of the āone thingā that would fix all the brokenness, and neaten all the messiness of my life. As you may have guessed, I didnāt find it. As it turns out (surprise, surprise!) there is no one single answer to lifeās many complex questions, nor is there a healer, guru, religious dogma or spiritual leader (however inspired and inspiring) that can offer a viable antidote to the trials and tribulations of the human experience. It is fortunate then, that we are possessed (I believ...
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