Living

I waited for that moment, the one where certain happiness arrives and you are home.  I waited and waited. And when it finally came, I was disappointed. Once again, my vivid imagination had set the bar too high and disappointment and defeat became as evident as the sun rising in the East on a clear day.

Holding out hope, I clung to the last bit of truth I knew; That the journey wasn’t over.  What was it that I was living for? With my latest disappointment strapped to my shoulder, I swung the bag over so it was secure and started down what I thought at the time was a different road. Securing my sack of sacred wounds.

But lessons unlearned don’t disappear.  And like the days morphing into nights and the nights brightening into days, this one popped up again. To my deluded surprise. My complete misunderstanding and unawareness of the present moment brought on the same set of problems I’d faced, disguised as new ones.

With bold and brave intentions, I hiked to the dead center of it.  Finding myself amidst the harsh reality of tests only some power of the universe creates. 

Or had I created it? It was definitely a possibility. But not at the time.

At the time I thought I’d run past my luck, that I’d been handed low cards. But my life wasn’t about luck or chance. 

Fighting, fighting myself and the will to go on. Fighting the doubts that kept creeping into my immature mind. I’d do better next time, I told myself.  But I wasn’t at next time. And next time wasn’t here.

I cursed the universe for giving me the wrong cards.

But the universe, god, weren’t to blame.

It was I. I held all of the power in one small hand.  I had chosen this for myself.  I had chosen to live.  Had I known what living would mean for me at that exact moment in time I would have given it second thoughts.

To be continued…

Cosmic Collective

The one thing that is more than frustrating for me as an HSP, is that I believe every single person started out as an HSP. I believe that every single human being has the capacity to use the positive human qualities that HSPs do.

I believe that most humans have spent their time unlearning vulnerability and sensitivity. As a collective, humans have spent time building walls, suppressing emotions, and choosing to be inconsiderate of others and self instead of being loving and kind.

I don't think I'm actually all that different from the rest of the population. What's different about me is that I choose not to build walls. I choose kindness and empathy over the things that might make me "popular" or "successful".

But I believe every single person is capable and has these inherent qualities inside them. It's just a matter of tapping into them and correcting bad habits.

It is possible some people are fine with building walls to protect themselves and not being true to their real selves.  That's okay.  I'm not here to judge, this is just my perspective, one of many, I'm sure.

Overwhelm Explained

To kind of give you a better idea about my high sensitivity I thought of another example that illustrates what I deal with day to day.

This is an example that has nothing to do with emotions since usually my intense emotions are part of my high sensitivity. I wanted to give you an idea of how my high sensitivity is not simply emotional.

Yesterday my high sensitivity put me in an overwhelmed exhausted state.  My boys and I went to the park with my girlfriend and her two kids, her new puppy, and another dog.  This overwhelmed my nervous system to the point of exhaustion because my motherly instincts kicked in and I was trying to keep an eye on all six of the kids/dogs and make sure everyone was safe and where they needed to be.

I started to get the feeling that my head was spinning, my senses were in overdrive, and I could feel my entire body exhausting from this.

We were only at the park for about an hour but by the time we left, I walked home in a daze and then had to go lay down for a while.

The reason I believe that this overwhelmed me is because it was too much stimulation from trying to keep an eye on six quick-moving beings at once who were all going in different directions.  It was a lot of outside stimulation at one time.

Kindness In The Classroom

An email was sent out from my boys' school yesterday that the father of three children attending the school had passed away.  I have a first grader and a kindergartner at the school so I thought the chances of one of the children being in one of my boys' classes were pretty good.

I took my boys to school today and found out that one of the boys who lost his father was in my kindergartner's class.  

I go in once a week to help out in the classroom with my kindergartner's class.  This little boy had been a trouble maker.  He had anger issues that went as far as actually throwing desks.  

I spent a lot of time with this particular child as my son's teacher needed me to since he was a class disrupt-or.  At first, I was appalled by his behavior.  I was a little frightened by a five-year-old who would, at not getting his way, throw things around the classroom, overturn desks, and punch the other children.

But when I got to spend time with him, I turned to what I always do with difficult people and I showed him some kindness.  It wasn't much.  I would praise him on his work saying things like, "Awesome job!" and "Nice work!" and I'd say things like, "Give me five!".

He was a smart kid but sometimes refused to do his work and I'd encourage him by saying, "Show me how well you know this.  Show me how awesome you are!"

I'm not saying it was me who made the difference but after a few weeks, I did notice an improvement.  When I would come in, he'd be excited to show me the great work he had done. When he was running in the classroom, I would barely have to whisper him to stop and he would look at me with a sheepish grin and stop.

Now, this child has been pulled from my son's school after losing his father yesterday.  It makes me realize how important it is for me to give others a chance with kindness.  I could have easily written this boy off and had the attitude that I didn't dare be near someone with such problems.

But instead, I chose to see him as more than his issues, as more than his pain and now he's made an impact on my life.  

I don't know the details, but I do know his father had been really sick and he suddenly made a turn for the worst.  Maybe his dad's illness had something to do with his behavior.  I don't know. 

But I do know that I'm glad I took the risk and I will be thinking about him and his family through this rough time and I will miss dearly the little boy I knew as the trouble maker.

~ s.h.

Thoughts vs. Feelings

Thoughts are different than feelings.

Thoughts are what we believe, our judgments of ourselves and others, and our perceptions of our lives and how we view the world.

We can control our thoughts. We have the power to choose our thinking habits.  We can become aware of our thoughts and change them so that we like them better.

Feelings are how we respond to our thoughts, to the world, to others.  Feelings can't be controlled.  Feelings come from our responses to to everything.

Though we can't control feelings, we can be assured that they will pass and won't last forever if we allow ourselves to express them. We can become aware of our feelings and what makes us feel certain ways.  But feelings aren't controlled or changeable.

Saving Grace

Saving Grace

I travelled through in kaleidoscope motion

With the intense meaning to see,

I lost myself in the colorful potion

Never allowing my soul to be free;

I caused the despair that tore at my heart

And promised to destroy all of me

And the pain, I kept close, with never to part,

The same pain I wished never to be;

But then I met you and you saved me

You reminded me of my self-worth

And I opened my eyes to the story

Of the truth of my life since my birth;

As Lights, I believe it’s our purpose

To remind other Lights Who We Are,

That the pain only stays on the surface

Because every Light is bright shining star.

© Summer H

What Does It Really Mean To Be HSP?

You know that feeling when someone says something to you and it feels like someone just took a cheap shot sucker punch right in the gut?

Now think about if you felt this with the intensity of those emotions magnified to a degree that overwhelmed your nervous system and caused over-stimulation and/or anxiety throughout your body.

Do you think you could handle that?

If you can imagine these things, you've been given a glimmer of what it is like to be me.

I've been doing  a lot of soul searching because I have had a few recent experiences where the intensity of my emotions have caused me much stress.

Your un-thought-out, inconsiderate words cost me this over-stimulation and stress every single time.  Maybe you think this is my fault as the most common thing I hear on a daily basis is, "You shouldn't be so sensitive."  You have an excellent point except there is one thing lacking in your logic: My sensitivity is not exactly what you think it is.

My sensitivity is inherent, genetic, biological, I was born with it.  My sensitivity is also not simply emotional. My sensitivity is the way my entire nervous system reacts to outside stimuli.  This means that everything that you feel or do or react to, I do too except if you were me, your feelings and reactions would be magnified.

I am sensitive to loud noises, to caffeine, to temperatures, as well as many other stimuli. (Once again imagine your body's reactions to these stimuli magnified to much higher degree).

My sensitivity causes me more stress and over-stimulation than I need as an HSP because of society's beliefs on what it means to be sensitive. I find myself explaining and defending myself to ignorant, closed-minded people because they refuse to believe that I'm not like them.

The fact is, I'm not like most people.  Elaine Aron, author of The Highly Sensitive Person, says that only 30% of the entire population is highly sensitive. So no. I am not ever going to be like the rest of the world or how the world says I should be.

I struggled with this for most of my life.  I tried to hide my sensitivity, to suppress it, to avoid people...But the fact is, we can't run from who we are.  So now, you may judge me harshly for not fitting into your expectation of how I should be but I am done playing that little game.

I am highly sensitive and everything that comes with being a highly sensitive person. I am open to you learning about me. I am open to your questions. But please keep in mind that your words and behaviors that you may view as perfectly innocent, can cause a lot of pain and a lot of damage in a person like me.

Please be mindful of that. And I will try to be mindful that you may not always understand me and I will try to be empathetic and patient with you.

~ S