Hello everyone.  So many people are still continuing to visit and follow this blog even though I stopped writing on it a while back!  This community is indeed a special one!  I realize the common bond we all have of sharing the journey of awakening to becoming our true selves by acknowledging the depths of our childhood wounds. We HSPs innately have the inner strength and determination to voice and transmute our painful truths, grow in self-compassion, and ultimately learn to comfort ourselves in order to become whole and ultimately Shine Strong!! ✨ 😍 ✨   I’ve decided to reconnect with you all again and share some more personal posts knowing this is a place where I can share my most authentic self!  What’s more important than that?!!  haha Nothing, right?!!  💃 💝

To refresh your memory, “Hope and Healing with Elaine” was changed to “Hope and Healing Haven” as I revealed my real name was Roxanne Elaine Smith. It was wonderfully empowering to step into being myself and no longer use a pen name.  Many changes have happened to me since I’ve been away.  Mostly I have stepped fully into my realizing I am a singer/songwriter at heart and that I was born to do it!!  I’ve been evolving as a performer and it is my top career priority.  I am also still a life coach (on hiatus) and feel comfortable now calling myself a Spiritual Counselor as I have been drawn more and more to understanding “the big picture” of why I am here “as a soul”.   I have an unquenchable desire to connect with my higher self at all times now and also learn to balance and understand the challenge of being a highly sensitive person on the planet.  Let me know if you can relate to my journey and I will continue to share on this blog all that I am discovering.

To get right to it, here is a post that I shared on the newer blog Higher Ground Haven (which has less personal stories) that I felt really belonged here on this blog:

Are you a highly creative, sensitive soul struggling with feelings of inadequacy?  Take heart because it is not easy to take the road less traveled when you are trying to fit in with what appears to be going on in the world.  Take a step back and go inward.  This is the direction to go to find inner peace and satisfaction in your life.

You have gifts beyond measure that are invisible to most people you encounter on a daily basis out in the world.  Loneliness is a sign that you are separated from your true self.  The more you reach outward to the masses to fill this loneliness, the lonelier you may feel.  A rich, inner life exists inside of you when you connect with your true self, your passions, desires, and gifts with compassion for all you’ve been through to get to here. Be kind to yourself about your separation from knowing and loving yourself.  Often it is as small children that this separation began so it takes Inner Child Healing to find ourselves again.

Journaling out (for your eyes only) the painful truths of events from childhood can help us tell our story to ourselves.  By accessing the right side of our brain through writing we also access the compassionate part of our brain that comforts and soothes and say “wow, no wonder you feel sad…” or mad, hopeless, fearful, or whatever feeling is dormant, blocked, and keeping us from feeling whole and vital and joyful.

Inner Child Grief Work can take a long time, years in fact, as you work through the layers of emotion that come up to the surface to be validated, comforted, and ultimately released by YOU!  Yes, you can be your own compassionate therapist, your own enlightened witness if you embrace this process and trust that your heart will guide you to the next layer to be released.

This is “the road less traveled” but it does not have to be a lonely road.  Yes, it is a solitary road though and it will lead you to much joy and inner peace when you work through the layers of untruths you believed down to your core as a child.  As you shine light and love on your wounded inner child, she/he will begin trusting herself and this new process of healing– the child inside will feel lighter and lighter as the negative beliefs reveal themselves as just illusions meant to protect you at that time and then these beliefs will gradually fall away.

What remains is a strong desire not to suffer any longer and an ability to rise above negativity when you get triggered by something coming from someone else.  You will finally know “you” and you will stop beating yourself up mentally.  You will recognize when you start to spiral negatively and you will learn to stop yourself and be kind.  Positive affirmations like “I love and approve of myself”, and “I am safe” are essential in this core rebuilding process.

As you go forth in this healing process, emotional pain that arises will be looked on as a healing opportunity to get to the more joyful truth underneath. Because you know that the essence of you is a compassionate, loving, kind-hearted soul who is here on the planet to help and never harm others and that is so special and rare.  You then will love being alone to recharge your soul so you can lift others up to see the beauty that exists that others do not notice.  Your gift to the planet is your sensitivity and what a blessing it is to be different than other people and have this wisdom to heal deeply, recharge, and spread love and light to others.  It takes time to heal and rest from the trauma of being misunderstood and separated from our true gifted nature as children.  Be kind to yourself about it and let the healing take as long as it takes.

For myself, after years of inner grief work journaling and finding my voice starting in 2003, by 2011 I had healed most of the inner wounds and finally felt a wonderful feeling of “wholeness”.  This was a feeling I couldn’t foresee or imagine during the process.  Once you master this process of finding your inner strength through writing, you will use it often to get clarity of the lesson of each new experience the universe offers up to you. I got away from blogging here in the last couple of years as I pursued my music but I’ve continued with the journaling whenever needed. I’ll be sharing my continued journey more now on this blog as HSPs have continued to reach out to me and I am at a new place incorporating the music as a healing source for others as well.

I have discovered that social media outlets like facebook can be an addictive and unhealthy distraction much like too much television dulls our motivation and steals our joy–especially if you look to it as a companion of sorts or as a source of validation for your personal daily life.  I have found it to be best utilized as a platform to shine and help others and to share creative works to inspire.  A personal facebook page is supportive when you lose a pet or family member or need support when you are occasionally ill or have some bad luck …but for deeper daily struggles it can drag you down further–it’s best to unplug from it and go inward and not compare ourselves to what others are doing and saying or expect the masses to understand our complex lives.

We HSPs have all the answers to our own neediness inside ourselves.  Self-compassion and loving, soothing attention to the child inside who feels a sense of unbelonging is the answer to all discontent in my opinion.  When you begin to love and protect your hurt inner child, you recharge and create helpful work that keeps on giving.  The sense of accomplishment snowballs to living a creative life of exciting possibilities.  You trust that whatever is around the corner, it will be a wonderful adventure as you discover more of what you are capable of.

Being your own best friend is not a corny cliche`–it is a real and essential tool for highly sensitive people to navigate our world inhabited by lots of lesser evolved souls who can’t relate to our emotional journey.  We have a higher purpose, a higher vibration of light to shine as “lightworkers” if you will, and our inner child needs our own tender loving self-care in order to be able to turn the light switch back up from the dimming that may have occurred in childhood or from an unsupportive culture or environment.

Shine on yourself first when you are not feeling the least bit shiny. Let me explain.  Highly sensitive people have a gift of believing in lofty ideals and “light” and that really is a highly spiritual concept.  Deep inside we “know” that unconditional love exists for all and we can tap into that love whenever we want. If you struggle with this concept consider that you may be blocking yourself from receiving this loving feeling from the universe because of a childhood belief that you don’t deserve it.  You may have to actively “decide” to be open to allowing love in from Heaven/God/ Source/Universe/ All That Is/ Mother Nature or whatever you’d like to call it.

Believing I deserve love and letting it in made all the difference in my life.  It changed me from looking to others for outside validation to knowing I could heal myself and shine my gifts on the planet to make a difference.  Now this is no longer daily work for me but I still need to journal to reconnect to my inner wisdom from time to time when I need to recharge from the world.

Being an HSP, highly intuitive person, highly evolved, compassionate, or introspective soul is only difficult when you compare yourself to the masses. Consider that you came here to make a difference!–to shine a new path, a new way of thinking about the earth.  You are a pioneer here to show others how to appreciate nature, how to see beauty in unlikely places, how music or poetry can lift them up, how a healthy diet can change your mood, or how building a strong body can help you have more energy to accomplish goals you never imagined before, etc.  There are so many ways that HSPs are essential to our planet thriving.  It all starts with loving the little child inside of you who is still comparing herself to others instead of seeing the spectacular yet fragile gift she/he has always been and always will be!

After all my inner work now my inner child is very strong.  She is the playful creative force behind all my creative works.  This poem flowed out of me from beginning to end in one fell swoop one day recently when I was in my car–I always have pen and paper handy for when a song or poem comes to me.  I just stop everything and write it down. I’m glad to share it with you now:

Wise Inner Child and Wings and Things

By Roxanne E. Smith

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Painful layers coming up

Anger, grief and other stuff

I thought all of this was healed

No there’s more! It is revealed!

Inner child inside can now

Tell the truth—feels safe somehow

I will comfort her brave heart

Out of hiding, let her start

To spread her fragile angel wings

Never used before it seems…

Whoa!! She’s ready! Knows they’re real!

Says, “Yeah, I’ve got wings! It’s no big deal!”

No more hiding them from sight

Imagining her very first flight

I’m the one who kept her down

Protecting her from scorn or frown

She tells me to open the door

“Look” she says, “what wings are for!”

Flying easy as the breeze,

she hovers anywhere she please

Surprised that I am still afraid

She takes MY hand and says, “Let’s trade!

“You be me and I’ll be you.”

“Did you know you have wings too!?”

I look behind and see them there

Tucked away with so much care

Hidden just beneath my sight

I didn’t know I had the right!

“I’ve been busy protecting you

and now I see I’ve got wings too!

I am scared to try them out.

It’s been so long I’ve gone without

How to switch to this new change

It feels so shameful and I feel strange!”

Wise child says,

“You know where that’s from?

Others shamed you because they had none.

No wings to fly wherever they want

So they put you down to stay up front.

But now you know the truth down deep

You learned from all the lessons reaped

Deep inside you know your soul

Has learned more love through the life school

Many lives you’ve lived and learned

About compassion and now’s your turn

You’re here to be a beacon light

Fly and shine on others bright

You know you do this anyway

But you’ve got wings so fly and play

Fly and play don’t toil and fret!

You’re sensitive but the strongest yet!

Now you get to do your thing!

Love and shine and fly and sing!

That’s all that’s it and now you know!”

The little child then hugged me so

And said,

“I love you and I’m always here

I’m your inner strength—no longer fear

You protected me ‘til I was strong

Now I help you to get along

Just like with the Butterfly

The caterpillar is gone goodbye!

Brave new woman with golden wings

Stand your ground and fly and sing

Tell about your growth to show

Others who also do not know

That they have hidden wings as well

They earned them too but they can’t tell

Not until they are really SEEN

For the first time since they were teens

They tried to fly but soon were stopped

And painfully their wings were cropped

But they grew back and have been ready

Until the self was loved and steady

Grounded in peace—no longer fear

You’re free to fly away my dears!

So lighten your house and ease your load

Because the next chapter’s seeds are sowed

Freedom is what will grow

and life will have a different flow

Peace and love will soothe your soul

So you can sing some rock’n’roll

Giving hope to others through

Sharing what you love to do

Then they’ll believe in their own soul

And all the world will heal to whole!”

The child then smiled and said, “Okay?!”

Then held my hand and we flew away!!

Original Poem © Roxanne Elaine Smith

I wish all of you all the most glorious blessings that life has to offer!  Whether you are alone or with loved ones, remember you are loved from above and you are never alone.  As well as having a higher true self that is your creative source, I believe we all have a spirit guide who is our best soul friend and guardian angel looking out for us from heaven and giving us those Aha moments and pride in ourselves for rising up to higher heights to fly!

With warm wishes of love, light, and inner peace,

Roxanne