Update! Angel Channeling Success, Inner Child Healing, and a Vacation!
Hi Everyone! I’m happy to say my channeling from last week’s post that I put on YouTube is doing so well!–as of now I have over 2600 views, 260 likes and lots of positive, grateful comments on the Higher Self Channel. I had no idea it would do so well! Here’s the link to see it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpKhVU5Etos ( I apologize but this link is no longer working because I took the video down and moved all my future Channeled Angel Message videos to a new YouTube Channel here. To see all Channeled Angel Messages you can read them here on my blog by clicking here.)
With all the excitement, I then caught a bad cold on Friday. I hadn’t come down with a virus like this in years–I like to believe it happened because I’m clearing out the old from my body that no longer fits and I have shifted into a higher vibration–I hope! 😇. This is what my inner guidance is saying 😍✨ so I’m inclined to believe it. 😃 It’s called a “healing crisis”–google it if you want to learn more.
I also had to process some emotional pain that got triggered when I was feeling so sick, miserable and alone, and unable to think, or do any work–it triggered me back to my abandonment wound from early childhood and I started spiraling with hopelessness feelings and irrational thoughts like “I will never be well again”–a child believe’s this when they have no comfort and no-one to explain what is happening and that they are going to be okay.
This wisdom came to me when I allowed myself to examine what messages my inner critic was saying when I was feeling the worst. With this delving inward, I had an AHA moment!– for the first time when ill, I had clarity of exactly where that feeling came from and I was able to feel it and comfort myself through it–simultaneously I felt myself finally healing from the virus as I felt it lift after a short but intense crying spell about the original neglect and simultaneously comforting myself through it–this was an emotional healing breakthrough! I let the little child in me cry about the original painful event that had been repressed. I felt so good after that cry–I was …reconnected to my truth–to my true higher self.
That was yesterday. Today, when I woke up, I felt like Yay my brain is working again, I feel excited and stronger than ever, and I’m getting ready for a vacation in 4 days with my husband.
I’ll be back here writing again after I get back from the Bahamas (my first time there ever)! 😁 .
I hope by sharing these things I go through, it will help you the next time you get triggered to a stuck feeling. Write about it and decipher it back to it’s roots and let the inner child ( or past life YOU) cry about it to release this truth that has been repressed. Crying is part of the healing–Comforting yourself is the crucial 2nd part of the emotional healing process–you know you would comfort a crying child who is ill (or abused) and needs to be held and reassured–of course you would so give this to yourself!! You can be your own healer!!
If you resonate with this, then this is a good time to start an emotional healing journal today if you have not already. Think of it as writing out a private conversation with your best loving friend, your higher self, who loves you unconditionally!
It’s so healing!! More on this on another post! Have a wonderful couple of weeks, Everyone!! Sending all of you hugs, comfort, compassion, and deep understanding.
With Love, Light, and Gratefulness,
Roxanne 😇💖✨
Part 3 (Final) of Heart To Heart Update
Hello everyone! If you’ve been feeling extra tired, or extra emotional, or stuck, or triggered, I believe the full moon today
is causing energies that are helping us to clear out some deep unhealed layers of childhood pain. I personally have been very tired and journaling a lot to work through heavy, dark feelings of self-doubt and unworthiness — which hasn’t been easy. Some of my best songs and poems arise at times like these and I’ll be sharing them here hopefully soon to help anyone who resonates and would like to feel hopeful about their emotional state. The poem I wrote on Oct. 1 that I mentioned in my last post will be shared in my next post–I read it again today and it was helpful in moving out the stuck emotions I felt today so I plan to share that in the coming few days.
Now, on with Part 3!–Here’s the last part of my heart to heart series to update everyone on what I’ve been doing while I was on a break from writing regularly on this blog. This post is a long one–future posts will be much shorter for easier reading I promise!
Continuing with sharing the story of my journey to finally start performing, let me just say it took until fall of 2017 for me to feel ready to start looking for paid gigs–I had been practicing a 2 hour set of my songs (including playing guitar) for many months while we got settled in our new house (Oct. 2016) before I felt ready to reach out to venues as a professional musician. Then on one courageous day, I took the leap and did it–made phone calls and sent emails with a demo video I had made.
1st gig on Sept. 23, 2017
I found 2 local venues (a branch of Breweries, and a winery) that were encouraging local artists and paid, albeit meagerly, for 2 hours of a mix of original folk rock and cover songs by my favorite artists: James Taylor, Carole King, The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, Neil Young, and more! My album and the demo I made with performance videos from my open mic nights helped convince them to give me a chance and soon I was performing once a month then twice a month and then eventually 4 times a month. By the end of the summer of 2018 I was doing 3 hour gigs as well with several hired guitarists that I had duos with. Phew!
I stopped in September to take a break and get organized with my coaching and this blog and also to celebrate!– because I feel over a hump and ready to branch out and collaborate with some new musicians and look for higher paying venues. Breaking through a glass ceiling that I never thought I could achieve brings up surprising amounts of grief and emotional pain and is not all just happiness, ease, and fun. 
Yes, when you have childhood wounds that kept you in a state of hiding most of your life, you must keep up with the positive affirmations and self-care of course but also make time for grieving the loss of all the years you didn’t believe in yourself and your gifts. It’s important to leave time for emotional healing and not spread yourself too thin. It took some time for me to find a balance that worked for me.
Okay, so now on a new topic, not only have I been performing and working on my music career, but I have also developed some new life coaching skills and emotional healing tools. From 2014 to now and continuing, I have been working with various intuitive coaches, energy healers, and spiritual counselors. Through my seeking and thirst for knowledge about the spiritual realms, I have developed my own intuitive abilities to the point where I am proud to say that I am now a channel for spiritual guidance as an Akashic Record Reader and you can read more about this on my new life coaching website. Yay! It’s very exciting! I realize now that I have always had this ability on some level but now I am able to ask for and receive spiritual inner guidance with greater clarity and greater confidence, knowing, and with greater tools to help others.
And this is because: I have had to continually be doing intense emotional healing of my own. Layers of pain coming up to the surface with each new success–the pain and doubt doesn’t just magically go away one day when you have many childhood wounds–having given up on myself at the age of 5 and banished my true self and my dreams away to develop a false self that was hiding and codependent, a people pleaser, and a rescuer–I’ve had to continue to work on healing all of these issues! I’ve continually been working through the PTSD that results from having the abandonment wounds (from being hospitalized as a toddler) and also working through shame and feeling unsafe to be my true self as a child and throughout my early adulthood. I had learned how to survive by hiding away my true desires and gifts and dreams so completely that I gave up on my music for 20 years while raising my children. Perhaps you can relate! 
And so now here I am an empty nester, feeling like I’m in my 30’s (due to a healthy diet and new tools), pursuing a singing career, to share my songs that flow out of me– sometimes from my wounded heart but mostly from the bright light of hope inside of me that knows my purpose on the planet is to write and sing music and also give hope to others who cannot find their way up and out of the painful layers that often feel too heavy to break through.
As I write this I realize I’ve learned and sharpened so many tools since 2012:
I learned ways to replenish and to re-energize my adrenals; continued my healthy diet; exercise regularly for strength and endurance; made myself more disciplined to practice my music as a priority; tap into spirit often to sharpen those innate intuitive skills and gifts; continue to write poetry and songs as I work through the emotional challenges; I have opened myself up to spiritual knowledge about ascension symptoms, upgrades to the planet, and even the effect of past lives on our current incarnations; practice extreme self-care as I continue to grow from life’s challenges and surprises, and remind myself that the rule #1 from this blog still applies and was really ground-breaking at that time.
And that is that Self-Compassion is rule #1!
I’m grateful to this blog for this all important bit of wisdom to come forth–because it was writing here to you all that caused this bit of wisdom to be born!
And so I say thank you to all of you that are part of this highly sensitive, compassionate, and spiritually awakened community of Hope and Healing from Childhood Wounds. I hope it continues to be a haven of safety for your wounded inner child to come and get strong–as a cocoon for you to grow your wings at your own pace and try out your new wings when you are feeling strong enough to go for your dreams. As always my message is: You Can Do It!! …And have compassion and kindness for yourself as the pain comes up to heal with each success! Because you are strong enough to feel it, comfort yourself through it, acknowledge that you absorbed negativity you didn’t deserve, release it, rest, and rise again!
Rest here in this haven anytime you wish, and reach out to this community or just read the comments from the hundreds who have reached out with their stories of childhood wounds and emotional healing in the comment sections. I would love to hear from you! Please leave a comment to let me know you are helped by what I am sharing or if you are new to this community so that I can welcome you.
Wishing all of you comfort, inner peace, and so much love as you continue to heal,
Roxanne 😇✌️🎶💖✨
Roxanne Smith – Folk Rock Songs For the Soul
To All Highly Sensitive Souls–You Are Loved
You Are Loved
Lyrics by Roxanne Smith
I once was lost but then I opened up my heart
It took time to see my journey’s sad start
Strength in me came with feelings inside
Courageous purging with joy on the other side
Somehow I know that love is all there is
Inside every dark and painful fear is bliss
This I know because I left no stone unturned
I face the pain when the bottom was learned
It lays waiting until you let it go
Forgiving those who don’t connect with their soul
The soul has answers and comfort and love
Go within to hear angels from above
Chorus:
They surround each and every breathing heart
You are loved every day right from the start.
You are loved, you are loved, you are loved, you are loved
You are loved, you are loved, you are loved, you are loved
Repeat from the beginning
Add end (slowing)
You are loved, you are loved, you are loved, you are loved
Original Song © 2017 Roxanne Smith
Hello Everyone! I am sharing this song to the public for the first time here on this blog. It’s such a personal song I have not performed it yet, waiting for the perfect audience, the right moment. You all, however are the perfect audience for lyrics like these. Here on this blog I feel comfortable letting it all hang out and feel proud of the healing journey I am on with all it’s ups and downs but always “with joy on the other side”.
I just saw that it has been since April 5 that I have put out a blog post and I apologize for that! Time has been flying by since I decided to start my life coaching business back up. I just completed designing my brand new life coaching website. I’m happy to report that this blog has gotten over 45 new followers in just the last 2 months even though my recent posts were short and not really up to my standards yet. So I am getting the message that my blog posts here are important and to make them a priority in my life!
I am very excited about this. I love talking to you all! I love giving hope to all of you like-minded souls out there who resonate with my message of hope and healing to become your highest selves! We strive to be our healthiest, kindest, most confident, and helpful to the planet while being complex and highly sensitive souls who often feel we don’t fit in with others. We are overcoming deep-seated negative feelings and beliefs from the past that keep popping up out of the blue just when things are going well. Phew! Why are we so hard on ourselves when we already know that extreme self-care makes so much difference in our lives?
Time to pull back again. Get quiet. Go inward. Write out ALL your feelings with self-compassion as if you are writing to your most trusted friend in the world who really GETS you! Be your own container when you can’t find a safe person to vent to. We all need to vent all the frustration we are feeling about EVERYTHING! I had a surprising amount of anger to release in April. It was all about codependency issues that I thought I had healed long ago. Surprise!–there was more! Releasing it all (which was not easy) moved me to a new place of strength and independence at the core of me that I didn’t know existed. And the month of May… well it’s starting out with a virus from some recent airplane travel that has got me layed up and resting to clear it all out. So all my exciting plans for coaching and more performing are on hold while I rest and clear out this virus and with it lots of emotions too. My intuition tells me I’ve moved to a new level of vibrational success so I need to clear out more …whatever! 😳 I’m not as frustrated as I am fascinated and trusting that whatever happens it will be for a good reason.
Sometimes things are so hard and then we get through it and see the silver lining that was there all along. And that is that We Are Loved. We are loved from above. We are here for a good reason. We are highly sensitive souls who are here on the planet at this time because the planet needs our gifts, our light, our true essence. We can relax and just BE and know we are loved.
Just being here is enough. You don’t have to do anything–just heal and learn to love ourselves. If we really GET this we can recharge and become strong and then we have more energy to give more light and love to others. But we can’t do it if we don’t love ourselves first. Let the love in that is beaming down for you at all times. Believe it.
And if you can’t believe it at least be OPEN to the possibility. Let down your guard and allow the possibility that your guardian angel/spirit guide/God/ Universe/Highest Self just might be sending you messages of love and comfort through your intuition. They just might be sending you guidance on your next steps for the highest good of your soul. Follow your heart to hear the inner guidance. Hear it? It is saying, You Are Loved! Exactly as you are! You don’t have to change yourself, you only need to love yourself. Let that sink in. Marinate in that truth for a while. I’m sending all of you so much comfort, caring, and encouragement to see your unique gifts as highly sensitive souls. I’ll be writing more uplifting blog posts soon so stay tuned.
With love and light 💖 ✨,
Roxanne 😇 🎶
A New Beginning For This Blog As We Continue Healing Our Childhood Wounds
Hi everyone. I have an announcement to make but first I want to thank all of you who have followed this blog and who have shared your stories and have felt part of this community of hope and healing. It was years ago in January 2010 that I started this blog and many of you have grown and evolved with me as we have shared and healed our childhood wounds together. I want to fill you in on the details and the big changes ahead for this blog. Yes, it is time for some exciting new changes and the biggest one is that I want to reveal my real name and take ownership of this blog that I am so proud of.
I have been upfront since the first day of this blog saying on my About page that I was using a PEN name. Elaine D. Sanders. I chose this special name so that I could write uninhibitedly about my journey in emotional healing and so that I could help others who are struggling to find and express their true voice as well. My pen name served me well and I have no regrets about being known as Elaine and proudly using this name for my life coaching business that came about because of the success of helping others through this blog.
Now I am stepping fully into the light with my real legal name and claiming my story. I feel and hope this will be very empowering for others who are healing from childhood wounds as well. It is with love and compassion and gratefulness in my heart that I share this information with you, my followers and readers, because I know you will understand and support this new venture of empowerment for all of us to step into our truth, and be unafraid to speak up with our true voice about our childhood experiences and our healing journeys. There is no shame in telling your story, nothing to fear when you speak up for yourself about times you felt diminished and unloved as a child. Telling the truth and coming out of hiding is the right thing to do and doing so will support others to do the same.
My middle name really is Elaine. I love the name and when I first decided to start this blog I was proud to find out that the meaning of the name Elaine is “shining light”. My legal first name is Roxanne and I was thrilled to find out the meaning of Roxanne is “dawn”–light of a new day-a new beginning. Right now I am gradually changing all posts and comments from Elaine to Roxanne. It will take a while to complete the change and until then I hope all will be understood. 
Some might ask, with the great success of this blog why not stay Elaine? Well, about a year and a half ago, I wanted my grown children and husband to be able to tell of my new successful career as a life coach and singer/songwriter without having to tell a long story of why I had a pen name. Also, I wanted to start a home community life coaching business and I also wanted to be close to my family (and also to this new support network) through facebook. So I started a home community life coaching website, a new blog with more songs, a personal facebook page and community facebook page in my legal name that I go by on a daily basis with close friends, my husband and kids. Through this experiment I eventually realized I now felt uninhibited to talk about inner child healing and my own healing journey with great confidence– I was able to do both and go back and forth to both blogs and websites with ease for quite a while. I gradually saw how I was dividing myself and my energies. Recently it came clear how I could integrate everything to my legal name and that this would be very empowering for all for me to do this. My energies of late had been mostly with my new creative ventures in my world as myself, Roxanne E. Smith. I am now ready to come out on this blog and say this is who I am, this is what I experienced, and this is how I recovered, and I want to be a role model to help others to come out and express their true voice as well.
Upon beginning to write about my past, I had no idea that this blog would be so helpful to others as it has become. My intention was and is to help and support others by sharing my experience and journey of emotional healing. I have no resentment, anger, or bitterness towards any people from my past. I do not carry any hard feelings towards them and I wish them only peace and love. I believe I may have chosen everything that happened to me because I knew my soul was strong enough to recover so that I could help others. I am now grateful for everything that has ever happened to me for now I am on this path of enlightenment and helping others see their beautiful shining light within that is underneath the layers of pain and self-doubt. I believe helping souls to break through to their true essence is my true purpose in life. I have come to a place where I know that the absence of light experienced as children is because parents and caregivers of children may have had atrocities and abuses from their own childhood that may have caused a complete separation from their own light. We absorbed all that darkness as highly sensitive gifted children but now, after emotional healing, we can now give that light back to ourselves — as for myself, it was only through much inner grief work that I recovered and this is what I now help others through my work–through blogging, life coaching, and through sharing my healing songs and their lyrics.
I shared my honest feelings on this blog because this was my experience and it was this candidness that most helped people relate their own feelings and stories and heal on a deep level. Many of my songs continue to reflect the painful journey to wholeness and joy from a childhood of feeling lost–I feel it was through the gift of music and creative song writing that I was able to heal and express my voice and this self expression continues to heal me as well as others. I have continued to write and record more healing songs recently and this is the project that has kept me busy this past year.
I have a new music website for my newly created and professionally recorded Album–A New Beginning! I am excited to share with you my songs which are my new passion and focus as of right now and my album of 10 professionally recorded songs is now available for download and also on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, and many other sites worldwide.
Other changes on this blog and my websites include the adding of a link to my facebook community page called Higher Ground Haven. So please check it out by finding it on the right side of the page and clicking on the name of it–you don’t have to be on facebook to enjoy it–it is open to the public and will just be another means of support for this community. 
There will be a new name for this blog–it is being changed from Hope and Healing with Elaine to Hope and Healing Haven. I hope you like it and will remember it easily. I think it is a great fit! The domain name is going back to hopehealing.wordpress.com. Elainedsanders.com will no longer be. I won’t be taking new clients for an indefinite period of time because my singing/songwriting career is taking center stage in my life right now and I will be sharing my song lyrics which are self-help poetry put to music as I embark on this new career.
I hope that you will enjoy embarking with me on this NEW BEGINNING journey. My song A NEW BEGINNING has new meaning now as it has been rerecorded professionally and is the perfect tribute to this new phase of this Hope and Healing Blog that I hope will continue to be a Haven for all souls seeking healing from their childhood wounds and empowerment to find their true voice and true self.
Please enjoy listening to a sample of A New Beginning below: press > play to hear
Another song I’d like to share is called “I’m All Right”–you can listen to a sample of it below:
My new music website is finished and it is ready to share with you, you may visit it here: RoxanneSmithMusic.com. 10 professionally recorded healing songs from my new album are now finalized and available for purchase with free samples of each song for you to listen to first! You can buy downloads of the songs there on the website–all proceeds will go to continuing my work to help others heal from childhood emotional pain. It’s a great cause! I highly recommend playing the songs especially in the morning each day as you get ready–it will change your mood for the day and has a healing effect. Think of it as part of your extreme-self-care healing routine each day which is so important for highly sensitive survivors. We need to do extra kind things for ourselves each day! Please try it and let me know how it works for you–I welcome the testimonials!
Thank you for reading today. I am excited to re-connect with all of you survivors who are searching for emotional guidance and a safe place to feel connected and to heal from the past. This is a wonderful community to be a part of and I feel truly blessed and grateful. Welcome To Hope and Healing Haven!
With love, blessings, and warmest caring wishes,
Roxanne
(Read the following comments from the bottom up)
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Here is an edited version of the original “About Me” when I was using a pen name, written in December 2009 and used through February 2014 (the original was changed a few times over the years ):
Hello and Welcome! Elaine is a name that has special significance to me and I have chosen this Pen name because it will make it easier to be completely honest and uninhibited in all my writing. My wonderful supportive husband and I have both had many childhood wounds to heal and overcome and we have made a new wonderful life and have raised two amazing children.
I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Child and Family Services with emphasis in humanistic counseling psychology, sociology, family dynamics, and child development. There was nothing more important to me than raising children with high self-esteem and to be emotionally healthy, and breaking the cycle of emotional repression that has been passed down for generations through our extended families. Our children are in college and beyond now, adjusting well to all of life’s demands, and my husband and I couldn’t be prouder of them, not just because of their accomplishments and achievements but because of the relationships we have with them and the caring, loving people they have become. We are supportive and encouraging of whatever they choose to do with their lives and we are there for them to listen to their feelings and they in turn are supportive and encouraging to us and grateful and loving human beings.
I have discovered many things along the way to building a healthy family and finding my true purpose in life. I have discovered I am an INFJ, an empath, a highly sensitive person, an avid journaler, writer of self-help poetry, and a singer/songwriter writing many songs–including my songs of hope and healing. These songs were written mostly to help myself through the pain from my many childhood wounds and the ups and downs of life. Most of all, I have discovered the depth of my skills as an Empathic Life Coach. With this, I have discovered my true purpose in life-all my skills of writing and singing and songwriting have been catalysts in helping me express and find my true voice–to realize that my true purpose is empowering other highly sensitive souls to heal from their wounds from childhood and become the person they are meant to be.
I feel it as a privilege for me to provide comfort and support to any soul who is in emotional pain and to let them know there is hope and someone out there who understands. With the help of this website, it is my hope to validate, inspire, and give hope to people through my writing, my music, and my availability to you as an Empathic Life Coach. So often a person just needs a companion to listen–someone to validate the complex and confusing painful feelings that come up when childhood wounds are triggered and then keep us from moving forward to become our true selves. Our blog community strives to be an “enlightened witness” for any person who needs to be heard about childhood wounds or if you have no family members or friends who understand you. Please check out the comment sections of each post which contain lots of guidance and sharing of experiences. We understand and we care. Welcome to our community!
With love,
Roxanne
Emotionally Healthy Parenting Info. For Highly Sensitive People–It’s Time To Stand Your Ground!
Hi everyone. It is now August and I hope all of you have been enjoying the summer. Yeah it’s too hot!–but I hope you are finding creative ways to beat the heat. I am having the best summer ever! I have found that my ability to slow down and enjoy the moment is really sticking this time. The lessons I learned from my now healed injury are sticking with me–I appreciate the small things so much still… and when I get too busy I catch myself and pull back the reins and say “Whoa, slow down and listen to your body”. Then I have more energy to do the things that are important to me… like writing to you all! 🙂
My creative way of beating the heat is to wait to ride my bike for exercise around my neighborhood until evening and sometimes even after dark. (Please only do this if it is a safe area and there is no traffic.) There is something special about summer evenings when the temperature is perfect, the moonlight is just enough to see what you need to see, and it’s so quiet and peaceful out. It is really recharging for highly sensitive people and it feels like such a treat for myself–I feel a spiritual connection to Mother Earth and the Universe and God.
I have a special event coming up. I am turning 50 years old next month! I really don’t feel 50 and people say I don’t look 50 so I am really going to celebrate big! Yay! I have a lot to celebrate! I feel more like 32 and have more energy and better health than I have ever had in my life! The second half of my life is going to be even better than the first half and the first half turned out to be really awesome!
I believe HSPs are very often late bloomers–we have hardships early in life that we struggle with but then we start coming out the other side. We soon realize the journey we are on is exactly the one we needed to be on to find our voice and true purpose in life. That is definitely what happened to me. The first half of my life I acquired a college degree, married, and then chose, for my first career, being a Mom raising two amazing children to feel good about themselves as my first priority. I support and encourage them to express their unique creativity and they have nothing holding them back from pursuing their dreams. I cheer them on and say “You can do it!
Both of my children are both highly sensitive and intuitive people with kind and compassionate spirits. They call us often to share good news and also when they encounter negativity and negative people in their lives and we listen and empathize. They feel better with support and continue to learn to build themselves up. That is what a healthy family system is supposed to be like. I am adding 2 new links here on my blog that I want to share with all of you and they are: Attachment Parenting International Dot Org and The Attached Family Dot Com.
If you have childhood wounds, it is so supportive to go to these sites and see what a healthy nurturing family looks and feels like! It helps you remember, if you are trying to recover from childhood wounds from parents who were malignant narcissists, it is their choice not to embrace their roles as parents with compassion and giving and to choose blaming, negativity, and guilt-inducing instead. It may help to tell yourself, “it is not my responsibility to give up the essence of my self and my energy so that someone else will feel better and not even appreciate it or see how that harms me.”
It is my intention to never induce guilt in my children–to never make them feel guilty so they will visit me more often. They visit us because they want to because they feel better being around us. We build them up and give them encouragement. We tell them, “We are sure you will figure it all out–you are doing a great job so far!”. We help them to trust their inner guidance and to go towards positive people and positive feelings in their lives. We teach them to have healthy boundaries. Healthy boundaries are when you are able to be separate and whole and feel good about your place on the planet–you can shine your light and help others without giving up your self.
As highly sensitive children, you as survivors may have taken care of your parent’s feelings because your compassion is innate in you. But you have to learn to stop doing this at the expense of your true feelings now that you are adults. When you give up your truth to get a parent’s approval to avoid conflict then you have gone too far and have lost your healthy sense of self and have given up your own energy and truth.
HSPs need support to know that it is important to protect your precious energy that is so easily drained away by people who tell us we OWE them. You don’t owe narcissistic parents anything–parents who use fear to manipulate and control instead of giving any love and acceptance are deal breakers (not honorable). You don’t have to “honor thy parent” if they induce fear in their children. Fear is the opposite of love.
It is always best to try to talk to parents in a civil way to point out these things. I’m sure you have tried saying things like, “I care about you and I also disagree and I am going to do it this way instead”. If with your best efforts at fairness you are still constantly punished for your disobedient ways, (even if it is passive–aggressive silent treatments), even though you are an adult, these are toxic situations for HSPs. If you have tried it all and you are miserable and fed up, don’t feel guilty! Or if “no contact” is working for you now or helping you heal so you can get stronger, don’t feel guilty! You are not responsible for anyone else’s happiness, just yours.
What would they say if you confronted them with the pain they caused you. They would deny and blame, right? You would never do that to them, you would say…“I’m sorry”… maybe even if it wasn’t your fault. Your compassionate soul is rare and has a special purpose on this planet. Your specialness is important to the planet. Focus on giving your gifts to those who really will appreciate it as a mission and even possibly a career for yourself. The planet needs more HSPs! Be glad you are one.
I heard the song, I Won’t Back Down by Tom Petty on the radio the other day. It filled me with a sense of fun and positive energy and helped me feel even stronger. Since then I have been singing it a lot in my head and I love how it gives me strength when I say those words. “I am gonna stand my ground”. Listen to it when you get a chance. Here are some of the lyrics:
No I’ll stand my ground, won’t be turned around
And I’ll keep this world from draggin me down
gonna stand my ground
… and I won’t back down
Chorus:
(I won’t back down…)
Hey baby, there ain’t no easy way out
(and I won’t back down…)
hey I will stand my ground
and I won’t back down
Well I know what’s right, I got just one life
in a world that keeps on pushin me around
but I’ll stand my ground
…and I won’t back down
The point is that feeling “grounded” is so important to an HSPs health in all ways: Body, Mind, and Spirit. Standing your ground can symbolize feeling rooted in the earth. You are here on the planet for a reason. Your “space” here on the planet is your own and you deserve to feel confident and strong and separate and whole… standing tall and deserving of your spot on the planet. We get positive strength and energy from Mother Earth and she recharges us again when we get depleted. Mother Earth loves us–imagine being rooted in love! Walking on the warm grass in bare feet (on warm summer August evenings 🙂 ) is especially recharging–imagine the positive energy of the planet beneath you recharging you up your legs and into your heart and head. Relax your tense muscles throughout your body while you do this. These kinds of visualizations really work to help me feel strong and inner peace about my independence and freedom and standing “my ground”. I hope they are helpful to you too!
My birthday is on September 9! I hope you will stop by my site on that day and say hello and help me Celebrate! My husband, children and I will be partying all day and evening! I will have a message for all of you in my Update Corner on that day. 🙂
I will be on vacation August 22-28–So, except for that week, I am here and always available to you, my readers, commenters, and clients. My next post won’t be until later in September. Have a wonderful August and rest of the summer, HSPs! And remember to Stand Your Ground!
With Love,
Roxanne
The Process of Inner Child Healing and a Poem of Hope for Highly Sensitive Survivors
Hello everyone. Whenever I write a new post, I “tune in” to you, my readers, and write from my heart. Sometimes I plan what I am going to write and other times I write something entirely different from what I had planned. At the beginning I used to worry, “how can I top that last post”, but now I just trust in the process and I know that what I write will turn out all right.
It is wonderful to feel such confidence. It is such a contrast to how I used to feel years ago before I gained access to the truth of who I am. It was “self-doubt”–a looming horrible anxious feeling of dread and guilt…or more often a feeling of numbness and compulsions to avoid feelings by keeping busy with tasks that I felt I “should” be doing. I had no access to my truth–I had hidden away my truth to protect myself from the unbearable pain that I experienced as a child.
Through my journaling I discovered a process that helped me to heal more than anything else I tried–it was writing out my pain from my inner child’s point of view. I knew from all of my reading and training in psychology that blocks happen in childhood–and I had been encouraged by two helpful counselors to continue to write out my feelings in order to uncover them (I had been writing poems about my feelings since the age of 14).
Writing from my inner child’s perspective just kind of naturally happened and I found it to be the most powerful healing tool in my own recovery. I discovered “her” voice by writing out “her” pain and then I had no choice but to feel compassion for what “she” went through and over time “she” became clearly “Me”! And as I began trusting in this process of trusting “her” view of what had happened to me I began trusting my self. My inner dialogue then gradually changed from critical to compassionate. I remember that I started feeling emotions that had previously been repressed and could then label them.
I was excited about this process. For example, I’d be at the grocery store and suddenly become aware of a feeling such as shame and say to myself , “this feeling is really familiar but I never knew until now that it is “shame”. Wow this is shame from my childhood coming up.” I realized I was feeling these feelings for the first time since I had hidden them away in childhood. Rather then get caught up in them I was able to observe them and acknowledge them and release them. I would often go right away and write in my journal about the origins of these painful feelings. Repressed memories would often come back to me during these times. It wasn’t always so simple–sometimes I would unconsciously drag my husband into a drama only to discover I was replaying a trauma from childhood so that I could finally voice my feelings of anger, grief, or fear to my envisioned N parent. My knowledge of what was happening luckily allowed me to be aware of the process of healing–I would quickly reassure my husband what was happening so that he could then support the release of my feelings as a supportive witness without feeling blamed in any way. Seeing me recover my feelings in such a way and feel relief helped my husband to understand this healing process as well and he began processing his childhood pain in a similar way (he had a Narcissistic parent too).
I am planning to put together a book in which I include the best of my healing writings directly from my journals that show this process of healing first hand from age 18 to the present. Although it will be very personal I am hoping that it will help others to heal and develop compassion for their inner child and what they went through if they are unable to write out their feelings in such a way that I was able–I consider it a gift that I was able to do this and I am grateful to have such a vivid memoir of my recovery. I believe this gift of writing I have been given is another way that I can help other highly sensitive souls to recover and to help them to feel relief from the inner prison of emotional abuse by a Narcissistic parent. Please let me know if you would be interested in reading such a book.
Recently I wrote the following poem when I “tuned in” to you, my readers and fellow highly sensitive survivors. I was planning to save it for my book but I have decided to share it with you now instead to show an example one of the kinds of writings that will be included. Here it is:
Poem of Hope and Healing for the Highly Sensitive Survivor
By Roxanne E. Smith
March 22, 2011
Pain so deep, I can’t see the light
I know it’s there but it’s not very bright
The sadness is thick, despair all around
I envision a child giving up with no sound
Pain so deep, I hide all my hope
Afraid to come out, I feel like a dope
Worthless and horrible, don’t ever try
The pain is unbearable, can’t even cry
I can’t feel the love, I need it so bad!
So much fear without it, it’s really so sad!’
I am feeling much better just admitting this truth
You have to have love when you’re in your youth!
Without love you can’t heal all the hurts that come by
When bad things do happen we need love when we cry
Someone has to hold us and give us new hope
If there’s no one for comfort than there’s no way to cope
No wonder I hid my talents away
When I would do well then I was their prey
The taunting, the teasing, “Who do you think you are?”
Shame became my deepest scar
But who was this child all hidden in shame
An innocent victim who will never be the same?
She thinks she is nothing but she is so wrong
The truth is she’s beautiful, wise, and so strong
Scoop up that child all broken and battered
Love her and hug her and tell her she matters
She’s awesome and wonderful, they were so wrong
Talented, creative , and smart all along
Sensitive soul you were so beaten down
But you figured it out and now you can leave town
You’re safe now and free–no more bullies outside
Shine your light, spread your wings, don’t believe all the lies
Be kind to yourself when the pain comes back ’round
Love yourself through it, your true self is found
You know the truth and now you can be free
Fear is from “them”–in the past, don’t you see?
Relax into the pain and it will dissipate
Because the pain is from lies and it’s never too late!
To believe in yourself and your talents and dreams
You are good at compassion and so many things
They did not want you to succeed with your gifts
So they made you give up and they threatened with fists
You were small so you gave up but now you are grown
You can heal all the pain and make it now on your own
You can do it!–the words you’ve long waited to hear
Say them to your self! And say NO to the fear!
Give them back all the bad feelings that they gave to you
Imagine this energy going outward from you
Then let in the light and the love from a place
Where angels don’t want you to live in disgrace
You know what love is because you give it so freely
To others who need it when they’re feeling needy
Give to your self all this love all the time!
You will find your true purpose and all will be fine
These lessons are so hard that we learn from our pain
But we discover our strengths again and again
So sensitive souls who survived from abuse
Your gifts are so needed to be put to good use
I know how you feel and I hope you feel better
Because we can overcome it if we do it together!
I hope that this poem has helped you to feel loved
You are!–and I send it to you from above!
I understand and I want to comfort your pain
I hope this is helpful. Love, Roxanne Elaine
The Connection To Learned Helplessness in Highly Sensitive People (HSPs)
Updated March 2016
Hi everyone. Today I want to write about a subject that many of my clients and readers can relate to as Highly Sensitive People. It is something called Learned Helplessness. Learned Helplessness is that feeling of powerlessness that we all feel at times, and for some of us it is more pervasive and all encompassing than for others. There is much hope in talking about it because if you can understand the roots of this feeling, you can understand that it is “learned” behavior and that you can become aware of it when it hits you and ultimately heal from it completely.
I first heard about Learned Helplessness in my introductory psychology class in college. And you probably have heard the story as well–the story of Pavlov’s dog. Pavlov used a dog in an experiment in human behavior to demonstrate the result of conditioning. I can’t recall the exact details except that the dog was given rewards or withheld the rewards and the resulting behavior of the dog was recorded and studied. There were other dog experiments by a psychologist named Seligman in which he shocked sets of dogs to demonstrate learned behavior and conditioning and punishment.
The main thing I remember vividly about the whole thing was that at the end of the Seligman experiments, the dogs were shocked repeatedly both when they completed a task correctly and also when they did not. The poor dogs were so confused that they layed down depressed and GAVE UP and even whined–and this was Learned Helplessness that the dogs were experiencing. I still remember learning about this vividly because I felt SO bad for these dogs–I was empathizing and upset beyond what the average person reading this would expect to be.
At that time in college I did not have the insight or self-awareness yet to realize it was because I resonated so much personally with how the dogs were treated. As a highly sensitive, empathetic person I knew just how those dogs must have felt and I related to them giving up and laying down, hopeless, and helpless, in fear, and self-doubt. Those dogs were experiencing the same damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don’t no-win situation that those who were bullied consistently (or even neglected or controlled) by a caretaker or narcissistic or controlling parent were subjected to day in and day out as children. Years later I remember talking to a counselor about this, knowing just how a dog in those experiments must have felt and it helped the counselor have a picture of the frustration, fear, desperation, loneliness, despair, hopelessness, and helplessness.
After I voiced this to the counselor, I was able to picture myself as a small child with the same compassion I had for such a dog and finally realized that I deserved so much more. The roots of my anxiety were then exposed–no wonder I felt anxious all the time, no wonder I was a perfectionist and afraid to disappoint anyone, no wonder I didn’t know how to relax, no wonder I had no access to my own dreams and desires and was filled with self-doubts and negative messages in my head. It helped to talk to someone about how I felt what I experienced could compare to the treatment of those dogs–the feeling of not being given consistent love and support and feeling rewarded only if obedient and punished with emotional rejection if not.
My life coaching experiences and studies have taught me the following in regards to those highly sensitive people with a narcissistic parent: The Scapegoat child of a N parent can very much relate to this constant punishment and criticism. But the Golden Child (GC) can relate as well because they are often the obedient one who needs desperately some kind of loving approval and, out of fear, becomes what the parent or wants for them to become. Outwardly to others it may appear as if the GC has it all–the love, attention and admiration of the Narcissistic parent. But inside there is so much emptiness and pain, an absence of the knowledge of self and true feelings–feelings that had to be hidden away because they were too painful to bear. The false self is developed and honed in, the GC knows exactly how their N parent feels even before they do. The GC develops a radar that helps them to survive the lack of love and support–and they develop an illusion that they are the ones at fault if, even with their best efforts, they fail to win the acceptance of the N parent. They blame themselves and have very low self-esteem, crushed by criticism, holding relationships at arms length so no one will get too close and cause them further pain.
The roots of co-dependence are also linked to this learned helplessness–victims of such abuse telling themselves that there must be something wrong with them and that they are deeply flawed and it usually goes in one of two ways–either they decide they need to find another person to love them and take care of them and then they will be happy (co-dependence) or they become a porcupine not letting anyone one else near, lashing out at anyone who suspects that they just might have some insecurities underneath their outwardly successful yet workaholic exterior shell. People who suffer from panic attacks and even agoraphobia often have learned helplessness from childhood as a root cause as well.
“What can a person do?” you may be asking if you relate to what I am describing. Plenty! Just being aware and believing that this happened to you as a child is the first step. Just as you have compassion for the dogs in the experiments, you need to develop this same compassion for yourself and make a decision to stop being so hard on yourself. Make a decision to be kind to yourself every time you are feeling bad–it is almost always childhood pain coming up to tell you the truth of what really happened to you. Become aware that the negative messages in your head were put there by someone else and that you did not deserve them. Change them to positive messages. Write in a journal all the things you were good at as a child and never given credit for. Writing out the truth is powerful and go back and read it often to remind yourself.
It takes time so be patient with yourself. Taking baby steps in the direction of healing is wise because there is pain to work through and release but you can do it! You have many gifts and talents that have never been acknowledged yet and only you can bring them out from their repressed state of Learned Helplessness.
Whether you were the scapegoat in your family or the obedient golden child, you can heal from the trauma of Learned Helplessness. Often people who experience post traumatic stress from an abusive childhood fall into this state of learned helplessness when their wounds are triggered. It can feel like an inability to function, a numbness–but sometimes the feelings along with that are a mix of rage and despair.
If you have lashed out at loved ones with an intensity beyond what is appropriate then you probably were a victim of a person that controlled you in an abusive way far far too much with no remorse. If you were extremely sensitive (extremely emotionally gifted 🙂 ), just a mean look from his/her eyes could cause a traumatic reaction in you as a child and the fear may have felt like a spear through your heart. The rage and despair you feel is understandable and appropriate but needs to be directed, voiced, and released at the person that did this too you in a journal, letter that won’t be sent, and/or perhaps even read outloud with a safe witness friend, counselor, or coach present (never to them or to their face) . You will find a sense of relief each time you release some of this truth and the light inside of you will become brighter and brighter and you will feel lighter and lighter. You will begin to experience the essence of your true self and the vitality you deserve. This is the process of healing. Don’t hold onto the anger and resentment that comes up but release it completely each time, visualizing the negative emotions going up to heaven or into the earth,whichever appeals most, to be healed by love and light–Imagine love and light coming to you as well to replace these negative emotions each time to center yourself again to a peaceful state.
Why did you experience learned helplessness while your siblings did not? Perhaps you had the gift of high sensitivity and along with that the knowledge and expectation of a higher level of love. And when you did not receive this love that you innately knew existed, you had no choice but to blame yourself because…it made no sense to you. Your siblings possibly just got mad at your parents and rebelled–they may have had no higher vision of a loving existence so it didn’t feel as traumatic to them.
So you see, the cure and the answer to all of your self-doubt and learned helplessness is LOVE. Love yourself as you deserved to be loved and give yourself the love that you so easily give to others because that is your gift. Compassion and love for yourself will help you overcome all of the many symptoms of Learned Helplessness just as consistent love and affection and kindness would help Seligman’s abused dogs to learn to trust people and trust themselves again. I hope my words have been helpful to you.
With love,
Roxanne
Journaling for Joy and Finding My True Voice In A Poem
Hello to all of you sensitive souls. I hope you are enjoying this beautiful week of Indian Summer we are having. The news says that most of the U.S. is experiencing gorgeous mild temperatures and colorful changing leaves right now. It is definitely my favorite time of the year and it feels like such a gift from above now that I can relax and take it in and be in the moment and fully appreciate it. As many of you who follow my blog already know, it wasn’t always this way for me. I used to be numb to my feelings, keeping too busy to feel, compelled to be a people-pleaser and a perfectionist, and full of self-doubt and anxiety.
There are many facets to my journey to finding my voice as a person, many of which I describe on my blog so that I might inspire other highly sensitive people (HSPs) to believe in their dreams. Writing out my feelings in a journal has been one of these many facets that contributed to my awakening to my true spirit which was hiding inside. I have been writing poetry in a journal since the age of 14, but it wasn’t until about 2002 that I set out to to try to do Julia Cameron’s morning pages (3 pages of free writing every day) which turned out to be extremely therapeutic “inner grief work” that took place over a period of 5 years. It was during this period that I wrote about the feeling that I was “growing a backbone” and this felt very miraculous indeed. I knew I was finding my voice finally and it had been hidden away in fear for so long. I was writing songs and poetry and it never really occurred to me to seriously share them with others until one day when an extra special one poured out of me. When I wrote this poem, it dawned on me that I had been transformed and now, finally, I could reach out and help others–something I had always wanted to do but I always felt I had to figure myself out first. I had a new found sense of self and there was no going back. I am very happy to be sharing it with you today.
After I wrote this poem, I got the idea to write a book sharing many of my poems and my growth along the way to finding my voice and that this poem would be the final one in the book–a finale of sorts. However, since then I have written even more special poems and songs so I have decided to go ahead and share a shortened version of it here in my blog. (I haven’t written my book yet but I plan to start it in the near future.) This very special poem is entitled, “Joy, Our Birthright, Waiting There”. I want to explain that I wrote this with my children in mind– when I say “and I was never there for you the way I thought I was, it’s true”. What this means is when I went through growth and gradually had more access to my true self, then I couldn’t help but feel regret about the past when I had been doing my best but I was not able to be my strong confident true self yet. When I expressed this regret to my children expecting them to agree and feel relief and tell me it had been hard for them, they both instead said they always felt I was always emotionally available to them and it meant a lot to them that I always apologized to them whenever I made emotional mistakes and they felt fully validated at each step along the way in their upbringing. For this I feel extremely grateful because nothing has ever been more important to me than my children feeling good about themselves and their unique gifts and breaking the cycle of dysfunction that my husband and I experienced as children. Still…I can’t help but wish I knew then what I know now….
So here it is:
Joy, Our Birthright, Waiting There
By Roxanne Smith
Feb 21, 2007
Telling someone helped me heal
All the pain inside was real
No wonder I had been so tired
My whole heart had been so mired
So much grief to lead the way
Let it out, so much to say
I was never there for you
The way I thought I was, it’s true
Because I was empty – none to give
Alive but I just now learned to live
Soulful is the proper word
I have “me” – it sounds absurd
Let your painful feelings out
You can’t be whole and live without
Expression of unfairness do
Your soul will help you live anew
And learn compassion for your self
Don’t put feelings on a shelf
Any doubt is harmful thought
The truth is–look how far you got!
Negativity and blocks
To true self and joyful shocks
Being blamed can stunt our growth
Fear of feelings: anger, both
Also fearing joy and bliss
Pain comes up and we all miss
The connection to our rightful heir
Joy, our birthright, waiting there!
Love is what we all deserve
Joy it feels when then observed
Share it then and it comes back
Filling up the past we lacked
Helping others heal their wounds
Nothing like it – glowing moons
Stars are twinkling, warming sun
Nature loves us one by one
Let the love come down on you
It is there don’t block the view
Doubts of self will keep it blocked
You must trust your soul’l be rocked!
With this truth I’m trying to tell
Creative soul fear-blocked is hell
Heaven is a word away
Love is here please let it stay
You deserve its welcome home
Inside you it does belong
Love yourself I’m trying to say
God is trying – just light the way
Ask him to comfort your soul
Believe! And he will rock and roll!
I’m not kidding this I know
I let out grief and felt a glow
A light inside I did believe
I’m OK. I feel. I grieve.
Compulsions all have fear beneath
God has no “shoulds” or “work hard” teeth
Be yourself and kindness do
Serve to help others heal anew
Help them see that love transcends
We can all relax and mend
“Relax and enjoy your life
and everything will be alright!”
This phrase came in a dream so real
I hope this poem will help you heal
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
With Love,
Roxanne
Forgiveness Is For Your “Self”
Hi everyone. I have been wanting to share my song “Help Me to Forgive” for a while, but I wanted to explain what I mean by forgiveness because it can be such a confusing and guilt-inducing concept. For myself, forgiving was something I kept trying to do because I thought it was the right thing to do.
As highly sensitive people (HSPs), we want so badly to be compassionate, fair, and kind. I kept forgiving and forgetting the past. I pretended like everything was going to be okay if I just forgave and moved on but I continued to let myself be walked on. I ignored my feelings and kept telling myself I was forgiving and that was the right thing to do. For me, it was the wrong thing to do and the pattern continued until I felt so hurt one day by blatant disrespect for my feelings–when I made a simple assertion that was not to this person’s liking and then they said they were going to do it anyway whether I liked it or not.
I could not deny my feelings any longer. My rage shocked me–I knew it was from childhood and way out of proportion to the event at hand. But I listened to my feelings and it felt good to feel this truth–it was how I had always been treated me and I kept giving out the benefit of the doubt. The anger awakened something in me that needed to come alive–my assertiveness about my needs and feelings and about the boundary that kept being crossing and I kept letting it happen all because I felt it important to forgive and forget.
Now this anger fueled me in a healthy way for a while. It felt good to feel instead of being numb and self-doubting for so long. I wrote a lot about it and found myself in my journaling to have a lot of wise insights and a lot of reasons to be completely fed up with the insidious and mean things that were said to me with a smile.
But I was still so angry, it scared me how angry I was because it was so intense I felt hatred. And this makes sense really when, as highly sensitive children, our trust in ourselves and our spirits feel consistently stomped on until we give up and repress and hide our true selves and feelings away so completely–this is a trauma!– not feeling safe to express our intense anger we hide our true selves away. Now for the first time, I was so angry but I felt alive, I knew it was the truth I was feeling. I was somehow grateful for everything that had happened to me to give me the self-awareness to finally know the truth! Writing my feelings out helped me make sense of it all. I was able to see actions from my childhood which were the cause of much pain and self-doubt. It was very clear! I will never forget this moment in my whole life when I realized there was absolutely nothing wrong with me and that I had just been the victim of a person that I wrongly trusted with my heart and soul. So I made myself a promise not to trust this person with my private feelings (a healthy detachment) and set some boundaries for time and space to heal and it has been a very important decision in my life.
All these emotions coming up helped me connect to this wonderful aliveness–a connection to my true spirit and a connection to God and that he was there with me all along. I know it sounds strange–how could all that pain be so awakening in a positive way but it was. In the midst of the pain, I felt bliss and freedom and truth and so I knew it was right to stop trusting this person. And after a long period of intense anger, pain, grief, and then acceptance, I finally understood what all the talk and importance of forgiveness was all about–I needed to forgive God/The Universe and stopped blaming Him/It for “giving me” such a painful childhood. And I needed to forgive myself because I knew I did the best I could at figuring out a very confusing situation and for blaming myself as a child out of survival. I needed to forgive the whole situation and all the pain it caused me because I had ME again. I do not have to forgive a person who is not sorry to their face and never will be–but I do forgive what they did. I had been holding onto a lot of resentment which I didn’t realize was hurting me and taking a lot of energy.
And that is when I sat down and wrote the song “Help Me To Forgive”. I’ll never forget writing it. It was a very spiritual and pivotal moment in my life. It helped me to start the process of trying to forgive God, The Universe, and me, and the whole situation, and my pain. That is what forgiveness really means for me. Then, a few weeks later, I wrote the song “This Too Shall Pass” with a newfound ability to comfort myself through the worst feelings of rejection and betrayal.
Yes that was quite a month–September 2007. And I am glad I have these two songs to commemorate that special time when I reclaimed my true self and found inner peace and acceptance. And I also discovered a way to let God’s love in my life and really feel it and believe it. As the saying goes, ” The truth will set you free,” but you must feel your feelings to get there.
But in all my writing just now about forgiveness, I don’t want to forget my reasons for writing this post. It is to support you, the highly sensitive child with childhood wounds, from not feeling guilty that you cannot forgive yet. And that trying to forgive even God and yourself before you have gotten through all of the anger and all the repressed emotions from your childhood can leave you feeling guilty and beating yourself up. Please do not feel guilty if you are not ready to forgive anything yet. Please be kind to yourself and love and comfort the wounded child inside for all the feelings you were denied being allowed to express. That is the first step and it takes a long time to tell your whole story–to let out the entire truth. The song “Help Me To Forgive” is meant to comfort you on those times you are filled with anger and resentment about the past–and you are realizing how strong you are because of the pain you’ve been through and you are ready to stop holding on to blame. I share the lyrics with you with the utmost compassion and love in my heart.
With love,
Roxanne
Techniques for Journaling and Over-riding Your Inner Critic–For The Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)
Hi everyone. I’m happy to be back. I had a wonderful vacation and it is also great to be back home. I am feeling renewed and energetic now (five days after we returned) but I was extremely exhausted when we first got back. And my husband bounced right back after like one day–and so, comparing myself to him, I was feeling very much lost and empty and discouraged…. and then started wondering how will I ever write another post and even…how did I ever write all that stuff I already wrote–I was spiraling negative thoughts again–my inner critic took over! And it was so hard to decipher–I just felt bad and exhausted with no hope in sight. So I wrote in my journal and it helped!–so I thought I would share with you my technique.
First of all, in journaling you must tell yourself that no one is going to read this ever! –and mean it and believe it. Then you let loose with all your feelings. I started out saying ” I feel horrible! I can’t remember who I am or how to feel good.” Within 2 sentences though I remembered, ” I used to feel this way all the time as a child.” And then, “Oh yes this is childhood pain coming up to heal. I just had a wonderful vacation! My inner child is expecting to be punished.” Then my own compassion kicks in with ” I need to be extra nice to myself. I am being too hard on myself. Do nice things for myself today. I am a highly sensitive person. No wonder I am tired–vacations are highly stimulating–just give myself extra time. Everything is going to be okay.” Before long I am cheering myself up. I have over-ridden my inner critic–that negative voice inside my head. This process always amazes me because I feel like I should be “fixed” by now and should never feel bad again. But that is the negative voice in my head–the pressure from my mother to “be happy — just get over it, you are too sensitive blah, blah, blah.” That is the opposite of what I needed as a highly sensitive child. On vacations I would get overwhelmed, over-tired with all the new sights and activities. I know I deserved kindness instead of impatience, rest instead of guilt for slowing them down, compassion for my ability to see the beauty in the small things like nature instead of annoyance about my questions and my disappointment in their lack of carefulness with my feelings. There was nothing wrong with me. There is nothing wrong with me now. My only mistake was believing them when they blamed me. I don’t believe them and choose to be around people who are safe and kind and who like me easily. My husband is one of those people and was the first to remind me to not be so hard on myself and to take it easy. He was right.
Do not be discouraged if this technique of journaling does not come so easily to you yet. This takes a long time and lots of effort deciphering the truth of what you went through and what you truly deserved as a highly sensitive child. The book called The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron is SO helpful in guiding people through the journaling process that helps unblock creativity (finding your voice and your true self!)
Many different techniques help me to find my voice and vitality again. Sometimes it is playing my songs when I am feeling so lost I don’t remember being able to write songs. Reading your own journal helps too especially if you are the kind of journaler who ends up feeling hopeful after you write. (You have to make yourself do it–it doesn’t come natural to read your own stuff when you are feeling bad about yourself–you’ll be surprised how your own words lift your spirits.) Other times I read books or blogs by people with a compassionate voice and I recover my own compassionate voice. Elaine Aron wrote the book on “The Highly Sensitive Person” and was the catalyst that started the HSP support groups that have grown and spread in cities and online. Online, I read her article on “the problem of bearing an unbearable emotion” that she wrote in her newsletter for Feb. 2006 and I immediately felt “found and validated” just by her compassionate words–my energy came back and I was excited about my life again. I hope my blog does the same for you.
I was fortunate to have some time to find myself and work on myself and read self-help books and write in journals while my children were growing up because my husband was so grateful that I was home raising emotionally healthy kids–he is a “thinking” type although a highly sensitive guy (an INTJ), whereas I am a “feeling” type (an INFJ). (See the book by Keirsey and Bates in my Recommended Books section for a test on temperament types.) He had an even more difficult childhood than I did and is grateful for my compassionate ways. When I think of how far I have come, it feels rather miraculous so I want so much to help others who are as lost and hiding as I was. I believe that those of us who are the most sensitive and almost destroyed are an important resource to this planet if we can join together and rise up as a voice of love, peace, and compassion. The fact that you are feeling beaten down is the very indicator that your sensitive ways have been misunderstood and need to be put to better use. All you need is a witness to validate the injustices you have suffered and then you can rise up and start speaking your mind and being a messenger of compassion that the world needs. DON’T COMPARE YOURSELF TO OTHER PEOPLE! You are exactly the way you are supposed to be. Be kind to yourself and learn to love yourself.
Louise Hay’s book You Can Heal Your Life is a book I have been reading on and off for 15 years. The positive affirmations in her book I use daily now but felt so foreign to me when I first got the book. One of my favorites is “I give myself permission to be the best that I can be”. Growing up I was not allowed to express my authentic self (or be my best) because it threatened my narcissistic mother and she would withdraw her love and approval. My mother was jealous of my many gifts. I didn’t know I had any gifts at all because she was determined to control me and keep me close and, in her view, if I knew I was gifted I might leave her. That whole concept was hard for me to grasp because it would never occur to me to be that way or be jealous of a child of mine–it is my responsibility to help my child see all his/her gifts and how special he/she is. So this explains why I couldn’t have compassion for myself–I trusted so completely in my mother. And also then came the question “why would God give me a mother who was so manipulative and unloving?” That was another chapter in my life that I now have completely resolved. God did not arrange for me to have this emotional pain and hardship but has given me the inner strength and compassion to overcome it and become strong. Had I not had a mother like that I would not be reaching out to help others who also experienced a mother like that right now in this moment.
In this moment, I am happy and complete and grateful for all the pain I went through to make me this strong. But while I was in the pain and lost and alone and not knowing how to let God’s love in, I was not grateful–no way! But there was a pivotal moment when I was crying in despair that I became aware that no one but me was going to rescue me–of the two of us, my husband and I, I was the stronger one emotionally. Something Eckhart Tolle said in his book A New Earth helped a lot. He said something to the effect of… I am not all that happens to me–I am ” the presence” that observes all that happens to me…. It made me realize I am not this abused child who is forever a victim. I am all the wisdom from what I have learned from it and can comfort my inner abused child through it. I still keep learning it over and over and each time it gets easier to find myself again. So do not give up. You who are hiding and afraid to speak up–it’s okay and you have every right to be afraid. But that it is not all of you. You have a gift, a wisdom, a compassion, that is sorely needed in the world. Don’t let the bullies and controllers and competitors win. They are not like you and so cannot understand you. But you can understand you! You are on this planet for a reason exactly as you are. Change only the people you are around. Elaine Aron says that HSPs have an easier time overcoming depression just by changing our environment to being around people who love us and accept us as we are. She says “get out of competitive environments where you have to fear that you will be judged, rejected, or seen as a failure, and stay around those who like you.” (see her newsletter the Comfort Zone , and the article called “A Few Happy Things Regarding Depression”). I am adding her website to my blogroll. It is hsperson dot com. I hope I have helped you to feel more hopeful and happy. You deserve it. You are a highly sensitive person and that my friend is a gift. Thank you to my readers.
With love,
Roxanne
Hope and Healing Haven 
Thank you so much, Judy! That’s wonderful that you will be joining me! You are an important part of this community and I appreciate your support and participation as we journey ahead! With love and light, Roxanne
Congratulations. I’m looking forward to step onto this new path with you.
Hi Alec! Thank you so much for your kind words and encouragement! Yes, I’ve got new wings to fly higher!–I hope it is “uplifting” for all! Stay tuned for my next post in 2 days–it’s about my “amazing” past year.
This a great step! Well done! You are flying on an amazing trajectory!