For HSPs–Journaling Tips For Deep Spiritual Healing
Hello Highly Sensitive Souls (HSPs) , Lightworkers, Empaths, Introverts, Earth Angels, and Starseeds,
I hope you are doing well and thriving! Like me you may be striving for balance and healthiness in your life as you acknowledge your sensitivities, are being very gentle with yourself, and healing past traumas. It’s a lot for us sensitives to find balance and feel grounded while at the same time wanting to strive ahead in pursuit of joy and inner peace and our true purpose in life! Then stuff comes up in life to force us to find our inner strength! I am finding mine. I am in a state of transformation. Perhaps you can relate. It’s an extra tough time right now because we also have to shield ourselves from watching the news!–we peek at it at times and sometimes it’s too much and we get knocked off our center. I’ll be sharing some of my practices of how I keep in a healing state. I’ve slowed down the pace of my life and I find I operate so much better in slow gear. Slow gear is great for resting, deep healing, and recovery. This is essential for highly sensitive people (HSPs). And in slow gear you can tune into your own intuitive guidance and feel the support of your guides and angels.
I myself am often in pursuit of comforting guidance and I find that I have a habit of seeking it out from other lightworkers on YouTube and other platforms only to realize I am able to comfort myself best in my journaling and by going within. I discovered that I am looking for “ME”–I am a natural born comforter–it’s part of my true purpose. In those times, I realize that I’ve become disconnected from my true self when I am looking externally for comfort. Within is where the inner peace is. It took me a long time to figure it out but thank goodness I’ve really got it now. Turning to my journal to write or to read it really helps me to find the calm within–my inner nurturer.
Being creative and expressing my voice in my journal is my bridge to healing my past patterns and finding self-compassion. When you learn self-compassion it helps you finally learn how to deeply rest. When you get some deep rest then you are helping heal your foundation (root chakra) so you have a strong base from which to give to yourself and to others. There’s other ways too to find balance–seeking stillness in nature, meditation, and listening to soothing music etc. but I’d like to focus today on the healing power of writing and journaling.
There’s a very unique and personal healing poetry that comes out of me at my most creative times and I’ve shared some of it here on this blog. It is/was never my intention to share it with anyone else besides myself when I start writing it–if I had that intention I could never write it. But I always feel healed by the end and as if I worked through a difficult layer of stuck emotion when I write my poetry. When I first started, I had a great deal of shame come up after I wrote a poem. Then I saw a pattern emerge–the more shame that surfaced to be released, the more healing the poem (or song), and more feedback from others that my poetry helped them too. So the very thing we may feel shame about sharing may actually be part of our true purpose to help others. (See some of my past poems here on this blog on this page: HEALING WRITINGS / POEMS OF HOPE AND HEALING 🙏🏽✍️✨). When in doubt go ahead and share your creative work! You’ve got nothing to lose and you might inspire or help someone else!
As I go through chemotherapy (see my previous post), I have struggled with “chemo brain” and difficulty organizing my thoughts–but now that I am in the last third of the treatment plan I find I feel that I am over the hump and looking forward to healthier times! A spark of creativity is coming back amidst the side effects from the harsh chemicals which is quite a surprise to me. I had been unable to write in this blog all through the mold toxicity and cancer diagnosis. But as I deeply process this “wake up call” to live even more as my authentic self I am feeling stronger than ever. Facing fear of death really forced me to get clarity about exactly who I am and how I want to live. I thought it wouldn’t happen until after chemo was over but it was the intense bone pain from the treatment for 10 days in a row that forced me to get real and find deep answers from within. I found as I was in intense pain I was also hyper focused on being grateful for the times I have had and will have no more pain in my body. I found myself saying, “when this pain finally lifts I am going to do this and this and this!” Clarity! I didn’t despair. I didn’t have fear. I know it’s temporary. A strong inner me came forth!
The reason I chose to go through chemo is to make doubly sure that all remaining abnormal cells in my body don’t come back in the form of cancer. My immune system is taking a hit but I am doing many holistic things to boost my immune system and detox during this process. Pain is a teacher–the severe bone pain I experienced turned out to be a great gift that pushed my higher self forward. As the pain recedes finally I am taking action on the promises I made to myself. I am writing on this blog and writing songs and poetry when I am painfree as a priority with my best energy of the morning. I’m still resting and I’m still taking it slow but it feels so good to express myself now that I have clarity. Yay!
I’m very excited again about the future and my role of being a comfort to other highly sensitive souls trying to navigate our harsh world. I had healed the mold illness by the time I had surgery to remove the ovarian cyst, I will write about how I did that at a later time. So after the surgery I was thrilled when I had my creative mojo back and wrote a song called. “I Don’t Want To Go To Chemo”. Lol! It was fun to write and fun to sing and helped me cope with losing my hair! I look forward to sharing it–It will take some work to be ready to share it so that will have to wait as well. I will write about my chemo experience and what I learned and how I cope at some other later time as too. I believe rest and recovery is even more important for HSPs than for other types of people. People who aren’t highly sensitive are the ones making videos while they are going through trauma–don’t compare yourself to these extroverts or high energy people. If you resonate with my blog then your gifts are probably more subtle and often require a slow gear and recovery time before you can hear your guidance to how to shine your light. Journaling is especially important for HSPs so that we can be listening inward for our guidance that can be more easily discovered through an automatic writing process of being open to hear spiritual messages.
If you are also on a cancer journey I want to share two great resources for lightworkers wanting hope for healing. Anita Moorjani has helped me so much! She is an amazing woman who not only beat end stage cancer after her near death experience but thrives as a beacon of light to teach others what she learned. Her book Dying to Be Me is wonderful as well as her many interviews on YouTube about her experience and her message of healing. l also loved the book Cancer Is a Gift by Lawrence Doochin. It is a great positive read that is safe to read and hopeful unlike many stories and videos and well meaning cancer survivors who tell their horror stories which can induce fear in the listener. Shielding myself from others’ stories of chemotherapy and recurrances is really helping me focus on stay focused on the positive and manifesting a healthy body that is in flow with positive energy. It’s impossible to stay positive all the time but I have learned that if I keep flowing with the feelings as they come up–writing them out or crying them out or hitting a mattress–whatever is needed, then they flow right out of me to be released and I am back to a centered, grounded state again.
It’s not always easy and the important thing is to constantly forgive yourself for every little thing and be kind and very gentle to yourself. You are doing the best you can. My ability to channel and hear my guides and angels comes and goes in this harsh process of chemo, but when I do hear them they consistently remind me to be gentle on myself just when I forget to and start trying too hard to do all the right things. It’s the perfect message to receive at the perfect time. Then I take deep breaths and stop stressing, relax my shoulders, and seek stillness and rest my body and mind. I close my eyes and send white healing light to all my chakras and to certain areas where I may have pain, and I send love and healing light to all of the cells of my body and say, like Louise Hay has taught us, “I am perfectly healthy”. “I am safe.”
I don’t claim to have all the answers. I’ve come to understand that we have planned exit points in our soul plan and our death date is already decided. But I also know that some of us lightworkers may be going through severe illnesses to force us to shine our lights, learn how powerful we are, overcome fear, heal ourselves, and then help others to heal from cancer or other serious ailments with all that we learned in the process. I have many helpers and supports in this journey. I visit psychics and energy healers, and I have heart centered integrative medicine doctors and functional medicine doctors, and naturopathic doctors that I visit as I am guided and trusting my intuition.
I am still in the middle of this healing journey with 2 more chemo treatments to go. But I am thrilled to be having the clarity from my brain fog to write to you all today. I am careful not to say, “oh I have chemo brain” over and over, instead I say “my brain is working perfectly” over and over and now it seems to be trending in that direction. Words we speak to ourselves are powerful. If you haven’t heard of Louise Hay I highly recommend her book “You Can Heal Your LIfe”. I’ve been studying it for over 25 years and I have used it’s methods in my reiki healing practice with clients and now it’s especially coming in handy. So you might be say, why did you get sick with cancer then, if you’ve been this holistic healer for so long? It’s because I moved into a house with hidden mold in the attic and under the showers. It took me 1 and 1/2 years of slowy disappearing and losing my gifts and abilities to reach out to a functional medicine doctor who discovered I had 5 times over the threshold of mold toxicity in my body. Most doctors don’t know about mold illness–this particular doctor had overcome mold illness himself and knew just the tests to give me and which professionals to test my home. Thank you spirit guides and angels for guiding me to him. (There have been so many miracles like that along the way.) I believe that stress of being so ill with the mold toxicity that I couldn’t do the work I loved while at the same time having to lose many treasured belongings and move into a hotel for months while my entire house was remediated and renovated–that required so many difficult decisions when my brain was really struggling from the mold–my stress was through the roof for months.
That’s when the cancer started for me –extreme stress circumstances over months. I wasn’t able to do any of the things that helped me flow and thrive and be happy. Mold illness is worse than having chemo in my experience and my opinion. Until you remove yourself from mold and get the proper treatment plan you will continue to be ill. I was unable to flow or balance my chakras and express myself with creative writing for a very long time. My sacral chakra, the creativity center of the body, was stuck with negative energy–I had stopped being able to write songs and poetry and I lost my true voice and my spark.
In my case I believe that my cancer diagnosis, caught early and treated with both traditional and alternative medicine, healthy diet, and living with purpose and creativity, can be eradicated. I believe the surgery I went through got all of the cancer out. My cancer marker blood test was back to normal even before I started chemo and this helped me stay positive. But even if it was later stage I would have continued to be positive that I can heal it. Don’t let anyone or anything you read allow you to lose hope. If it happens keep coming back to the positive hopeful information. Hope is so important to shift from fear to the healing life force energy of love and light from heaven. I believe we each have the power within us to heal ourselves until it’s our time to return home. It is my hope that this blog post restores your hope for a long a healthy life full of vitality and purpose. Please leave a comment and share your story. It will help others to know they are not alone.
Here’s a very personal private poem that I wrote in my journal during the beginning stages of chemo. After I wrote it I felt so much better and would read it often to comfort myself. I recommend you trying to write this kind of stream of consciousness journaling–it doesn’t have to rhyme. Just be open to listening to your higher self and assist in the self-expression with a pen and paper in hand.
Chemo Poem
This is a predicament
Quite out of my control
Nausea and bone pain
It really takes a toll
Different than anything
I have been dealt before
Making me stronger?
What is all this for?
Hard to wrap my head around
Experience to help others?
Going through it makes sense
To gain compassion for my brothers
I used to have fear of cancer
And judgement and avoidance
Now I see it is energy
To make a point to learn this
Life is to be lived in fearlessness
Taking risks with all of our gifts
Helping others with compassion
Giving hope to give a lift
It will help with all the judgement
Of not fitting in
A little too Woo Woo?
No I’m glad to begin
Just gotta be myself
Not care what others think
If I can help one person
And help their fear to shrink
Then that is a wonderful
Future to create
Shine my light and spread the hope
As LOVE accumulates.
Copyright © 2025 Roxanne E. Smith
Sending you all comfort and healing love and light,
Roxanne 💖
Where Have I Been? Mold Illness and a Cancer Diagnosis
Hello Highly Sensitive Souls, It’s been a long time since I have posted due to quite an amazing rollercoaster ride of ups and downs in my life. I’m 63 now and oh boy now feeling even wiser since I posted here regularly. This blog was started in January 2010. I didn’t realize until later that that was the start of an amazing decade literally on January 1 of that decade. Now I’m seeing the magic in so many serendipitous moments in my life that seem “meant to be”. This is because I feel they prepared me for challenges ahead.
Now my journey as a lightworker helping others with my gifts of high sensitivity, empathic intuition, energy healing, and healing songs has added some new key subjects to what was the main theme here on this blog–which was healing from childhood wounds from a narcissistic parent or traumatic childhood. I believe if you are a highly sensitive soul and your soul chose this very difficult path in your formative years in your current life then you are quite a BADASS powerful old soul with great potential to heal yourself and help others heal too! And now you might be experiencing other challenges in life and possibly feeling Oh Boy I don’t know if I am strong enough. If you resonate with this then you may be in the right place reading here.
I am going through extreme personal challenges at the moment in life and I know that writing with the intention of supporting other highly sensitive souls will be healing for me and others. It boggles my mind as to where to start to share… but I realize I’ve grown a lot over the recent years and my inner voice is strong with self compassion. I hope you that are reading here know that I’ve always said that “Self-compassion is rule number 1” on this blog and it still reigns true. And I trust that I will “know” just what to share as I am always being guided by my spirit team of guides and angels. Remember, you have spirit guides and angels helping you too. Yes, that’s right–it’s true. You must ask for their guidance or they can’t help.
Since 2018 I have been a channel and an intuitive and I communicate with the higher spiritual realms in my journaling almost daily except when my health problems make it difficult to relax enough to connect to receive the heavenly messages. I have come to understand that these health problems I am experiencing are happening for a purpose. These health problems are temporary. These health problems are powerful teachers about energy blockages and transmuting fear and how to regain the flow of positivity and shining the light of our true essence which is pure love. Learning how to stay positive is easier said than done yes! Can we do it? Yes we can!!
Long story short, here is what is going on: The wonderful 6 year old house in Florida that my husband and I bought and moved into in October 2022 had toxic black mold hidden in the attic and HVAC system and under the showers. I had found a beautiful office in town for my energy work and life coaching but I was too ill to go there to work. My husband used it since he could work remotely and I stayed at “home” trying to recover. It took me over 1 1/2 years of having brain fog, chronic fatigue, intestinal problems, and stress intolerance and a host of other weird symptoms until I was guided to a doctor that finally figured it out! 😇🙏 A mycotoxin test revealed I had 5 times the threshold of mold toxicity in my body. This functional medicine doctor said only 25% of people get ill from mold which explained why my husband felt fine and I was incapacitated. So we had the house tested for mycotoxins and, yes, it was proven that black mold was heavily in the air handler and a significant but lesser extent hidden under both showers.
My mold illness was discovered in June of 2024. I moved out and into a hotel in July 2024 per my doctors orders and immediately I started feeling better slowly. By then it had affected my brain so much that I couldn’t park the car straight anymore and my eyesight had got worse to mention just a few things. 1 month turned into 3 1/2 months that I had to live in the hotel while the HVAC and ducts were torn out, showers torn out and the mold remediated and our home retested. Meanwhile everything we owned needed to be wiped off thoroughly with antibacterial wipes and mold spray, and the porous objects including couch and mattresses discarded. Clothing could be washed in hot water with a mold killer additive. We had movers come and move everything we own, except hard wood furniture, into climate controlled storage. A new HVAC system and showers were rebuilt and it took several months.
It was an extremely stressful summer and fall but I had high hopes to recover fully from the mold illness little by little—I was slowly getting my joy back and starting to feel like myself again. But then hurricane Milton in October 2024 halted all work on the house. We evacuated the area and helped my son evacuate and on the wee hours of the first night at the new hotel his beloved cat almost died from a urinary blockage among other stressful things that happened one after the other. My stress level that week was through the roof! Due to the extreme stress of that week a large lump in my abdomen had grown and the following week I could feel it. I got it examined right away by a new integrative doctor I was guided to and had an MRI by thanksgiving and surgery to remove it by Dec. 27. Thank goodness my lovely grown kids were visiting for Christmas at that time and were so helpful and supportive.
I awoke from surgery grateful to have the 7 inch diameter ovarian cyst (16cm) removed successfully that had been putting pressure on my kidneys. The good news was the oncologist surgeon got it all!—They found cancer in the cyst and it was caught early. It had not spread except a tiny bit to the peritoneum but the surgeon got that out too! But because it had spread at all it was called Ovarian Cancer Stage 2 B. The focus was on how fortunate I was and this gratefulness carried me through the painful recovery of a complete hysterectomy and a 7 inch vertical scar from the laparotomy. The oncologist surgeon recommended chemotherapy every 3 weeks for 6 times so that it never comes back. Stunned but grateful I knew, yes I’m gonna do that. I stayed positive just like I did throughout finding the lump—I had felt strongly it was benign and stayed fearless as I waited for surgery. I have felt comfort, guidance, and protection from my guides and angels each step of the way. It’s been quite a shock to process that I have a cancer diagnosis. I never dreamed with my holistic mindfulness and healthy healing habits that this could happen to me. I feel strongly that the surgery got all of the cancer. I am not allowing fear to feed any remaining abnormal cells in my body. My new doctor agrees and it turns out he is spiritually like-minded–I am grateful to be in great hands.
I truly believe if it weren’t for the stress of the toxic black mold situation I would not have this cancer diagnosis. I’m actually feeling very blessed that the extra sudden stress then caused it to grow large enough quickly for me to notice and take action to get it removed. What a blessing! It could have stayed hidden and slowly spread. But it didn’t. And then it stayed the same size from Oct until Dec 27 when it was removed. Little miracles are keeping me in a high vibe of positivity.
Over the summer while in the hotel I had sauna treatments and took binder supplements that removed the mold toxins and I have felt better now than since we moved here. My ability to think and sing and write songs started coming back in November and now I have my happiness back and the dreadful mold illness is behind me! The toxic mold stole my joy and creative desires and energy healing abilities–it was like my true essence was slowly disappearing. Luckily our house and my hotel near our home were not damaged in the hurricane. The workers continued the mold remediation and renovation immediately after the hurricane. I was blessed to find someone I trusted to wipe down the walls, ceilings and floors of our home. I could finally move back home after we retested to make sure the mold levels were safe.
Yes I was shocked at this cancer diagnosis but I feel so hopeful because the stress of the mold issue is now gone, the house is now a mold free sanctuary, and the showers are beautiful—finished on November 21st. I’m in a great place now to be healing completely, with a great support system, and looking forward to getting back to my work helping others. There is so much fear about cancer in the world and I believe that this fear really does make cancer worse. What I do is I acknowledge the fear and then shift it to the belief in hope and being cancer free.
The thing about the work that I do is understanding that everything is energy and getting positive energy flowing in the body is important for optimum healing. Mold made it impossible for me to flow positively in my sacral chakra (which is the center for creativity!) but now my energy is flowing positively daily. I’m working with an integrative doctor who happens to be an alternative cancer specialist who is helping me to detox the chemicals from the traditional route of chemotherapy. I didn’t know he was a cancer specialist when I first went to him–how amazing is that! So I’m doing both routes of treatment–holistic and traditional. So please know things are very hopeful for me! If you are experiencing a cancer diagnosis or mold illness worries I welcome your comments–through sharing our journeys we can help each other and others. I’m sending all of you warm healing wishes of love and light, comfort, and freedom from fear. Love is the opposite of fear and you are so loved by the Universe/God and your guides and angels. I’m here to help you get the messages of HOPE. I hope that by sharing my story I can help others to have hope. There are so many details that I glossed over in order to make this post a reasonable length. I welcome any questions so that I can clarify or help. Thank you for reading and I’ll be posting again when I can throughout my chemotherapy journey ahead to living cancer free. Welcome to our community that is a safe haven of hope and healing for highly sensitive souls.
Peace and Love,
Roxanne 💖
August 2021 Update
Hello Everyone! I hope you are doing well in spite of this new spike in Covid-19 Delta Variant. Wow it’s been a long time since I’ve posted–I feel like I have gradually shifted to a New Way of Being since I wrote last but I’m still figuring out exactly what that looks and feels like. I have a new wonderful office where I see clients in-person in the Indianapolis area and since I’ve been vaccinated I ask for masks to be worn by the unvaccinated. This is working out well! The spiritually-minded, sensitive souls who find me seem to be a 50/50 mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated. The unvaccinated are welcome–there are so many personal reasons and choices people make and that’s what makes our country great–freedom to choose. I’m for diversity and inclusion in every way for every human! I have strict policies and cleaning protocols to keep everyone safe so no worries.
For those of you not in my area, I offer distance Reiki sessions, intuitive coaching for empaths and highly sensitive people, spiritual counseling, and angel readings too by video or phone call. More information here. I look forward to hearing from you soon! I have openings for more clients starting the 3rd week in September, 2021!
Since 2019 I’m taking a break from performing my music but I’m also creating and sharing more of my original songs of hope and healing which are actually “Reiki-Infused Music”! I’ve always called them Folk Rock Songs For the Soul but I could say For Healing the Soul!–listening to my songs can help balance your chakras and heal deep emotional wounds as they did for me when I wrote them …with Angelic help! I didn’t know at the time my angels and guides were inspiring my songs and that my higher self was capable of infusing Reiki and healing codes in the songs but now I know this to be true!–and now I know it’s part of my purpose to help others!
I’ll be expanding and adding more songs here and on my websites in the coming months. You can find my debut album of original songs on iTunes, Apple Music, Amazon, and all worldwide platforms (just search Roxanne Smith. the title is A New Beginning) or better yet please buy and download them from my website: RoxanneSmithMusic.com. Proceeds from my website store go to making more albums!–the angelic realm has helped me write 70 songs of hope and healing, 50 of which are copyrighted and ready to to be made into more albums. I’m excited to share them and perform them on YouTube.
Mostly I’ve been seeing clients in-person for sessions so the music will take time. But as a highly sensitive person and empath I’m always guided where to spend my energy each day. It’s exciting to see what unfolds as I trust the guidance I receive.
This past year has been a year of personal deep inner healing in ways I didn’t even know was possible. You may relate to breaking out of the cocoon stage and you aren’t quite ready to fly ….but you can see it–over the rainbow, the brilliantly colorful future awaits you and is beckoning …but perhaps you are disoriented, not sure how to BE yet because the cocoon stage turned you to mush haha! Be Patient and Trust are the words I keep hearing and all will fall into place step by step.
I’m already feeling it as the Lions Gate energies of 8-8-21 seemed to give me a surge of energy on the 9th that I haven’t felt in a long time . I cleaned and uncluttered my garage that day lol and it wasn’t even on my To Do list. I feel it was symbolic of being the first place I arrive and leave my house daily which tells me to clear out old debris in my life in the mornings and before bedtime to sleep better and have more energy for all the things that I want to do. Sounds great! I’m excited!
I’m hoping all of you sensitive souls out there are experiencing similar growth and expansion of your wings–through insights and inspirations and deep clearing of old wounds to clear the path to your true self and true purpose on the planet. It’s a roller-coaster ride as we follow our joy and trust that our sorrows are temporary and that more joy is just around the corner. Our platform to take off and fly will just appear before us easily and comfortably! I’m counting on it!–I trust and believe!
I turn 60 years old on September 9th and my family has a big celebration planned. I keep telling myself, “It’s just a number”–because it makes no sense that I am that age. How can it be?! I’m a kid at heart and feeling younger and healthier every year so I decided we are going to Disney for my birthday! Yay I’m ignoring the number and will keep acting the age that I feel. 38 lol. Yeah that feels right.😃
Thank you for reading and being part of this community.
Sending you comfort, and warm healing wishes,
Roxanne 😇💖✨
Latest Channeled Angel Message
Hello Everyone! Hope everyone is doing well! Sending you so much love and comfort as we continue to endure this uncertain time of ups and downs. I’ve been busy working happily with one on one with clients so I haven’t been channeling my team of 6 Archangels as much. So I am very happy to share this Channeled Angel Message that I received a while back to share for most of this year through the present time in 2021. If you are drawn to see this message at a later time then it’s message is still relevant and meant for you. This is a Message from the Archangel Realm lead by Archangel Muriel to support Empaths, Highly Sensitive People (HSPs), and Lightworkers channeled through me, Roxanne Smith. This important group consciousness message came through as one voice from my core team of 6 Archangels to give comfort, encouragement, and guidance. The names of all of the Archangels are at the end in the signature.
Here is the Channeled Angel Message:
“Dear Sensitive Empathic Souls,
We are so happy to be communicating with you today through our dear Roxanne. So much is turbulent in your worlds at the moment and we hear you wish for inner peace. Please know this peaceful feeling you yearn for is around the corner as you clear out layers of pain from old wounds. These painful feelings are overwhelming you at times but you hold onto hope that it will be short-lived. You have always come out the other side of these things even stronger so you are hoping for the same result. But it keeps getting harder you are saying.
Yes we see how it appears so but actually you are just stronger to handle more of what is dense in the world and what your soul has protected you from feeling until you were strong enough not to be pulled down by it. Don’t believe the messages that you are shedding. You are here to help the planet and you have taken human form so that you can understand the hardships others go through by experiencing it yourselves. You have great abilities to work through and rise above any negativity so please remember this. You are a shining light of pure love and your being gives others hope. When you feel overwhelmed then it’s time to rest and be kind to yourself.
If you have a sanctuary to cry and grieve your hardships see this as a blessing and remember times you leaned on others because you did not understand that you have the power within you to heal yourself and stand on your own 2 feet. It’s okay if you depend on others for some things because you are always giving—always giving your energy to help out however you can and this is an exchange of energy that is valuable. You will feel better about your life if you have ways to be independent financially too. Be kind to yourself if you struggle with this area in life. Remember to call on us angels for help because we cannot help you unless you ask. It is best to ask for what’s in your heart instead of money. For example, ask for clients who are a good match for what you have to offer in the quantity that is healthy for you and for your highest good. It is best to strive for a grateful state and be in touch with your deep down desire to serve and help others to love themselves.
We know it’s hard when you feel lonely or misunderstood or triggered when others mistreat you or put their negativity onto you unconsciously. This can leave you feeling confused and even angry about the unfair treatment but you have amazing tools to replenish that others don’t have. After a good cry and writing in your journal to get clarity about why something upset you, often you can see these feelings were someone else’s all along and were either vented onto you or you just absorbed them being around another person. You are still learning about boundaries and grounding yourselves. You are seeing there are many ups and downs to this life—it may seem hillier and hillier as you climb a mountain but you can take frequent breaks and look at the beauty of the mountainside that no-one else is noticing. You get to witness and feel the miracles and communicate with love from above that others do not have access to .
Believing there is so much more to this life is what gives you hope and your day to day thriving is such an uplifting example to others who are struggling from pain and are on antidepressants to cope. There are so many struggling and things like facebook just create illusions if you compare yourself to others. Everyone is struggling in some way and those believing the rosy pictures of others are not seeing that we all must feel all of our feelings in order to have a rich experience with an authentic life. Yes we must lift ourselves up to maintain our jobs and meals and sleep and homes and sometimes even this is difficult. Be kind to yourself and rest when even the simplest tasks are difficult and do extra work on these things in preparation for unexpected hard times when things are going well.
This ebb and flow will help you relax when you have hard feelings to work through because you know the hard times are temporary. Be loving and kind and gentle with yourselves and remember to call on us angels to soothe you and send you healing energies and uplifting insights to shift you. We may send you numbers or songs or reminders to write in your journal to get out of your inner critic in the left side of the brain. We want to remind you that you are strong and brave to come here to help and it’s not easy to shift out of the negativity sometimes but You Can Do It!
Some of you are grieving the loss of illusions that you had that made things easier to do with these illusions. Now, without the illusions you are grappling with the truth and feeling a loss of motivation. The motivation will come in a new and powerful way after you give yourself time to grieve your losses and adjust to a new way of being. A new way of being takes time and that is sometimes difficult for earth angels to accept—desires are instantaneous in the astral world so it’s a shock when you feel such obstacles.
Planning for old age is difficult for you too as you’ve had such childlike energy and exuberant determination your whole life and suddenly your feeling that you are running out of time. We want to reassure you that you are being helped with these things by your spirit guides and higher self as you stay open to accepting their help and ideas and insights. Trust you are being guided to ways to care for yourself and your health and financial security. Trusted friends and loved ones are put in your path to ease your life. Put your desires in writing and then be open to seeing things happen in your life as you strive to stay in the high vibe of love, peace, hope, and healing.
Yes it’s a difficult world if you look at it that way or you can see the miracles and lessons people are going through in a detached way with boundaries to preserve your energy in place. Protect your energy at all times so you can shine your gifts, rest and recharge and then shine some more. You are here to shine your light. You are here because you wanted to help. Don’t try to help until your light is recharged—find creative, joyful ways to charge up your light. Follow your hearts desire to figure out what recharges your light and fills you with joy and gratefulness to be alive on the planet. Take as long as it takes to grieve and rest if you are finding it difficult right now.
Do the basics during hard times and know you can do all the things on your list later when you feel better. We hope these tips will help you through this tumultuous time in life with so many ups and downs. You are stronger than you know. Ask us angels for comfort and guidance 24/7—we are at your service. We leave you now with gigantic golden sparkling hugs and kisses for whenever you need them to help you on your journey.
Until next time, we send you love,
Archangels Muriel, Chamuel, Jophiel, Sandalphon, Azriel, and Uriel.”
I hope you enjoyed this message and found it to be helpful and supportive. It is a great honor that I am able to receive and share these messages with all of you. I’d love to hear from you. Please leave a comment and/or follow this blog. Welcome to our community.
Sending you comfort, caring, and empowerment so you can heal and shine!
With Love and Light,
Roxanne 😇🙏💖✨
EmpathicSoulHeal.com
I Was Lost But Now I’ve Found Me
Hello Everyone! Happy New Year, Everyone! Happy New Decade! Yay 2020!!! I hope you are doing well. I hope you find hope in my sharing my journey of feeling lost to feeling found. I understand, I care, and I found ways to heal that perhaps can help you too.
10 years ago today I started this blog! It was a new beginning for me as the blog helped me to find my voice as a writer; as a coach, mentor, and spiritual counselor for other highly sensitive souls and empaths with childhood wounds; and just …as a person, a soul, a human being on the planet! I did not realize I had started my blog at the beginning of a decade! I did not realize until yesterday how serendipitous and special it is that I started my blog at the beginning of the previous Decade! Wow exactly 10 years ago! I was 48 then and felt kind of old and yet unaccomplished and green. I am 58 now and I feel younger than I did at 48 …and in fact younger and happier than when I was in my 30s! 2020 vision and clarity is ahead for us all–a new hopeful path is emerging before our very eyes! I invite you to get out your journal or think back to january 2010 and look at how far you have come. Please share your healing journey in the comments below or if you resonate with realizing you started some positive changes or awarenesses in your life in 2010.
I found my true soul’s purpose as a result of writing this blog and an ability to express myself that had long been hidden inside me. When I started I had no idea how importantly the work I did on this blog would impact my life. I remember thinking, if I could just help one other person with what I’ve learned on my journey then this blog would be a success. Such a valuable thing to learn I think because I had low expectations so when the blog gained momentum and had lots of engagement it gave me so much confidence! The success of beginning my career as a life coach on the blog lead me to following my intuition and trusting my own inner guidance at deeper and deeper levels.
I was helping others through sharing my journey through a pen name at first–using my middle name, I was known as Elaine back then. At the height of my coaching career, I then started writing more and more songs, going to open mic nights, met musician friends in my area, and overcame my terrifying fear of singing alone on stage in public. I started performing around Indianapolis and getting paid for it and made an album of original songs that is on all the Worldwide music platforms such as iTunes, Spotify, and Amazon.
While I deeply loved my blog, my coaching and my clients, my heart was torn in 2 directions. I realized I had to put all my songs under my legal name and until then they had been divided–half were songs about inner child healing under the name of Elaine. When I changed my name on the blog and stopped writing as regularly, the blog audience changed and grew as I changed and grew. Even when I didn’t write for a few years on this blog, the old posts continued to get readers and new followers and I continued to get emails from grateful sensitive souls who felt their childhood wounds had been “seen” and their inner feelings “voiced”.
My journey took a spiritual turn as the intuitive abilities helped me realize many of my songs and blog posts had been “channeled” by me–I realized I was co-creating with the help of my higher self. My soul’s purpose grew to include being an energy healer, and the training and certification I received as a Reiki Practitioner in 2012 was fitting beautifully with my channeling abilities, and I attracted opportunities for office space to do this Reiki work and Intuitive work in Indianapolis. Now, in addition, the music and the Reiki are fitting together as I learn about sound healing and things like Reiki-infused music and music-infused Reiki. It is so amazing to me how life unfolds in ways that amaze but we somehow get glimpses of what could be, yet we don’t know how we can get to our dreams and yet the dreams unfold into yet even better dreams and magical abilities.
We also all have so many unexpected hardships along the way and think we are off track sometimes, but I believe it is these very hardships and side roads that make us stronger–strong enough for the next thing that our higher self has planned for us! The last 2 years have been an upheaval for me, revealing unhealthy patterns in me that I couldn’t see without some shake-ups and re-formulating in some very close relationships.
But it all makes sense now–if you have painful childhood wounds you need to relearn how to bond with people with pure love at the core. I have even more self-compassion for my wounds, even more strength to observe them and release them and grow stronger with each layer of emotional pain from the past that presents itself.
The result is a really strong foundation at my core, an independence and confidence to stand on my own 2 feet, and empowerment that is not codependent on a partner or children, or a role, or achievement in life but in a power of being that is centered, grounded, and wise with knowing that I am worthy of having it all just by being. And that we are all worthy of having it all and I LOVE helping others to get to this same feeling of wholeness and vitality and creative expression.
Whew! What a ride the last 10 years have been! The first 3 years of this blog contain the meatiest, most substantial posts in my opinion so I am going to be reblogging those posts on the day that they were posted 10 years ago as they come up. I will also be posting updates in the present day too interspersed with these older blog posts.
So here is the very first blog post from the first day I signed up for the wordpress site– I was back then just learning to navigate the brand new wordpress world (and with my very first laptop computer too–I was still just learning the computer) at that time–my youngest child was now settled in college.
The first post was lyrics to an original song that expressed the hope I felt at going from “lost” to “found”. Thank you to all of you who follow me and to any of you who have followed me from the very beginning, I am sending you big hugs!!! 💞💞💞I’d love a comment or a hello from you!! Please join me in celebrating my 10 year anniversary of teaching and learning self-compassion through this blog–all the way from Elaine to Roxanne Elaine. I will continue to write here to share my journey to comfort and encourage all who resonate with this community of Hope and Healing. I’m so grateful to all of you who read my blog. Again I THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart and the depths of my soul.
Wishing you a wonderful Happy New Year Celebration!! 🎉🙌 Yay!! It’s 2020!!🤩
A new Beginning for us all.
Sending you comfort, caring, inner peace, love and light,
and Encouragement to Enjoy Life, and Permission to Party!!
Look how far you’ve come!! 😃💃🕺❣️
Roxanne ✌️😇🎶💖✨
My very first post, Dec. 30, 2009:
I Was Lost But Now I’ve Found Me
Lyrics by Roxanne Smith
I am strong but they can’t see me
I am wise but they can’t hear me
I am kind but they can’t feel me
I was lost but now I’ve found me
I can see the truth in me
I can feel the love in thee
I can have the strength I lost begin again
Your belief in me makes me free
CHORUS
I am sad and you are there to hold me
I am weak and you are there to guide me
I am scared and you are there to love me
I was lost but now I’ve found me
I can be all that I can be
Overcome the fear they gave me
When all I feel is lost and unaware
You are there to say you care
When…
View original post 111 more words
A Healing Poem for Sensitive Souls with a Narcissistic Mother on 11-11.
Hello Everyone! Many sensitive, and empathic souls and clients are having childhood wounds arise to the surface to be healed. It can be a very painful experience. It’s also an opportunity to heal and become stronger. I hope this poem I wrote recently is helpful, uplifting, and supportive. If you resonate, please leave a comment. Welcome!
YOU WERE NEVER LOVED, MY DEAR (Healing Shame From Childhood Wounds) By Roxanne Elaine Smith
When you had a narcissistic mom
Where’s the next hit coming from
Not a hit with fist or hand
But words and eyes that punch and land
*
Devastating to your soul
Nothing solid to take hold
No mirror to see your worth
No smiles and comfort so you search
*
You search for reasons, blame yourself
Shame and doubt instead of stealth
It robs you of the truth and time
You were sweet and so sublime
*
You were shining, curious love
Sent to earth from up above
But chose the hardest path to start
A childhood starved from feeling part
*
Everywhere you reached was blocked
So you gave up and heart was locked
Trust too much or not enough
Attracting all similar stuff
*
Until you realize the pattern here
You were never loved, my dear
Start from scratch and loving you
Oh it is so hard to do
*
At first because the triggers are
Relieving painful trauma jars
Shocking you right to your core
“How did I survive Oh Lord”
*
You didn’t! No you gave up YOU
And turned into a mask not true
Obedient and needy so
People-please and perfection oh
*
Trying oh so many things
Until your true voice finally sings
But shame comes up with every truth
The pattern hidden from your youth
*
Every time you were you, you were shamed
Have to get YOU back again
Ignore the shame and keep on moving
Rise above shame and keep on grooving
*
Yell at shame, you are not mine
Dance out shame, I am just fine
Shame keeps coming every time
Hiding doesn’t heal the crime
*
Only way is to see the child
Inside the parents who went wild
Spilling out their pain on you
Everything it was not true
*
You were perfect whole and right
Their fear and anguish like a blight
They felt safe because of you
Your light it was so bright it’s true
*
Not fair of course you deserved the world
You knew that you could heal and unfurl
Figure it all out you would
And love yourself just as you should
*
And finally learn strong boundaries
And attract those loving hercules
Those strong people, inner strength
Like you they’ve been put up to the brink
*
The death of soul and now awake
They search for tribes to quell and quake
Masterful and sensitive
They forgive and give and give and give
*
And you know you are one of them
And renewed hope on journey stems
Trying listening within
Trusting that love is what went dim
*
Self compassion is your chore
As shame returns with each great score
Reducing size or is it growing
Heal emotions and new knowing
*
Center, grounding, peace of mind
Solid forming, still maligned
Defensiveness and anger flare
But forgiving quicker in thin air
*
Believing in the moment’s peace
That’s the truth not all the fleece
Still confusing childhood wounds
Where’s the love-so many moods
*
Why the deep and painful purge
Feel relief when follow urge
Writing helps you flow it out
The truth is innocence about
*
All of it you chose but why
More than you can fathom, sigh
Others seem to simply thrive
Private hell they do deny
*
Good to have access to love
Reach for heaven up above
But also know you are whole and kind
Lovely you, you shine, shine, shine
*
Then loved ones blame—it all comes back
Another painful self attack
Oh the grief you must allow
The child must cry it out oh wow
*
Will the tears they ever stop
When your happy bubble popped
Self-reliant muscle test
You are getting strongest yet
*
See yourself that child hugged
Held and cherished sweetest mug
Smiles and happy to see you
Healing all that you’ve been through
*
It’s okay to cry a lot
Over things that most forgot
Disappointment to your core
Life goes on with all the sores
*
Want them all to go away
Triggers say hello today
Do not put it all on you!
Bask in love all the day through
*
When you find a sea of pain
That is someone else’s train
Let them drive on their own track
Do not let them take a snack
*
Send them love and move along
You know how you are so strong
You do so much for others
Time to be your own best mother
*
Nurture, comfort, love your soul
You are here to Rock n Roll
Everything is now alright
You are purely Love and Light
Original Poem © Roxanne E. Smith
With deep caring, comfort, and compassion,
Roxanne 😇💖✨
P.S. See more healing poems and writings here
High Expectations? New Tools For Sensitive Souls’ Healing Journeys.
Hello Everyone! I haven’t written for a while because I’ve been so busy just observing this emotional roller coaster ride of the last couple months—it’s been hard to put into words! It has propelled me into journaling more to get clarity and as always when I write I am able to access a higher perspective of “what the heck is going on now”! 😳🙏😆Haha! I’ve learned a few things and so I feel ready to share some of the positive things to give all of you sensitive souls on this spiritual journey a boost to feel better about EVERYTHING!
What a roller coaster ride! By this I mean Ups and Downs and Curves and Surprises and Shocks! Can you relate? But at the end of a roller coaster ride at an amusement park, the end of the ride comes with a slowing down and a smooth safe feeling until it comes to a stop and you get off and everyone is all smiles and Gee that was fun. Well, in general I mean haha, and only because you knew it was temporary—it was a ride you took by choice and it was a safe way to experience a thrill and know it would be over soon.
Compare that to this incarnation of life on this planet. As sensitive souls, we are highly evolved divine beings here to help, but we have expectations of smooth sailing and love and abundance. I really think it is these expectations that contribute to us getting stuck in the lows on the roller coaster that we experience.
All of this is coming up for me to talk about I believe because of this last full moon on October 13-yesterday! If you are like me you may have noticed that you are very sensitive to cosmic changes to the planet and Full Moons and New Moons etc.. I am not very educated in astrology but I find myself searching for YouTube videos to explain what’s going on cosmically at certain times when I’m feeling out of balance and sure enough it is a full moon or a solar flare or something like this causing our distress and it all resonates and gives a sense of relief.
I get some reassurance from the information I watch or read from elsewhere but often times I am searching and don’t find what I need to feel inner peace—then I am forced to write and then I realize as I connect to my higher self, my inner wisdom, my spirit team, my angels, the Universe, God, whatever you want to call “IT”.
I am then reminded that all my answers for my own inner peace can be found “within”. I know this but why do I keep forgetting it? Looking for outside validation has been ingrained in us as humans on this planet and we all feel this—trying to fit in and feel understood by other humans—wanting a tribe or even one other person who understands us and makes us feel reassured and comforted that we are OKAY and that what we are feeling is OKAY and that there is hope and that everything is going to be OKAY.
This neediness we feel is understandable—as highly sensitive, compassionate, evolved souls we are awakening spiritually but we are straddling 2 worlds. We are trying to make it in the 3D world and pay our bills etc. and also looking at the higher perspective of the 5D spiritual world for deeper meaning and understanding of why we are here, keeping our vibration high, and living in the moment to access the unconditional love that we have resonated with as Yes, This is it! All is well! We want that feeling everyday, all the time, every morning when we wake up.
But what I am understanding is, when we wake up in the morning with horrible dread and feeling bad about being here on the planet we need to observe this as information and not as our current truth. As divine beings, we have often been astral traveling in our sleep. We love to be in the higher angelic realms where we are from evidently—it’s all Love and Light there all the time! 😇 😁 So when we come back into our bodies and wake up as a human on the planet, the densest negative energies, often from our childhoods or possibly past lives come up to the surface so that we can see that these energies are there and are just ready to be “released”.
We are strong and powerful divine beings with love and light as our true nature but when we were born we didn’t know this so these wounded parts of ourselves are taking longer to heal then we “expected”. If you had a narcissistic parent then you were unloved and had unmet needs day in and day out for years and years and so you have many layers of of small hurts and false beliefs about yourself that need reparented and comforted one by one. That may be discouraging to hear that it is going to take longer to heal than you expected but here is the good news. If you observe the big bad emotion you wake up with as just “information” about your past rather than your present truth you can transmute it in minutes!
First, describe the feeling and label it! What is this? Is it shame, dread, hopelessness, anxiety? Then you do the opposite of avoiding it, or believing it, or numbing it out by keeping busy—you go towards it and you write about it in your journal and you have compassion for yourself about it.
Or if you are already versed in this healing process you go right to a positive affirmation to retrain the neurons in your brain to go a more positive route. You recognize this bad feeling is your inner critic and not the truth. It is your survival “false” self that absorbed the bad feelings from others around you not knowing they weren’t your feelings. After all you were just a tiny child and had to believe what you were being “fed” to survive and to get along with your caretakers who didn’t SEE you for the gifted soul you were.
Most of you know this but if you are like me right now you are still surprised that you are still dealing with these long healed issues—especially in the last few months. It is my understanding that the last remnants of these layers are possibly the most painful and most deeply ingrained and you are strong enough now to finally look at them, acknowledge that it was even worse than you thought. So give yourself even more kindness, compassion and comforting reparenting than you ever have before. Extreme extreme self care (double extreme 😃) is in order whenever you wake up feeling bad!! Be nicer to yourself instead of harder to yourself. After all isn’t that what your narcissistic parent or bully said to you when they ran out of patience with you—they said “what’s wrong with you—why aren’t you over this yet—you should be feeling better by now—you are not doing as well as you thought”. See? These things you say to yourself are judgements you are making just like bullies or abusers did which is the opposite of the unconditional love and comfort you deserved back then and deserve now.
Sometimes it isn’t until we get out of our heads and start writing onto paper that we are even realizing we are beating ourselves up just like “they” did (if you had caretakers who maybe even did the best they could but were needy themselves so they didn’t have the patience that you needed as a highly sensitive soul who was sensitive for a very good reason.)
So now it is up to you. To KNOW you are pure love and light and when you wake up feeling bad you are to lovingly cleaning away the false residue, the past debris, that is covering up your beautiful brilliant lamp of love and light. You now have some more tools in your toolbox to lift yourself back up to where you belong.
Joy is your birthright and you are doing a great job figuring out how to shine what is rightfully yours every moment that you can. Be nicer to yourself when you feel bad not harder on yourself. You are training your brain to go positive quicker and quicker when you get better and better at replacing the doubts negative core beliefs with positive affirmations. You can do it! You are pure love and light.
Being a human is extremely complex! Be patient with this healing journey that you are on! You may be a sensitive soul who seeks safety and inner peace but you are also a tough warrior with new boundaries to take on this challenge of transmuting darkness into light on planet earth. You chose to come here because you knew you could be successful at finding your true voice and true self and shining your true light.
Just being here on the planet you emanate this light and love energy and it uplifts others who need it. You are making a difference just by being here. So relax and be patient with yourself. It takes time and there is plenty of time for all the things you want to do. Self-compassion and self-care is always time well spent.
Sensitive souls, I am so glad you are here on the planet with me. You make the planet a wonderful place to be. If we join forces we can move mountains. Thanks for reading and please reach out if you’d like one-on-one coaching. My email is hopesinger11@gmail.com. Sometimes just having someone to see us and listen to our feelings with understanding can be so healing. I also offer distance Reiki and intuitive guidance during sessions as well—you design the sessions the way your heart desires.
I’m adding a link to my latest YouTube Video here of a recent performance of my original song, We Are Here To Love. The lyrics to this song just flowed out of me from beginning to end with no changes—it was magical. I feel now is the perfect time to share these lyrics with you.
Lyrics: -We Are Here To Love-
Trudging through the past debris, finding sparks of light
Holding onto highest hopes, knowing love is right
Seeing through the doubters’ eyes, knowing those above
Want us to believe and know, time is made for love
Chorus: We are here to love, We can fly with wings of time
When we feel the past, We must rise above and shine
We must rise above and shine, We must rise above and shine
Reminded who we are by pushing past the ego’s call
Kindness to ourselves is all we need to break the wall
Pieces still fall down on us, don’t misunderstand
Keep the rays of light around and hold each other’s hand
Chorus: We are here to love…
Verse not included in this video performance:
(Power from the latest move unearth’s a tender spot
Confusing inner child takes stage, plays out what we forgot
Kindness is in order now soothing wounds so raw
New aliveness, strength abounds, braving what we saw
Chorus:.. We Are Here to…)
Bridge: Learning to be still and yet, adversity remains
But even when we think we’ve stalled, we’ve unraveled many chains
Working hard it seems we have not played to really live
But underneath we somehow gain renewed hearts to give
Chorus: We are here to love…
Have faith and know that even in the hardest grief of times
You are loved and cheered about, so take in all the signs
Relish in the life you have, grateful for the rest
All will see the loveliness, you are a force for goodness
Chorus: We are here to love… You must rise above and shine… shine… shine You must rise above and shine. (slow end)
Original Song © Roxanne E. Smith
Until next time, With Love and Light,
Roxanne ✌️🙏💖✨
The Dark Night of the Soul–There is Hope!
Hello Highly Sensitive Souls, Empaths, and All,
I hope you are doing well! I am sending my love and appreciation to all of you and especially those of you who follow my posts! Thank you!! I am feeling a camaraderie with you and a deep empathy for the unique painful rollercoaster journey that accompanies being a highly sensitive soul and an empath. We are so complex but sometimes all it takes is for us to feel very seen and heard and validated for the injustices we experience and then we are renewed and recharged to get back out there and shine our lights in the world!!
I’m feeling very renewed at the moment and so I want to offer hope to any of you who are suffering right now and not feeling hopeful!! There is hope! You are special and you are sensitive for a good reason! You are enough and just your being here on the planet raises the vibration, even if you don’t feel like you are!
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted because I’ve been going through so much. March was intense and I feel compelled to reach out and connect with you all because well by nature I always want to help others–if you are having a hard time with sudden life changes well I understand completely and I am right there with you! I made it through to a very positive place and so I want to pass on to you what I learned. There is so much hope!
Oh my gosh! Where to begin? I don’t want to speak in generalities and I don’t want to vent about my personal life too much so I will try to just be vulnerable and truthful. Life had been going along one way for years and now I’ve been on this spiritual awakening journey and gradually things had turned upside down for me. Twice in the last week I started spiraling and even my usual supports weren’t helping. I was shocked! I’m the one who has it all figured out and helps others how can I be feeling so out of control and panicky, I felt like I was falling in a black hole. Everything around me felt like it was crumbling away. I didn’t have a panic attack, I’ve been fortunate to never have had one– what I had was an excruciating migraine that was caused by my own negative spiraling thoughts, for hours! …Until I asked, what in my life would make me feel better. The answer that came to me was, something big in my life had to CHANGE.
Then I looked up online Dark Night of the Soul and found what Eckhart Tolle said about it. I was immediately comforted just because what was happening to me had a name. I was having an existential crisis. Here are some parts of Eckhart Tolle’s article that helped me the most:
The Dark Night of the Soul–“It is a term used to describe what one could call a collapse of a perceived meaning in life…an eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaninglessness.” “…Really what has collapsed then is the whole conceptual framework for your life, the meaning that your mind had given it. So that results in a dark place. But people have gone into that, and then there is the possibility that you emerge out of that into a transformed state of consciousness. Life has meaning again, but it’s no longer a conceptual meaning that you can necessarily explain. Quite often it’s from there that people awaken out of their conceptual sense of reality, which has collapsed.
They awaken into something deeper, which is no longer based on concepts in your mind. A deeper sense of purpose or connectedness with a greater life that is not dependent on explanations or anything conceptual any longer. It’s a kind of re-birth. The dark night of the soul is a kind of death that you die. What dies is the egoic sense of self. Of course, death is always painful, but nothing real has actually died there – only an illusory identity. Now it is probably the case that some people who’ve gone through this transformation realized that they had to go through that, in order to bring about a spiritual awakening. Often it is part of the awakening process, the death of the old self and the birth of the true self.”
Besides the migraine, I also was experiencing this falling sensation of impending death and as if the walls around me and life as I knew it was crumbling away. So at a point of desperation I asked my Self, what in my life would make me feel better. The answer that came to me was, Something had to Change. I started imagining some of these changes in detail and magically my migraine started to slowly dissipate, I felt hopeful but perplexed and awestruck by this Dark Night of the Soul experience and I was able to finally feel hopeful and get some sleep after what seemed like the longest night of my life. (Reading Eckhart Tolle’s article had helped too–full article is here).
The next morning, I felt a new sense of aliveness and I took some action on these changes feeling more empowered then I had felt in a long time. But surprisingly the changes that I imagined didn’t end up needing to be THE THING after all–but some painful conversations with certain people in my life opened up what REALLY needed to happen. Then surprisingly my heart just burst open with clarity and LOVE and gratefulness for everyone involved like never before. Suddenly all the changes that I wanted I no longer needed but it was actually the experience of having the dark night of the soul that had changed me–I felt like my heart had grown 3 sizes like the grinch when he got super powerful and turned the sleigh around–I no longer needed other people to change and I had all the answers inside all along. My compassion for myself and others in my life and gratefulness for my journey had grown exponentially as well and a renewed passion in my career of coaching and energy healing and my music! I’m sooo excited like never before and with such clarity and newfound energy about my true purpose in life. Wow!
I feel grateful that my Dark Night of the Soul experience was shorter than what some people experience. After researching this, I have new empathy for the hell other’s go through. I am also aware that this may not be my last experience with this–one never knows how the Universe is going to challenge them to grow when we are unknowingly resisting change with all of our might and our Higher Selves have a different plan for our souls’s journey. What I have learned is more Trust! I trust that I am being guided to experiences that are opening me up and challenging me to grow in ways I didn’t know possible. Holy Hell LOL!!–the pain I went through was excruciating but I guess it had to be purged and experienced so that I can be a hand to hold for others going through it too.
There seems to be no way to skip over this process if it is happening to you. I am not a licensed therapist for those of you experiencing a prolonged depression. But I can share my experience of healing which was by way of writing and doing deep inner grief work in a journal which for the most part started for me in 2003 and then all the songs of hope and healing started pouring out of me in the years that followed. I credit the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron for helping me find this positive True Voice that was inside me all along. Whatever you journey looks like please know that I believe you will come out the other side and that your journey is teaching your soul something that will be of great value.
After my Dark Night of the Soul experience last weekend, words can’t describe my new vitality and passion to get on with my life’s work. All winter long I had been soul searching looking for direction and energy and drive to move forward consistently with this blog, my spiritual counseling and intuitive coaching work, energy healing, and my performing and writing my songs of hope and empowerment. AND I am so grateful now to be experiencing this new gift of realizing I’m a channel and always have been–It is profoundly honoring and a humbling experience for me that I now feel stronger to fully step into this role and say yes, I’m a channel for spirit here, having a human experience to help others, who are struggling with deep questions about how to embrace their gifts of sensitivity in an insensitive world. I’m here to tell you when you step fully into loving yourself and taking responsibility to learn tools to daily rise back into your truth as a shining light for the planet you will start attracting more and more positive people and experiences that will help you feel like life is all falling into place. Then you can relax and just be YOU! And you are so wonderful, just as you are, my dear sensitive souls, I’m grateful that you are here with me to help raise the vibration of the planet!
Sending you so much comfort, love and light as you continue on your healing journey,
Roxanne 😇💖✨
12 Tips For Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) in Recovery From Narcissistic Abuse in Childhood
Hello Dear Highly Sensitive Souls. I am a life coach for highly sensitive people (HSPs) with childhood wounds and I specialize in inner child healing for adults in recovery from narcissistic abuse. I am sharing a new post created by combining and updating 2 posts that I wrote awhile back on this blog to reveal all 12 tips for HSPs on one page.
This information on these 2 posts has continued to attract more and more followers to my blog, for all these years since 2010, even when I stopped blogging for a few years, more than any other posts on this blog. And so I am sharing it now to highlight the important content that resonates with many HSPs who are now awakening to their intuition and/or spirituality and embracing their emotional healing journey in order to step into their true purpose as their Higher Selves to assist the planet with their many creative gifts.:
As highly sensitive people, many of you are struggling with how to cope with your relationship with your narcissistic parent and your unsupportive siblings and extended family. First of all I want to tell you that as an empathic, intuitive life coach for many people with childhood wounds, I understand your pain and how hard it is. There is very little support in our society for not having a relationship with ones’ parents no matter how negative and destructive they are to you or were to you in your childhood. Many people have difficult parents but they tolerate them and seem to get by okay so why can’t you, right? The pressure is very real. But let me help you understand the difference between you (an HSP) and everyone else with some more helpful tips that are very important for you to know.
1. Know that your greatest gift is your intuition.
As a highly sensitive person (HSP), you were naturally giving and loving and trusting as children. You had high hopes for yourselves and others including your parents. People with loving and supportive parents are more likely living lives full of vitality and creative fulfillment and healthy boundaries to keep negative, manipulative, harmful people at a distance naturally and sharing their unique gifts with others. These people don’t feel guilty about not getting along with everyone–they just “know” there are some people who are unhealthy and dangerous–they pay attention to their natural instincts. But people with a narcissistic parent were taught at a very young age, even from birth not to trust their own instincts, their own intuition. The horrible thing about that is, that was their greatest gift, “their sensitive intuition”, and it was often used against them.
2. Know that you may have repressed a terrible trauma from your childhood–the loss of the knowledge of your gifts.
Possibly, if you had an N parent, then part of your sensitivities were seen as a gift for “them”. They could control you easily because of your trusting nature–so often they used fear to get you to be quiet, anger to get you to obey, and shame to keep you from feeling independent and strong. And it worked. You trusted them and needed them to take care of you and protect you from a world that overwhelmed your sensitive souls so you…experienced a trauma that caused you to shut down your true selves and become what they wanted you to become. Something happened that was “the last straw” for your fragile but wise self that was developing. You stopped trusting the Universe to be a safe place to be YOU. Typically it happens around age 5 or 6, according to Alice Miller (Author of The Drama of the Gifted Child). After an incident that you can’t remember because you have repressed it, suddenly, you are obedient and sweet wanting only to please. And please them you did. And that is why it is so hard for them to let go of you now. You took care of them. Completely and amazingly. They felt loved by you and validated by you filling a void inside of them that was caused in their childhood. It is as if you were the loving parent that they never had. That is how gifted you were. Those gifts of intuiting the needs of others are still there–they were just misused and abused by your needy and narcissistic parent. Those gifts of being a loving and giving and caretaking soul were mis-directed.
3. Know that your childhood holds the roots of your anxiety, self-doubt, post traumatic stress, and co-dependence issues.
As you grew up and tried to do some of the creative endeavors that were driven by your soul, your parent probably did not support you because they did not want you to leave them or stop taking care of their emotional needs or they just saw no harm in controlling you. As narcissistic parents with no conscience or guilt, it was easy for them to manipulate you, so they did. The pain of your original trauma at the age of 5 or 6 would come up for you each time you tried to express your true self and these outbursts of emotion may have been shamed and punished by your parent and made you give up each time. This is the beginning of the post traumatic stress that still plagues you today. ” Why do I over-react in these explosive ways”, you may have asked yourself. This is why. Your true self and all your repressed feelings and desires from childhood still want badly to be heard and understood and validated and “loved”. Your narcissistic parent was not capable of giving you this love and still is not and never will be. Your love needs are still unmet. You searched for love from others but sometimes, because parts of you are still undeveloped and childlike, you end up being attracted to people who seem wonderful and charming at first but then turn out to be needy and manipulative and unable to comfort you when you need it most–just like your N parent.
4. Know that there is hope and you can heal.
So what is a highly sensitive person with an N parent to do? You can heal and learn to love yourself and slowly unblock all those creative parts of yourself that never got a chance to be expressed. You can learn to trust your self and your gifts of emotional intelligence and intuition that were seemingly robbed from you and misused and abused. You can gain clarity amidst all the confusion, and hope amidst all the despair. You can learn that it is okay for you to say no to other people’s demands and put yourself first. You need to learn about extreme “self- care” (Cheryl Richardson–author of the book Life Makeovers) and you need a journal to pour into all the feelings from your deepest heart. You need support from like-minded, highly sensitive, safe people to share the pain and grief from the loss of a childhood that feels as if it was taken away from you. All your desires and free impulses were repressed so that you could survive with an illusion that your parent’s needs were more important than your own. But surviving was not really living your life. Surviving is not good enough. Your survival skills just cause you trouble because they are not driven by your heart, they are driven by a needy inner child trying to please a parent that felt unpleasable and without remorse about what they did to you.
5. Know that the answers are inside of you and support is available.
You need to take a new direction. A direction into your own soul. You need to excavate the desires of a child who never had a say in the development of his/her own life! Write it out! Talk it out! Cry it out! Shout it out! You can do this in a journal that is meant for your eyes only. Or you can find a counselor or coach who does inner child healing therapy. It’s important to find support somewhere so you can find your true voice and express it. There are HSP meet-up groups in larger cities. You might also look into Unitarian churches or Unity churches to meet people of a spiritual nature who are not necessarily “religious”.
6. Know that no contact with a malignant narcissistic parent is not just recommended so that you can get the time you need to heal, it is vital.
One of the first steps into this new direction of healing for yourself is ending the old song and dance and unhealthy relationship that you have with your narcissistic parent. If you’ve tried everything else and you are still miserable, that means setting boundaries on contact is an important step so that you can heal and move on with the life that you always deserved. The fact that you understand the words Malignant Narcissistic is crucial here. We are not talking about a parent that is capable of being remorseful about your childhood and trying to change, we are talking about a parent who blames you every time the relationship isn’t going their way–they resent the loss of control over your life that they always had. Control is not love. It may be time to cut off contact so you can finally heal. You do not owe them another ounce of your precious energy. You owe it to yourself to stay away from them as you heal, because being around them at all always takes a toll on you, a toll that is much heavier and destructive and stressful and toxic to you than you may realize.
7. Know that the GUILT is relieved by acknowledging the anger and hatred you felt as a child that you were forced to repress.
The guilt of setting boundaries in your relationship with your Narcissistic (N) parent will be strong. Ignore it because it is not your guilt. It is guilt induced from elsewhere that you internalized since you were a tiny child. That has affected your freedom as a gifted child to become your own wonderful self! It may feel as if they took that from you and gave you guilt, shame, and fear in its place. So what do you do with the guilt you feel when stepping out on your own to become the person with freedom to do whatever you want with your life? HSPs tend to feel guilt for feeling anger–allow yourself to feel angry about it! Righteous anger is a healthy emotion that you were not “allowed” to express to them–but it is important that you release this anger in harmless ways (not to the parent who abused you) . Acknowledge it, tell a safe person, or write it out in a journal (for your eyes only) in detail the anger you feel for all that you lost. Because this rage inside that comes out sometimes in your life at the wrong people has an origin that needs to be acknowledged and let go of. You have a right to acknowledge this repressed anger for the traumas that happened to you as a child–it was too painful for a child to survive this kind of excruciating, unbearable emotional pain of hating your parents when you needed them so desperately. So the trauma is repressed and the truth of what happened to you needs to be released so that you can finally be free. Punching a mattress with your fist and/or screaming into several pillows for as long as you need to is helpful to release the rage you have kept inside all these years. It helps to have a supportive and safe person present to validate your feelings as you release them. Do not hold onto this intense anger–release it and imagine this energy going away from you forever. (Forgiveness is important but not until all the layers of repressed anger are worked through and this takes time and patience with yourself–do not attempt to forgive too soon or you may get stuck in a guilt about not being able to forgive cycle.)
8. Know that grieving the loss of your childhood is part of the healing process.
Often after the release of anger you will begin to feel all the hurt and pain of not being truly loved as you deserved. Letting this grief out and releasing this is so important as well in the healing process of your wounded soul. (Allow yourself to cry as needed–let your inner child’s repressed pain finally be acknowledged and allowed to cry). It helps so much to talk to another empathic human to feel fully validated, comforted, or hold your hand through this grieving process–but if there is no one possible then you can write this pain out and you may even surprise yourself by the poetry that pours out of you. (No rules when you write–just let it pour out). These words of your soul will always surprise you– you may discover a richness and deep inner life inside of you that you never knew existed. Because it was hiding in fear all this time–a very real fear–fear of your parent’s judgemental rejection and abandonment of your budding wise self that needed love.
9. Know that it is okay for you to be FREE of them and put yourself first so you can heal.
It is a free country (I am writing this in the USA). You are a free person to do as you wish. Freedom is your birthright. And no one knows the pain that a narcissistic parent can do to the soul of a highly sensitive child except those who have experienced it. So stop waiting for approval from the rest of society. You may need to stop all contact with the harmful, negative, malignant narcissistic parent in your life forever and always if that is how long it takes for you to feel safe and have inner peace. You do not even need to attend their funeral if that is something that worries you. (You can send them peace and love from afar later when you are ready if this worries you–even if they pass on you can send love to them in heaven …if you are open to spirituality and this belief.) It is okay to protect yourself from all the negative energy and judgements of others at family gatherings if you are feeling this will happen. (This all depends upon your own personal spiritual beliefs–I personally now believe our souls live for eternity and those who truly love and support you will be there in heaven and watch over you in spirit–they will understand your reasons for staying away. I believe you don’t need to go to a funeral to say goodbye or to appease family members who don’t support you either. This is something that must feel right to you and your own personal spiritual beliefs) And to support you further, I just happened to hear on the radio today, a Christian counselor gently reminding someone that “Honor thy father and mother” DOES NOT APPLY when they are emotionally abusive (diminishing in any way) and use fear to control you. Fear is the opposite of love. It is a deal breaker and they are no longer honorable parents as long as they do not honor your feelings and use fear to intimidate or diminish you. God wants for you to protect yourself and go towards love in your life and away from those who induce fear until you feel strong and safe to stand up for yourself and your feelings. I agree with this. Loving parents want you to feel safe and loved–N parents do not care if you feel safe and loved, they want you to obey or else. Please get yourself safe and free to heal and get strong.
10. Know that Narcissistic people are known as “Crazymakers” for a good reason.
If you have malignant narcissistic parents, they are not going to change and they are not going to stop trying to make you wrong. You are not wrong for putting your life and your dreams first for a change. This is your time. This is your life. This is your time for healing and dreaming and learning to love yourself as God/The Universe has always wanted for you. Malignant Narcissism is mental illness. It’s a severe problem and insidious in nature because they appear to fit in with other people and have friends and thrive and look fine on the outside. They may even be religious and say they are devoted to God but it is not true. It is just words. They don’t love themselves so they can’t love you. They may even appear to change and will be on their good behavior around your children but be on guard to not believe it. They may even turn your kids against you in an instant if they are able so beware. There’s a deeply hidden self-hatred there underneath in a malignant narcissist and a desire to control others with no remorse and no desire to change which is a disconnected self-protection from emotional pain–a complete separation from their soul’s true essence. That’s enough knowledge for you to know you need to get you and your children safe with safe boundaries in place.
11. Know that highly sensitive people absorb the negative energy of others. Time alone and the beauty of nature can help recharge your positive energy.
Malignant narcissists can be like energy vampires sucking the good energy out of you and replacing it with all their unconscious negative feelings about themselves. It may feel as if you feed them, so to speak, and they take it and feel better about themselves. And they constantly want more, not seeing or caring how it is hurting you. Only you can stop feeding their endless need for your supply of positive energy. This is what it means to develop healthy boundaries. It is your very essence, your “gift” that they are taking–your ability to give light and love to others. You must protect this gift. It is meant for you and for those who are also of light and love so that we can build each other up and help each other so that all of our dreams can come true and we can improve life on our planet. These dreams and desires that you have deep inside are the inner voice that connects you to God/The Universe and to the light that feeds all of us who are connected to our true essence (HSPs). It is the LOVE that you never got from your N parents that you begin to feel has been inside of you all along. As you begin to connect with your real feelings and your vitality you connect with God and the love and bliss that was there innately in our true selves. Love exists and you can give it to yourselves when you realize you were loved all along and were born with this love to give to others who don’t exploit you.
12. Know that you can rescue yourself! No-one can do it for you.
Take the first steps and start on a path of healing today. Be strong and stay away from your malignant narcissistic parent while you heal and anyone who judges you for doing so. You don’t need to explain it to anyone. (Most likely you have hidden abandonment wounds that need addressed because you get triggered easily and you are very hard on yourself about that.) Most highly sensitive people will understand without explanation. They are out there–don’t give up! I am proud to be a highly sensitive person and now as a life coach of inner child healing I shine my light brightly to help other sensitive souls out of the dark. You have a light inside of you that has just been hiding in fear. Everything is going to be all right now as the truth of who you are comes to light. Please take extremely good care of yourself so your highly sensitive soul can shine and inspire others. I hope these tips have been helpful to you. I care so much and I understand.
With much comfort and Love and Light as you heal,
Roxanne 😍✌️🙏😇💖✨
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 😇💖✨
Recovery from PTSD from Childhood Trauma–for Highly Sensitive Souls
Hello everyone. I hope you are able to enjoy the holidays and find some inner peace and joy in just “being wonderful, sensitive YOU!”. For highly sensitive souls, the holidays can be difficult, especially if you are triggered easily due to PTSD from childhood trauma. I relate, however, many big breakthroughs have been happening for myself. I have been wanting to write and connect with you all about all the self discovery and healing I am learning about and how it’s making profound shifts in my own life–I am always listening to my inner guidance and growing. It’s an amazing process once you get on a roll. One day while journaling, the following information just poured out of me from my inner guidance and I knew it was meant to share on this blog. Here it is:
“You can recover from PTSD from childhood trauma. It’s not easy. It’s step by step. Yes, it really is about putting one foot in front of the other-wading through the feelings and voicing your truth. When you have PTSD from trauma in childhood it is your root chakra that continually needs help in your life. This is about getting your legs underneath you, standing strong on your own 2 feet, and feeling safe. It’s about moving forward towards your dreams. It’s about feeling solid, centered, grounded, and safe for your soul to stay in your body. When you voice your deep fears and the truth about their origins to a safe person, it validates you to feel safe and be “in” your body—perhaps for the first time.”
I didn’t know I wasn’t in my body until 2011 and I had memories of terror come up when I was laid up with some health problems. I had to cry and re-experience the terror with a safe person holding my hand 
as I voiced the truth of what happened to me. Realizing it was from childhood and not in the present is part of the relief—you realize you are not dying or going to die from the emotional pain (which is what a child believes) but just releasing a repressed trauma. Afterwards, I had a new sensation and a knowing that I was stronger—I proclaimed, “OMG! I feel like I am in my body for the first time!” I never forgot this moment and I was amazed—you realize the profound shifts that emotional healing can evoke. It propels you to keep feeling more and more of your repressed pain and release it as it comes up.
After this you begin to understand you are building a foundation (healing your root chakra)
—a solid foundation is being laid down brick by brick. It takes time and patience and deep love for yourself. You are lovable and you have always been. You deserve to feel safe and whole and vital. You can overcome all of your fears and step into your whole true self. You are on your way!
More helpful guidance for highly sensitive souls on the way in 2019! Happy New Year to you all!! It’s gonna be a great year!!!
With love and light,
Roxanne 😇✨
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 😇 🎶
HSP Tips for the Holidays and the Benefits of the 2 Kinds of Crying
Hello everyone! I hope you are doing well and taking good care of yourselves. Today as I am writing this the first big snowflakes of the season are falling here in the midwestern United States. Yes, it is that time of year again. How did it go so fast yet again?! It is good to constantly remind ourselves that, as highly sensitive souls, we must strive for balance in our lives by adding in some time alone to recharge and for some creative self-expression as we set out to accomplish the many tasks that accompany this busy holiday season that is quickly approaching. Express your creativity in ways you used to love to do as a child but haven’t found time for lately–the activities we loved as children (like singing, writing, art, or dancing) are often our true desires–taking just a little time daily for this artistic self-expression will give you new found energy, rejuvenation, and a satisfying sense of accomplishment. Also, remind yourself to check your heart rate occasionally on busy days and breathe deeply and slowly to slow yourself down. Cortisol, the stress hormone, is harmful to our bodies when it is called upon too frequently so we need to learn relaxation techniques to take care of our adrenals. Laying down for 20 minutes with eyes closed (with just the intention of slowing your heart rate and following your breathing as you try to make it slower and slower) does wonders when you are feeling anxious and starting to spiral with negative thoughts. Positive self-talk and affirmations are important as well such as: “There is plenty of time for all the things I want to do”, and “I love and approve of myself”, and “I give myself permission to be the best that I can be”.
These are good reminders that Christmas is about Love. Love is the opposite of fear and can heal it. You can love yourself out of these fear-based anxieties that originated in a childhood that did not provide a safe place to be yourself. Also since you may have had to numb ourself out to survive as children, you may have learned not to pay attention to your bodies urges to tell you what it needs. For example, “thirst” can be something that you learned not to feel and so your bodies are very dehydrated without your realizing it. You”ll be amazed how much better you feel when you start making yourself drink more water on a daily basis. I drink 32 ounces in the first 4 hours I am awake in the morning–the rest of the day always goes so much better when we start our day really hydrated. Try it and see! And make sure to drink at least 64 ounces a day and even more on days you have extra stress. And if you are trying hard to “hold it together” in spite of the stressful feelings that the holidays can trigger, try a different approach–let it all out and have a good cry! Crying is good for you and studies show that emotional tears have higher levels of toxins that are released than in regular tear production.
I want to talk more about the benefits of crying because society has such a stigma against it. How often have you heard on a media outlet about a public figure or celebrity seen crying and then heard it referred to negatively as a “breakdown” which is ridiculous. A break “through” is a better term. The urge to cry is just truth that is coming up to be healed (comforted and released). Think of it symbolically as light breaking through the clouds, and someone finally “seeing the light”. I like to think about the song “I Can See Clearly Now” as if the writer of that song just had a good cry and a period of healing and now feels better and has healed a wound from childhood that was blocking him from functioning at his best. He is now en”light”ened! I also like to think of the description by a pilot right before breaking the speed of sound–he describes that, “the cockpit shakes the most right before” and then it is smooth sailing once he breaks through. If we resist our bad feelings and suppress them we may never know what aha moment or lesson we could learn–we must trust that our feelings are trying to teach us something.
More of my views on the benefits of crying are demonstrated in my reply to a highly sensitive and gifted commenter names Elisabeth who was concerned about how emotional she feels and how often she cried. I hope it is helpful to all of you HSPs out there who can relate to how she felt. Here is the interaction that transpired in the comment section of one of my pages on this blog:
| Elisabeth |
Submitted on 2012/06/02 at 2:04 pm
Hello Roxanne, p.s. Is it normal for a person like me to not be able to talk about anything emotional without crying? Just within this past year I can not say how i really feel without bursting into tears, and then starts the process of telling myself that its stupid to cry over it etc etc.. Much Love, |
Roxanne |
Submitted on 2012/06/05 at 2:42 pm | In reply to Elisabeth
Hi Elisabeth, Thank you for your wonderful, thoughtful and wise comment. I agree with everything you say here. I wish I had time to respond in depth to everyone’s comments–I am so happy to know this blog is helping so many. Thank you ALL for all the wonderful comments! I just want to mention a few things: why the sad((( face for being the most emotional signs–I don’t know anything about horoscopes but sounds like you are emotionally “gifted” It is normal to cry if you feel the need–sounds like you have a good reason to cry. It spills out at inopportune times because we are holding it in so often. Having a good cry from time to time is so healthy and recharging! Also, often survivors like us cry when we are misunderstood and don’t feel “heard” when we are actually “angry”–but we were punished for expressing our true assertive positive selves when we were tiny children and so we learned to repress it–they were threatened by our positivity and truthfulness! So it is kind of a post traumatic stress response. It is not stupid in any way to cry–crying is positive and healing when it is grieving about how you were mistreated in the past. Crying releases a truth that needs to be told! There are 2 kinds of crying (…or more): 1)“Grieving” is the healthy releasing of the truth of your injustices and it is cleansing to release your truth–try to catch what you are learning as you cry and write it in a “journal for your eyes only.” Crying has lead to the writing of my best songs–there is always hope at the end and you feel a release and a new inner strength. 2)“Despairing” is a kind of crying that can be destructive if it is habitual because while doing it you are being very mean to yourself and beating yourself up (negative spiraling) the same way your abusers did. Survivors often need to release and admit these despairing feelings at first which are still repressed from childhood–upon realizing how bad you must have been treated to be a child in such horrible despair, your innate compassion kicks in and you begin to love yourself a little more each time–releasing layer by painful layer of truth is how we heal. Learning that HSPs with childhood wounds must stop the habit of despairing and turn it into grieving (and be very very kind and gentle to themselves when they are sad and build themselves up instead of continue the abuse of themselves that started as tiny children) will change their lives. I hope you will continue to read more of my blog because I talk about the importance of grieving losses from childhood quite a bit. Elisabeth, by crying you have bravely started the process of emotional healing–you are on your way to finding out how special and gifted you are and have always been! I hope this has been helpful to you. With love and light to you and all, Roxanne |
ABOUT ME |
!!!. Our families of origin (and our society too) instill in us this shame about our emotions–it is not true!! It is wonderful to be emotional–our emotions are meant to be our “compass” for finding happiness in our lives! You can learn how to have boundaries to keep out the negative emotions from others and tap into the positive emotions that are innate in you. Learning to love yourself is key and processing your pain from the past includes grieving about the love and acceptance you never got for having this emotional gift. Crying is necessary to tell your truth about how you have been treated.The Hope and Healing of HSPs With Narcissistic Parents: The Story of Belinda
Hello everyone! Today’s post is a compilation of all the comments between Belinda and myself. Belinda is the name used by a commenter and follower of my blog who reached out for assistance when her attempts to create healthy boundaries for herself were followed by aggressive and fear-inducing actions by her parents in order to control her. Her comments were spread throughout different posts so, with her permission, I decided to put them all on one page so all of you can benefit from her open and honest sharing as she persevered with much inner strength through the backlash of going no contact with her narcissistic parents. (There are comment replies to Belinda from 2 other blog friends which I did not include here–you can click on the post at the side if you wish to find and read all the related comments from others too.) I hope you find inspiration and hope in all that transpired in the following interactions:
 Belinda |
Submitted on 2011/05/06 at 2:14 am
Mother’s Day weekend is fast approaching and today I have made the final step in walking away from my narcissistic mother. I have asked my father for no contact from both of them. It is so ironic that it happened today. I was in the midst of contemplating how to handle mothers day. I did not want to send her a card, but knew the guilt I would face if I did not. I feel relief which only goes to show me that the decision is right even though it was so hard. Your story is helping me tonight. I know I have a long way to go but it has to get better from here. Thank you again and God Bless!! |
| Roxanne |
Submitted on 2011/05/10 at 12:55 pm | In reply to Belinda.
Belinda, Thank you for your comment. So glad you are able to feel the relief in your decision to put yourself and your healing first. Yes, it is not easy, especially around mother’s day–I am so glad my story is helping you to find your voice and your truth. Your feelings matter! God Bless you as well. With love and light, Roxanne |
| Belinda |
Submitted on 2011/05/23 at 10:36 am
Hello everybody, I am entering my second month of no contact with my family. I am currently feeling better as far as less stress and anxiety. I am slowing down and trying to be patient with myself. However, as far as anything else I am still in a state of shock. I know I have been verbally abused by my parents but I find myself constantly researching narcissism. It seems I am needing to constantly remind myself that I’ve been abused and I am trying to validate it to myself. It’s like I am doing a research project for someone else until I look in the mirror and realize I am researching about ME!! My whole life I felt like I was watching what was going on in the world but not really being a part of it. I have forgotten who I am, or better yet I never had the opportunity to get to know myself. I am trying to learn about myself and at the same time trying to heal my broken spirit and at the same time trying understand and at the same time trying to not call my family. Phew!! That’s how I feel. I break down in tears often from these overwhelming feelings I never really explained to my parents that I no longer want to contact them ever again. It sort of fell in my lap. The last conversation I had with my dad, he suggested that they not call me and I said that would be best. So, I am assuming they are waiting for me to call. That leaves the ball in my court and the pressure of that is almost too much to take. I want to email them and tell them the no contact rules because I actually fear them trying to call me or see me. I am not strong enough right now to fight for my right for space but I know I desperately need it. I try to spend my time keeping my mind busy. That is what is making this the most difficult. My own mind. It is constantly thinking about everything. I have to work at staying focused on the here and now. Having my husband and little girl around always seems to help but it seems like a temporary fix. When alone, my mind takes over. I have been going to therapy for 2 months but there is little change in my spirit. there is much change in my surroundings, though so I guess it is a good start. I must have a long way to go. I sum it up this way…the knowledge of knowing is not enough to heal the spirit!!! I have the knowledge but where do I go from here? I find myself trying to find someone else to fill the void that I have. The desire of approval from others and trying so hard to please seems to get in the way of making friends. People see that I am trying too hard. I expect too much out of other people such as a neighbor that has become my friend. The problem with that is she does not understand where I am coming from so in trying to discuss my current situation I end up receiving advice I know is not right for me. She does not know my family so I know that she had the best intentions but the words wound me. I know it’s not the right way to be. I need to learn to rely on myself and validate my own feelings. That was the biggest abues to me. My feelings were never validated. EVER!!! I am constantly searching for approval. I started a journal a few days ago, hopefully, it will help in my healing. I am learning slowly through trial and error. Thank you so much for this website. It gives me a voice. Belinda |
| Roxanne |
Submitted on 2011/05/26 at 9:05 pm | In reply to Belinda.
Hi Belinda, Thank you for your comment. You so eloquently expressed what many highly sensitive people are going through when they first go no contact. Wow. So well said! You will help many others who feel the same but are not ready to leave comments. The pressure you feel to call them is guilt that they induced in you and that you internalized since you were a little child. It may help you to get in touch with some of your anger at having been so controlled and manipulated as a child. Journal out your feelings, all of them, including how angry you must have felt as a child but you were not allowed to feel it or express it then. But now you are safe and you can let it out. Releasing your truth will heal your spirit. When you connect with your true self and have compassion for the child inside of you that suffered, you will feel less needy for other peoples approval. It takes time to heal all the layers so be patient with yourself. You are stronger than you know. Thank you for the kinds words about my website. If you would like me to give you ISO’s email address just drop me an email and I will email her to get her permission as well. with Love and Light, Roxanne |
| Belinda |
Submitted on 2011/05/27 at 3:36 am
Iso and Roxanne, Thank you both for keeping in touch. I feel relief of anguish with every word you say. Roxanne, I think it would be great to get in touch with ISO. I feel like we have such similar sithations that exchanging email addresses would be a good idea. I will continue writing about my journey here b/c Something good must come out of my struggles. I’ll be honest, good things for me have already begun to happen, but I want someone else to learn from this. Something positive has to come out of this experience!!! Just like the last Oprah show, I related so much to what she was saying. Everyone in this world just wanted to be validated that whatever pain or hard time they were going through someone out there understands and relates. That’s what made her show so amazing. My favorite part was when she stated we are all responsible for the energy we give out. This statement hit home for me for 2 reasons, My parents are accountable for actions and behavior, but there is a time when I must be accountable for myself. Now that I know, I have no excuse. I must be responsible for what I portray to everyone around me. I must try to be the person I have always wanted to be. I can no longer be the person I feared I may have become. Most of all, everything my parents did to me is already done to them. I have to believe this in order to try and move on. I don’t want to be the one to spend the rest of my life blaming my parents but I have no guilt in giving blame right now. For the 1st time in 41 years they deserve it. Now that I know the truth, I am working on being accountable for what I give in this world. I want to be a person of caring and empathy. I want to not be judgemental and to love unconditionally. But most important, I want to trust my own feeling. I am hoping to get there some day. Iso, your comments about good and bad memories coming back is exactly right!! I have said the exact thing about never talking to and treating my daughter the way she did to me. I may not have mentioned but I have a younger brother of course we are not talking, can I say triangulation. I am beginning to recall a few memories about me but the flow of bad memories about my brother are coming at me like a tidal wave. He was a different child than I was. I was extremely scared, but my brother was a fighter so he received the grunt of the abuse. I used to think, man my little brother is not too bright, why is he fighting he knows that he is going to lose the battle, but now I realized he was fighting for his voice. He was so strong for a little guy. He fought them alone. I feel guilt over not being there for him as his big sister, but I can’t really deal with that now. I plan on addressing this at a later time when I am stronger. For those of you contemplating no contact, remember it can be on you terms. If you want it for a little while or forever it is your right. Let me assure you it may be the hardest decision you make but speaking from experience it will reward you ten fold. Stepping away for a little while just to figure youself out is highly recommended. I have walked away from my parents more than once in my life but only now am I contemplating forever. Only now with the knowledge I have possessed do I really believe this is the safest and healthiest situation for my family. Stay strong, but be gentle to yourself. |
| Roxanne |
Submitted on 2011/06/05 at 4:50 pm | In reply to Belinda.
Belinda, Thank you for your comment reply. I am so glad that my words help you feel some relief. You have much wisdom and light to give others and you are on your way to trusting your own feelings–if you have compassion for yourself every time those feelings come up to heal you will become stronger with each layer you voice and release. I like very much that you said this: “Stay strong, but be gentle to yourself”–wise words for HSP survivors to live by! I am glad and very much appreciate that you will continue with your insightful comments here on my blog site. (If you would like me to email your email address to ISO, please email a clear and direct statement giving me your permission to do so at hopesinger11@gmailcom.) Warmest wishes on your healing journey, Roxanne |
| Belinda |
Submitted on 2011/06/23 at 3:03 am
I sent an email to my parents a few days ago outlining my request for complete NO CONTACT from them. I found it necessary for them to know b/c I found some clothes hanging on the front door of my home. The clothes were for my daughter and there was a card inside from my mom. I am assuming they came to my house and dropped them off and left. I was shocked that they would do that if they really did? We have not been talking or seeing one another so I decided to let them know not to come to my home or contact me and my family. This action disturbed me. Well, I received an email from my dad tonight. I feel threatened and scared. I understand the email to say that they are insisting on family therapy meaning all of us or they will proceed with a lawsuit of defamation of character. There was much more said but I will have to put my online therapy on hold which pains me. I want to be able to express my feelings openly and honestly, but I do not know what to make of what I’ve been told by them. I was hoping to work through some serious things, but it is going to be in my best interest to stop writing on here until I find out more about this. I am numb right now and whatever progress I have done up to this point is now ruined. What now??? |
| Roxanne |
Submitted on 2011/06/23 at 7:51 pm | In reply to Belinda.
Hi Belinda, I am so sorry that your parents backlash to your no contact request was so awful and punishing and ridiculous. I am not a legal expert by any means but it seems to me this is a scare tactic to pull you back under their control and they are using fear to get you to obey them. You are a grown woman with your own family now–you have a right to ask for no contact and could even get a restraining order against them if you wanted to I think. They probably have no grounds for defamation of character. If you went to family therapy with them a good family therapist will be able to see the dynamics occurring in the family and would support your expressing your feelings about how you are treated and always have been treated. A good family therapist will even encourage and support your desire for no contact. It is surprising that they even want to do family therapy–most narcissists refuse to go–that is why I think this is just a scare tactic to get you to reconsider. You have not used their names so writing on this website is probably very safe–you need all the support you can get right now. Belinda, you are doing the right thing asking for no contact. All you have done up to now is not ruined by any means–they just want your new found strength and independence to come to a screeching halt and they are using fear because it probably always worked in the past. But you are stronger now! Stay strong–you are doing everything right. It is shocking and sad that they would retaliate and treat you this way. You deserve better treatment from parents. You might even just laugh and say “Sure, I’ll go to family therapy” –I bet they don’t really even want to go– unless they have already found a therapist that is biased and on their side, the lack of loving support for your feelings will be clear to the therapist. Be very kind to yourself, stay calm and you can weather this storm. Keep in touch and let us know how it is going. I am here for you and so are my readers. Prayers and Blessings are being sent your way, Roxanne |
| Belinda |
Submitted on 2011/06/24 at 12:33 am
Roxanne and Lily, Thank you so much for your support. I am realizing that dealing with this type of situation is a rollercoaster ride. Right when you think you’ve got it under control, their crazymaking sends you spiraling out of control. I made an emergency call to my therapist, printed the email and brought my husband for support and his input. It was the best thing I could have done. She analyzed the letter and Roxanne, you hit the nail right on the head. Major scare tactic which is how they always controlled me. It was worth all the anguish to finally get my husband onboard as well. He was shocked by the threat and terribly disappointed in my family. Having my therapist explain things to him, helped him in realizing the truth about the long term abuse I have been receiving adding my intense reaction of fear and anguish he saw first hand the scare tactic in play. My therapist suggested I just continue ignoring all emails but print them up for the future…just in case I need to do something a little more serious. As far as his threat to sue me for defamation of character. he has nothing…abolutely nothing. I had scheduled an appointment with a lawyer right after her just in case I needed to give him a retainer fee. I was prepared to fight but ignoring is the best defense, so I cancelled the attorney. I know I will not be afraid in the future if I need to go that route. I came out stronger today. I bet they would be hot if they knew that what they caused actually showed me how strong I could be if I had to be!! I overcame intense fear today. I was physically and mentally exhausted by the end of the day but I learned a little about myself. Roxanne, Thank you for your quick response. As soon as I read your response, I was inspired to leave work and handle this situation immediately. I was not going to let it interfere with another night. Your support means more to me than you know. I feel empowered again, but I remain cautious. This situation showed me how fragile I still am. I am a long way away from recovery, but at least I have created a support system. I can pat myself on the back for that. I reached out for it and look I have people that care for me. Always, |
| Roxanne |
Submitted on 2011/06/24 at 6:47 pm | In reply to Belinda.
Hi Belinda, Yay! I am so happy for you that you feel empowered to stand up to your parents scare tactics. You took action on your own behalf and now you have the support of your therapist and your husband in addition to my support and your new friends on this website. I understand your fear and anguish reaction because I can relate– you have a wound from early childhood that reacts this way because they controlled you by inducing fear in you since you were a tiny child. But you faced it head on and you can see the truth of who you really are clearly–you are strong and you won’t be bullied any more! Yay for you! I agree with your therapist about ignoring the emails but keeping copies of them. In my opinion you will save yourself some anguish and pain if you just have your husband read them in the future and don’t look at them yourself. It is exhausting to be pulled into their distorted world again and again and you need this time to nurture your self and heal. But since you have your therapist, she can help support you through them if you feel you must read the emails. You have a strong compassionate true voice, Belinda. You are sensitive for a reason and you are helping others be strong by sharing this event in your life with us. This post/forum normally averages 4-8 views per day but the last day and a half it has gotten 26 and counting–I feel the readers are more than just curious, they are concerned, sending their love and support, and are feeling supported themselves because they can relate! You are helping many others by your strength and shining your light of truth–sharing your fear was brave and I am so glad that you did! Yes, pat yourself on the back! Well done! I am so proud of you! Continued prayers and blessings, Roxanne |
| Belinda |
Submitted on 2011/07/13 at 12:06 am
Dear Roxanne, Thank you so much for speaking from your heart. I relate to what you are saying so much. It feels good to know that someone else feels the way I do. I know you have been keeping up with me and my personal struggles and I just want to thank you so much for being there for me. If i could I would hug you, really tight. I am having good days and bad days but you know what through all of this I am learning myself and listening to my body and trying to finally take care of myself. not only do I have a heart but others do as well. I have made a pen pal that provides wonderful support for she also had a narcisstic parent. We seem to be journaling together and helping each other along the way. I recently mentioned something to her that is starting to happen to me. the dark cloud surrounding me is starting to clear a little and I am beginning to see small mircles and joys in life. From my family to co workers to complete strangers. I am connecting to the world. It is very small but I am recognizing this and I am so thrilled. The family update… After I emailed my parents and asked for no contact my father responded by threatening to sue me, I am sure you remember. I ignored the email. I received 2 other emails after that. In the second email I was basically called a coward for not responding and then he threw the guilt trip on me about how could I do this they are my parents.. Then the same day I was told by a neighbor that my father was driving by my house. I was also aware that he was calling my husband behind my back. He was trying to sneak attack my husband. Luckily my husband refused to answer the phone. In my own way I believe I was being stalked. I’ve heard it is quite common. I was very scared but I sat down that night and let him know that I was aware of all he was doing behind my back and I do not want any contact from him. The last email I received, he stated that he thought I was crazy and needed therapy (he has no idea I’ve been going for months) and actually told me that I could potentially hurt my daughter (what a horrible thing to say to your only daughter). He ended the email telling me that he and mom did not want anything to do with me. Wow, really??? isn’t that what I’ve been asking for all along. It’s as if no one is going to tell him the rules he is going to tell me the rules. Does it really matter to me who ends it , no as long as it ends. I felt is was necessary to explain the behavior because to me it validates everything I believe my parents are. Crazy making control freaks!!! It is as if he was having an adult temper tantrum because things did not go the way he wanted them to go and I didn’t do what I’ve done in the past. I am no longer their little liar!! I will not lie about who they are to me and how I feel they have treated me. My feelings are the truth. they no longer tell me what my truth is. I feel like a prisoner who has just been set free. Thank you God!! I am still working through a lot of pain, but I know that I am better already and I am beginning to feel I mean really feel. Care for others and allowing them to care for me. Most of all I am paying close attention to myself and trying to take good care of me. I am happier and apparently it’s contagious because I truly feel like my family is happier. Thank you, again Roxanne!! Continue your work in healing, I know it’s helping me and YES I would love to buy your book!! All things are possible, my new father told me that!! The father that promised to always love me and promised to never hurt me!!My lord and saviour!! Be Blessed!! Belinda |
| Roxanne |
Submitted on 2011/07/15 at 2:47 pm | In reply to Belinda.
Hi Belinda, Thank you so much for the wonderful comment. Big tight hug right back to you! {{HUG}} |
!! Thank you for describing the ups and downs of going no contact with N parents in such eloquent detail. Sounds like since you are finally living your truth, even though it is painful to upset your parents, you are now feeling the light of LOVE inside of you that was always there but was hidden in fear. Since your light is shining you are attracting the light of love in others and you recognize the comfort from this. Thank you for describing this–you are healing before our eyes! I am so glad that you are thrilled–I am thrilled for you! Yay!! Yes, it is hard! Yes it is painful! But look how strong you are and realizing you were strong all along! As you continue on this path of trusting your new-found feelings and self-expression, your hopes and dreams you never dared to express will start manifesting before your eyes. I like how you talk of “Caring for others and allowing them to care for me”–this is the essence of your highly sensitive soul. The love you give out comes back to you. Knowing this process will change your life. So happy for you Belinda. There may be challenges ahead but you know God loves you unconditionally and doesn’t want you to suffer. Yes! You get it! Congratulations! I am so happy to be a part of your new found awakening and FREEDOM! Thank you so much for sharing your feelings and experiences about the emails from your N father–this will help others get an idea of what might happen if they go no contact. Most people need a lot of support to get through it–It’s hard and painful but so worth it! And thank you for telling me that you would love to buy my book. It thrills me to help others through this website, my writing, and through my one on one coaching because…I’ve been there and I’m grateful to those who helped ME. I know sharing our pain works. Thank you again Belinda for sharing yours. With love and light, Roxanne| Belinda |
Submitted on 2011/07/20 at 5:49 am
Roxanne, Well, I am really needing your support tonight. My anxiety and stress is at an all time high right now. My father showed up at my home unexpectedly tonight at around 9:30 pm. We did not answer the door, but my husband turned on the front porch light so he knew we were home. I was finally forced to get the authorities involved. I called the police but my dad had left before they arrived. I can’t believe this is happening to me. I had a feeling that I was going to have to call the authorities at some point in time because of the nature of the emails I had received from him and the threats and insults he was making towards me. Fortunately, I printed up every email I sent to him asking for no contact and he also sent to me discussing the threats and insults . It was proof to the authorities that he should not have showed up at my home. The officer contacted him tonight at my home and spoke with him directly. It was necessary that the officer explain the reprecussions if he were to try to contact me and my family or if he were to come onto my property again. 1. It would be considered trespassing I am scared to think what might have happened if the door was opened. My 4 year old daughter was in the house at the time and I am grateful that we did not answer the door. What was he thinking, we would sit down and have a chat. It would have turned out ugly and in front of my child. I remain in constant fear. I only hope that the information he received from the officer will deter him from futher contact, but really who is to know. I am fearful that he will still try to reach me, and rightfully so. Apparently, I am going to have to live with this fear. I don’t possibly know how to let something like this go. I have been seeking therapy for a long time to try to heal from this, but with every attempt they make to reach me, it’s like starting all over again. Has this ever happened to anyone else, is anyone familiar with a situation like this. Is this something n parents have been known to do? I am truly at a loss of words. I still feel like I can’t keep this a secret. I know someone else out there has either gone through the same thing or is going through the same thing. I am very proud that I handled things this way. The officer said I did the right thing and I know he was right, but it is probably the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I called the police on my dad. I could just cry. I am not sure I will ever be able to get past this. I just pray and hope that this will stop. I will not be bullied, I will not be scared, I will not be abused. Pray for me, |
| Roxanne |
Submitted on 2011/07/20 at 6:27 pm | In reply to Belinda.
Wow Belinda, I think you handled this situation superbly. I am so sorry that this happened to you. I understand how scary this must have been…and still is! When I was 25 we moved near my parents only to realize we’d made a mistake. I sought out a local counselor to deal with the stress. She encouraged me to move away–it took us a year and a half but we did it! …Moving was the best thing I could have ever done so that I could heal and get strong. (see post from Feb. 12, 2010) Is this a possibility for you? Could you move away? I think you should definitely consider it–the safety of you and your family is at risk not to mention just the emotional and physical stress of having constant fear, especially as a highly sensitive person, you need to feel safe! When you say it’s like starting all over again, that’s because the childhood wounds keep being opened by your Dad’s aggression, you need a safe environment to heal and it will take a long time for you to grieve the loss of a childhood lived in fear–but you can heal and regain the vitality that is your birthright. Hopefully, things will die down now, now that you got the police involved, he probably didn’t realize how strong you were and now he knows. Wonderful that the officer said you did the right thing. I am sure many others feel empowered to stand up to their abusive parents by reading your experience of having to call the police on your dad. I pray also that this will be the end of it for you. You did the right thing and you are very brave! Be proud of yourself. A wonderful counselor once told me, (after a stressful interaction with a bully in my life): “do kind and loving things for yourself all day until you feel better–you deserve kindness”. I have never forgotten her words and I say them to you and hope they help you to cope today and everyday. With love, prayers, and warmest blessings, Roxanne |
| Belinda |
Submitted on 2011/08/11 at 3:12 am
Dear Roxanne, I always receive your messages at the exact moment I need it the most. What a wonderful reminder to enjoy these hot summer days. You are a reminder to me that yes I am a hsp who is still recovering from an abusive past. It is a good reminder for me because it teaches me to take care of myself. You are a gentle reminder to me that it is ok to celebrate me and it is ok to take care of me and most of all I should not feel guilty about it. I am in the process of building that family unit that cares for me so until then I have been relying on you to be that support. You have earned that trust through your kinds words and unconditional love and support from the start. From the last time we spoke, I had a lot to tell you and again today is the same. I want everyone to know what is going on for many reasons. I want to help someone else as much as you, Roxanne, have helped me and continue to help me. I want to speak up about the abuse I received as a child and I continue to receive as an adult. Most of all I am realizing that every time I write my story it’s as if what happened gets left here and I can move past it better. As soon as I write down my pain, the pain is diminished. So here it is…After the last fiasco, I had forced myself to enjoy the summer with my family, go to the pool with friends and my husbands family and try to enjoy. Through my socializing I came across a job that became available. I interviewed for it and just recently was offered the position. I am so excited about this new opportunity because it is allowing me and my family the chance to move. I have wanted to do this desperately to try and lose complete contact from parents but felt like it was impossible, but God put me in the right place at the right time. So the family will be moving soon and I am so happy for us right now. It could not have come at a better time because last week I received a letter in the mail from our county courthouse. My dad is suing my husband and me over some money we borrowed several months ago before I went nc. I knew he was going to try and sue us but I expected him to try the defamation of character lawsuit he had threatened to me in the past but I suppose he realized he had nothing on me. I’ll be honest the money is owed to him and believe me I want to get him paid quickly. I suppose from my standpoint I feel like he is just relentless in his pursuit. When will he just leave me alone and let me be. To me this is a pattern of his attempt to over power and intimidate. to my husband (who happens to be a father to a 24 year old daughter and 4 year old daughter) he sees it as just pushing a daughter further away. My husband personally would never think of doing such a thing to his own children, but once again my parents have managed to show their true selves through this. In the past, I would have had a total meltdown and panic attack, but now I lose little sleep over their temper tantrums. The money will be there but for fun we will not send it until the last minute. Of course, It will be sent through an attorney letting them know that after this payment there will be not reason for further attempt for communication. Am I scared, yes but scared less. most important, I refuse to give them an opportunity to see me in court. Just what they want a dramatic ending to their sad story. I am sure they are hoping to add more lies to their adoring fans ( the family). The idea that they are getting sympathy from everyone when they know what they had been doing to me only intensfies my frustration. To them impression trumps truth, so I am not only no contact with them I have remained no contact from everyone. What do I call this… casualties of war. Due to the nature of our family structure it has always been if you are not for us you are against us and that means all of us. well goodbye all of you and your toxic lives… It’s time for me to stand my ground and…I won’t back down. hehe!! I loved your statement about us being late bloomers, it is absolutely true as a matter of fact I am still blooming. I am finding that being a late bloomer has it’s advantages when raising a toddler. I am enjoying her more now than ever!! Roxanne, thank you again for giving me a voice and enjoy blowing out all those candles. I will be smiling for you on September 9th and wishing you a wonderful and blessed birthday. |
| Roxanne |
Submitted on 2011/08/16 at 2:27 pm | In reply to Belinda.
Hi Belinda. Thank you so much for your comment. I am so happy for you and how well you are doing. You are moving on and finding your voice and finding the joy in life! Yes it is okay to celebrate–you have learned to overcome the guilt that creeps in by knowing that you need to be kind to yourself as you always deserved kindness and love but never received it. I love how you say “as soon as I write down my pain, my pain is diminished”. Yes! Once you can do this, you can heal from any pain that comes up in the healing process of recovery. (Some people are helped by a witness to this process of self-expression to aid in their recovery–a life coach or counselor can be a great help here What a blessing that you got a new job and are now able to move. That is the law of attraction working before our eyes. You believed that you deserved a better life and so it happened for you. Yay! I like how you talked about the toxic lives of your family structure and how you are enduring the “casualties of war”. I relate to all you are saying. Your comment will help many hsps out there who are struggling. You are a good writer with an uplifting, inspiring style! Thank you for your wonderful feedback about my post. So glad you identified with my “stand your ground” message and about being a late bloomer. Yay! This is my hope–to help hsps to overcome their internalized negative messages and feelings from childhood and see the truth of their rare and special giftedness. You get it! Thank you for the birthday wishes, I appreciate it so much! Blessings to you, Roxanne |
| Belinda |
Submitted on 2011/09/30 at 10:28 pm
Dear Roxanne, It’s been several weeks and I’ve had a yearning to communicate with you but I am having a hard time trying to determine or explain how I am feeling these days. In walking away from my family, I have made every change possible within my control..emailing no contact, moving away, changing jobs, changing numbers, etc. I have also been making it a priority to exercise, I keep thinking that if I take better care of myself I will feel better. After all this, all I know is that I ache. It is a feeling that is not going away. I know that I am much better off now that my family is gone. The panic and anxiety and pressure to please is gone but it seems to have been replaced with an ache that I can’t seem to describe. Like I am at the verge of crying but it won’t come out. I don’t know what to do with this feeling and I am at a loss of how to fix it. My hometown is in Georgia. I am compelled to tell you this because here in Georgia nothing is more important than family. Everyone I know has and loves their family. Every country song sings about family and friends. My parents moved from New York and eventually made their way to Georgia when I was a baby. So along with their narcissism also came a sense of being a foreigner. They are Puerto Rican and all my life they never really embraced Georgia and the southern culture. Growing up, I learned to love country music. I love the way southerners are, they know no strangers, but I felt my mom frowned heavily upon it So while growing up I always thought they kept people out because our cultures were so different but actually they kept out everyone that would see how they really are. I never belonged, never felt able to belong and now that I am away from them I feel more alone then ever. I really have no idea who I am, who I want to be and more importantly how to live in a town that would never understand walking away from family. It’s like an ugly secret that I can never really feel comfortable revealing. This is but a small aspect of what’s bothering me about my life. How do I fix this or do I just live with this feeling? I am just so sad. |
| Roxanne |
Submitted on 2011/10/05 at 11:29 am | In reply to Belinda.
Hi Belinda, I understand this ache that you feel, it is many feelings rolled into one. Your job is to figure out exactly what you are feeling during those times and you can do this by writing out exactly how you are feeling (even that you are confused about your feelings) in a journal–keep writing until you feel better-you will be amazed at the truths that come out of you–you may realize that you are being too hard on yourself and that you deserve compassion. Writing connects us to the right side of our brains which is more creative and in touch with the compassion in our hearts whereas just thinking things through can often keep us feeling confused. You are such an eloquent and creative writer, Belinda, I feel you would be very good at this journaling process. Please read my posts from Jan. 21, 2010, and March 7, 2010–I think they will be helpful to you. This ache and sadness you describe is grief–it is important that you let out the grief of the loss of an emotionally healthy childhood and upbringing. Grief is a healthy positive emotion and it requires you to feel all of your sadness and let it out. Difficult as it may seem, it is a very important part of the healing process. You are healing. Sending you comforting wishes as you continue to heal, Roxanne |
| Belinda |
Submitted on 2012/05/27 at 6:53 pm
Hi Roxanne, I am not sure if you recall me…you have a lot of wonderful followers but I just had to write to you. You have been on my mind for a long time. You helped, supported and loved me through the most difficult part of my life. Walking away from my narcisstic parents was the hardest thing I ever endured. I went no contact around this time last year and I know I could not have done it without your kind words and encouragement. I am so far removed from the girl I was last year…I can’t actually believe I lived through all of it. I know before you I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown or really to be honest I had one and you helped me through it. From threatiing emails, to having to call the police on my own father I look back and can’t believe the inner strength I had to have to pull away from their scary, intimidating and threating ways. But today after one year away I must say I am happier then I have ever been. Yes, I have a long way to go…I am working on a lot of personal growth. I am still healing, don’t get me wrong but I am really coming out of the fog!! Roxanne, thank you so much for this website and know because of you I am paying it forward. I have signed up to dailystrength.org and I blog, journal and positively support anyone in my group that needs it. I want to be there for someone who had to endure the same abuse I endured. I want to be there for someone like you were there for me. I have a testimony now and I share it with anyone that needs support and you are part of my testimony. May your website continue helping others find their true sensitive, wonderful and beautiful self!! Be Blessed!! |
| Roxanne |
Submitted on 2012/06/05 at 3:29 pm | In reply to Belinda.
Hi Belinda! Thank you so much for your wonderful comment and for letting me know how you are doing!!! |
| Belinda |
Submitted on 2012/06/13 at 6:07 pm | In reply to Roxanne.
Roxanne, Wow, I don’t really know what to say. I am truly overwhelmed with emotions…Sure, feel free to use my blogging any way you find it will help your website. I only hope that it helps someone else. After all this I am 100% a supporter for no contact. I support it, I encourage it, and most of all I try to let everyone know the true benefits of it. Reflecting back, my situation in the beginning felt like a lose lose situation but after time and therapy it turned into a win win. It doesn’t happen overnight, it does take time but I have to let people know what can lie ahead if they just hold on!!. I really want to be the support during the lash out phase, when a person is on the brink of cutting off contact. It is the most intense, scary, out of control place to be when you first walk away from a Narc!! I don’t wish this on anyone, but if they can just hold on, I promise that happiness is just over the mountain. It is the abolute crossroads between choosing to live a deep, fulfilling soulful life or handing your soul over to the devil and dying slowly everyday!! Roxanne, be blessed in your journey and please keep writing!! |
Thank you, Belinda, for allowing me to share your story! Feel free to comment here on this post any time you wish as well as keep us updated on how you are doing! 😀
And to everyone else: Now that I have a busier schedule and am working on other projects, I am no longer able to answer each comment with emotional support and guidance as I did here, but it would be great if this new post became a forum of support for all of you HSPs who are struggling to find the courage to go no contact with your narcissistic parents! Express your voice here and leave a comment–I am sure many out there who are suffering in silence will be helped by all of your stories as many were and are helped by this one–The Story of Belinda. It is my hope that you all become “free to move on” to become your true selves and help others in the process if you so desire. (It’s okay if you are not ready to speak out and help others yet, compassion for yourself as you heal is rule #1–time alone to heal is important, HSPs 🙂 )
With warmest wishes for inner strength, comfort, and love to all who identify with this story,
Roxanne
How HSPs Can Heal From Inner Shame and Numb Emotions
Hi everyone! Summer is upon us and I hope you are enjoying the many opportunities that arise in this beautiful season. For those of us in the midwestern United States, we know the warm weather is short-lived so we try to get outside and enjoy it while we can. As highly sensitive people though this “pressure” to enjoy the outdoors can add to our “to do” list that is already too long as it is! Please look at the weather as a bonus to get outside in nature to recharge from the usual stress in our lives–just setting aside even 10 minutes alone in the morning and 10 minutes in the evening to walk, ride a bike, or even just sit outside and look and marvel at the sky or walk barefoot in the warm grass will help you enjoy the moments of summer more fully and not feel like the summer is passing you by yet again.
Today I woke up with a very strong feeling of shame and dread. Along with it though there was very strong clarity about the truth of these feelings and the shame and dread very soon faded away as I got on with my day. So I wanted to share with you the process that I go through and how I got to this emotionally healthy place!
Immediately when feeling this strong dread and shame this morning I went straight to comforting myself and saying to myself, “Wow, I must have done something really great for my true self yesterday–I must have really been expressing my truth and shining my light…. these feelings from childhood coming up to heal are the evidence and so I must be extra kind to myself today.” I KNOW this now because of many years of analyzing and paying attention to my own emotional patterns. I learned that when I wrote a great song, poem, or even when I just had great uninhibited fun or even exercise, this strong shame feeling would always pop up for me the morning of the next day. This is because these feelings from childhood were my experience day in and day out until I had to give up as a child and repress my true self and all of the memories of this unbearable shame in order to survive.
Back then as a child, when I expressed my true wise self, or my joy in my own creativity, I felt shamed to the core. I KNOW this now. I no longer allow these dreadful feelings when they arise in me to negatively spiral in the following way: My inner critic used to say, “What is wrong with me that I feel this shame, it feels terrible, almost unbearable, I feel disgusting, I must have done something horrible and shameful, I thought I had a good day yesterday but it must not be true, what was I thinking, I am never going to feel better, why do I even try”…blah blah blah, down down down the spiral went, draining all hope and positive energy out of me, leading to a depressed feeling and sometimes just numbness (dissociation) as I trudged though the day. Wow, it’s hard to believe I used to spiral this way!! But I did! My inner critic has now completely been replaced with positive affirmations that I KNOW are true. I don’t let my inner critic take over and I over-ride it with love and compassion for myself. It took a lot of inner work but the whole process was well worth it.
My thought and feeling cycles are so different now as I know that how I treat myself with my inner thoughts create the kind of day and experience I am going to have. This is more than just positive thinking or law of attraction techniques. I had to go through a grieving process that actually changed my core beliefs about myself to the point that I learned that I had a lot to be sad about, angry about, and plenty to comfort myself through. I had to delve into the past to see where the negative beliefs came from and get justice (inwardly) for the little girl inside who felt so much like an inferior being. It was not the truth and I had to figure out what the truth was for ME.
As a mother I knew, and my college education in child development told me, that NO child is inferior and deserves to be shamed–so the inner grief work was a challenge for me to put together this puzzle to find out the truth about what happened to me to make me feel so bad about myself. Memories started coming back to me and feelings that had been dormant and frozen in time became “available” to me again and I learned compassion for that little girl inside. This took a while and everyone’s journey to healing will be different and take as long as it takes to work through your layers of illusions that keep you from seeing the truth of your brilliant shining light and true self.
So please be patient with yourself if you are in the middle of feeling all the pain and not yet seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Or if you are feeling comfortably numb but joyless and lacking motivation. The light is there. It is because you had this bright light and higher spiritual level that bullies in your life had to put you down and put out your light. You may have been a threat to their distorted view of the world where “their” feelings were the center of the universe. But your light never went out–it was just dimmed or covered up with illusions and blocks that are not true about you. You have the power within you to turn your light back up high yourself! No one can do it for you. It takes time to learn how to process through the layers of dormant feelings.
Writing out your pain in a journal for your eyes only is so important to the healing process because it gets you out of your left brain’s spiraling or scattered thoughts and connects you to your right brain’s compassion for yourself and creativity. Document your progress in the journal and then go back and make yourself read the hopeful stuff you write, you will begin to see how amazing and wise you are that you survived it all and that there is so much to look forward to as you grow and grow in your own compassion for your wounded inner child. As you grow to protect your inner child and stand up for the rights to all of your feelings, the negative thoughts about yourself begin to change.
Another thing I had to realize was that no one was going to rescue me but ME and I had to make a decision to never ever beat myself up again. I remember saying to myself once, “That is it!!, that is the last time! I am never going to waste my time in such misery again!” And it stuck. I still had bad days when shameful feelings came up to heal but I comforted myself instead. Maybe I stayed on the couch that day BUT I was kind to myself instead. I put away my to-do list, watched a favorite movie, made myself my favorite warm soup or hot tea, wrapped myself in a soft blanket, “loved” myself through the bad feelings and had compassion for my inner child who deserved love and comfort. And I allowed myself to grieve the happy carefree childhood that I never had. This is so important to learn to do for ourselves–we hsp survivors may feel like we got skipped as we nurture our children and everyone around us–I realized this was important for me to take the time to mother my self for a while. Then I would feel SO much better after I took a day for myself like this–I would feel renewed and recharged and it started a habit of a positive cycle of healing and change.
These were the new patterns and beliefs that were laying groundwork for new neurons in my brain for a new future and over-riding the shame from childhood. This is the process of recovery from emotional abuse. It is not easy. It is not fun. It is painful. But with delving into the pain at first I noticed that I at least felt more “alive” and this was a “spark” of light that kept me going towards the painful truth and not escaping into a comfortably numb existence of denial and dissociation that had for years kept me from moving forward towards my dreams and desires. Instead I started continually delving into and through the pain to find my truth and aliveness—I acknowledge the painful feeling and released it layer by layer in my journal or to a trusted, safe witness and gradually I emerged on the other side of it all. The shame and dread that I wake up to is now just a weak residue, a glimmer of the truth of the past and all I worked through to get here–to where the joy in my heart can’t wait to get started on another day of being me in a Universe that I feel connected to and know that it supports me!
And so I say to all of you out there who are on what feels like an endless healing path, there is light at the end of the tunnel and it is awesome! When you can tap into the light and love from inside of you and believe and know that you deserve it, then you will be able shine your light and recharge and renew yourself anytime you want to!
P.S. More posts are coming soon! I am working on putting together a post with all of the comments and replies from a frequent commenter who calls herself Belinda. Her story is an inspiring example of a highly sensitive soul with bullying parents whose painful drama unfolded here on this blog–she bravely reached out and expressed what was in her heart and she came out the other side and into the light–and now she is shining her own light to help others. Other commenters and my replies will be highlighted in upcoming posts as well. (I ask all commenters for their permission first before highlighting it in a post.) Be kind to yourself, HSPs, and I’ll be back in touch soon!
With love,
Roxanne 😀
Welcome To The Blog For Highly Sensitive People, Intuitives, Empaths, and INFJs In Search Of Emotional Support and Guidance
(May 23, 2012–No you are not seeing double–except for parts of the first paragraph I copied this post and turned it into my new static Home page. So if you have already read this post, check out the comments here and then just scroll down to find the other posts. Welcome to my blog and it’s new format. New posts coming soon! 🙂 )
Hi Everyone. I am back and feeling great. Thank you to all for your prayers and well wishes. I hope you are doing well also. I learned much while I was away and I have much new knowledge and wisdom to share. My Coaching is thriving and I feel very blessed. I love my work–there is no better feeling than helping other highly sensitive souls to feel good about themselves and their lives and to help them to heal their emotional wounds. In my opinion, my clients are among the kindest, most compassionate, gifted people on the planet!
It is interesting for me to take an objective look at this blog now that I have had a break from it for several months–there is so much content here. The first post I wrote back in January 2010. In my last post, I talked about how I feel I healed my final trauma-wound—an abandonment wound from the time when I was only 1 and 1/2. I couldn’t remember it of course but the emotional pain had been dormant within me and in my body in the form of an energy blockage. Both ailments that I suffered from in the last year were in my root chakra–I never knew about the chakras before and I had been kind of resistant to learning about that kind of stuff. But it kept coming up in my search for answers to how to heal from this last ailment. It helped me to put it all together when I read that health issues in the root chakra area may have to do with issues of abandonment. Then it all came clear in the AHA moment I talked about in my last post (see Oct. 2011) and I was able then to process and heal this inner trauma.
Since then I feel different–healthier, physically stronger, and wiser and with so much more clarity and calmness. For the last month, when thinking about what I was going to write for this post I was trying to think of a word to describe this feeling. Then I saw Jane Fonda speak on Oprah and on Dr. Oz and some other shows and I resonated so much with what she was saying about “wholeness” and I realized that is it! I feel “Whole”.
I feel I have come full circle into living my life with the vitality of my whole true self. I feel more centered and grounded with an exhilaration about the wonderful things to come and for all that I have learned from where I have been. I am so grateful for what feels like a second chance at life without chronic pain. I have learned how to relax and enjoy my life. It has been such a rollercoaster of a spiritual journey to come to this place and time where I can say that with confidence and amazement. In 2004, when I started writing my songs and process through the layers of grief and pain that kept coming up and were holding me back, I never would have dreamed it was possible–the pain seemed endless as I worked through my childhood truth that had previously been long hidden away from me. There was something inside of me that KNEW that going through the pain was the only way to get to the other side–that finding my true self was only possible by changing the “faulty BELIEFS” about myself that had formed in early childhood.
And now here I sit feeling very much healed with a new-found ability to recharge and comfort myself and find inner peace no matter what life throws at me and know with complete confidence and trust that everything is going to be okay. I am telling you this because I want all of you to know it is possible for you too. I feel so strong in spirit now with so much to give to assist other highly sensitive souls to heal from their abuse from a narcissistic, emotionally abusive parent or to heal from childhood wounds from an event or trauma from childhood.
I look at the content on this blog and there is so much self-help information here–I am amazed at how I did it! I remember it just flowed out of me easily for almost 2 years, ideas coming to me all the time. I really was just going with the flow in my life at the time–it takes a lot, getting informative posts ready for public view. I look over this blog and it feels like it is “complete’–I have had people tell me that it is an entire self-help book in itself. Some people tell me they read 2 posts a week and it helps them so much. Others tell me they start at the first post and read it like a book.
If you are looking for some emotional support and guidance, there is much content that I have written in the comment sections of each post where I have in the past answered each and every person’s comment. I am no longer able to do that now that I am Coaching a lot more. Frequent commenters have been jumping in occasionally to give support to other commenters when I am not able–it is wonderful to see this happening. Thank you to those of you who have reached out to help others in this way.
I will be answering comments just sporadically and occasionally from now on because of my busy Coaching schedule. But please know, I am here–I am available for Ask the Coach services and for Coaching. I am reading your comments and I know you are out there–I understand and KNOW first-hand the emotional pain you are experiencing as you try to make sense of the confusion and destruction of the spirit that is left behind by a narcissistic parent or narcissistic family members. I send my love and message of hope to you all. I hope this blog will be a safe place that you can come to for comfort, encouragement, compassion, and most of all healing.
UNDERSTANDING THE HIGHLY SENSITIVE PERSON:
In my early forties, I felt empowered when I discovered that I am a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). I now understand that being an HSP is a gift and for this I am truly grateful. It means I am highly “intuitive”–not highly “insecure” or “weak” as many people have been wrongly led to believe by our American culture and media. It also means that I am “Sensory”-sensitive which is not about emotionality–it means I am sensitive to sensory input that causes me to feel overstimulated at times–HSPs take in 5 to 10 times more stimuli in our environments than non-HSPs. HSPS are highly creative and often visionaries. Here are some other things I learned about being an HSP that I would like to share:
1) MANY HSPS ARE HIGHLY EMPATHIC. Until you understand the benefits of being an HSP, it can be very difficult to understand why you are so different from those around you and why you yearn to “fit in”. HSPs feel things more deeply and we can empathize with the feelings of others so completely that we often unwittingly “take on” the negative feelings of those around us. We can end up feeling “bad” and have no idea why and blame ourselves for it when actually the feelings belong to the person we were just talking to (or sometimes even someone we have just been near). When we feel bad for no reason, the common reaction for HSPs is to blame ourselves and mentally beat ourselves up. For example, we say to ourselves, “what is wrong with me; I should be happy; everyone else seems happy and carefree so there is something wrong with me that I feel this way; I must have emotional problems; I am flawed compared to everyone else” etc. When we can recognize that the emotions we are feeling are from others, we can learn to stop this negative self-talk and let go of and release this negative energy that we have absorbed.
2) HSPS ARE OFTEN TOO HARD ON THEMSELVES. Becoming aware of how you are treating yourself in your head is becoming aware of your “inner critic”. Your inner critic is always negative and always wrong about you. Becoming aware of your inner critic is powerful. Once you become aware that you are listening to your inner critic you must stop and say to your self, “No, that is not true about me!” Then replace these thoughts with positive affirmations such as “I love and approve of myself; I am safe; I am supported and cared for by the Universe (God); and I am a highly intuitive soul and I am sensitive for a reason”. Being able to change the way you treat yourself and talk to yourself will change your life!
3) HSPS ARE LOVING, COMPASSIONATE SOULS. When you love and approve of yourself as you deserve to be, you begin to shine the light that is inside your soul. This light is the gift of the highly sensitive soul: you innately see the good and the potential in other people; you look to yourself to improve rather than blaming others or expecting them to change; you are able to empathize with other people’s feelings with compassion; you are a trusting and loyal friend; and a very good listener. These are wonderful gifts for a person to have for they are rare—and it is usually only the rare and highly sensitive friend that would point this out to you.
4) HSPS OFTEN NEED TO LEARN HEALTHY BOUNDARIES. Being the kind and caring soul that you are, if you are not seeing the value of that, your worthiness, you will often attract relationships with the kind of negative energy that your inner critic is reflecting. Also, people who are less sensitive and not intuitive at all are often drawn to HSPs because we absorb their negative feelings and they feel better around us. Some of these relationships can really confuse us because these non-HSPs can “act” very kind and generous when they want something from us. These are actually people we need to avoid because they drain us and are unable to reciprocate the giving nature that we need and deserve in a friendship. Ending relationships with people who are really takers and manipulators rather than givers is a giant leap towards becoming the person you dream to be. When you are able to take this final step for yourself and start listening to your inner guidance that is your gift, you are well on your way to a life of emotional vitality and wholeness.
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Here are lists of links to important posts within this blog:
HSPs and Allergies, Food Intolerances, and Stress-Related Illness
Helpful Tips About Healing Childhood Pain
High Achieving and Intuitive HSPs Can Overcome Self-Defeating Behaviors
More Helpful Tips For HSPs with N. Parents
Part 2–More Helpful Tips of HSPs with N. Parents
The Misjudgement of Introverts and the True Meaning of Introversion
HSPs and Perfectionism–How to Heal Through Grieving Childhood Pain
Forgiveness is For Your “Self”
Through Pain You Grow Stronger–Processing Childhood Pain
The Process of Inner Child Healing
How My Best Counselor Helped Me
Journaling for HSPs–Over-riding Your Inner Critic
Childhood Pain Comes Up To Heal When Things Are Going Well
Overcoming Self-doubt and Unblocking Creativity
Holiday Survival Tips–For HSPs With N. Parents and My Musical Gift Recovery
Honor Thy Parents Only If They Are Honorable
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As a final note of support, I want to say that as a highly sensitive and intuitive person, you are part of a group of 15 to 20% of the population that is deep, caring, and compassionate with much love to give. Our giving nature is an inspiration to others who are also part of this 15 to 20%. You do not have to be around anyone who makes you feel bad. One fifth of the population is over 1 BILLION PEOPLE–and empathetic compassionate people are out there. When you begin to love yourself as you are, stop comparing yourself to others, and protect yourself and your energy from the negative people who diminish you by staying away from them while you are healing, you will start attracting and finding more compassionate people like yourself in your life. Do not settle for superficial relationships–take the road less traveled. It is the path to love and enlightenment and inner peace.
With love and warmest wishes,
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
Hope and Healing Haven 
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