Mind-Body Healing Coach
For Highly Sensitive People
Are you tired of hiding your true self because you are afraid of people rejecting the real you?
Your anxious thoughts, overwhelm, and self sabotaging behaviors might feel insurmountable.
Maybe you have tried everything to feel better, to be better.
But the harder you try, the worse you feel.
I know because I’ve been there.
I remember feeling a lead weight constricting my chest when a friend invited me for a sleepover.
I fumbled through a made-up excuse from my inventory, hung up the home phone, and felt an unsettling mixture of relief and shame. At least I wouldn’t have to sleep in an unfamiliar room without the comfort of my parents and my own bed. But instead, I had to sit with that voice in my head yet again that scolded:
What is wrong with you?
I knew I was different, but I didn’t understand why.
Experiences that the other kids longed for, like sleepovers, theme parks, and sports games, flooded me with a sensation that I would eventually learn to name as anxiety. Even the most subtle change in my environment or routine felt overwhelming. I noticed every slight nuance of my parents’ facial expressions and tone of voice, and their emotional state would immediately impact mine. I suffered from chronic illness and unexplainable pains. Most apparent and inconvenient to everyone was my propensity to feel and express my wide range of emotions loudly, intensely, and constantly.
“You’re too sensitive,”
I grew so accustomed to hearing. The explanation for why I didn’t fit in, why life seemed to feel so much harder for me than for others, why I always felt like a burden. The accusation that veiled its true meaning:
You’re flawed.
Once the outside world has made you believe there’s something wrong with you, your own inner voices find ways to shield you from the shame and seek strategies to protect you from others finding out how flawed you are.
I followed the rules and pressured myself to get A’s in school so that I wouldn’t be a disappointment. I dieted my way through my 20’s to get the flat tummy that would surely make me feel good enough. No matter how burned out I felt, I rejected my body’s need for rest because I never felt I had done enough to earn it. I stayed in unhealthy relationships for too long because ignoring my well being felt easier than facing more evidence of my deficiency. I even began a career as a wellness coach with the hopes of unlocking the secret to curing myself first.
I skillfully mastered the art of perfectionism, people pleasing, and achievement to mask my “too sensitive” self.
From the outside, I was thriving. Inside, my world started to crumble.
By 2018, I had built a flourishing coaching business helping women heal their relationship with food and their bodies.
I was establishing a name for myself, reaching my financial goals, and had finally found my lifelong partner after years of failed relationships.
So when my physical and mental health took a sharp turn for the worse, it didn’t make sense.
The anxiety I had felt since childhood skyrocketed to a level I couldn’t manage, and then swung into a deep depression. The digestive condition I thought I had solved through my own nutrition and eating psychology tools came back fiercely. The rage that I had been tactfully hiding from everyone erupted like a volcano towards my partner. The TV I watched and weed I smoked as an escape were spiraling into an addiction. I stopped sleeping.
Doctors didn’t have the answers, and my own healing protocols were unsuccessful.
I was a very sick wellness coach who couldn’t solve the puzzle of her own wellbeing.
Over and over I would hear that inner voice: You’re not doing enough! Just try harder! But the harder I worked to fix myself, the worse I seemed to feel.
And then I found myself on a couch across from Em.
As I nervously picked at my cuticles and shifted in my seat, they said softly, “So, tell me what brings you to therapy.”
I reached into my tote bag and yanked out my notebook. Before opening up to the checklist of goals I had prepared, I said briskly, “Just so you know, I’m a coach, I’m already doing all the things, I just got my certification in Positive Psychology, so I don’t know how this is going to help me, but I’m miserable and desperate, so here goes.”
By the end of my therapy to-do list, tears beginning to cloud my eyes, I slowly admitted, “I want to be a mother someday, but I’m afraid I’m too broken.”
With the kind smile that would go on to encourage me for years to come, Em said, “You are not broken, Sara. You’re highly sensitive. And that’s actually a wonderful gift. One that needs self compassion to be able to flourish.”
Self compassion? That inner voice scoffed. Doesn’t that just mean letting yourself off the hook? You need more discipline, not less. But no one had ever framed my sensitivity in a positive light before, and that felt intriguing enough for me to come back the following week.
I came to learn that highly sensitive people like me (HSPs) are born with heightened sensitivity of the central nervous system and distinct patterns of brain activation that cause us to notice and feel physical, emotional, and social stimuli more deeply than the average person.
Sensory processing sensitivity is a trait that 15-20% of the population has and that has been found in over 100 different animal species. We have survived evolutionarily for good reason; we are the most aware, responsive, and in tune with ourselves and the world around us. We are the healers, the philosophers, the artists, and the spiritual leaders of humanity.
It turned out that even though I was different, I wasn’t alone. And I certainly wasn’t flawed.
I began to understand that the real problem was never my sensitivity, it was my rejection of it.
That harsh inner voice that had pressured me for so long to appear perfect, never disappoint anyone, and be productive all the time was trying to help me but was in fact the thing making me sick.
In order to heal, I needed to stop working so hard to change and give myself permission to simply exist.
And ironically, that is when the change began to happen.
Acceptance for my sensitive self allowed me to trust my intuition and discover what I need, desire, and deserve in order to truly live my life instead of just survive it.
Untangling myself from the false beliefs of those inner voices freed me from tying my self worth to perfection, achievement, and pleasing others, which gave me the confidence to care for myself in the way I’ve needed all along. By honoring my own needs without questioning or shaming myself for them, my body was finally able to move out of survival mode.
As my nervous system calmed, the lead weight of anxiety began to lighten. My digestion improved, I could sleep through the night again, and the angry outbursts dwindled. The unhealthy coping mechanisms I relied on naturally faded, and funny enough, I began to achieve more and embody the person I had always wanted to be without forcing it. And as I integrated this new approach into my own coaching, the transformation I began to see in my clients as well was profound.