Why It Hurts to Be a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)

The other day, I came across a term that really resonated with me. A highly sensitive person, an HSP. Now this, it just felt, right, it felt familiar. It felt like a term that could be used to help convey a message and to help to speak to perhaps.

Well, I guess I guess my people, right now I've heard and used quite often the term empath. Empath being somebody who can be empathetic, they can feel what other people are feeling.

It's almost like you can step into someone else's shoes, but that felt a little bit more like a, I don't know, it felt like it was a limiting term. A lot of people want to use it, especially in the spiritual community where spiritual ego is certainly powerful. A powerful thing. People want to be labeled something they want to wear a badge they want to, they want to wear you know, an asterisk next to their name that says, I am this I am an empath I am empathic I, I can feel I can feel more than you. But it felt limited to only emotions. But I find myself wanting to broaden that a little bit further, because it's not just emotions. It certainly is energy, which energy, E motion, energy in motion. Certainly, emotions are energy. But everything is energy. And when I connected with this term, highly sensitive person, it it gave me a little more clarity as to what is this life that I'm living? I find myself here, just woke up one day on the planet Earth, seemingly just in the middle of a, you know, a life a routine, or rhythm. I don't know when exactly it was that I first gained consciousness or self awareness. But suppose when I was a child, I don't really have any specific memories that stand out that I could mark and say, These are the first. But I can tell you that most of my life, I have been extremely sensitive. So So what is this highly sensitive person? What does that mean? Sensitivity? Well, first of all, the term was introduced to me an article that I found online that took me to Dr. Elaine Aaron. She is somebody who has been studying this, at least according to her website, studying sensitivity or high sensitivity since 1991. She's got this other term SPS sensory processing sensitivity. That's a trade scientific term which for me, again, just gave me it rang a little bit more true, a little bit more clear for me, because I spent most of my professional career as a gastronorm. Somebody in intensely passionate about and working with food and drink. And these experiences that are sensory in nature. I got certified as a as a professional wine taster, a simile a, as a Cicerone, a Beer Taster. I became just immersed in everything that had to do with our senses. Everything in my world in my realm was carefully crafted to tickle your senses. Now, it wasn't like that in every restaurant, necessarily. Sometimes. He just went and worked at a place that was paying and maybe it was a burger place. Maybe it was a bar. And it was less about the subtle energies, the subtleties, the nuances of an experience. It was more just about getting drunk, feeding your belly, whatever. However, as I got more refined in my own sensitivity, as I stepped into more and more my ability to sense through the phone Five senses, though, we could argue that there's more than that, using our taste perception in the tongue and mouth, using our sense of smell, our olfactory sense, which is admittedly the most, and certainly proved to be the most powerful and sensitive of our five senses, the visible spectrum that we can observe as a human with human eyes, which is extremely limited, compared to the actual full light spectrum, our ability to touch the tactile sense to be able to feel something with our fingers with our skin, to feel the shifts in pressure and weight, shifts in temperature. And, of course, hearing the sounds in an environment that music that's playing the sound of the forks and knives clinking against the plate, you know, it's, there's so much richness in all of our environments. But especially those that are crafted to create immerse immersive experiences. And so I spent the better part of 15 years, let's say, in my professional career, and a little bit more than that, really basically dialing up my sensitivity. But now understanding that I was sensitive all along, and I was simply tuning in a little bit more honing my ability to sense those subtle nuances, those, those subtle, well energies, to give it a name, to find a vocabulary to try to convey that experience to help others to feel it, to perhaps learn the history behind the ingredients, or the colors or, you know, the traditions where these, these foods would come from where these wines would come from, so that I could share with people and really tune into this, I guess we could call the six senses the mind as somebody recently broke this down, they were breaking down the symbol of the the Eye of Horus, it is can be broken down into six separate symbols that give you the five senses plus a six, which is that of the mind, which unfortunately, in our culture, we we get so identified with the mind that we forget that it is actually a sense that it is not who we are. And so, here I am, simmering in this new, this newly acquired vocabulary, highly sensitive person or sensory processing sensitivity. And I realized that this is, this is a part of who I am. This is actually I would say, one of the most defining characteristics that has shaped my life. And I have no doubt that you listening to this podcast, are also defined by or highly influenced by your ability to sense. So first off, thank you to thank you to Dr. Aaron for helping to give some vocabulary to this. But what does it mean to be a highly sensitive person, especially in this day, in this culture, or at least in the modern cultures? What is what does it mean to be a highly sensitive person in relation to the this crystalline awakening this awakening of the Christ energy within the human form the evolution of our planet, from the third to the fourth density? Are the evolution of Gaia the evolution of consciousness here expressed in this earthly realm? How is it that this trait is selected for why is it necessary at this time? And what are the difficulties that come with being a highly sensitive person? And most importantly, I'd like to discuss what are the strategies that we can adopt to create balance in our life so that we can continue to be this gifted person, this highly sensitive person and also use it as our superpower really celebrated our superpower and not be just broken and bent out of shape by it because, unfortunately, we live in a world where this sensitivity is not celebrated. It is not nourished, it is not nurtured. It is not respected, and not even in most cases identified. If anything We could find that somebody says to us, You're too sensitive, you're just too sensitive. It's not regularly a characteristic that is celebrated. So, if you resonate with this term, highly sensitive person, join me on this journey. And let's talk about what that means. Let's bring it into your awareness. So that you can choose to celebrate yourself.

And of course, we don't want to get stuck only in labels. It's not just about, you know, again wearing that nametag says, Hi, my name is Crys Armstrong, Emma, I'm an HSP. You know, we don't need to add a bunch of titles to the back of our name, you know, like, like an MD, or a PhD or, or anything like that we're not looking to the prop ourselves up and to perhaps, you know, boost or inflate our ego, what we are here to do is to individuate to recognize that we are unique, and that this is one of the elements that makes us unique. Now, I will say, according to the studies of Dr. Arun, she says that this trait is actually normal. Natural, I think would be a better term normal is what is accepted by or defined as acceptable by a culture. However, natural means that it is found in nature, right? It is found in 15 to 20% of the population. Now she says that's too many to be a disorder. That's terrible word disorder out of order. But not, but it's not enough to really be well understood by the majority. So think about it, if you were to be sitting in a room with 100 people 15 to 20 of you, in that room are going to understand what this is about, maybe to understand. But if I were to give you the language, or if I were to help you to connect with this truth, you would feel it, you would resonate with this. So let's dive into this. Let's understand what exactly an HSP is. And let's, let's see how it affects us and why it is so necessary. To celebrate this gift that we have been given that we chose, on a soul level, to embody in this physical space suit this human suit that is that much more sensitive to its surroundings. So first off a couple more things that she shares. It is innate. She says that biologists have found this trait in over 100 species, from fruit flies, to fish, dogs, cats, horses, and primates. And it is a reflective of a certain type of survival strategy, being observant before acting, which that's something I need to tune into again, because my impulsive behaviors lately have caused quite some situations. However, this is a trait that would be selected in evolution, because it serves it serves to keep the genetic line alive. You're more aware than others of subtleties. So basically, this has to do with how your brain processes information, and your ability to reflect on it more deeply. So perhaps it is simply just your sensitivity to noise, your sensitivity to light to sound, your sensitivity to the energy that you can feel from other people, perhaps you can feel the emotions. You know, this this idea that you've ever walked into a room and the tension was so thick, you could cut it with a knife, you can feel that you feel it in your body just like you can feel your own emotions. Again, this certainly resonates or aligns with the idea of what an empath is. But there's a cost to this ability to be able to process and reflect more. More of this information, you know, you just see the depth, you see all the details, the nuances, the subtleties that perhaps a lot of people don't see or feel or hear or taste. But this comes at a price which is that you can certainly be more easily overwhelmed without practice without a development a nurturing a, you know, an adopting of strategies. So if you notice everything, you are going to be receiving so much more information. And especially when things are a little bit more chaotic, a little bit more intense, a little bit louder. that can become too much our conscious mind has very small, narrow bandwidth to absorb and process information. Our subconscious mind, on the other hand, has a tremendous capacity, hundreds, if not 1000s, if not even more than that times have an ability to process information. Now one thing to note here is your subconscious mind is absorbing everything. With certain tools and techniques like hypnosis, one can actually go into the subconscious mind and with questioning and probing, and we can understand, pull out the details of moments of events, places that you've been years and years ago in the past. And because your subconscious through your senses, through your sight, through the sound through your nose, was able to pull out all that information. And it's recorded somewhere, debates about whether that's actually recorded in the brain, in the body in the DNA, in some sort of an ethereal kind of almost like the cloud. And this an idea that may perhaps our our brain cells are just really transmitters or receiving stations to be able to communicate this information back and forth from that. But what is your conscious mind taking in, and it certainly you as a highly sensitive person are going to be greatly affected by both things. Now, let's talk about HSPs. In our modern culture, now, of course, I can speak specifically as an American as a citizen of the United States of America. As I mean, Caucasian, white, whatever you want to call me, I'm a male, I have a certain lens. But I can share my own experience from this lens and tell you a little bit more about the cultures that I've lived in, which had been quite a few. And just what I've seen as a commonality between these different cultures, but in general, now, in this world, on this plane, there is not a whole lot of value given to those that are highly sensitive. Very few places in our life in our modern life, celebrate, honor, and lift up, nurture and nourish the highly sensitive person. Just close your eyes for a moment and take your mind to a city street, let's, let's just say New York, I think a lot of people have probably seen, you know, an image of a street in New York, on TV or felt that in a movie or something like that, even if you haven't been there yourself. The quantity of objects, the amount of advertising, the number of people moving by cars, the sounds, the horns honking, the feet hitting against the pavement, the people talking someone on their cell phone, cell phones are ringing, the sound of all of the traffic, the sound of the businesses or people yelling and trying to hustle or sell on the side of the street. Helicopters, overhead airplanes, there's so much noise. There's so much physical movement happening. So many colors, so many individual bodies, individual people, it's a lot of sensory input. Now, that place is not designed for the highly sensitive person at all. It's designed for commerce, it's designed for, you know, the businesses that are that are designed to move people. It's designed for practical logistical reasons. It's not designed for the person who is highly sensitive. Something like that is going to be overwhelming for us. There are very few spaces and places in this world that are designed for us go into any store at this point in time, marketing has learned the power that color and, and sound and even smell have on the human conscious and subconscious in order to get you to buy something. And so everywhere that you go, there's going to be music, there's some sort of a soundscape. There's some sort of a smell scape, there's a landscape, the way things are laid out in design. Everything is crafted and is crafted to load you with information. I often reflect on the movie Minority Report, there's a scene where the main character is walking around in a mall or some sort of a commerce center. And these scanners these optical scanners are scanning is identifying him and feeding him holographic projections of advertisements, advertisements that are specifically customized to that person. It's x strangely overwhelming. And that's the world that we're stepping into. You know, think about a person who's highly sensitive. What we're craving mostly is going to be peace and calm and quiet, subtle noises, subtle sensory inputs. Like why it's so important to go into the forest, out to the beach, to a place where there are a few people. That's why it's important to have time to rest and retreat.

You go to watch anything on TV, anything in a movie theater, it's constant movement and noise this day, I mean, most of the films that I've seen, at least recently are overly stimulating. I've watched the movie the other day, Beetlejuice very funny movie for Halloween. One of my favorites I watched a lot as a kid might be able to tell you a little bit about me. But I found the intro where the credits were rolling. This is a film in the late 80s, early 90s. The intro scene was essentially a flying over a close up of a model a model town small figurines gently delicately carved, carved figurines, trees and such. And there was music and it was music by Danny Elfman great composer, interesting movie scores. And that's all it was, was credits, this simple overview of this model astill model and, and the music to any person that is used to the pace of films this day that they would be bored, they would have fast forwarded right? There wasn't that much sensory input, it was a little more subtle. I recently watched the movie Blade Runner 2049. Where it's almost the tension that's created by the lack of movement, or the slow pace of certain scenes, contrasted with the scenes where there were he's in the city, this I think it's like Neo Tokyo or something like that. This massive city where there's just billion people living there, there's rain falling, there's noise happening, there's people walking around, there's hologram projections, again, it's it's a contrast between the two. But very few films use the magic of slow, subtle, quiet. A lot of movies these days are there to be loud, smashing crashing, action, nonstop dialogue, drama. So our reflects our world. That's how our world has been designed. The TV is constantly spitting out advertisements, shows are trying to cram as much as they can into 20 minutes, 40 minutes, 60 minutes. The news media is trying to jam as much propaganda into your face into your mind and your consciousness and subconscious as possible. So there is this conflict in our society, with those that are highly sensitive people and this is like one out of five, one out of six, one out of seven people. This is this is not insignificant, right? Go to a football game. Nothing but noise and, and smells and, and just chaos seemingly chaos. In the public transportation, even in your car people or music, podcasts, there's always something going on. And for us that are not only sensing more, but we're also reflecting on it more worth thinking about it more this can be crippling almost. So the difficulties that come with being an HSP are, are these are challenges. These are strong challenges. But it's important for us to be able to overcome these challenges. Because we came here to feel we came here to feel plain and simple. One of the gifts of being embodied in this world at this time is our ability to feel emotions, sensory input, these bodies are magnificent, they're divinely designed. They're so complex living bio computer systems, electromagnetic energy systems. You know, I wrote a tweet the other day I shared it on Instagram and Twitter and and it got some interesting feedback and some shares. It seemed like quite a bit of interaction. On this topic, I said highly sensitive people were not made for this world. We came to build the new one. We came to feel the pain, the suffering, to call it out and to de normalize it. We came to break the cycle of enslavement and that First step is awareness. Pain is a messenger, feel to heal. Why are we here right now? Why did we choose to become highly sensitive humans? Why do we choose this spacesuit, this collection of personality and physical traits right now in this world because your soul, your spirit, your higher self, chose this exact combination to do whatever it is that you came here to do. In fact, take a moment, place your hand on your body, if you can one on your heart, one on your belly, close your eyes and just feel the truth that this vessel was designed to be the most perfect instrument for you to carry out your mission to fulfill your purpose here on this planet. And I don't care if that is to change the world, or to simply just marinate in it. You chose it. So be grateful. And explore the capacity that you have. Because whatever you are sensitive to, I promise you that is only a fraction of what you are capable of. So why are we here during this great awakening, the shift the crystalline awakening. Number one, like I said in the tweet, we came here to recognize the insanity. That is this modern world, and to call it out. We came here to walk in the room. I don't know if you've ever walked into somebody's house. That is an absolute mess. This happened to me years ago, I was going to get my my beer taste, tasting certification, and went to Idaho and the family friend. My ex wife's mother had hosted this family who was actually riding on bikes from all the way up to tip level Alaska all the way down to schwa down in the tip of South America, South America, Argentina, Chile, and she hosted them in Bolivia. And so she said, you know, Hey, call in a favor, you know, I'm sure they live in Boise, Idaho, that's where you're going might as well reach out and see if they got a place for you to stay. I went there. And that house was so dirty that I couldn't. I didn't even want to bring in my suit and my clothing that I was gonna, that's gonna wear to take the test the next day, sidenote, most people were wearing jeans and cowboy hats and big belt buckles who were not wearing three piece suits like I was, but whatever was coming from Seattle different place. I didn't want to bring it in because there was so much dust, dirt, filth, everywhere. I didn't want to ruin my clothing. We slept on the floor. I think we had some blankets, mats or whatever. But like it was, I felt like I was probably going to be catching some sort of a bacterial infection being there. You know, there was no soap in the bathroom. There were there was like no light in the bathroom, even if the light was brought. I mean, there was so but to me it was it looked like Insanity was chaos. How? How is it? What what is this? Now to that family that had become their everyday environment. That was the environment they were maintaining that they were keeping up, you know, this is a world of entropy, things fall apart, things dysregulate deregulate unless we put energy to keep them into some sort of a, you know, it's why your car breaks down over time. That's why everything breaks down over time. It's just, it's just the world of entropy. And somebody walking in there with fresh eyes would say, what is going on here? Do you not see this? Do you not know that this is not mean you can say normal? Again, that's a tricky term. This is not natural, I would say this is not natural. Now mind you, these people spent three years or the better part of three and a half years traveling as a family on bikes from one tip of the continent to the to the next. So, you know, maybe they just didn't do well, when they had a lot of space. They didn't know how to take care of they knew how to efficiently manage a couple of bikes and some trailers and like that's it. You know, so I mean, have some compassion, right? Be empathetic. But also you walk in there and you go, Hi, this is not this is not, this is not natural. That's why we're here as highly sensitive people. We came here to step into the noise, the chaos, the constant energy that even here there's cars whizzing by at all hours of the day today is the lunar eclipse. As I'm recording this November 8 2022. I went out at four in the morning to go see the blood red moon disappear in the night sky and there We're still just cars zooming by at four in the morning. There's movement all the time, there is noise there, you could feel the vibration of the cars. This is not natural. Our Cities, Our our environments have become so polluted with noise contamination with environmental contaminants with even visual contamination.


We're here to call it out, say hi. I don't know if you can feel all of this, but I can. And it's too much. There's no balance, we're out of rhythm with the cycles of nature. I mean, even me getting up this morning at four in the morning to go outside and look at the moon. To most people, they would consider that, but they call me a lunatic as a pun in their hope you can get it. Now. We are so disconnected from the rhythms of our world, we're in the fall autumn, halfway point between autumn and the winter solstice, we are at a time where we should be slowing down shoulds a terrible word. We are at a time, where we are invited to slow down where if, when we live in rhythm and harmony with our environment, we slow down because the leaves are falling off the trees. The days are getting shorter, it's getting a bit colder, our environment is inviting us to go within. And most of us, because we live in the modern world, we don't have that luxury. Most of us, we have to go and keep up pace, we got to work our nine to five, maybe nine to seven, eight to six, we're in our 1012 hours a day, driving in rush hour traffic on the way back on the way too. And we're living this bizarre life that is completely out of rhythm. Our bodies were not even designed to maintain this rhythm that is the natural or the modern world. The mechanical clock is an illusion it is It was created by man. It was not created by nature, nature, yes has its rhythms. There are circles and cycles. But it is not a mechanical clock. There's a beautiful rhythm to it. And we're so out of touch with it. So we're here to recognize that to feel that to feel that in our bodies, to feel the emotions that come up from being locked away in a box most of our life, going from one box to another box that has wheels on it with air conditioning or heating and to go to another box that also has climate control and artificial lights that do not mimic or match the natural light spectrum, that mess with our circadian rhythm, that mess with our pineal gland that mess with our hormonal hormonal balances. We are here to feel that it is and to stand up and say hey, this is not natural. This is necessary in this shift. Because in order for humans to continue playing, living creating manifesting on this plane, we must do so in concert with in harmony with our environment with our mother, Mother Earth, Mother Gaia. We can no longer rape and pillage we cannot steal excessive amounts of NERT nutrients and minerals and these resources from the ground. Now this is an infinite world this is a limitless world but we do not believe it is such an therefore we do not live it. And it is not sustainable. And I'm not talking about oh, let's live a sustainable life that we're just going to throw a bunch of solar panels and everything and everything's gonna be okay. Some part of that and thank you to an ex of mine helped me to see that the sustainability industry is another industry that is just selling you stuff. So that you can keep your clocks going. Your TV's going 24 hours a day. They say oh, you know, solar panels don't work because we don't have the proper storage to store the energy so that when it's nighttime, there's no sun. And we can't fuel and propel everything. It's like well, maybe, maybe if we aligned a little more in the rhythm of nature, we wouldn't need so much energy. Or perhaps we could tune into things that are running 24 hours a day like geothermal energy but another topic for another day. We came here to learn the magic and the power of subtle energy. We came here to feel beyond what we have been taught to feel. There is the visible light spectrum but light Express Light is everything. Even these physical objects this microphone is light and is energy that is just basically slowed down its vibration enough to where it's become physical. Still an illusion. It's a trick of the light. We came here to feel beyond to recognize that there's more than just the visible light spectrum than just the audible sound spectrum. There is a whole rich world of subtlety and it is soft. And it is depth it is complex, it is not obvious. Now, challenge of the modern world and certainly a challenge of the HSP in the modern world, in order to cultivate your sensitivity, you have to have time. But in this Go Go world where we are constantly consuming, working to consume, expending time to buy things, we are constantly moving, our world does not value sitting down and listening. Even reflected in our conversations most of us are trying to squeeze a word in, in between the other person's thoughts, instead of just taking the time to listen, to feel your body while you're listening to them. Because most of the information that we are communicating is nonverbal. Not even getting into the woowoo. World of metaphysics, we have proven that science knows this. We know this as humans, body language, eye contact, right? Tone, Cadence. There's certainly words and word choice. But there's so much more and in fact, the more that we step into our gift, our ability to listen with our body, to speak with our heart. And to allow the mind to be involved but not to control, we will be able to communicate much more. This is where the idea of telepathy will come into play when we are able to as we evolve, and as our physical vessels evolve, but also also as our consciousness evolves. And as we choose to harness these gifts, we will we will have much more access to subtle information will know when somebody is trying to lie to us, because it will be able to tell most modern what it called pathologists or something like that. Most modern detectives, I don't know, pick a profession. These people can tell if you're lying to them, not by the words you're using. Words can deceive, go check out the modern legal system. That thing is completely designed against us. However, it's the tone it's the body position. It's the posture, it's the it's the are they sweating, are they constantly touching their face scratching, twitching, shaking. So the more that we can tune into the subtle energy, the richer the experience we will have, we don't need to turn the volume up on everything. We don't need more noise, more action, more energy, we can just become more sensitive to it. And you will have a much richer life with less without having to consume as much to purchase as much perhaps even to work as much. So Why else are we here as HSPs well, well we are here to clear and heal the trauma the trauma in our generational our our intergenerational our ancestral trauma in our in our ancestral line or lineage. That part of the human genetic fractal that we represent that we chose to him embody. We're here to break the patterns from our family, which those patterns live in the body. They live in our subconscious. We're here to feel that we're here to feel that we're here to come and connect with the nervous system not only of our body, but as above so below to connect with the nervous system of our planet, Mother Gaia, the ley lines, the crystal lines, the crystalline grid to connect with those places and help to move that energy and how can you move that energy if you don't know how to feel for it if you can't tap in, go to a park and sit down and just close your eyes and listen. Set a timer for five minutes and do nothing for that five minutes except for be curious. What does your body feel like?

What is the environment feel like what is the wind feel like on your skin? In one of the sounds that are coming around you, the more you can pay attention to those things, the more that we can harness our sensitivity, the more we can feel what is hidden beneath it's like when you meet a person, and they might be smiling at you, but you can feel, you can feel the sadness in them, you can feel their depression, you can feel their rage, their anger, their frustration. Same thing about a place, the places in our planet absorb that energy, it lives in the elements, it lives in the Crystalline Grid, the nervous system of our planet. It lives in the water, the water that is going to go check it out online, there's, I think the ability now that we have to be able to store data in water is I mean, talking like terabytes per drop, it's, it's bananas. And the thing is, is that energy is stuck there. I listened to a channeling from Kryon really great channeling Lee Carol does such a great job. He's been sharing this stuff for 20 or 30 years now. pushing against the society that would have called him insane. Probably a lot of people did call him insane said, you can't be channeling a higher dimensional being that doesn't even exist, you're crazy. But the stuff that comes through resonates, we feel it in our body, we feel the truth, right. And he says Kryon says they say go to a battlefield, you go to a battlefield and you can feel the death, the suffering, the destruction, the anger, the chaos, that is embedded in that system in that energetic space, and that physical location, just like your trauma. If somebody hit you in your younger, if I were to raise my hand like I was going to hit you, you would recoil and all of those places where your fascia where your muscles, and especially your fascia, which is a conductor of energy and water, which is consciousness, which is life, which is memory, in your body, everywhere, where you got shocked, that shock stays with you. Unless you do something to clear animals will tend to shake, a dog will shake off, you know, if it almost got hit by a car, it'll just shake itself almost seemingly violently. But it'll release that energy. But humans haven't been able to do that we've forgotten how to do it. No one's taught us, our families certainly didn't. Because they're carrying around the trauma from their childhood, from their poor decisions from their grandmothers, grandfathers and their ancestors all the way back. So we need to feel that to know that it's there. When you feel it, when you bring awareness to it, then you can heal it. So highly sensitive people, not only the ability to feel and sense that the shit frankly, that's in their body, but the ability to go and feel that in a space. Now, I don't have an answer for this. This is a question that I have. And I would love your perspective. Cities. Think about New York. I'm here in Phoenix, Arizona, massive city. You know, any big city, especially ones that have been around for hundreds of 1000s of years. There's a lot of energetic emotional energy stored in those places. Conflict war, abuse, suffering, pain, depression. Are we here to clear that? Or do we just like, pack up and go somewhere else? And let this place fall? just crumble? I don't know the answer that one yet. But I've been called back to a big city. And I'm admittedly feeling a little challenged because I am highly sensitive to all of the traffic and the noise and the energy and that just the movement, constant movement. So that's why we're here. We're here to help this planet heal. We're here. We're here to help humans heal. We're here to help this whole reality heal. So your gifts as an HSP are needed. You are so needed, you're so desired. You came here with a purpose. Now how you express that purpose. We all have unique ways of doing that. In fact, I would invite you to investigate further ask those questions, learn your astrology, learn about your human design, learn about all these different things that are going to help you to understand what your path is, and how you came here to use that gift. Maybe you're a teacher, maybe you're a healer, maybe you're a grid worker. Maybe you're an artist, here to express the pain and suffering that you probably have felt in your life as an HSP through your art. It's really good art seems to just get us at those deep places. pain, grief, joy, lusts, suffering everything. Now what are we going I do because this is not easy to be an HSP in this world is we picked it we picked a picked quite a time we picked, I would say the most challenging time to be an HSP. Because I'm sure there were a lot of highly sensitive people out on the farms in the middle of nowhere, that were just living, you know, subsistence farming, they were just farming for their family make a little bit of money. And they'd see people like whenever they went to market, they'd see people every once in a blue moon. And that was it, then you could be fine, because you're in a calm environment, and you didn't have to interact with a lot of people. Different times. Now, we have these phones, which are powerful tools, but my God, the distractions, that just constant buzzing and input that they provide. So most of us the difficulties that we have here, we came here to feel, and yet most of us have learned how to numb. It's a survival technique. It's a survival strategy, conscious or unconscious. Remember, there's a movie, Constantine, Keanu Reeves. I watched it must be 20 years ago. Really interesting movies, it's about the war between the light and the dark. Check it out very illustrative about what's going on right now. And he basically can see on the other side, he can see spirits and, and demons, and he can clear them and can destroy them or take them back to the dark side or whatever you want to call it. And there was one character, one guy that was helping him out and he was kind of a not a sidekick, but a resource, you know, a contact for him. And at some point in time, he kept hearing these voices in his head because he was so sensitive to the energies around that these demons, these dark spirits would be able to just kind of mess with them. And at one point in time, one of these demons is really attacking him on the psychic level. And so he rushes into a convenience store any opens or no, it might even be a liquor store, he starts smashing bottles trying to open them. You know, at first he tries to pull out a cork and he tries to pour the alcohol on his body, it can't none of the alcohol is coming out this a trick from the demon, nothing's coming out. And he starts smashing them. And then eventually, what he didn't realize is that all of that alcohol, it was a trick of his mind was actually pouring into his mouth, and he drank himself to death. But he was drinking because he was trying to turn the noise down. I've been there. That's what I did for a lot of years. Even though I worked in a profession where my sensitivity was part of my gift. I worked in some of the most chaotic environments go to into a professional kitchen, the noise, the intensity, the emotion, the emotions expressed and unexpressed the words the language, that drugs go out in the restaurant side in the front of the house, the alcohol consumption, that people that are on dates, the stress the tension, you know, there's so much going on the chaos this there's so much just flying around. And so in order to numb to turn it down, I would not I would I would drink, smoke a lot of weed, eventually, cocaine, which probably was not actually supportive. And that's probably why I drank a lot at the end that night to help me get back to sleep. But I numbed out and that's what a lot of us do. A lot of us tend to look we find those ways to numb food over eating, addictive habitual eating, even even up to an including, you know, Body Dysmorphia and eating disorders because it's something to focus on something to focus our energy on because the world doesn't know how to deal with us. We don't know how to handle this world. We're talking about anxiety, we're talking about depression, suicidal ideation. I mean, I cannot tell you how many times even in the last couple of years where I have had thoughts flashed in my mind. Whether they're mine or not, I don't know it doesn't really matter, because they showed up, which is like, do I just end it? Because this place is heavy. And if you don't know how to navigate this world, we will tend towards depression, disconnection, we don't find that people that we know that know and understand that can empathize with us that can know what it feels like to be sensitive. We don't even know how to give language to it to give words to it to be able to say to someone, Hey, do you feel this much to? And what does it feel like when you close your eyes? What does it feel like? What do you see? Because we cannot inherently we cannot know what the experience is for you. No one can even in psychological and scientific testing. We cannot know what actually is happening in your lens of consciousness your lens of perception in the world. It's It's hilarious that that's one thing. We cannot do it. It affects everything. We tend to choose families with lots of trauma and dysfunction.

A lot of inherited trauma. Perhaps you experience trauma in your own life. Your parents were abusive. You got raped, sexually abused. I mean, this happens to a lot of people with HSP and you're thinking oh my god, I chose to be highly sensitive and And to step into trauma. But remember, you came here to not fit in, you came here to be able to call this shit out. So we have to learn how to navigate this world, we have to learn how to find balance, create balance. So some strategies, what every highly sensitive person must have in their life. Number one, give yourself permission to feel, create a space to feel, whether that's alone in your room, out in the woods, in the backyard with a baseball bat, and a tire or an old fax machine. Boxing, you know, learn somewhere where you can channel that aggression, that energy that those emotions, you can get them out of your body, cry, feel, laugh, jump, shake, dance, whatever it is, give yourself a space, schedule it on your calendar, make it a priority, you have to feel in order to heal. Number two, a community who understands you. That might be a challenging one, we're so connected and we're more disconnected than ever. You might be able to join a facebook group, but a Facebook group cannot hug you. Maybe the Facebook group has meetings and you can go there. It's challenging because especially those of us that have had a lot of issues with addictions have numbed out the only real support groups that are out there, like I don't know AAA. Not the kind of place that I want to spend my time not the environment. Yes, there are people that can certainly be supportive. But I will tell you, I've never been feeling more depressed than being around a bunch of people who are that depressed, and don't get me wrong, that helps a lot of people, I'm not gonna say A is bad or good. It's just a tool. But you might need to create your own community, you might need to raise your hand up and say, Yo, I feel a lot. Y'all want to go into a park and just chill and just sit for a few minutes. You guys want to go and create a meditation group. I would say in person better than online, but do whatever you can get what you can't, some of you are, I mean, we chose to be everywhere. We are everywhere. We are in small towns in big towns, we are in on farms, and we are in monasteries, we are everywhere. Three, prioritize quiet time and alone time. Give yourself space in the morning, before you engage with the world before you turn your phone on, before you if you can avoid it see anybody in your household. Before you go out and work, give yourself time. For me, I would rather wake up and get an hour less sleep, then get that extra hour of sleep and rush out into the world or have to log on to my computer and do my work. Number four, find a therapist or a healer who specializes in trauma. We all have trauma. However you as an HSP yours was more likely encoded a little bit more deeply. And think about this as a sensitive person. I think Dr. Dr. Gabor Ma Tei says this really well. He explains a sensitive person and their relationship with trauma very much like a Imagine if you had on your arm, an open wound, a cut or a scrape. And on the other arm, perfectly healed normal skin, if I were to take a feather a very soft, delicate little feather, and I would rub it up against your skin on the healed arm, you would feel perhaps pleasant, very soft, maybe you wouldn't even notice it. On the other arm, the open wound, if I rub that same feather there, that's going to be painful. A highly sensitive person, their environment is going to give you the same stimuli the same input, but you're going to be more like that open wound than like the fully healed skin. Which means that my case, I grew up with everything that my culture defines as good, you know, like all the toys, all the opportunities, good school, good family, in nice cushy house, et cetera, et cetera. I still have trauma, because I'm more sensitive to those same inputs. You know, for some people, a whisper can shake their whole system. For other people. It takes a scream it takes like 100 and something decibels an air horn in their ear. So find somebody who can help you process that trauma. Because it lives in your body. It lives in your fascia. It lives in your connective tissue. It lives in your bones and your muscles. It's in your water I would say stay away from from drugs and those intoxicating substances, pharmaceuticals as much as you can, everybody's got their own journey with this. I've found an addiction to pretty much all of them. I've never taken antidepressants. It's not one I'm willing to go into even though some people would recommend that for me. But here's the thing, drugs, plant medicines. If you're already sensitive, things like cannabis, things like psilocybin, DMT, Ayahuasca, peyote Huachuma, these things are going to open up your level of sensitivity 10 100 200 times. And so if you think a feather is going to be painful enough for you, what happens if during that medicine ceremony or during your trip, or when you're getting out getting high, somebody scares you, somebody shocks you. Somebody says something that pulls up some trauma, it's going to encode much more intensely for you than for other people. And you will have to recover from the medicine ceremony. Trust me, I have had to recover from traumatic psilocybin and LSD sessions, with with some with more intention. So without it, be careful. I am currently taking a year away from all medicines, all plant medicines, all psilocybin cannabis, all these intoxicants, I'm staying away from it because I have traumatized myself. You don't need more sensitivity, you need to ground yourself in the physical body, you need to ground yourself in the present moment. Get yourself out of your anxiety and depression. Get into the Now moment and be grounded in yourself. So do not you do not need to be blasted out of your body. There is a time and a place for those things. If you aren't going to do them. Make sure they're with people that you can trust and powerfully secured safe environments, set and setting. Who are you going into the ceremony? And who are the people that are creating that container for you? Do you trust them? Do you trust them with your life? I've heard some wacky stories about plant medicine ceremonies. And last year coming back from a plant medicine ceremony, the shaman who was guiding me fell asleep in the car and flipped it and I damn near died. So I was kind of off the medicine by them but it was still working in my system and it was traumatic. Learn how to say no. You need your time you need to draw boundaries you need healthy boundaries. Do not be a people pleaser. A lot of HSPs tend to be people pleasers we are oftentimes because we are not so accepted and celebrated by the society. We seek approval and validation from those outside of us we have our own difficulties loving ourselves might not be true for every HSP but for a lot of you I know it is certainly is for me. Say no. Prioritize your health, your healing your time, your rest, fill your cup first so that you can then serve others selfish, in a way is selfless. The other side of that be in service. You can feel what others cannot. Therefore you can help others to learn how to feel what they have not learned how to feel. Just because we have an inherent tendency or an inherent gift of IANA feel doesn't mean that we're not all gifted. We all have that ability. But part of it is nature and part of it is nurture. Be of service help your brothers and sisters to know how to feel. guide them through meditations become a healer, become a talk therapist, whatever it is, doesn't matter, Be of service help your brothers and sisters, and that will help you service to others is sort of self sleep, get rest. You must rest rest is where we shake off and release all of the stuff that we received in the day. The dream state is where our subconscious plays out. And it basically processes a lot of the stuff that we observed. Remember, I again the subconscious is seeing and feeling at all. And there it can release it, let go of it. So prioritize sleep, prioritize those deep sleep cycles. REM sleep is important. Again, another reason why I would recommend staying away from cannabis for those of you because cannabis interrupts your REM sleep cycles, which means that you're not getting the proper dream dump of energy that you need to prepare yourself for the next day. diet

eat well nourish the body, respect and love the body. This is the vessel in which you are experiencing sensing. You're sensing and experiencing all of this through the body. You are having this experience in the body. Take care of it. I don't care what you eat as long as you know what you need to eat. You are sensitive. So listen to your body. If you eat some And then and you feel like crap, if you feel like shit, things coming out of you are not so good. You need to change something, detoxify cleanse, I've done the Purium cleanse, a 30 day cleanse that I've done twice now, to help to reset the body, get rid of glyphosate. If you're interested in doing something like that, you can check out my Instagram page at the crystalline man, there's a link in there, you can get a 25% off coupon to do one of the 30 day cleanses, drop me a line and I will support you in knowing how to do that cleanse properly. There's things like Zen cleanse, which is a to help rid the body of mucoid plaque, some of the buildup that we have, we live in a world that is not respectful of our bodies. So we need to cleanse we need to purify become the more clear channel so that when those emotions are acting up and into you, you can clearly get them out and through you you're not numb you ever felt like it's like the idea of drinking a cup of coffee or an espresso after a heavy meal. It's like because your body has become so heavy and numb, digesting and processing everything that you want somebody to pick you back up. But neither one of them works. And for that matter, I would say probably avoid caffeine, you don't need more stress and sensitivity in your life. Exercise, find a way to get that energy out. Dance, martial arts, something that builds discipline in you a very, very good for us HSPs. communicate, share your story, tell people about it. Let them know what's going on. Not in a way that says oh, hey man. Remember HSB I can feel and see more than you help speak about it, we need to normalize this, we need to normalize the healing path. We need to normalize here at curing and healing trauma, we need to normalize being an HSP. So share about it. Tell what your experiences. And lastly, go into a mirror. Look yourself deeply in the eye. Put your hands somewhere on your body. And tell yourself that you love you. Forgive yourself for your mistakes. Practice a prayer like the whole pono pono. I'm sorry, please forgive me. Thank you, I love you. You carry a lot. I know you do. I know because I do. Let it go. Give yourself permission to let it go. Please You can't carry all of that weight alone. Get help. Ask for a hug. The tragedy of this whole C word. You know, issue is that we got closed off from each other we wore masks and lock downs and they disconnected past medicine we need the most. So I'm going to leave it at that if you are a man embodied as a man, physical male vessel and you resonate with and you need support. Speak to me, send me a message, send me an email connected becoming crystalline.com You can find me at the crystalline man on Instagram. I'm here to support you. We need you. This planet needs you. And I can help you get in connection with your divine blueprint I can help you to implement these strategies. The end of the month I'm launching a 12 week course a 12 week coaching program one on one, combined with some group elements to help those HSP those highly sensitive men to step into their power and to stop hiding away from the world to stop numbing from their gifts. And if you need support with that, send me a message. Let's get on the phone. I'd love to talk to you to let you know how I can help as lots of beautiful tools out there. And trust me. I chose all of this to help you recognize that you are powerful. And you are so absolutely needed in this world. With that, I will leave you. My name is Chris Armstrong, host of becoming crystalline. Thank you to all of my HSPs out there. I'm grateful that we're here because it's time It's time to call out the insanity and it's time to heal Thank you I am you I love you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai