I used to resonate with the Thomas Edison quote, “the chief function of the body is to carry the brain around.” I was most comfortable in my thoughts, and I could even talk about emotion from an intellectual, somewhat detached place.

My body and emotions weren’t a safe place to be; I was scared of my emotions and my body held all my unprocessed trauma.

Can you relate to any of that?

• Are you more comfortable in your thoughts?
• Do your emotions overwhelm you?
• Do you feel detached from your body sensations?

Connecting to the Wisdom of Your Body

Because Highly Sensitive People have such an intense emotional life, unless we’re given tools to sit with and allow our emotions, we often choose thinking to escape feeling.
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And if you’ve experienced trauma (anything that was too overwhelming for your nervous system to process), you may avoid your body because it’s too charged with old pain.

What I learned over time was that the body is actually THE place to be if you want to heal your anxiety and trauma, connect with your intuition, and set good energetic boundaries.

Did you know:

1. Your body holds wisdom about your emotions (ie. what you want/need, boundaries you need to set)
2. Your body is storing everything unhealed in you, and when you can connect to your body, it’s possible to heal it (often through trauma therapy)
3. Your body is the doorway to connecting to your intuition
4. Your body can help you discern what is yours vs someone else’s energy
5. Deep down your body knows how to release others’ emotions and energy that isn’t serving you

When we talk about healing energetic boundaries, therefore, we must talk about the body.

Consider how connected you are to your body.

Can you feel your body (a silly-sounding question, but sometimes we’re completely disconnected!)?

When you’re having an emotion, can you find a physical sensation that goes with it? (ie. I’m feeling sad and I notice a clenching in my stomach and ache in my heart)

When you’re upset, do you have tools that help you ground yourself in your body (ie. breathing, stretching, walking, yoga, etc)?

How connected do you feel to your body and the emotions, intuition and wisdom expressed through it?

Connecting to Your Authentic Self

In addition to reconnecting with our bodies, we often are in need of reconnecting to our own authentic selves.

There was a point in my 20s when I started asking, “what are my REAL preferences? How do I like to dress? What music do I truly like? Do I have a favorite color?”

These might sound like simple and even trite questions, but to me, it was the beginning of untangling who I really was.

I thought I knew what I liked, but I started to realize I had just absorbed the preferences and opinions of some of the important people in my life, like a sponge.

Many of my clients feel the same way. One HSP I worked with shared, “I don’t really know who I am because I have so many other people’s energy and emotions coming in. That affects my identity and how I see myself.”

When we are so attuned to everything outside of us, it’s really hard to stay attuned to who WE are and what WE want and need.

As we become disconnected from our bodies, we also become disconnected from our authentic voice and our intuitive knowing.

We’re all born with an authentic self, and if given the opportunity, that authentic self will grow and develop over time. Some of us didn’t have the opportunity to develop our authentic self, because

1. It wasn’t safe to
2. No one showed us how
3. Our true self got overshadowed while over-attuning to the needs of others.

The good news is that you can reconnect with that authentic self and start to develop that part of you, no matter what your age is.

Angie, a member of our community, called it an “untangling” which allows us to have “relationships where we’re all our individual selves.”

As you journal, consider: does the most authentic you want to be heard more? How can you listen for your authentic thoughts and preferences? 

If you’d like more guidance on becoming an HSP who’s free to be yourself, watch our free workshop, How to Break Free from Empathy Overload.

Related Posts:

What Most HSPs Don’t Know About But Desperately Need
​(As featured in the 2021 HSP Empowerment Guide)
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​How to Make Sure You Aren’t Robbed of Your Right to be Human