Month: January 2020

How To Accept Your Sensitivity As A Gift

| Tracy Cooper Ph.D.

This is Day 8 of the 2020 Empowerment Guide For Sensitive People! Today’s article is by Jason Freeman, who is a professional speaker, author, and bravery coach traveling the country sharing his inspirational and transformative journey and he does it with a pronounced speech impediment.

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Jason Freeman is a professional speaker, author, and bravery coach who travels the country sharing his inspirational and transformative journey with captivated audiences . . . and he does it with a pronounced speech impediment.

From the dream affirming standing ovation following his TEDx talk in Sugarland, TX to his earliest moments in front of an attentive crowd, Jason has learned to trust his seemingly contradictory calling to speak in front of live audiences. He has shared the stage with well-known speakers in the transformational, entertainment, entrepreneurship, and business worlds and has charmed audiences at The California Teacher’s Summit, Kyle Cease’s Evolving Out Loud, The Habitude Warrior Conference, The People First Conference in San Diego, and San Diego State University, amongst others.

Jason has a unique and wonderful role as a bravery coach. I personally had never heard of a bravery coach but think it beautifully describes Jason. He is a master at taking challenges and turning them into a gift. His openness to challenge has become a skill and source of enrichment for himself and others. He has had numerous challenges and in this article he shares how he learned to work with his sensitivity. Jason is an inspiring person who is a model of how to transform life’s hurdles into assets. In this article he talks about how he was able to accept his sensitivity as a gift.

 

How To Accept Your Sensitivity As A Gift

The Hypocrisy Of Sensitive People

| Tracy Cooper Ph.D.

This is Day 7 of the 2020 Empowerment Guide For Sensitive People! Today’s article is by Jeannette Folan who is an Integrative Health Coach for Sensitives and creator of the first-ever accredited HSP Certification Training Program for mental health professionals through Nickerson Institute.

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She is the author of the novel “Diary of a Teenage Empath – The Awakening”, as well as other digital tools and activity books for children and teens. In 2019, she co-launched the first-ever accredited HSP Certification Training Program for mental health professionals with her mentor, Dr. Wendy Nickerson.

As an Integrative Health Coach, Jeannette has a lot of experience helping sensitive people to thrive. We all know that sensitive people can be challenged by the negative energy of others and it can result in a sensitive person taking the position of victim. It may be fair to say that we all do that to some extent until we begin to work on our role in any depleting dynamics.

In this article, Jeannette describes an important dynamic that can keep us depleted and stuck and how she herself worked on changing this negative dynamic in some of her relationships. This is an honest article that offers a pathway out of draining energetic relationships and is a message as well as a reminder we all need to hear some of the time.

Please click link to view article: https://sensitiveevolution.com/the-hypocrisy-of-sensitive-people/

Focus On Your Feet To Center

| Tracy Cooper Ph.D.

Day 6 of the 2020 Empowerment Guide For Sensitive People! Christina Fletcher is a Spiritually Aware Parent Coach and Energy Healer. She is a homeschooling mom of 3 children (ages 17, 16 and 10) and has lived in Canada, Spain and the UK.

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Through her work in mindset, mindfulness, energy healing, and conscious parenting Christina shares her passion of seeing each person (adults and children alike) as their truest, deepest versions of themselves, helping them to feel present, authentic and whole through the busyness of the world we live in.

She offers her support through 1:1 coaching, self-led courses and an online membership program called the Breathing Space for parents.

Many of us are just getting to know our trait and have had the experience of rejection or invalidation as children. We may have taken that in as a truth about ourselves before we learned about our sensitivity. Some sensitive individuals have taken their childhood experience and worked with it to become the parents and guides for sensitive children that we need in the world and would have loved to have had, With that work comes important skills that can benefit all of us and Christina shares her wisdom on centering in this lovely article.

 

https://sensitiveevolution.com/focus-on-your-feet-to-center/

Dr. Cooper’s website: drtracycooper.wordpress.com

2020- Year of the Highly Sensitive Man!

| Tracy Cooper Ph.D.

“Heroes didn’t leap tall buildings or stop bullets with an outstretched hand; they didn’t wear boots and capes. They bled, and they bruised, and their superpowers were as simple as listening, or loving. Heroes were ordinary people who knew that even if their own lives were impossibly knotted, they could untangle someone else’s. And maybe that one act could lead someone to rescue you right back.” ~Jodi Picoult, Second Glance

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In my work with highly sensitive people, I often interact exclusively through secondhand means, such as the telephone, Skype, or Zoom and never have a chance to be in the real presence of the other person. I am able to glean quite a bit from just the voice but there is nothing that can replace feeling the energy field of another person standing in front of you or, better yet, of a group of people in front of you!

I mention this because at the recent November HSP Self-Care Immersion workshop at 1440 Multiversity, we held a breakout session just for highly sensitive men with Dr. Elaine Aron and myself as the leaders. We had about seven HS men at our session and focused on ensuring each man was seen and heard, that his story enjoyed a chance to breathe in like minded company. There was an immediate sense of community that developed as each man was given a chance to say something about his experience of life as a highly sensitive man. Some related the difficulties they have encountered as their sensitivity was accepted or rejected, how their careers have been shaped and formed by sensory processing sensitivity, and how being in the company of other HS men felt supportive, accepting, and welcoming. Others related how much they gained from focusing on how to practice real self care, which too many of us neglect as the world demands so much of us.

Being a highly sensitive man implies many things but, in essence, we are the “ordinary people” of Picoult who have bled, been battered and bruised by life, and still reach out to help others untangle their lives. We are certainly not perfect souls, nor do we have any special powers but, as suggested by Picoult, we may be terrific listeners and have soft, open hearts that invite others in to our experience.

I invite you to join us at the upcoming HS Men’s Weekend at 1440 Multiversity March 13-15 and join our warm, open community of like minded HS men who are gathering together for the first time. This event will not be one where you feel isolated and lost in the crowd; indeed, you will be seen and heard and valued for your experiences and insights.

If I can leave you with any enticing thoughts or feelings from my experience leading a group of HS men it’s that the collection of talent, experience, creativity, and kindness is so palpable as to have left deep impressions on me, even many weeks later. Many of the men already signed up are incredibly impressive individuals and the company and conversation will be poignant, real, and empowering!

Join us….

https://www.1440.org/…/a-weekend-for-highly-sensitive-men-2…

It has been suggested that we declare 2020 to be the Year of the Highly Sensitive Man, let’s make this happen!

Please share to all of your social media!!

Grief: The Undervalued HSP Superpower

| Tracy Cooper Ph.D.

In day 5, Jody Day, the British founder of Gateway Women, the global friendship and patryk-sobczak-9VPtNW84vGI-unsplash-800x533support network for childless women and the author of ‘Living the Life Unexpected: 12 Weeks to Your Plan B for a Meaningful and Fulfilling Future Without Children’, joins us for our 2020 Empowerment Guide For Sensitive People! In this wonderful article, she shares how she has come to see grief as a superpower for sensitive people.

An HSP herself, she’s a thought-leader on female involuntary childlessness, an integrative psychotherapist, a TEDx speaker and a former Fellow in Social Innovation at Cambridge Judge Business School. A World Childless Week champion, she lives in rural Ireland and is working on a new book.

View the article here

Grief: The Undervalued HSP Superpower

| Tracy Cooper Ph.D.

In day 4 of the 2020 Empowerment Guide For Sensitive People, I share insights aroundspscooper the acceptance of our trait, based on my own experience and long reflections. I discuss in detail the importance of creating space in ourselves for our sensitivity and allowing the trait in our lives. This perspective can make a huge difference in our ability to turn sensitivity into the gift it was meant to be. The theme of allowing has become something of a mantra for me as I have worked with highly sensitive people and noticed that it generally takes years to really get to know the trait. Rather than feeling we have to accept it upfront, complexities and all, we can simply find a more gracious and patient place within ourselves to allow it to grow over time.

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Read my article here

High Sensitivity: Gifts And Challenges

| Tracy Cooper Ph.D.

This is Day 3 of the 2020 Empowerment Guide For Sensitive People! The 3rd article in the shutterstock_481502263-800x5342020 Empowerment Guide For Sensitive People is written by Julie Bjelland, a licensed psychotherapist, author, and founder of the online resource, Sensitive Empowerment.

As a leader in the field of high sensitivity, Julie has helped thousands of highly sensitive people (HSPs) around the world reduce their challenges, access their gifts, and discover a sense of calm, feeling grounded, inner strength, and resiliency they have never thought possible.

Giving people a sense of true connection, Julie is featured on national media regularly and on a mission to empower sensitive people to live their best lives.

Julie has written a great article providing an overview of the challenges of sensitivity as well as the many gifts it offers so that we can have some clarity about our trait. In addition she offer important tips for handling and avoiding overwhelm.

drtracycooper.wordpress.com

Link to Julie’s article here

10 Skills Created By The Highly Sensitive Brain

| Tracy Cooper Ph.D.

Day 2 of the 2020 Empowerment Guide For Sensitive People! Today’s post is by Esther HSP Brain Hoogsensitief.NLBergsma, MA, a frequent speaker on High Sensitivity in the Netherlands and also an author, trainer, scientific researcher, and expert on High Sensitivity. She wrote the book Hoogsensitieve Kinderen (Highly Sensitive Children) based on research from over 700 parents, as well as the book, The Highly Sensitive Brain (both are in Dutch). Esther’s purpose is to create awareness about the trait from a more scientific perspective. She speaks to medical professionals, psychologist, teachers, and managers and conducts research on sensitivity in the workplace.

Esther is sharing her expertise on the highly sensitive brain with us because understanding our highly sensitive brain and how it works makes self-acceptance much easier for sensitive people. She has written a wonderful article for us on the relationship between the characteristics and skills of sensitive people and how their brain works. Having the context for our sensitive gifts and challenges is important information that helps us see the sensitive trait as natural.

Please click link to view.

 

Parenting as Sensitive Leadership Bootcamp

| Tracy Cooper Ph.D.

Kicking off 2020, I am happy to have joined Sensitive Evolution’s Empowerment Guide For Sensitive People! Each day we will present an expert view on many topics of relevance and importance to life as a highly sensitive person. Today we begin with a post by Ane Axeford, a licensed marriage and family therapist specializing in sensory sensitivity, on parenting as sensitive leadership boot camp!

drtracycooper.wordpress.com