HSP Tools: Guided Imagery and Meditation

I recently wrote about HSPs and their struggles with developing self-compassion here. For HSPs that have  gone through a traumatic experience, this struggle is even harder. Trauma, by its very definition, is overwhelming and to deal with it, we might have run away into our minds and away from our bodies.

Our bodies might feel like the source of the pain. They might feel like the connecting thread to a  past that we might prefer to forget. And so, we unconsciously turn to our minds, seeking refuge in a different place. But we end up getting lost because it is our senses that connect us to the present.

On some level, we might unconsciously choose this trade off. Being disconnected and dissociated from our bodies might feel easier than facing the threat of re-experiencing traumatic memories.

So, being grounded can become an even greater challenge for HSPs suffering from trauma than it is for HSPs with more normal experiences.

So, what do we do? If we are suffering from the after-shocks of trauma, we need professional help. We need a therapist who can help us release the locked trauma in a safe way. Trying to do this on our own, without any help, would be discounting the level of injuries we have sustained.

It is okay to need help. It is okay to ask for it.

We don't want to open up wounds that we don't have the resources to deal with. What a sensitive therapist would do is use talk therapy along with bodywork and several other tools like guided meditations and imagery. 

If you are an HSP who hasn't suffered trauma, you can also use tools such as guided meditations on your own. Too often, we might see our sensitivity as only a burden.

We may never see that we are not just more sensitive to the bad stuff, we are also more sensitive to the good stuff. This can serve us well and become an advantage.

We can use our sensitivity and imagination to create more nurturing experiences. Using a suitable audio guide like this one by Belleruth Naparstek, we can start to form a better relationship with our bodies.

In a meditation such as this, we might be asked to imagine the pleasant vibrations of energy surrounding our bodies. We might be told to imagine being surrounded by a protective cushion of air or swimming in an endless sea with friendly dolphins all around us.

Essentially, what we are being asked to do is to actively use our imagination to create a safe space and access the good feelings that our senses can provide.

We feel the warm cocoon surrounding our bodies. We relax a little. We feel the dancing waves around us. The water feels good. We relax even more.

We have created something imaginary. But the effect on our bodies is real. We feel nurtured and secure. We feel a connection to our body and to the present.

Of course, this process is not always dream-like. It can unfreeze emotions and cause them to flow. This catharsis lessens our burdens.

Without the structure and guidance that the guided meditation provides, we may never have wanted to feel our sadness. But that would have just meant that our sadness would remain locked inside us.

By going through this process, we release what lies buried underneath. We have taken some more steps forward. We have used our sensitivity and imagination for our good instead of letting negative imagination drown us.

We now have another tool in our tool-box. We can pick it up and use it whenever we need it. 

On Honoring Our Own Style

There have been times in my life where I have urged myself to “Jump,” “Just jump,” and then fallen back ashamed because I just couldn’t do it. Something was holding me back. What, I couldn’t quite figure out. And so, I stayed suspended in that moment of trying to jump and not jumping, berating myself for not having the nerve to do it.

In the past few years, I have done many things that I thought were “too hard” for me. I have traveled on my own. I have shifted countries. I have broken through a shell and reached out to that me who lay sleeping, and who was lost in the persona.

I have done this not by jumping all of a sudden. But finding what gives me courage and strengthening myself, so when the jump came, it no longer felt like a jump. It felt like something that I could either handle or learn to handle.

As I look back, I see that looking outside for answers slowed me down. Listening to too many different opinions slowed me down. I wasn’t sure of myself, so when I heard someone saying something with a great deal of certainty, I believed them.

But with experience, I see that people who are very certain about the way things work are often wrong. They project a confidence that even they, sometimes, only have for show. We might start feeling that they have all the answers. But they often don’t.

As an HSP, you might value someone’s style of decision-making just because of the confidence it gives them. Yes, they might be wrong in the end. But being so sure seems to make their life easier along the way. They also seem to fit better into a culture where just displaying confidence -- a surety about a certain position -- is looked at favorably.

But doubts and the information that they bring can be invaluable in making a decision. They tell us about the lay of the land for us. We are tuned in to subtleties, and just letting ourselves sift through our perceptions one by one, and either prove or disprove them gives us valuable information.

It makes us more flexible, if we give ourselves time to move slowly yet surely through this process. It increases the odds of our making the right decision.

That’s something to remember when we are besieged by attention-grabbing voices. They might be loud. They might be very sure of themselves. But are they always right?

If you look at the people around you, you might find that you are as capable of making a good decision as anybody else. Your style is different, and honoring that style instead of copying someone else’s might just be the key in this situation.

What if you were to move with your style, and not against it?  

HSPs and Decision Making

Everything comes with its darkness and its light. The same thing that gives us our gifts also gives us our challenges. As HSPs, we notice subtle details, and our life is enriched by them. As HSPs, we notice subtle details and get so lost in them that we lose sight of the context.

Maybe one thing we could do when making big decisions is first cut through the details, and clarify what our basic position or requirement is. When we know that, the details can help us paint a more complete picture later on. But not getting the heart of the matter keeps us suspended, keeps us confused. It keeps us procrastinating on actually making a decision, on throwing our hats over the fence.

And maybe one thing we can do when making small, little decisions is to stop questioning the validity of our choices. Our experience of the world is different. So, our needs are different. So, what we decide to do with our money, time, and other resources is probably different too.

These small, niggling decisions ultimately add up to the quality of our everyday lives. Like you, many times, I delay making affirmative choices when I feel that others might question their validity. For example, is it okay to spend my money a certain way when other people think that's wasteful?

It might be that you want to join a more expensive gym that others in your social circle. You can afford to do that. To you, it means avoiding a noisy, overcrowded environment. It means controlling the amount of stimulation you let it. It means having an amount of space that you are comfortable with.

Ultimately, it means that you are more likely to use the facility because you have taken your needs and preferences into account.

But often, we stop ourselves from making decisions like this. We discount what we need even when we can realistically satisfy that need. We do this just because it doesn't look like what other people need. So, we are stuck at the question: Is it okay for me to even need this?  

We have to, with little steps, start understanding that, in the end, everything is a matter of opinion. To decide how to use our time and money in a way that works for us is giving voice to our needs. It's also giving voice to our values.

It's treating ourselves as if we matter. It's counting ourselves as important. We might struggle to do this, and fall over and over again. But we have to acknowledge that if the way we respond to the world is different, what we need from the world might be different as well.

There's no point trying to get everyone's permission. We have to give ourselves our own permissions.

Your needs are valid. Just like everyone else, you are a unique, distinctive person. What you want speaks of the deeper needs of your soul. You soul might need quiet. It might need music. It might want to get away. It might want to find its community.

When making your decisions, look at what you need. Don't look at other people who are nothing like you. How would your decisions change? What would they look like?