Trusting Your Highly Sensitive Self

by Elizabeth Venart, M.Ed., NCC, LPC

When you’re highly sensitive, you notice details and nuances others miss, deeply process all you notice, and have heightened empathy. You feel deeply — both sadness and joy — and you are remarkably tuned in to the world around you. You see the details but also understand context and big picture patterns. As a result, your intuition is often spot on. 

Unfortunately, because the majority of people are not highly sensitive, they don’t sense all you do, and they can, intentionally or unintentionally, invalidate what you know and feel. As a result, many highly sensitive people learn to mistrust themselves. 

In response to noticing this — and seeing how much Internal Family Systems (IFS) helped me and other highly sensitive people deepen self-trust, I was inspired to write, “Trusting Your Highly Sensitive Self: An Internal Family Systems Path to Healing and Wholeness.” I am excited to share that it is being published on June 1st by New Harbinger Publications. 

The book offers a compassionate roadmap for turning sensitivity from a source of struggle into a foundation for a rich, meaningful life. Weaving together insights from Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, illustrative stories, and engaging exercises, the book empowers you to deepen your self-awareness, build resilience, and thrive as a sensitive person.

As you unpack any negative messages about sensitivity and understand the ways you learned to protect yourself, you come home to the wholeness of your being — and the wisdom inherent in this valuable way of being.

If you are sensitive, I wrote this book for you. If you love someone who’s highly sensitive or are a therapist who supports highly sensitive people, this book offers deeper understanding.  It is currently available in print and kindle, and an audiobook version is forthcoming. On the publisher’s website, you will find free handouts from the book — including meditation scripts, illustrations, and exercises. If you sign up for the newsletter on my website, I will send you a copy of “The Journey Home,” the poem I wrote to accompany readers on the book’s journey, and you'll be the first to know when I’ve made audio recordings of the meditations available. Subscribers will also receive announcements about book reading events and book clubs that I’ll be hosting. The first one is this month -- on 6/13 at The Resiliency Center!

In closing, I’d like to share one of many favorite quotes by the poignant and powerful poet, Mary Oliver. I offer it as encouragement to any of you who feel a creative spark inside, yearning for expression. She wrote, “And that is just the point... how the world, moist and beautiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That's the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. "Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?” 

Writing the book was initially quite a formidable undertaking. It required me to set aside time for it, reflect on what felt most important to say, carefully select words, courageously share rough drafts with colleagues and friends, and commit. I wrote because I felt I had something to share and wanted to offer a gift. Perhaps you, too, have a gift to share — your writing, art, music or other expressions of your heart. The world awaits your unique offering. I will be delighted to see the beauty that pours forward. 

Elizabeth Venart, M.Ed., NCC, LPC, is the author of “Trusting Your Highly Sensitive Self: An Internal Family Systems Path to Healing and Wholeness.” Elizabeth’s private counseling practice is focused on supporting highly sensitive people, including artists and therapists, in embracing their sensitivity, cultivating greater resilience, and experiencing joy. She is a Certified IFS Therapist and IFS-I Approved Clinical Consultant, a Certified EMDR Therapist and an EMDRIA Approved Consultant, and a Trainer in IFS-Informed EMDR. She founded the Resiliency Center of Greater Philadelphia 18 years ago, as a place for community — for those seeking healing and the practitioners devoted to partnering with them in that healing. To connect with Elizabeth, please email elizabethvenart@counselingsecure.com or visit her website at https://elizabethvenart.com/.

Spring Cleaning and the Meaning of Our Things

by Vanessa Mortillo

I recently went on a decluttering tour of my home office and bedroom. I got sick of the disorganized items piling up, even though my home is usually some version of slightly chaotic. I was pleasantly surprised by a sense of mental spaciousness I achieved by simply removing a chunk of the items. I armed myself with several books about minimalism: the practice of prioritizing what is most important in life, and letting go of the rest. 

I got to thinking about the meaning of my things as I went through different sections of my belongings. I started with clothing. When I removed old things from the closet I felt a sense that I could create a new me. I then tackled a series of jewelry boxes that were left to me by my grandmother. Sentimental items like these are tricky– I felt a sense of obligation to my grandmother to be a good steward of her things. Ultimately, I realized that my grandmother passed these to me because she knew that I would know the right thing to do with them. I saved some of the beads of cheaper pieces that didn’t suit me, so I could upcycle and and make into new items. I discovered some pieces I love to put into regular rotation. I kept a box of iconic pieces that, even if they aren’t my style, remind me of her. I took some of my books off the shelf, and filed and organized the pile of papers on my desk. Suddenly I felt energized. I kept what was truly meaningful from these items and passed on the rest.

The thing that truly shocked me is that the benefits of slimming down my belongings filled me with a sense of potentiality. I now had room to change my style, dream big, and finally tackle some of my loftier aspirations. I realized that at some point, our things can become baggage we carry around, clogging our visual field. Getting rid of things was like shuffling off an old exoskeleton. When I completed the first phase, I felt a sense of clarity and mental spaciousness. I felt like I had room to think and breathe.

To preserve this sense of peace and calm, I realized I need to shift to a minimalist lifestyle. Minimalism isn’t simply the removal of objects; instead, it is an intentional practice of maintaining our space, reprioritizing what to spend our money on, and letting go of anything that doesn’t work for us. As an added bonus, my home will now have less to dust and clean now that surfaces are more clear. 

All our items — even the junk in the junk drawer — carry some meaning. We may have a desire not to waste, a sense of obligation to a person or money the money we previously spent, or another reason we hold on to things. Because of this, minimalism is much harder than it looks. As I continue my journey, I discovered so many resources on minimalism — because this topic is so complicated! The path is different for each person, and it is different in different phases of life. I have compiled some of my favorite resources below. Happy Spring Cleaning!

Vanessa Mortillo MA, LPC is a Licensed Professional Counselor that provides wellness offerings and individual and group therapy. Utilizing mindfulness, expressive arts, and play therapy modalities, she harnesses creativity and imagination in the service of growth and healing. To learn more, contact her at vanessamortilloepcs@gmail.com or 267-507-2793.

Moving Through a Debris Field of Feelings

by Brittiney George, BS, MST, ICI, CEIM 

We are all in the middle of a tornado right now.  A pressure front full of conflicting ideas, information, and feelings—lots and lots of feelings.  

Some are picking up pieces of broken foundations; others shattered ideals. For many Hope caught on fire, and dreams may have become heavy and waterlogged.  We each are fighting to ensure that our most precious possessions (to which I might offer include Hope, Joy, Peace, and Curiosity), don’t get torn apart by the rushing rivers of Grief, Fear, Discord, Discomfort, and Worry.

It is a rare moment of time where no home has been left untouched by these storms.  When defenses are low and exhaustion is high, it is easy to lose our grip.  We can quickly get pulled from our own inner knowing into the debris field of feelings surrounding us.  

Times like this encourage us to run or numb from our feelings.  I’d offer a different approach: embrace your feelings.  Not all the feelings that are in the air around you, or on the ground beneath you are yours, so detangling yours from the debris field is important for respite in the storm.

A simple exercise I developed for myself, that many of my clients have also found helpful is name and claiming your emotions.  It is an invitation to detangle from the emotional debris outside and get a clearer sense of how to move with what your feeling on the inside.  Try it out:  

Name, Claim, and Move Emotional Exploration:

1. Start by naming every emotion you feel:  List them like bullet points.  
2. Use I feel vs. I am: listing the emotions as a feeling (I feel angry, sad, elated, relieved…vs. I am angry, I am sad), keeps it as a feeling and not a declaration or judgement of who you are as a person.
3. Name the emotion without the story:  When you don’t get swept away by the story around the emotion (the who, why, how), but instead take a moment to simply name the emotion it is easier to disentangle them.  
4. Move With or Let Move:  The body can feel multiple feelings simultaneously, but not every feeling will be asking for the same movement.  Ex. how anger wants you to move may be very different than grief.  When we are trying to move with all of them at the same time we can get stuck, frozen, or anxious because no move feels “right”.  When you name them, each emotion is validated.  For some feelings that is enough for them to move through on their own.  Then you can pick one to spend time with (maybe it is the loudest, the quietest, or the one that takes up the most space).  
5. Ask that emotion:
• what it wants
• what it needs
• and knowing both and everything else your navigating, what is the movement that is available. (This is where the body is a superstar.  There is always a move available, but it is not always the one we think.  Listening to one emotion at a time, helps that to be clearer).  

The more you practice, the easier it becomes to move with strong emotions, hear the quiet emotions asking to be nourished, and to clear the debris field so movement and connection once again feels possible.

Brittiney George, BS, MST, ICI, CEIM, is a Master Somatic Therapist, Trainer and Movement Practitioner specializing in Transformative Touch.  She is also the creator of the online comic www.thisweekwithjoy.com.  Her areas of specialty include working with highly sensitive persons (HSP’s), and helping people find movement when they feel stuck in life’s transitions.  Contact Brittiney at 610-389-7866 or movebackintolife@gmail.com.