The Hope of Renewal

by Elizabeth Campbell, MS, LPC, RPT-S

        “And in the spring, I shed my skin, and it blows away with the changing winds”.  

        — Florence + The Machine

        “The wound is the place the light enters you.”  — Rumi

I may be one of the few individuals that feels this way, but I love winter.  I love playing in the snow, hot tea, a warm fire, and hiking when the woods are empty, quiet, and crisp.  I love it so much that I felt a bit grumpy when the weather started to warm.  As a Highly Sensitive Person, change is challenging and I wasn’t ready yet.  Until the flowers bloomed.  

Every day I find myself amazed by the miracle of the world coming to life again.  I say this fully knowing how cheesy this sounds.  But gosh darn it if I am not smiling at a new flowering tree the next day.  

Part of my joy and appreciation for this rebirth of nature is the hope that it brings.  As I said before, I like the dark and cold of the winter.  The juxtaposition of a warm fire and twinkling holiday lights reminds me that light is present even in the darkest of times.  As a trauma therapist (and a human), I have seen so much darkness.  You can become acclimated to it, even expect it.  Something about this spring lit up the clarity inside me that as we hold space for and appreciate the darkness, we make room for all of the light to come in.  

I see this hope when I support people in EMDR therapy for trauma.  As they move into their pain, so often the other side is compassion, clarity, calm, or perspective.  It is a renewal of the spirit.  

As we move through this renewal and get closer to the fun, sun, and light of summer, I invite you to pause.  Perhaps there was a moment in your life in which a single bud or a glimmer of light started to shine in on your pain.  So often we don’t even notice that first blossom until the flowers are all around us.  Pausing in this first moment of transition may allow even greater gratitude for the full, lush growth and light of summer.  The fullness of opening to all of the light and the joy.

Elizabeth Campbell is a Licensed Profession Counselor, Registered Play Therapist Supervisor, and EMDR Consultant in Training who provides empowerment and strength-based support to individuals in personal growth and change.  She specializes in play therapy with children, supporting Highly Sensitivity, and IFS-informed EMDR for all ages. She provides supervision and consultation for licensure as well as EMDR and play therapy certification.   If you would like to connect with Elizabeth, reach out at elizabeth@elizabethcampbellcounseling.com or 610-757-8163 or learn more at www.elizabethcampbellcounseling.com

Community Care

by Elizabeth Campbell, MS, LPC, RPT-S

“The truth of who we are, is that we are, because we belong. It’s in our DNA.” — Desmond Tutu

One of the most relaxed and oxytocin-filled times that I recall is waking up on my rope cot in my host family’s home in Ganeshpur, Nepal.  It was a chilly morning, I was curled up in my sleeping bag, and I heard the soft raspy voice of my host mother talking in the next room and engaging in her morning chores.  It was my first international service trip and first time staying with a host family.  I was amazed that I felt so connected to a family and a community that I could not easily communicate with.  The deep relationship that we formed through working towards a mutual goal:  building a school for the community, and caring for another in the process, was life-changing.  

The communal nature of Nepal’s culture and all of the rural communities I stayed in while doing international service work stands in stark contrast to our culture.  Families lived in adjoining homes or on the same property and shared chores and childcare.  Friends and family members were together throughout the day and no one was left with the isolation of a never ending to do list with no support.  Parents learned by example by seeing generation after generation raising children.  There is an oft repeated joke among parents when people say “It takes a village (to raise a child),” “How do I sign up?!”  

Unfortunately, for many in our culture, the village is not there.  Whether that is due to living far away from family members, cutting off toxic relationships, or loss, often modern American individuals are often isolated and overwhelmed.  We saw in the pandemic how isolation can breed stress and subsequent mental health and wellbeing challenges and the Surgeon General recently release research showing that it impacts physical and mental health.  Yet our society continues to value independence, which cuts us off from the benefits of interdependence.  

All of that being said, I am not ready to sign up for communal living.  I love spending time with others and then going home to have quiet time to recharge my Highly Sensitive, introverted batteries.  I say all of this to highlight the gift that interdependence brings.  I often see this gift in The Resiliency Center practitioner community.  The same wise clinicians that supported me when I began my practice are supporting me as I support supervisees to learn and grow.  I see this gift in my friendships.  I recommended to my neighbor the book Sensitive and she loaned me Hunt, Gather, Parent (a must read when thinking about community).  We so often think about self-care as taking bubble baths and doing yoga, which is lovely.  I encourage us all to also care for ourselves by filling up both ourselves and others in connection and support.  

Elizabeth Campbell is a Licensed Profession Counselor, Registered Play Therapist Supervisor, and EMDR Consultant in Training who provides empowerment and strength-based support to individuals in personal growth and change.  She specializes in play therapy with children, supporting Highly Sensitivity, and IFS-informed EMDR for all ages. She provides supervision and consultation for licensure as well as EMDR and play therapy certification.   If you would like to connect with Elizabeth, reach out at elizabeth@elizabethcampbellcounseling.com or 610-757-8163 or learn more at www.elizabethcampbellcounseling.com

Exploring Identity – Through Writing

by Elizabeth Venart

You are a ruby encased in granite. . . . So come, return to the root of the root of your own soul. – Rumi

Who am I?  There are countless ways to answer that question. We may complete the sentence “I am . . .” by describing our roles, jobs, moods, values, personality traits, behaviors, and relationships. There is also a “me” at the center of all of it: The one who reflects on the question – and goes inward for words to follow the ellipses. Who is this one, the constant observer in the sea of our consciousness?  

Writing provides us with a way to connect with ourselves more completely. As we explore our public and private identities, the overlap and separation, our attention may be drawn to those roles with which we are strongly aligned – and then wander to the questions that linger and yearnings that call. What are our dreams? What haunts us? What motivates us? What hidden passions await? Going within to reflect and write can allow us time to unfold the tucked away papers of our identity and explore the complexity and heart of who we are.

Take out a piece of paper or open up your computer. Answer the question, “I am” over and over again. Maybe 30 times. I am. . . I am. . . . I am. . . . See what you discover. You may surprise yourself to hear from a voice you haven’t heard in some time. Just listen. Write down the shouts – those voices you know well – and also record the whispers – the things that surprise you and may be hard to acknowledge. Stay curious. If you dare, keep writing. Answer “I am . . . . “ 100 times. Be serious or have fun with it – or, better yet, make space for all your beautiful contradictions. Marvel at what comes forward.

Elizabeth Venart is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Certified EMDR Therapist, and EMDRIA-Approved Consultant. She is the Founder and Director of the Resiliency Center. She specializes in working with Highly Sensitive Persons, other therapists, and those who are creative, intuitive, and empathic. She hosts a monthly poetry gathering to read and discuss the writings of Rumi Hafiz, Rilke, Mary Oliver, and inspired writers. To learn more, contact her at 215-233-2002 or Elizabeth@elizabethvenart.com.

Importance of Face-to-Face Connection in the Digital Age

by Brittiney George

I have spent a number of years “soul-searching”. Searching for the things that resonated with my soul to let me know that I was in the right place or doing the right thing. I was lucky to find my way into my life’s work as a Somatic Therapist.  As I have embraced soul-filled living, I find that connecting face to face, heart to heart, and soul to soul with others is a crucial part of my self-care.  It's a connection that social media does not provide for me. I hear this same sentiment often from my clients. They share the loneliness, and pain of comparison that happens when the largest part of their support comes from online connections, often feeling like they just don’t measure up to others…..and so I got curious.  What exactly is present, and what is missing, when we connect online vs. in person.  Here’s some interesting research on just that topic:

“Researchers from Beijing Normal University pointed out that face-to-face communication differs from other forms of communication in two key ways:

1.     Face-to-face communication involves the integration of “multimodal sensory information,” such as nonverbal cues (facial expressions, gestures, postures, etc.)

2.     Face-to-face communication involves more continuous turn-taking behaviors between partners, which has been shown to play a pivotal role in social interactions and reflects the level of involvement of a person in the communication”- The Journal of Neuroscience, 7 November 2012, 32(45): 16064-16069

Below is a summary of what Dr. Mercola discovered when he looked at connection:

·      In-Person Meetings Allow Your Brain to Synchronize with Others: 

Research shows a significant increase in the neural synchronization between the brains of two partners during face-to-face interactions that are not present in during other types of, conversation.^- The Journal of Neuroscience, 7 November 2012, 32(45): 16064-16069

·      The Unconscious Elements of Face-to-Face Meetings May Trump Even Language:

Researchers from MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory revealed that face-to-face meetings allow members to come up with more ideas and become more capable as a group compared to even virtual meetings. “Who’s talking, how much, in what tone, interrupting or not, facing toward whom and away from whom, and gesturing turns out to matter.”- Newsweek September 24, 2015

·      Face-to-Face Meetings Are Best for Creativity:

Research published in the International Journal of Organizational Design and Engineering found:  “The more team members directly interact with each other face-to-face, and the more they trust other team members, the more creative and of higher quality the result of their teamwork is.” Int. J. of Organizational Design and Engineering 01/2012; 2(4):380 - 401.

·      In-Person Interactions Are Important in Your Personal Life, Too:

Loneliness, a feeling of being disconnected from those around you and wishing you had that connection, is on the rise and can put your health – both physical and emotional – at risk. “It is often difficult, if not impossible, on social media to reveal the qualities that define deep, intimate relationships. While our social media friends offer us a great deal, it is not a true substitute or even supplement for real-life interactions with others. But unlike online friendships, real-life relationships take time and effort. They help us learn about others and ultimately ourselves. Online friendships, while valuable in many ways, lack the ability to provide us with opportunities for deep and lasting emotional closeness. So accept and seek out your online friends, rekindle lost connections, and revisit childhood friendships, as long as it is not at the expense of nurturing and deepening your real-life relationships.” https://psychcentral.com/lib/social-medias-impact-on-relationships/

What kind of connection do you crave right now?  Not all connections are equal.  Where in your life do you need to make a REALconnection…..face to face, heart to heart, soul to soul?  Take a moment and ask yourself that question and trust the gut response that says “this is the one I most need right now”.  Maybe we have something already in place that can help you on the journey to making the connection you are searching for: 

Connecting Soul to Soul:

• Rumi and Hafiz Poetry Evenings
• Morning and Evening Meditation 

Connecting Through Nature: 

·      For the Fun of It! Weekend exploration. (See Details in Featured Programs Below)

·      Explore with the natural world and take a walk in nature on the Fort Washington State Park path easily accessible from our parking lot.

Connecting Through Creativity:

·      Knitting Circle 

·      Philadelphia Writers Workshop 

·      Paint, Sip, and Savor (See Details in Featured Programs Below)

Connecting With Other Parents:

·      Holistic Parents Meetup 

·      Supporting Moms Through Motherhood: Contact Catherine McLaughlin for details at catherine@cjmcounseling.com

·      Infant Massage and Baby Sign Language Classes: Contact Brittiney George for details at movebackintolife@gmail.com

Connecting With Other Holistic Professionals:

·      Monthly Networking Breakfast [Link to: https://www.meetup.com/phillyhealers/]

·      Clinical Supervision Opportunities 

·      EMDR Consultation Group for Therapists: Contact Elizabeth Venart for details at elizabeth@elizabethvenart.com 

·       Mindful Therapist Peer Group: contact Jen Perry for Details at jen@heartfulnessconsulting.com

·      EMDR International Association Regional Meeting:  contact Elizabeth Venart for details at elizabeth@elizabethvenart.com.

·      Looking for a Heart Centered Community To Build Your Practice? Consider joining the team of practitioners with their practices at The Resiliency Center. Contact Elizabeth at elizabeth@theresiliencycenter.com to learn more. 

Connecting Through Mind, Body, and Movement:

·      Qi Gong Classes

·      Rest, Restore, and Move Class

·      CEM (Connection, Expression, and Movement) Workshops 

·      Interstitial Cystitis/Pelvic Pain Support Group: Contact Kathy Krol for details at kasiakrol17@verizon.net

·       Beginner’s Mindfulness Class: Contact Jen Perry for Details-jen@heartfulnessconsulting.com

·       Mindfulness and Self-Compassion Group for Women:  Contact Jen Perry for Details-jen@heartfulnessconsulting.com

Connecting with Other Highly Sensitive People (HSP’s):

Highly Sensitive Leadership: Community Circle: Contact Elizabeth at elizabeth@elizabethvenart.com to learn more. 

Connecting One on One:

Looking for one on one support?  Visit our Practitioner Profile page at http://theresiliencycenter.com/practitioners/.  We’d love to connect with you!

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Brittiney George, BS, CRS, CST-L3, ICI, CEIM, is a Movement Practitioner and Somatic Therapist specializing in Transformative Touch.  She offers gentle, exploratory movement classes at The Resiliency Center and co-leads Connection, Expression and Movement (CEM), a monthly workshop series focusing on body-mind integration.  For a complimentary 55 min. Somatic Therapy session contact Brittiney at 610-389-7866 or movebackintolife@gmail.com.

Parenting Your Highly Sensitive Child

by Jen Perry, MA, MSEd, LPC

Is your child highly sensitive? Does your child seem easily overwhelmed and over-reactive? High sensitivity is a personality trait distinct from other personality traits like introversion or agreeableness. High sensitivity means a person has a sensitive nervous system and processes sensory information more deeply and intensely than their less sensitive peers. They have a keen awareness of the world around them and their inner worlds, noticing many details that go unnoticed by others. They literally see, smell, hear, taste, and feel more in their environment than others. They are often very empathetic, so they are also picking up and processing subtle emotional tones of others. They can't turn this off ~ it is integral to how they experience the world. Perceiving more in the world and experiencing it more intensely, children with high sensitivity easily become overwhelmed and appear to overreact to everyday situations. It isn't hard to imagine the parenting challenges this presents. (Uncertain if your child may be highly sensitive? There is an online test here: http://hsperson.com/test/highly-sensitive-child-test/)

Highly sensitive children often have parents that worry something is "wrong" with their child, after all, their child's peers seem to be handling challenges in the environment just fine. Because high sensitivity occurs at a rate of only 15-20% of the population, many people with high sensitivity carry feelings of there being something "wrong" with them their whole lives. When parents are educated about high sensitivity, they have a profound opportunity to support their children in developing greater life-long self-acceptance, since many of these negative beliefs begin in childhood. If you think that your child is highly sensitive, the researcher of this trait, Elaine Aron, PhD, has written a book called The Highly Sensitive Child: Helping Our Children Thrive When the World Overwhelms Them. Educating yourself and your child about temperament and personality traits can help make your journey together far less confusing and conflictual.  Without an understanding of this personality trait, these children are at risk of being seen as abnormal or their behaviors misconstrued as behavioral problems motivated to "manipulate" the parent. As a result, many parents worry that something is "wrong" with their parenting, their child, or both.

Compounding the parenting challenge is the fact that highly sensitive children respond poorly to conventional parenting wisdom. Remember, these children are taking in more sensory and emotional information and processing it more deeply than others. They can't turn this off - it is a personality trait and integral to how they experience being in the world. Children with high sensitivity often take their parents words to heart and can become very hard on themselves as a result. Harsh or shaming parenting can compound their feelings of "wrongness" and can be harmful to their self-esteem.

Fortunately, there are parenting strategies that can help children and their parents better understand themselves and how to be highly sensitive in a world where 80% of the population isn't. Parenting techniques that are based in empathetic responding can help a child not feel "wrong" and can help create a sense of being on the same team between a parent and child. Jamie Williamson has written a beautiful little book, Understanding the Highly Sensitive Child: Seeing an Overwhelming World Through Their Eyes that can be helpful to parents who struggle to see the world through the eyes and experience of their highly sensitive children. Additionally, seeing yourself as your child's emotion coach to help them understand themselves and the world and framing challenges as learning opportunities to help a child grow instead of mis-behavior in need of punishment is incalculable in its positive impact on the child. Two of my favorite authors and researchers in brain science supporting these gentler, more peaceful parenting techniques are John Gottman, PhD, Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child  and Daniel Siegel, MD, No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture your Child's Developing Mind.

Raising confident, healthy, and happy kids is the goal of every parent. Parents of highly sensitive children may need extra support in understanding this personality trait. Education is important so that they can strive to meet the needs of their highly sensitive child instead of attempting to control their behavior with the expectation that they become like their less sensitive peers. Recent brain science and research has given us insight into how to best support all children in growing in understanding of themselves and the world around them. By keeping calm, helping an overwhelmed child calm themselves, connecting in the spirit of teamwork between parent and child, responding empathically and empowering the child to grow into peaceful solutions to problems is a set of skills that can be learned and practiced.

Great parents get great support - there is help out there in your parenting journey. Jen Perry is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Parent Educator and Peaceful Parenting Coach with her practice at The Resiliency Center in Flourtown. She loves working with parents of highly sensitive children. More about Jen and her work can be found at www.HeartfulnessConsulting.com.

Debunking the Myth of Sensitivity

by Brittiney George

Contrary to popular belief, being sensitive is a gift, not a curse.  It does not mean you are weak.  It does not mean you’re a cry baby, an exaggerator, or a wimp.  You have a gift, the gift of connection.  It means you are highly aware of both your external and internal surroundings.  When someone else smells smoke, you already can see, hear, and feel the fire.  This can be upsetting to the one that only smells smoke, because we often assume that if we can’t see it or feel it, it must not exist.  This same experience can be scary for the one that senses the fire.  It can be crazy making….Does no one else see or feel the way I do?  Statements like:

·      “Stop exaggerating.”

·      “You’re overreacting.”

·      “You’re too sensitive.”

·      “You’re too much.”

can creep in around these experiences and begin to physically and emotionally take their toll.  I often see clients survive by learning to shut down, shut off, hide, disconnect, and to devalue and mistrust their internal cues.  While this works in the short term, long term it can create physical pain, and a deep sadness and longing for “something different”.    Reconnecting the body and mind through transformative touch and talk is a wonderful way to begin to gently explore coming back to one’s senses. 

“A session is like settling into your skin after having experienced a lifetime of things getting under your skin.”-Joe Weldon, Co-Founder of The Somatic Therapy Center

Finding a way to create clear boundaries to avoid overstimulation of the senses, and learning to trust your instincts again, is an invaluable tool in being able to reap the benefits of a highly sensitive system.  Come explore ways you can value the wonders of your gift.

 

Brittiney George, BS, CRS, CST-L3, ICI, CEIM, is a Movement Practitioner offering Somatic Therapy, and gentle, exploratory movement classes at The Resiliency Center.  She also co-leads Connection, Expression and Movement (CEM), a monthly workshop series focusing on body-mind integration.  For a complimentary 55 min. Rubenfeld session contact Brittiney at 610-389-7866 or movebackintolife@gmail.com

Understanding the Gift of High Sensitivity

by Elizabeth Venart, LPC

If you are a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), chances are that you grew up being called “too sensitive”, “too deep”, and “too emotional” by people who didn’t understand you. Most people are not highly sensitive and can’t comprehend that feeling everything around you as if it were you is not a choice but an inborn gift you had no power to turn off. High sensitivity is a gift that brings wisdom, deep compassion, an ability to understand complexity and multiple perspectives, and a deep sense of how and why things are connected.  But, it also brings its struggles.

The fifteen to twenty percent of people who have an inherited trait of high sensitivity have highly sensitive nervous systems and process information deeply. In addition to feeling the moods of others, HSPs observe the world around them, tuned into the nonverbal and unspoken, observant of subtle changes in the environment, deeply moved by the arts and music, and able to form strong connections with animals and the natural world. They ask the tough questions and have uncanny insights into patterns of behavior.

Because empathy happens automatically for the HSP, boundaries are challenging. An HSP feels the sadness of their opponent who is losing a game, connects to the wound underneath the angry mask of a teacher who is yelling, acutely sense the overwhelm of a parent whose attention is desperately wanted but feels out of reach, . . . It is hard for HSPs to stay present for their own emotions and advocate for their own needs.  It is as if the barrier that others have – to keep perspective on “what is me” versus “what is you” doesn’t exist. They feel what others feel, sometimes bombarded by the intensity of an emotion (that is not theirs) without being able to identify its true source. An HSP walks into a bar and. . . .feels the mood of the place, senses the depressed old man at the bar, notices the fake quality of the laugh across the room. 

HSPs contemplate the deepest questions about meaning, justice, right and wrong, compassion – and share these deep questions as soon as they are able to speak – if they feel safe to ask. Highly Sensitive Children can be unnerving to adults, because they see and understand things far beyond their years. They often see things adults cannot – or that adults wish they didn’t.  

Noticing so much, they can get overwhelmed, overtired, exhausted, and inconsolable if they don’t have the quiet time their sensitive systems demand. 

HSPs are often shaken by violence in movies, loud noises, bright lights, scratchy fabrics, crowds, chaos, and the push to do many things quickly, all at once. HSPs can get unglued when a lot is happening around them and by any big changes. They are conscientious and work hard to avoid making mistakes. Striving to avoid overwhelming situations, they often need time to themselves after a busy day, to be quiet and get relief from too much stimulation. They are also more sensitive to hunger, have more allergies, and are more sensitive to medications, caffeine, and alcohol. 

It is challenging for HSPs to make it through their childhoods without internalizing the criticism from the 85% that are not highly sensitive – and this goes double for highly sensitive males (the trait is just as common in boys as girls) who are taught to be “tough” and whose ready emotions are often scorned and ridiculed. Many HSPs internalize this scorn and struggle with an inner critic who tries to silence and squash what they know and what they feel. 

Researcher Elaine Aron first discovered and wrote about the trait of high sensitivity nearly twenty years ago, and several books have been written and communities formed since that time. Yet many highly sensitive persons (HSPs) are unaware that their experiences are normal and even a sign of giftedness. 

The highly sensitive long to be understood and to connect deeply with others, but, too often, they have trouble identifying other HSPs and, over time, learn to keep their experiences and gifts to themselves. Finding support and a community of other HSPs is important on the journey to empowerment and acceptance. If this description reminded you of yourself, a child, or a loved one, take the quiz (online at http://hsperson.com/test/highly-sensitive-test/), check out the links, and consider joining us for our workshop on March 1st. 

You and your gifts matter. My work supporting HSPs in embracing their gifts, releasing their burdens, learning to set healthy boundaries, and stepping into their power brings me tremendous joy and meaning. If I can support you on your journey, please reach out to connect at evenart@comcast.net or 215-233-2002. You can learn more about me on my website at http://elizabethvenart.com. 

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