What I learned in my 20s Lesson 3: Sensitivity Is A Super Power

I grew up hearing often, "Stephanie don't be soooooo sensitiveeee!" In hearing these external messages my young brain was shaped and made to believe that sensitivity was a weakness, it was something I needed to hide, and that I had to show up strong no matter what. It took me until I was around 25 years old to have those beliefs challenged and that actually my sensitivity to just about everything is my super power and where my strength and gifts reside.

While in internship for my Masters Degree in Body Psychotherapy I had my supervisor once ask me, "What if all the emotions you are feeling in your session is something your client might also be feeling too?" Considering this was like a light bulb went off in my head. I could actually use my emotions and sensations in my body as information for what those around me might also be feeling and processing themselves to connect with them on a deeper level and I don't have to view my sensitivity to my surroundings as "bad" or something I need to push away.

I have always had a sensitive digestive tract and I have always felt my emotions quite intensely. These two things are related and inter-connected. When we feel things deeply but do not allow ourselves the space and time to allow our emotions to be felt all those emotions can get trapped in our digestive tract waiting to be processed and assimilated. Body Psychotherapist, Gerda Boyesen, came up with the term psycho-peristalsis which basically describes the digestion of life experiences. Wounds, trauma, past struggles can all get trapped in our digestive tract waiting to be processed and assimilated into our being. A lot of the work I needed to do in the healing of my gut was giving myself that space and time to process and release old wounds and old beliefs from my body that was no longer serving me in my life.

Now whenever I find myself with an upset stomach I can slow down, rub my belly, and explore what emotions are trying to bubble up from inside that just need to be felt and heard and appreciated for their presence. Our sensitivity in this way can be viewed as the greatest gift to show us how we are processing our external environment and guide us in how we can show up more honestly within ourselves and with others. Have you ever felt anxious while around a dear friend? Have you ever had a feeling someone was going to call and then they did? Have you ever cried and had no idea why you were crying but you just knew you needed to cry?

This is all sensitivity to your surroundings running through you.

If you have ever considered your sensitivity a "negative" thing I invite you to adopt a new view. Put on your sensitivity super hero cape and explore what perhaps your sensitivity is trying to teach you and how it is even guiding you in deeply connecting with yourself and others. We can use our sensitivity as the greatest gift to support ourselves and others in truly being seen and that we empathize and relate on a very deep level of how painful and intensely joyful this human experience can be.

I have taken Robin Williams death pretty hard.  I have definitely cried more than once.
I felt like I grew up with this man, that he was a part of my family, and brought my family together through his movies (I have seen Birdcage more times than I care to admit). Here is a man who brought so much joy to the world and who secretly struggled with bringing that same joy into his own life.  I relate to that on so many levels.

Part of being a counselor is about showing up. I have tried to show up more authentically in this past year in particular because I also hide behind a wall, a facade of put together, confident, happy, and thriving. When I was in Grad School in therapy, my therapist actually asked me to draw that wall.  What did it look like? What was it made out of?

To my surprise the wall I drew was made out of glass. She responded when I was done that it was interesting my wall was made out glass because then couldn't people see me? I hide yet I want to be seen. I want to see and observe life but I fear participating. I have dealt with depression most of my life. I have seen members in my family deal with depression most of their life. I have gone to the depths of my soul mucked around, lied on the carpet of my room in my mother's house for two weeks straight before, and I always come back .

I have experienced how depression takes you away from other people, it puts you in a tiny black box where perspective is hard to be seen. I am lucky enough to have a few close individuals and a mother who were always there for long phone calls, crying, and telling me it is time to get out of bed. I have had to come to terms that the hole of depression never really goes away. Some try to fill that hole with medication, some use supplements, or food, or drugs, but it is still always there.

As part of being a nutritional counselor, I know I can use my experience with depression as a strength. I can sit with my clients in the muck, in the dark, in the depth of their soul and see the beauty and wisdom that is there. I see often in my work how so many are tying to fill this void, this hole with food. It unfortunately can't be filled with food, trust me I have also tried.

I share my experience with depression and that it still hovers around me from time to time to connect with you my reader. You are not alone in your struggles. I believe so many, including myself, were shocked about Robin William's death because we just had no idea the struggles and the depth of depression he went through on a daily basis. I believe it was a triumph that he lived for as long as he could with a secret dark cloud hanging over his head and a smile on his face.

I may not know you, but I welcome anyone to reach out. I have always found the thing that brings me out of my own darkness and into the light is connecting with others and lifting our spirits together.

Let's get vulnerable shall we?  My first year of Graduate School to get my Masters in Body Psychotherapy was intense.  The way I like to describe the experience to others, is that the classes are shaped in a way to rip your heart out of your chest, make you look at it, so that you can do the same for others.  Additionally, while going through the program, you also have to be in therapy so that you know what your triggers are and don't project your issues onto other people.

So my first year of Grad School I was mucking around in the deep dark depths of my soul.  I was looking at pains and wounds I hadn't explored probably ever.  There was a lot of crying and a lot of eating.  I had never binged this much on food in my entire life.  I was uncomfortable and it was unsettling.  Here I was still calling myself a nutritional counselor and spending whole days just eating dates.

While being in that period of time felt like forever, I can look back on it now and feel grateful for that experience.  I was using food as a tool to cope with emotions that just felt too big to manage.  I was talking about situations from my past and deep wounds that I wasn't entirely sure how to sort through, process, assimilate, and digest.  My binging was a way to protect myself.  It was a way to feel grounded on earth, that I was still alive, and that these situations didn't eat me and swallow me whole.  It was a way to fill myself up when I was exploring situations that left me feeling so empty.  

The one thing I want to offer you that I could have done without during that time was the judgment.  If you have ever binged or are currently struggling with binging it is not something that is bad, not something to be shamed, or ashamed about.  It is a message from yourself to yourself.  You can learn from these experiences with food and they can teach and reveal to you your own resiliency.  Whatever your binging is trying to help you get through, it is actually a sign of your strength.  You are getting through whatever difficult experiences that are happening.  The situation and the binging will eventually subside (even if it has been years), I promise you. 

Binging is a way to feel connected to yourself, to feel your aliveness.  I recently heard Marc David, founder of IPE, say that binging has a lot of power to it.  So you engaging in the act of binging can just be a misguided attempt to step into how powerful, resilient, and strong you are.

The lesson that my time with bingeing helped me to discover was to reach out and talk.  So I will leave you with this the next time you are feeling the need or desire to binge on food, pick up the phone and talk to someone.  Call your mom, your dad, a sibling, a friend, a significant other, whoever you want and talk about your emotions.  You can talk about the fact that you want to binge but that is skirting the issue that some big emotions are coming up that feel like they have the power and are going to consume you. 

Even if you have the binge, once it is over and you feel yourself coming back in to your body, still pick up the phone and call someone or take out a journal or a piece of paper and start writing.  Find some way to connect back with what is coming up for you because even after the binge is over the emotions will probably still be there.  And remember to send yourself so much loving kindness because you are just trying to do the best job you can taking care of you and, trust me, you are doing a pretty damn good job.

Sometimes when my digestion starts to act up, I have to take a look at the things I am telling myself internally and not necessarily the food I am eating.  When my internal critic speaks up (and sometimes it can be really loud), I know that my whole body goes into a stress response, my gut cramps, digestion shuts down, and my ability to digest food and my life diminishes.

Meals that I could digest fine when my thoughts are kind and peaceful are suddenly not assimilating as well.  Our body reacts and responds to the words and the statements we are creating internally.  So if we are telling ourselves harsh words, putting ourselves down, judging ourselves, we are digesting those thoughts and those words along with the food we are eating. 

Often I talk about what digests and assimilates well in terms of food, but for a moment think about how the word hate would digest in your body.  Or what about the word ugly.  How would the statement I am not good enough digest in your system?  I know that even as I am typing these specific words I can feel my body tense up. 

When we think loving thoughts, let go of expectations, and just show up as we are in the moment, our body will go into a relaxation response and your ability to assimilate your food and your experiences will increase.  I know that I have had moments where I made a conscious decision to shift my internal thoughts to ones of love and appreciation for myself and then heard my stomach gurgle.  I took that as a thank you from my gut.  Thank you for feeding me love, thank you for nourishing me with appreciation, thank you for these thoughts so I can do my job properly.

I would love to hear from you!  Have you noticed a difference in your body's ability to function when your thoughts are positive?  Have you experienced your digestion change when you under a lot of stress and thinking stressful thoughts? 

When people find out that I am a nutritional counselor, I suddenly feel like they are nervous to eat in front of me.  Like I have all the answers and what they are doing is supposedly wrong.  I want to dispel that right now, that I never judge what someone else is eating. 

I have learned through my journey and relationship with food that what works for me isn't going to work for everyone else.  I don't live in your body, I don't truly know what your body needs from moment to moment (I do however love teaching how to learn to communicate with your unique body).

At the beginning of my gut healing journey, I was told how mucus forming dairy was and that it could be causing some of my issues.  You want me to give up my yogurt!? I loved my sugary added yogurts and the first time I heard this I was not ready to take that advice.

I tell you this story because it took me another 3 years to actually experiment with completely taking dairy out of my daily eating habits to find out that indeed dairy and I are not friends.  When we are ready to deepen in our relationship with food and ourselves we will.  What I have learned through my client's and my own process with the gut is to be patient and to give yourself plenty of time.

Embrace where you are now with your relationship with food.  Sometimes it may just be too intense to look at how you are nourishing yourself because it may be a protective blanket covering up some intense emotions that you are just not ready to deal with yet.  And that is totally fine!  Love yourself up and know that you are doing the best you can in this moment to take the very best care of yourself.

I wish I had been told this more on my journey to heal my gut.  Every time I had a digestive upset I felt like a failure and that all my effort to heal was for nothing. But every decision, every effort, every choice I made in the direction of listening, of tuning in to myself, especially in the moments that I was in pain and I didn't want to listen, brought me closer to myself and to my body and what it truly wanted.

So if you find yourself eating in front of me, just know that all I wish for you is an enjoyable experience with that food. We are all at different phases and stages in our relationship with food and I find the journey beautiful and full of deep wisdom and knowledge for who we are and the stories we bring with us from childhood.  It is all right there on our plate.

The stomach lining changes over about every 5 days, your taste buds change every two weeks, every day you shed over a million skin cells, the uterine wall for a woman sheds every month.  We are constantly changing and from day to day we are never living in the same body.  How will you begin the process of coming into relationship with your body and your gut for who they are and what they need today?

I am blessed to know a lot of amazing people.  Individuals who are doing some incredible conscious awareness raising things in this world.  There have been a lot of shifts in my life lately where I am investing more in myself and more in what I have to give back to the world.  And so I have had to ask myself why is nutrition so important?  When there seems to be so many bigger issues in the world that need attention, that I could devote my time to, why have I chosen nutrition and nutritional counseling to become so passionate about.

I have discovered through my years of experimenting with what I put into my body how it effects my moods and my ability to show up honestly and authentically with others.  There was a time in my life where eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with cheese doritos in them and dominos pizza covered in ranch dressing (I had the weirdest food cravings) was a regular every day eating occurrence.  My digestion was a mess, I was bloated all the time (I literally looked pregnant/food baby belly), and I was secretly very depressed which I tried to hide behind a plastered smile on my face.

I can now see, of course in hindsight, that what I was eating was effecting my moods and my ability to feel satiation and happiness in my skin.  When I started learning about yoga and Ayurveda, I began to understand that what I am putting in to my body, physically with food and emotionally with my thoughts, could change me on a cellular level.  Every time I decided to eat a meal that was nutrient dense and protein rich, I was able to feel my internal inflammation go down.  As I learned that I have a brain in my gut and that I could trust my body's messages and what felt good in my body, this changed how I showed up in my life.

The people around me now watch in amazement over how much vegetables I can eat (I own a t-shirt that says eat more kale ;)).  With every vegetable I eat I feel mental clarity, energy, and the ability to be present.  And with every non-processed food I choose not to eat, over time the emotions that were being stuffed down by all that toxic food began to surface.  I'm not going to say it was easy to deal with these emotions; they were so deeply buried that they felt like they were going to eat me whole.  Yet, as I continued to eat whole foods, I was able to stay with my emotions and be with myself even if they felt quite intense.  As I worked (and continue to work) through these emotions, I see food and what I eat on a daily basis as a gateway.

The way you feed yourself can change your whole world which in turn can change another person's world.  When you treat your body with respect and feed it whole unprocessed nutrient dense foods (think vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, organic meats, beans, whole grains, healthy fats) you step in to your vibrancy.  Good nutrition can change the way you process the events of your day, which can in turn lead to decreased stress levels, which in turn helps you to feel happy, to give back, which then in turn can effect those around you.  So just by eating those vegetables, you could end up making someone's day by your ability to be generous with others because you are being kind and considerate to yourself.  And I think that is pretty cool.

So I want to give a call to action.  Instead of telling yourself that there is something you "can't" have, you can insert a new tape that you are choosing not to have that processed food because it blocks your ability to be you.  And when you show up as your authentic self, you give those around you permission and encouragement to do the same.

I love my mother fiercely.  And it wasn't always this way.  When I was a teenager (like most teenagers) my mom and I would get into fights all the time.  As I have gotten older, the things I used to make a big deal out of seem trivial now.  Somewhere in my twenties I realized that life is short and my mom won't be around forever so I might as well make every opportunity I have to enjoy her wonderful and amazing presence in my life.  She is my best friend and I am not ashamed to say that out loud.  She has more common sense, intuition, and wisdom than anyone I know and I feel like she was just born that way.  And at the same time she knows how to let loose when she needs to and have fun.  As she has aged I have seen her find meaningful friendships, go out, take classes, learn new things, and just laugh and laugh more so than the woman I grew up with.  I love her laugh.  It is literally infectious.  And when she gets going she laughs so hard she cries. 

So here are four big lessons I have learned from my mother:

1.  Don't burn any bridges.

I really live by this one day in and day out.  My behavior is a reflection of myself and I can't control anyone else but I can decide how I show up.  We never know when we will cross paths with someone again.  The world may be big, but it is also surprisingly small.  That one person that you said all those mean things to when you were younger or at your current job may just end up being the CEO of some business that in the future you want to try and get a job at.  You just never ever know.  I am not saying don't speak your truth.  If someone is legitimately being rude I am a big proponent of being honest and telling those around you how their behavior effects you.  But pointing your fingers at someone else doesn't solve any issue it just creates more.  When I speak with "I" statements, I own my own reactions and behaviors and I work to leave any bad situation feeling as though I am on at least good terms with those who have crossed my path.  Ultimately, just be kind, considerate, and respectful to everyone you meet.  And speaking of respectful...

2.  Say hello when you enter a room and say goodbye when you leave.

For the most part, people don't like it when they feel like they are being ignored.  When you enter a room a transition has happened.  A simple act of just saying hello (whether it be to a loved one, a family member, a stranger) can smooth that transition and let the other person know you come in peace.  Whenever I came home or left my mother just wanted an update on whether I was there or somewhere else.  When those around us have to guess what we are up to or when we are coming home or leaving a little bit of tension can be created.  There is an uncertainty and an unknowing of what to expect.  When you inform those around you of your presence or lack of presence they get to be at ease and not make up stories.  And when you say goodbye, you are honoring the time you have just spent with that person and ease another transition happening.  For example, you wouldn't just answer the phone and not say hello.  The other person would probably hang up not knowing you were there.  And if you don't say goodbye and just hang up you leave the other person hanging on to the experience that just happened with no definitive end.  How you enter and leave a situation not only eases your life but it creates peace in those around you as well.

3.  You eat an elephant a bite at a time.

I get overwhelmed easily.  Whenever a new school year would start, I would look at all my syllabi and think how am I going to get this all done!  (thinking I needed to get it all done the next day and forgetting I had an entire semester to complete all these tasks).  I would immediately call up mother crying and looking for support.  Her response was always, "Stephanie, you eat an elephant a bite at a time."  Elephants are huge.  And to imagine eating an entire elephant would be a daunting task.  But when given permission to take as much time as needed to eat the entire elephant, the pressure is off and the ability to rise to the challenge increases.  While this may be an odd image, it always helped me.  Anything that feels huge, daunting, scary, overwhelming is doable.  What gets in the way is our thoughts.  What gets in the way is fear.  Fear of mistakes, fear of failure, fear of success.  When I was able to take the pressure off, I could start being creative again, rebuild my confidence, and challenge my internal voices.  Nothing is too big for you.  Give yourself all the time you need.

4. Have fun in your life.

I have always been an old soul.  I take life pretty seriously and I work hard.  I could probably view everything in my life as a task to be done and there is part of me that enjoys that because I like the feeling like I am getting things done (and yes I could challenge that but I'll save that for another post).  Breaking loose from routine and the ideas of what we "should" or "should not" be doing with our time is really important.  Letting go of what I think is healthy or the best for me and doing something entirely different has given me opportunities to experience life, to make mistakes, to learn lessons, to meet new people, to create memories, and to laugh.  I have made the best memories around times when I drank too much, ate too much, danced, and laughed my ass off all night long.  If I am stuck in worrying about a situation, I try and ask myself now would this really matter in 5 years?  Usually the answer is no.  To invite fun into life is a practice for me, but one that I have learned from my mother makes your soul come alive and gives your life more meaning.

I hope these lessons help you as much as they have helped me and Happy Mother's Day!!!

Many conversations have come up lately around perspective.  My nephew is two years old right now and so ultimately his perspective of the world thus far is all he knows (and to him is totally correct).  I have had heated arguments with my parents in the past all based off of what we both were perceiving as truth in the moment when, let's face it, there is no universal truth.

I have come to realize that sharing my perspective in the moment is actually quite vulnerable.  I am sharing how I perceive the world and define myself in that moment.  We all have our own perspectives that can bump up against each other and no one's perspective is ultimately "correct."  How we view the world or a situation is just a chance to get to know ourselves in the present.  It is when a perspective becomes a belief so strong that it cannot be challenged or questioned that I think we start running into problems.

It has particularly been this past year that I have begun to question the things I told myself I believe in and the things I have refused to question in the past.  This has kept me stuck in my own development and growth as I often find myself going through the same thought processes over and over again.  By questioning my own perspectives on things, I have been able to see others perspectives more and then ask myself if this is something I want to believe or not while still respecting the other person's perspective and that what they think is true for them even if it turns out it is not true for me.

Let's take dietary theories for example.  In the past I am someone who would demonize certain foods and tell myself and others that those food items are never to be touched.  After years of working with others and their relationship with food, I have come to realize this advice really really doesn't work.  We need a little space in our diet to let ourselves have fun and eat something that is outside of what we typically eat on any given day.  I see my clients now having more success in being able to eat whole nutritious foods more often, consistently, for a longer period of time because sometimes they allow themselves to eat whatever the hell they want!

This is so crucial to beginning the process of tuning in to your body, tuning in to your gut brain and listening on a deeper level, what does my body need in this moment? (not what I think it needs).  I find that when individuals get so stuck on eating a certain way (vegan, vegetarian, paleo, high carb, low carb, high protein, low protein, etc, etc, etc) it actually causes more harm than good.  When we get stuck in eating a certain way, we miss out on the opportunity to tune in to the body and ask it what it wants.  Our minds override our guts and tell us logically if I am defining and perceiving myself as strictly a vegan then I cannot eat that piece of fish that my body is asking me to eat.

Lately, I have tried to get out of my own perspective on what I deem as "healthy" and listen to my bodily response after a meal to see how my gut liked what I ate.  This takes away the judgment or worry around what I am eating because any time I eat something it is just an experimentation.  If I eat some nut butter and get really emotional and lethargic afterward then that is just information for me on how I respond to that particular food.  I ultimately feel empowered afterward because I now have the information to choose on any given day how I would like to feel based on what I know of how my body will respond to certain foods.

The next time a repetitive thought pops up in your head, ask yourself is this really true?  Challenge your perceptions, challenge your thoughts.  If you find yourself eating the same things every day out of fear that this is the way you must eat, then perhaps challenge that perspective and try something new that you haven't eaten in awhile and notice your bodily response.  There are no "wrong" choices, it is just a matter of learning and listening to what works for you and only you.

I have always judged myself on how often my mind goes off into la la land and who ever is around me usually has to ask me where I went off to or if I'm alright.  As I grow older and come to terms with my little quirks, I am able to laugh at myself more and more.  These days when I go off into my intellectual musings in my head, I have begun to actually speak them out loud and I have seen that when I give my mind a voice and I get to hear what it is speaking, my mind sounds completely ridiculous!

We as humans try and keep our lives very private (and I am aware this is a far generalization) yet even those that lay it all out on the table for everyone to see make others feel very uncomfortable.  It is this silence that tears us apart as a civilization.  Without open and honest communication we all can project our feelings, prejudices, and vulnerabilities onto each other and assume things that really we don't know.  I feel as though if we were all more open about how we function that we could begin to understand that we truly cannot compare human beings to one another.

What works for me, will not work for you.  And I mean this in every aspect of life.  My ability to be a space cadet and still be aware of what is happening around me helps me to function in this crazy world, yet I know many people who would go off into la la land and never come back.  There are so many things on this earth that we do not understand on the mental plane.  And as people we want comprehension so bad that when we need an explanation our minds will make something up just to find relief in an answer.  How often have you gotten emotional over a current circumstance only to realize later that the situation sparked an old wound within yourself that had nothing to do with the present moment?  Or have you ever sat around a group of people and started to think they were better than you and your mind began spinning off all these things that were "wrong" with you?

We are all gifts just the way we are.  An astrologer friend of mine is helping me begin to see that our souls chose our bodies for a reason, chose our families for a reason, that everything going on in our life is there to teach us something.  We constantly ask in our heads what we are doing wrong instead of searching and tapping into our felt sensation in our bodies for what we are doing right!  The way you function is individual to you and it is just a matter of getting out of judgment and into cultivating appreciation and self acceptance and humor for all your beautiful uniqueness.  No one can eat like you do.  Even if you binge on food every single night the next morning you can wake up and laugh at yourself.  Instead of beating yourself up, which only causes more stress within the body which no one needs in this society today, you can look at yourself in the mirror and laugh.

Your relationship with food is a wonderful teacher.  This relationship can be viewed like a peal in your hand.  Hold it too loose and it falls out of your hand, hold it too tight and you may crush it, but hold the pearl in your hand just right and you can begin to see its beauty.  When we look at our relationship with food we can see how it correlates with how we do everything else in life; how we approach our career, our intimate relationships, our family, our friends....and if you feel as though your relationship is not serving your highest self expression the first step is still coming into awareness of what you and you and your food have together.

Coming to terms that I am an individual has helped me to count on myself more.  I cannot ask anyone else what to do or eat anymore because it is really, truly only me and my body that knows the answers to any questions.  When we stop comparing ourselves to our external environment we begin to listen to ourselves internally; and then we can receive some pretty profound answers.  These answers can be an aid pointing you in the direction of where your soul's true intentions lie and can help you begin to love you and all your quirks.