Hello and welcome to the Cosmic Nomad.
I'm your host, Bailey Rushlow, and this is a space for the
curious and the heart LED where we explore the human experience
through travel, nature, spirituality, and real life
transformation through beautiful conversations.
As I discover my way of living what I call an inspired life, I
share the practices, stories, and perspectives that have
helped guide me back to myself. Hey guys, what's up?
Welcome to today's episode. So glad that you're here to join
me in this deep dive into what it means to be an empath in
today's world. If you have ever felt
overstimulated, overwhelmed, or like you are carrying emotions
that aren't yours, you're not alone.
I've been walking the empath journey since beginning my time
on this planet, and so many of us are waking up to the reality
that we are empaths. We are deeply sensitive,
intuitive beings who pick up on everything happening around us.
And in this episode, I want to share why life feels this way
for highly sensitive people in the modern world, how we can
work with our nervous systems instead of against them.
And as always, I want to share practices that have helped me,
from traveling the world with my backpack to navigating everyday
life at home. And just, you know, reminder
that this is not about fixing yourself or becoming less
sensitive, but learning how to thrive as you are in your body,
in your mind, with your emotions, with your sensitivity,
in a world that asks you often to numb out.
And that sensitivity is not a weakness, but in fact a
superpower. So hi and hello from Germany.
I hope that today finds you smiling, and if not, I hope this
episode brings a smile to your face.
I'm sitting here in a beautiful room in my partner's family's
home. I have roses next to me.
The sun is starting to go down. I've got a hot cup of tea, an
orange, some chocolate, and my water is.
So I'm fully set for today's episode.
Just to give you a visual of what's happening behind the
scenes here. I had a really wonderful day so
far, waking up and packing a picnic breakfast with Philip.
And we went up the hill overlooking the valley and laid
out a picnic blanket and had a really lovely breakfast and read
aloud one of my favorite books to each other.
And started to rain. So we came back home and started
this TV show called Behind Her Eyes, which I've seen before and
it blew my mind. It was such an interesting show.
It's only like 6 episodes, but yeah, it has so many twists and
turns. You just don't understand the
show until like the last episode, things start to make
sense. So it's it's a journey, but it's
all about lucid dreaming and it's very interesting.
So I'm very curious how Philip will like it.
And then I recorded last week's podcast episode this morning.
And then I went out for a nature walk and foraged for my favorite
plants and herbs that are perfect for foraging right now.
Yarrow, Hawthorne berries, elderberries, wild apples,
nettle seeds, I had a great time.
I came back with my pockets literally bursting with nature.
Now I'm laying them all out to dry and starting in on episode 2
of the day, which is happening right now.
So thank you for joining me through my day.
It's a pleasure to be here. As always, an honour to share
with you. Thank you for sharing the space
with me and for listening. I don't have all the answers.
I'm the first one to tell you that in life, I am.
I am forever a student. And in that journey, there are
also things that I'm so grateful to have learned to have figured
out how to do differently for myself that have really changed
how I interact with the world with my own sensitivity levels,
which have always been pretty high, I would say.
And then how I can, you know, share them with other people to
potentially and hopefully affect you in a positive way.
Even if there's one thing that you hear me say on this episode
that you can take with you that will inspire you and alter
something in your life, then I would consider this a successful
episode. So that being said, let's dive
into what impacts are, how we operate, why we feel the way we
do, because sometimes, I mean literally growing up, I did not
even know what an impact was. It just wasn't really common
conversation for people. It's become more of a buzzword
as time has gone on and research has developed and conversations
around mental health and, you know, overwhelm and, and
emotional Wellness and well-being have come to the
surface more, which I'm so grateful for.
But I remember thinking and feeling growing up, like I feel
like I'm a species from another planet living on Earth.
I feel like other people don't see the world the same way that
I do. Like I feel like I'm just weird
and I don't know if you've ever felt that way, but if you're
listening right now, there is a high chance that you have also
felt this way. Or maybe you know someone that
does. Maybe maybe your child or your
partner or your your friend or your parent feels this way about
life and hopefully this will be able to give you a little bit
more insight maybe into how they experience the world.
So why does life feel so overwhelming sometimes for
empaths? Our nervous systems are wired to
sense things. And it's a gift, it really is.
But in today's world, there is constant input from screens and
notifications and traffic and crowds and lights and news and
other people's emotions and even subtle shifts in environment and
body language and tone. And most people are so
disconnected from themselves that they just push through it
on autopilot. But empaths feel it all.
And if we don't know how to regulate or release or even be
able to explain to ourselves what we're feeling like develop
this sense of awareness, it really builds up.
And it's it feels like you have too many tabs open in the
browser of your brain until you just crash.
So what we need isn't to shut down our sensitivity, but to
learn practices that help us actually discharge energy and
ground us back into ourselves to create a new pattern.
And a few years ago, I came across this term hospital, which
stands for highly sensitive person.
And when I read the descriptions, Oh my God, I felt
so seen. I was like, wait, there are
other people who experience the world the way that I do.
I'm not the only one. This term comes from Doctor
Elaine Aaron's research in the 90s, and it describes about 15
to 20% of the population whose nervous systems are wired to
pick up on subtlety. So if you are an hospital, a
highly sensitive person, you are naturally more attuned to
details, to emotional shifts, to beauty and to nuance, and often
over stimulated by noise and crowds and input, you know?
And it's not a disorder, it is not something to fix.
It is literally just a trait. It is a way of being.
And for me, learning about this felt like someone handed me a
map to my own nervous system. I actually felt the same way
when I started to hear conversations around
neurodivergence. I never understood before that
neurodivergence is a full spectrum of different colors if
you will, and people can ebb and flow in in so many different
ways on the spectrum. For some it looks like ADHD or
autism or learning differences or sensitivities.
But it's different for everyone. And, and I know that for some on
the spectrum, it feels like life is just impossible.
And I don't want to sugarcoat that by just being like, oh,
it's your sensitivity. And it's great because I, I
understand from personal experience with people that I've
known that it is not just a walk in the park.
It can be incredibly difficult and very, very challenging, but
I think a huge part of why is because we don't live in a world
that accommodates divergent. When society decided that
efficiency and conformity mattered more than connection
and creativity, the idea of divergent, the idea of people
who operated differently in the world became something wrong.
And I want to talk about this for a second, actually, before
moving on because industrialism and capitalism had a huge part
to play in this. Once society shifted into
factories and 9:00 to 5:00 work models and schools the goal
became efficiency and predictability and people who
thought differently or had unique sensitivities or moved
more slowly did not fit the machine and they were labeled as
defective or lazy. And then you have the whole
other branch of the tree of colonization and cultural
erasure where you know many indigenous and ancient cultures
actually honored non diverse traits and saw people as
visionaries and seers, storytellers, sensory sensitive
healers. But colonization suppressed
those roles which basically pushed everyone into a single
worldview where only linear, productive quote productive ways
of thinking were valued. And then next branch you have is
is medicine and and psychology in the 19th and 20th century
started naming divergent as illness literally instead of
saying, oh, you learn differently or your nervous
system is more sensitive, they started to say you have a
disorder. So language shifted from
diversity to defect, and schools and workplaces reward people who
follow directions and sit still and produce measurable results,
and anyone who can't or doesn't fit into that mold becomes a
problem to fix. So I don't believe that
Divergent was ever wrong or less human.
I think it was too human, too nuanced, too free, too quote
unreliable for systems that rely on uniformity.
So reclaiming neurodivergence is almost like this radical act of
remembering that humans were meant to be different.
We were meant to see the world in different ways through
sensing and creating and and processing in our original ways
of living in in our ancestral and indigenous traditions.
Our differences were celebrated as medicine for the community
and it makes me so sad that this we've come so far as to label
everything and everyone defective when really we have
the most powerful sensitivities on the planet.
And I think by understanding our sensitivity and how to hold it
with respect and honor and love and not judgement and not
disdain, we literally are in the process of reclamation and in
the process of the ultimate self love and self healing.
So I share these words because this understanding has made a
world of difference to me. And I hope that by listening to
the next, you know, half hour, something in in here will change
your perspective, maybe about yourself or about someone that,
you know, like I said, because I, I'm sure we all have someone
in our lives, if not ourselves, that feel are way through the
world in different ways. And there are some incredible
tools and practices that we can implement that will truly make a
difference in the way we interact with our lives.
We might not be able to change the intensity of the world and
of the things that we will experience, but we can change
and direct how we interact with the world.
And that's some of what I want to go into with some practices
to share. So these have served me so well
from traveling the world to moving to new countries to even
just leaving the house sometimes and you know, going about my day
and they, they all apply. So no matter what you're doing
or where you're going in life, I hope that all of these will
apply to you in some form or fashion.
So the first practice is trusting your instincts, which I
know is easier said than done. Trust me, especially if you've
been told that you are too sensitive or if you grew up in
systems like high demand religion that taught you to
override your body. So how do you know if it's your
intuition or if it's fear? You know, that little voice in
your head, like, what is it? Is it my OCD?
Is it my intuition? Is it religious programming?
Is it God? What are we doing?
But the simplest way that I've learned to identify intuition is
that it's calm, it's steady. It's like a quiet whisper in
your gut that says this way. And fear is like loud and
anxious and urgent and wants you to decide right now.
Intuition also feels expansive, even if it's scary.
Like it might stretch you a little bit, but it's it's
opening something inside your soul.
Fear feels very constrictive, like it shrinks you down and
like closes you off a bit. So if you're not sure in the
moment, just ause and check in with your body and you can ask.
Do I feel a little more open or more like constricted when I
imagine this choice? And the body always knows, even
before the mind catches up to it.
So there's been times when I've been sitting with, you know, a
decision like, should I book this flight or should I go to
this event? Or should I say yes to this
thing or should I say no? And it always makes a huge
difference to pause, don't rush, check in with my body.
Like, literally, I was sitting with my friend in New York, and
we only had a few more hours to spend together.
And I remember her asking me. She was like, oh, I know what we
could do with the next few hours.
We could go here, here, here and here.
We could do all these things, and it would be great.
And then you'll still make your train on time.
And I was like, yeah, yeah, we should do that thinking.
Like, sure. Because I, I really did want to
spend this time with her and make this memory.
And she looked at me because she's neurodivergent and she's a
highly sensitive person too. And she goes, Bailey, before you
answer, just take a second and think about it.
And I was like, no, no, no, I, I really, I want to go.
I want to go, let's, let's do it.
And she was no, no, take a second.
I was like, OK. And I sat there on the bench
with her and closed my eyes. Took a second and my I thought,
do I want to go do this right now?
Do I have the energy to go and do all of this?
Because I still had a whole lot more to do in my day and I knew
it was going to take a lot of energy in me to do all this
stuff with her. And I felt into it and I felt
like my body said no. And I verbalized that.
I said, actually, I think we should make a different plan.
Maybe just hang around here and do something a little more chill
and she goes perfect, no worries at all.
That was why I wanted you to check in with yourself.
And I was like, wow, OK. My gut response was I need to
keep my friend happy. I need to go do this thing.
And also I want to make this memory with her.
But my intuition, when I gave it a second to listen, I felt like,
no, actually, I don't need to go running around town doing all
this stuff right now. And I'm so grateful to have a
considerate and kind and empathetic friend that could
reflect that question back to me and ask me to check in and was
not going to gaslight me or or have an issue with whatever my
response would be because I was a little bit worried.
If I say, oh, no, I don't want to do that.
Is she going to be mad? Is she going to be upset?
Because that's what our our programming does.
Because so often in life, we've been proven right on that,
right? How many times have you stood up
for yourself or your intuition and it's someone else's response
has made you feel guilty for that, right?
But then we remember that we are only responsible for our own
choices, not for other people's reactions.
I'm just going to say that one more time.
What did I say? OK, we are not responsible for
other people's reactions, only for our own choices.
And that is really, really hard as an empath, but very
important. And the the pinnacle of you
building these practices and these foundations in yourself to
support your sensitivity is to remember to follow your
instinct. I remember the first time that I
was on the beach with my current partner, Philip.
We were sitting together talking, and he said something
kind of like, we should go back to your place, you know?
And I was like, do I want him to come back to my place?
He had never been back to my place before.
And I kind of knew what that meant.
You know, I was like, OK, if he comes back to my place, we're
probably going to lead somewhere.
Do I want that? And I paused and I looked out
over the ocean. I just had a whole last minute
to myself. And he looked at me and was
like, are you OK? I was like, yeah, he's like,
you're looking at at the sky. Like, does does the sky have the
answer? And I was like, yes, it does.
And I thought to myself and felt in to what I felt, do I actually
want to bring this person back with me?
Do I not? Because either way, he's
completely fine. And I felt that I wanted to have
him actually back to my house. And so I said, yeah, actually,
let's let's do that. I I would like that.
I loved that because my choice was my own.
And it felt right in the moment to me.
And looking back, I'm so glad that I listened to myself
because it laid the foundation for my intuition to be something
that I follow no matter what in the course of our relationship.
And there was a moment of about a month ago where Phillip and I
were together and wild camping up in the Highlands of Scotland.
And we were looking for a place to park.
And we found a place that was like 80% OK.
Like when you're wild camping, you've, you've got to find
places to park that are legal, not just on the side of
someone's land. You know, you've got to find
like open land, open space, That's, that's common ground,
whatever. And I remember we found this
place, it was a little bit marshy, like it was open.
We could have parked there, but it felt like if it rained, we
could be submerged. And I remember my intuition
said, no, I don't like this. We don't need to be here.
But we had been looking for a spot already for like an hour.
We were tired, we were hungry. We just needed to find somewhere
to sleep. And I, I thought that I thought,
I don't want to say anything. And we're going to have to pack
up. We're going to have to find
somewhere else. But at my intuition knew.
And I said, I don't think this is a good space.
And Philip was like, Are you sure?
And I said, Yep, My intuition says no.
And he goes, OK, I trust you. And we packed up.
And I said, for real, like, you just trusted me like that right
off the bat. And he said, Bailey, your
intuition has never been wrong. And I literally teared up.
It makes me want to cry even thinking about it because I felt
so trusted by him, like he trusted my intuition and that
made me trust it even more. Surrounding yourself with people
that are connected to their intuition and also trust yours
is a game changer and feels so good.
So please seek that out in friends and build it in yourself
1st and you will also magnetize it to you in other relationships
because that is just everything. All right, let's move on to the
next one. As impacts, we cannot always
control the environments that we're in, whether that is a busy
city, a loud house, workplace, Co working coffee shop, airport.
It is just a lot, right? And and what we can do is create
little pockets of safety that help our nervous system exhale.
So when I'm travelling for example, or literally not even
when I'm travelling, when I leave the house I always have a
little tote bag with me. I always have a full water
bottle headphones, sometimes even 2 sets of headphones 'cause
I like the wired headphones when I'm talking on the phone to
people. I like the over ear big
headphones that have noise cancelling when I am in public
transportation or grocery stores because they help my hearing
sensitivity 'cause I I literally hear everything.
I have very highly developed senses as most impacts
neurodivergence and HS PS do and so.
I really really like to have big headphones on and sometimes I'm
not even listening to anything, I just have my ears protected.
These are tools. They are not just items for
convenience or for style or fashion.
In my bag I always have snacks. I always have something fresh,
maybe a few oranges and apple, a little bit of chocolate, a
healthy kind of granola bar, something that's gonna feel
grounding but also nourishing. I also love to have maybe a, a
journal or a little book. I also love to crochet.
So very often, most of the time actually, you will find a
crochet hook and a ball of yarn in my bag because I hate being
places like, you know, being on a on a bus or a train or sitting
somewhere, not being able to do something with my hands.
It's just something that's always been important to me.
Even when I was a kid, I would have markers and and a
sketchbook or something with me. And it's not about just having
the quote right tools, but it's about having your tools.
So what are the things that make you feel at home inside
yourself? And then you go create a mini
sanctuary. And this could be as simple as
sitting in the park, put your back against the tree, putting
on your noise cancelling headphones, listening to a song
that reminds you who you are. I have a playlist actually on
Spotify that I will link down below that I built just for this
where I just turn on that playlist and I feel so connected
and and grounded. And it's low simulation.
It's quiet when you're at home. A mini sanctuary might look like
the the corner of your room that feels sacred.
Or lighting a candle on your desk, or taking a hot shower in
the dark, cooking a warm meal that feels grounding to your
nervous system. These are just little anchors
that remind your body I'm safe. I don't have to take in
everything around me. I have a center, you know, and
cannabis has actually been a huge grounding tool for me in my
life. And it's not for everyone.
I'm not recommending it to everyone, but for me and for
some people, the with the right strain, the right intention, the
right set and setting, cannabis can be incredibly helpful for
calming the sensory overwhelm and overload that we get from
our environment. By calming the areas of the
brain that are typically overthinking and allows me to
focus on the tasks at hand, whether that is creating music
or creating art or going grocery shopping or sitting in the park.
That brings me grounded back down into my body and I'm really
grateful for that tool. I realize it's not accessible to
everyone and it's it's not something, again, that I would
recommend to all, all people because everyone responds
differently. But if you have a relationship
with cannabis in the same way that I do, you know what I mean?
And I don't even have to explain it to you, 'cause you just get
it, you know? But yeah, that's, that's been a
really powerful tool where when people say, oh, getting high,
literally getting high feels like you are elevated just
enough above the sensory overwhelm to where you can go
about your tasks, go about whatever you need to do.
Or maybe that even means dropping into deep rest in your
body, dropping into deep thoughtfulness, or tapping into
a place in your heart that needs to be excavated a little bit.
Maybe with a journaling practice or dance or movement in your
kitchen, or cooking yourself a really great meal.
Sometimes I've been so overwhelmed I literally don't
even know how to support myself. I'm like, I know I need to eat
but I don't know what to eat. I know I need to shower.
I'm but I'm, I'm doom scrolling in my on my couch.
I know I need to to, you know, take care of things and create
stuff and I've got deadlines and shit to do and I'm like
literally I can't, I feel like I can't even function and I will
just have one little hit of weed.
And I just take some deep breaths and I feel like myself.
I feel like, oh, I know exactly what to do.
I open the fridge. I'm making a whole nourishing
meal for myself. I'm taking a shower while my
food is cooking, I'm feeding my cat, I'm working on my emails
after dinner. Everything feels relaxed and
regulated. And of course, this really
depends on the strain. I prefer a little bit of a
sativa hybrid. So indica is really balancing to
the lower chakras of the body and sativa is for the higher
chakras and the the mind and the thoughts and the brain and the
heart and the voice. So having a balance of both in
your strain is really important to me personally.
If it's in night time and and I'm trying to rest and wind
down, definitely indica Sativa will activate my mind too much.
But learning those little ways in which we can interact with
plants, not only cannabis, there are so many plants that are
incredible for supporting nervous system regulation and
working with an herbalist that can support you and that is
highly recommended. I have several if you are
interested, please reach out to me and I will recommend them to
you. They are close, trusted and
incredible friends that are very well versed in also
neurodivergence and working with empaths and highly sensitive
people. So please do not hesitate to
reach out to me. Send me an e-mail that's that's
linked down below. Speaking of medicine, there is
no medicine like earth medicine. When everything feels too loud,
too overwhelming, too busy, literally the fastest way back
into balance is to step outside and touch the ground.
Take off your shoes, feel your bare feet in the grass, the
soil, the sand. Lean your back against a tree,
let it hold you. Breathe in the the rhythm of a
stream and just listen. And, and these moments sound
poetic, but they're also psychological.
Like science literally shows us the grounding actually restores
your body's electrical charge, which reduces inflammation,
which is the root of all disease, which also calms the
nervous system. Like the earth is literally
built to reset us, which is why we call her mother, our mother
planet, our mother earth, right? She is our original home.
We come from her. When we die, we go back to her.
So when we are grounding and and being a part of her, it is like
coming home. And when I travel, I make it a
ritual to find pockets of green space, whether that is pine
forests or lakes or waterfalls or even just a patch of grass in
a City Park. When I'm home and in my house, I
have a lot of plants that are part of my grounding practice,
like tending to them, watering them, even brushing my hands
through their leaves connects you back to that same frequency.
That's why before recording this episode, I literally went
outside for a foraging break because I knew just being
outside, breathing the fresh air, connecting to plants,
foraging for their medicine, thanking them with by talking to
them or singing to them, It's really, it's really poetic, but
it's also really powerful because nature doesn't ask us to
be anything other than what we are.
It doesn't overwhelm it. It like harmonizes us, you know,
And when we return to her, our internal systems remember their
original rhythm and state of being.
There are so many earth stories that I could tell, but I'm going
to move on to the next one, which is boundaries.
I know that for in paths this word can feel really heavy
because we sometimes believe that if we set a boundary, it is
to push people away or to build a wall.
But boundaries are not walls, they are filters, and when we
reframe them in this way, we remember that they let love and
nourishment in, and they keep out what drains us.
So on an energetic level, this can be done as simply as
visualizing yourself surrounded in a bubble of light, or like a
cloak of protection, like an invisible Harry Potter cloak,
right? Setting the intention before you
leave the house. I only absorb what is for my
highest good or in my highest timeline.
I only absorbed light that is here to benefit me.
Most days before I leave the house.
I actually visualize like this kind of bubble around me, like a
golden bubble. Maybe it has like mirror glass
on it. Like anything coming at me is
just reflected back out boundaries.
Also they don't have to be harsh.
You know they can be kind and also clear.
And it's about honesty, not rejection.
When you practice phrases like the ones I'm about to tell you,
you realize that most people will respect them.
And the ones who don't make you realize that your compass, your
internal intuition was telling you that this boundary was
needed even more. So here are some soft and
loving, but don't burn the bridge boundaries that preserve
your energy. It might look like I really
appreciate the invite, but I actually need some rest tonight.
That is a complete sentence. You do not have to explain
further. That is your boundary.
Another one might be I want to give you my full attention, but
I don't have the energy right now.
Can we talk about this later? Completely fine if the other
person comes back with you know, well, I thought that you wanted
to. No, no, no.
I want to give you my full attention, but I don't have the
energy right now. You can just literally reiterate
it and walk away or send it again through a text.
You could say something like, I'm going to step outside for a
few minutes and recharge. You could say something like,
man, that you know, that doesn't feel very aligned for me right
now, actually. So I think I'm going to say no,
but I appreciate the invitation. Simple.
I would love to join you in that, but only for a couple of
hours. I think that's my limit.
I have said that one so many times because sometimes I do
want to say yes to things, but I worry that if I say yes to one
thing, it's going to lead to a whole day of things.
And I I know that I don't have the energy for that.
I know that I don't have the capacity and I think it's really
important that we're we feel safe to voice these things.
Another favorite of mine is, you know, thank you for
understanding that I needed some alone time.
It helps me come back and be more present and more aware and
a better friend. And someone who is really on
your on your team and on your side and understands you is
going to totally be OK with that.
They're not going to have an issue with the fact that you
need some time or that you are voicing A boundary.
And sometimes it's easy for us to feel like, but if I do that,
I'm letting them down. No, no, there are times of
course, where this is disappointing, especially if it
is at the last minute and you were really let down by someone
and there's a time and a place for voicing that.
This has let me down, but more times than not, it's actually,
it's actually for our good, it's actually for our benefit that
things don't work out because how, how often has that happened
to you? Come on, be be for real.
Where someone has cancelled a plan or something and you've
gone okay, actually, this gives me the chance to just be home
and do my thing. Or a whole new timeline opened
up and I actually invited a different friend to do this
thing with me and it turned out amazing, right?
It's like that has happened me to me more times than not.
So leave room for the universe to surprise you.
All right? We are getting close to the end
here. I hope that you are taking
mental notes because we're really not gatekeeping anything
here. So as impacts, you know, we pick
up so much throughout the day energetically, other people's
moods, subtle shifts in the environment, astrological
energy, even our collective energy of what the world is
going through. And if we do not give ourselves
space to let it move through, it piles up and it starts to feel
like our own thing. And this is where solitude comes
in. Not isolation necessarily, not
disappearing forever, but intentional moments to be with
yourself. For me it looks like stretching
on the floor or making tea, slowly, mindfully foraging for
herbs, journaling in the morning.
My thoughts, my feelings. Sometimes it it's like playing,
you know, music in my living room and moving my body slowly
until something feels like releases.
And the key to this is expression.
Energy wants to move. Energy in motion is emotion,
right? Equals MC squared was that was
what this whole was about. Energy wants to move.
So how do we let our emotions flow?
They they maybe needs to come out on a page of paper or
through tears, through dance, through breath, through swimming
in the ocean, through screaming into a pillow.
It doesn't matter how, but it needs to leave the body because
when it stays inside, it literally becomes inflammation
within us. It becomes heavy.
It becomes matter that is physically damaging to our
bodies. When we hold on to things, it
creates A stagnant environment for our nervous system.
Have you ever seen like a pond that just doesn't have any flow
and it becomes like mucky and gross and thick and stagnant and
muddy? There's the same feeling in our
body with our nervous system, with our lymphatic system.
Our literal physical body suffers when things don't get to
move or flow. And not only movement but also
solitude, being in our own energy.
I spend like the majority of my time alone.
I love being with people, I love being with my partner, but also
I love being in my own energy. I love being in my own space
because it's my nervous systems way of saying thank you.
I can breathe again. I have reset myself.
You feel so good after having some time alone, taking a hot
shower, making a nourishing meal, coming out of the forest
or the wherever it is that makes you feel reset, going on a long
drive, I don't know, whatever it is.
And then you enter some, you know, other people's energy
again and you feel like, OK, I'm all right.
Because it is so easy to slip into loops of overstimulation,
over thinking, absorbing too much.
And then we spiral in it. And the nervous system loves
patterns, even when they're bad for us.
But the good thing is you can always break them.
I have a whole episode about interrupting the pattern and you
can listen to that. After this pattern interrupt is
anything that jolts you out of autopilot and reminds your body
we are not stuck, we are free to choose.
Sometimes it is a small thing, like taking a different route
home, moving to a different spot in the room or in your house.
Like changing the music instantly switches the vibe.
Going outside, getting fresh air, putting cold water on your
face. Those are small things right?
Maybe something more playful or fun could be saying yes to
something you don't normally say yes to, or no to something you'd
usually say yes to. Or changing up your morning
routine completely one day. Or going to a place, a city, a
coffee shop, somewhere you don't normally find yourself in.
It's these little shifts that tell your nervous system we
don't have to stay in the same groove.
It is outside the sandbox. It is like breaking the code of
the matrix. It is making one small pattern
shift that drops you into a new timeline.
Often times the fastest interrupt is the simplest one,
like stand up, stretch, laugh, sing something, do something
that breaks the spell. This is really important to
remember when we get stuck doom scrolling on our phone.
You do not have to be stuck. You do not have to continue
scrolling and spiraling and feeling shit about yourself and
your life because every time we do this, we are just following
the same neural pathway that we have been creating time and time
again. Hour and hour again, reel after
reel, training your nervous system.
That this is what we do when we're overwhelmed.
Stop. You are not trapped, you are
alive. You have choices.
Maybe there's something, some action or something that you can
do that won't jolt you out of the scrolling, that will jolt
you out of the the doom thinking.
Maybe it's thinking of something that you love, like your cat.
And please do not shower yourself with guilt and shame
for doing that either. It's OK that you did.
It's OK that you do. It's OK that it's a pattern.
It's OK that it's a habit. But it can be changed, and
that's the exciting part. There's literally, you don't
have to shame yourself for it. It's completely fine.
You're human, you're allowed to do what you want and you're
allowed to make different choices.
So why not? The last thing, Final thing, and
I know that these words sound cliche, like little slogans that
make you feel good, but I said this in the last one.
I said this in the last episode too.
Gratitude is a wormhole. When you pause and you feel
grateful, like truly grateful for your breath, for the light
coming through the window, for the roses on the table, for the
steam rising out of your tea, for the clothes on your body,
your body shifts. Your chemistry actually changes,
your nervous system flips from survival into safety, and joy is
literally how we recharge. It doesn't have to be some big
flashy thing like it could literally just be laughing with
a friend or sitting in the sun for a few minutes.
Ingratitude and joy do not erase the heaviness of the world, but
they give you a break from carrying all of it.
And they remind you that beauty exists, that you are alive, but
your sensitivity is a gift because it lets you feel that
beauty more deeply than most people.
You might feel sadness deeper than most, but you can also feel
joy deeper. And when we let that gratitude
and joy fuel us, our empathy stops being draining and it
starts feeling expansive and it becomes the superpower that it
was always meant to be. So let's just take a deep breath
here because I realized we just covered a lot of things.
So deep breath with me in and out slowly.
OK, here we go. You're not broken for being
sensitive. You're not broken for being
neurodivergent. You're not broken for being an
empath. The world needs your kindness
more than ever. It needs your sensitivity and
your ability to feel and process emotions and alchemize the pain
in this world too. It's very important and we're
very grateful for you. And don't forget to take care of
yourself. You are your longest
relationship. These tools that I've mentioned
here I hope will help you carry that awareness into the future
of you, into the future of understanding your sensitivity
deeper in the future of understanding empathy as the
superpower. Because the world is lacking in
it. And when more people realize it,
realize their empathetic traits and qualities and the beauty of
the kaleidoscope of the neurodivergent ways, we will
stop being so harmful to each other.
We will start creating new neural pathways in our
collective way of being, in our collective consciousness, in our
collective thought process, and start making different choices.
Because every time you do, there is like a ripple effect out from
you that impacts whoever is in your field, family, pets,
friends, strangers. Every time you are just being
yourself fully and taking care of your sensitivity and of your
needs. It's noticed.
People notice. You know when you you're at a
park and you see that that person sitting with their back
to a tree and they're drawing or journaling, or you see someone
just enjoying the stillness of the quiet of the beach or the
park, it impacts you. You notice them.
You notice someone off their phone, you notice someone just
reading a book. You notice someone just laughing
and smiling with their friends. The joy makes you smile.
Their joy impacts you. Your joy impacts others in the
same capacity. Don't underestimate your joy,
your gratitude, your sensitivity, the ability to
change the world in this powerful way.
So thank you for listening, Thank you for joining me.
If you're interested in learning more about my life behind the
scenes stuff, I'm actually releasing monthly guided
meditations for the price of a cup of coffee 'cause I wanted to
be accessible and affordable to everyone on my Patreon.
You can find the link down below in the show notes.
There are monthly gratitude lists, audio notes and messages.
There are voice notes from me. There's a whole world there that
I would love for you to come and explore and experience.
And if you've been learning anything from this podcast, you
know, this is all free. This is just my way of getting
back to the world from all the people and and places that I've
learned from. But yeah, if you want to be a
part of it in in supporting my art and my work, I would really
appreciate it. And I would welcome you with
open arms and to the Patreon family.
So thank you for listening. Thank you for being here.
Please take care of your sensitive soul today and thank
you for listening. And as always, open hearts, open
mind. Stay curious.