Episode #41: Gut Health and Nervous System Regulation for HSP Women with Denise Morrison

The hidden connection between emotional suppression, gut health, and burnout…and how highly sensitive women can finally heal by listening to their bodies.

Welcome back to The Happy HSP Podcast. I’m your host Kimberly Marshall, and in this episode, I’m joined by Denise Morrison. She’s an integrative health practitioner and emotional eating coach who shares her powerful journey from people-pleasing and burnout to self-trust and body-based healing.

Together, we explore the often-overlooked connection between emotional suppression, gut health, and nervous system regulation, and why so many HSP women find themselves struggling physically after years of “pushing through.”

Denise shares how tuning into the body, rather than ignoring its signals, became the key to her healing journey…and how she now helps other women do the same. So, if you’ve ever felt like something is “off” in your body, or like you’ve been trying to push through exhaustion for far too long, this conversation will help you understand what you can actually do about it.

I hope you enjoy it!

Kim: Denise, thank you so much for joining me. It’s great to see you.

Denise: Yes, great to finally be with you in this space.

Kim: Yeah, same here. So, tell me about your journey with high sensitivity. How did you learn about it, and what was that like for you?

Denise: Oh gosh. To make a long story very short, it was actually on LinkedIn a few years ago when I met Jen Corcoran and Josh. And as they started posting more and more in my 50s, I was like, “This is me.” I never even put two and two together as a label. And I started reading about it and taking all the quizzes and I’m like, “That’s me, highly sensitive person, but I’ve always known I was this way since...” I mean, my earliest memory was six, but I could feel it as a kid, my differences. But back then, everyone made fun of me for who I was. Yeah.

Kim: Well, that must have been hard. Did you hide things about yourself, would you say?

Denise: Oh, sure. So, I’m just tracing back in my timeline of my life here. I grew up, I’m a Gen Xer and a Boomer family members. I’m going to call them out. And they were tough. Street people who were like, “Suck it up, stop crying. Here’s some food. Put this in your mouth. Let’s go get an ice cream. Let’s go get a pizza. Stop crying. You’ll feel better.” But I also knew that I could sense things. 

I didn’t know what I was doing at the time, but I was like, wait, why are they making that face? Why do they feel bad to sit around? What’s happening in the background? So, I was always this little thermometer of the family dynamics. And I just knew these things, and I would feel bad. My chest would get tight, my gut.

And I didn’t know at the time what was happening to me, but I did learn from family members, “Oh, you feel sad. You got something to cry about? Let’s put in a pizza from Pizza Hut. Let’s go get some dessert and that’ll stop you from crying.” So, I had a bunch of things happening and I didn’t know when I was six, seven, eight, 14, what was going on in my body and mind to cope. But yeah, I felt like I was the temperature gauge for the family that no one wanted to hear about.

Kim: That’s so funny. It’s like we’re the ones that have the finger on the pulse of the family and the emotional, but they’re like, “Oh, let’s take Denise to Pizza Hut and calm her down.” We are the more emotionally attuned, but don’t know yet.

Denise: I know. I know. It’s crazy. And as you’re saying that, it reminds me now a lot of the things that I share about, it’s like they were always distracting themselves from how they truly felt and what they knew. 

Kim: Exactly.

Denise: So, boom.

Kim: Welcome to our society. I know. Yeah. Emotions are such a taboo subject. And it’s like, no, if everyone would just realize they’re important and that’s things to learn about them and they show us things, maybe we’d be in a better place.

Denise: I speak about this all the time to the women I work with and friends and family. I can only lead the horses to water, but emotions are not bad.

Kim: Yeah. Yeah. They’re like posts like markers. Look at this more deeply or something. How would you describe it?

Denise: Yeah. Sorry, say that again?

Kim: How would you describe that?

Denise: Oh my gosh. I say they’re my intuitively unique body’s wisdom. I mean, if I’m not tuning in, forget about it. The outside doesn’t know me. And yeah, that’s how I say it in my adult language now.

Kim: Yeah. So, looking back and knowing this about yourself now, what was the shift for you, would you say?

Denise: Well, the shift was long over decades because I really wasn’t knowing what was happening. So, my original plan, so to speak, or strategy as a child was to people-please and to put the mask on and to shove down the sensitivities, what I was spotting, the emotions. And so, I went into healthcare. I became a physical therapist because I saw with my relatives appeasing their emotions with alcohol, with drugs, with all sorts of things, I wanted to fix them. And so, I went into physical therapy and worked in healthcare. And if everybody knows anything about healthcare, it’s demanding. You have to have a productivity. It’s not really health care. It’s more like setting boundaries or putting out fires. It’s all sorts of weird things like that where I had no idea I wasn’t prepared for. And so slowly I noticed I was doing that and I was burning out.

I was getting sick. My hormones were out of whack. And then it was when I went to try to have a kid when I was living overseas and I was like, “What’s wrong with me?” And besides all the other things the medical system picked up and naturopathic doctors, they’re like, “You are so mean to yourself.” And I was like, "What?" And I didn’t realize that I was actually pushing myself so hard, so I didn’t have to feel. 

And so, I was combusting on the inside from trying to put up that act and the face and be the friendly PT and make everybody happy. And so, my body started deteriorating. And then eventually, I did get all the right tools necessary when I lived in Australia. And I had a kid, so that was a miracle, but that’s what set me off on a different direction of going, wait a minute, I have a lot to say inside myself.

If I’m not tuning in, I’m in trouble. And it was self-talk, my mindset, my beliefs, the way I was treating my body. So, I really overdid it to myself. Yeah.

Kim: Fascinating because here you go into it thinking that you’re going to help people heal, and you end up turning it into something that wasn’t all healthy for you.

Denise: And the sad thing is not knowing what I know now, we were very driven. Physical therapists, we have to succeed, have the best grades and do all these things, and then push, push, push to see four patients every half an hour, whatever it was in the facility. But I just did what they said because, as a kid, very young, I learned I have to just do what they say because I don’t know anything inside myself. And so, I used my book knowledge and all the things that I could do as a professional, but I was ignoring my inner. And then healthcare just was like, let’s keep getting blood out of a stone here and just keep pushing, pushing, pushing. But yeah, it felt so normal then to not be me and to ignore my body, which now I’m like, wow, what in the heck? I don’t want anybody to go through that.

Kim: So, tell me about the switch for you. When did you kind of realize this, and what changed?

Denise: So, I started breaking down more as a physical therapist in about, I don’t know, it was like 2015, and was really just going, I can’t take it anymore. My husband and I, we have one son, and so I started learning about health coaching and doing different things. And then all of a sudden, I was a yoga teacher and then I became a trauma-informed coach and I was looking for ways to understand what was happening inside me. And then I started posting out on LinkedIn and met the crew of the HSP crew and was like, wait a minute, I get this. And then the more people I spoke to and connected with, I was like, “I’m actually amazing. I have awesome tools. I am not a freak.” So, it was wonderful. 

Kim: Love that so much because it sounds like you have so much knowledge even in the health world, but this one missing piece, and I just want to highlight this because it’s so important for our growth at highly sensitive people to understand the trait and how it works in us because we function so much more differently. And even with all your knowledge, even with all of the training and the yoga and the health practitioning, this one piece sounds like it really brought things together in a different light for you.

Denise: And I could exhale. I wasn’t broken. There was nothing wrong with me, which I thought for years and years and years, “Well, something’s wrong with me. I shouldn’t speak up. I don’t know any better.” They told me that I’m too sensitive and what I say doesn’t matter. Be quiet, eat some food. So, it’s fun now being me. I love it.

Kim: What’s different, would you say?

Denise: Oh, my goodness. I have such great boundaries. I protect my time, my energy, my peace, my money, everything because I know as a highly sensitive person and introverted, empathic, all that wonderful qualities like, I give you a little bit, and then I’m going to go rest. And I am no good to anybody. The important people, if I don’t get that rest, I go to bed early, I have naps and meditation time and journaling time and eat well. I mean, all the tools that I’ve learned, I now can just use it for myself. So, I found all my answers along the way.

Kim: And it sounds like that piece of not accepting yourself or thinking there’s something wrong with you was really heavy because once you were able to lift that off and just like, this is who I am, whatever, then you’re not struggling, and you’re just kind of living your life.

Denise: The putting on the mask, and people pleasing and pushing and going drained my nervous system like you can imagine. And once I was able to release that, I’m like, “Oh, of course.” Mind you, as soon as I released the heaviness and realized then I kind of got sicker and burned out and because my body was in fight or flight for so many years that now I’m like, “My nervous system is number one.”

Kim: Yeah. Now it’s like, “What’s this? Wait, we’re safe? Are you sure?”

Denise: Oh my gosh. It’s crazy. And this is part of the work that I do with my clients. Many of them didn’t have a safe upbringing. They had trauma, they had abuse, and similar stories where I’m like, “You finally get to be safe now. You finally get to love and trust yourself because you were always in there.” People took that away from you or encouraged you not to be who you were. So yeah, it’s wonderful. Yeah.

Kim: Tell me about the work that you’re doing now.

Denise: So, it’s a combination of all the things that I learned on my journey because I was seeking answers to fix myself. And now I coach women who are highly sensitive, introverted, empathic, and they’re also busy professionals like me who have had similar scenarios for one thing or another, some sort of trauma and abuse. But now I can help them with the tools that I have as an integrative health practitioner. I can say, “Listen, I know in your mind and your history and all the things you say to yourself, your daily habits, you’ve done this to your body, but now let’s check and see where you are. Let’s look at your gut. Let’s look at your cortisol levels per se. Let’s look all the big things, food sensitivity, hair tests, mold, all these things so we can say, let’s sort out what’s happened inside what you might not have been paying attention to because you were always fighting this battle on the outside.” So now with the coaching, I can combine the two and it’s like health, life, and trauma-informed coaching all in one basket.

So, it’s very niche down now, and I didn’t realize how many of us are out there because especially using food, being an emotional eater. So somewhere along the line, those of us that tucked away our emotions that learned how to use food, it affected our bodies and broke us down. So yeah, and I love one-on-one coaching that I’ve been doing, but I’m moving on to different things, which is really cool. Same kind of stuff with my clients. But yeah, I feel like I have my unique thing now that I can offer.

Kim: So, tell me about these tests with the hair and the cortisol, what’s that process like, and what does that show us?

Denise: Well, so I’ll just take me for an example. So, over the past couple years, while I was learning these things, part of my emotional eating story was I loved eating brownie mix, and it numbed me out like you could imagine having all that sugar. I used to eat jars and jars of peanut butter. So, when I first started learning integrative health practitioner materials, I did a food sensitivity test, and it really was the data that showed me going, holy cow, you should not be eating peanut butter even though your brain is addicted to it. And so, then I was able to see the hard facts from the tests that I did. And we’re either using blood, urine, hair samples, stool samples. And so, that one test showed me, okay, I have to really get my act together now. This is no joke anymore. I changed my habit, decreased the amount of peanut butter, changed the kind of brownies I was eating.

And my theme is that I don’t want women to feel deprived or restricted and decrease their ability to give themselves what they want. So, we find alternatives. And then I did the organic acids test, which checked how much yeast I had in my body and fungus. Those were the big things that stuck out for me. 

And I was like, yep, all those years of licking brownie mix and eating pizza really did a number on my gut. And it wasn’t just the emotions I was storing in my gut. I also have yeast I need to clear out now. And that just freaked me out. And bacteria that my microbiome was a mess. And so, I wasn’t ignoring myself and that’s what the test could do. And then we have protocols, we alter the meals a little bit, and then we have supplements that we do to ... It takes a couple months to release all this out of your body.

But at the end, I mean, gosh, my mindset, my mind and my body was clear. I lost 20 pounds because I was just carrying all this extra bloating, and I was having rashes and stuff. But yeah, no, that’s the testing I could do for all sorts of things, checking to see if you have mold in your body, which is horrifying and it’s enlightening because you do not want to have mold spores inside your body. So yeah, and environmental toxins, that’s another huge thing we’re seeing. And we want to make sure what you’re putting into your mouth, your hair, your skin, what you’re breathing in is not causing a mood change or a symptom in some way or something affecting your organs and your ability to think. So, it’s huge. 

Kim: That’s fascinating because especially for highly sensitive women, because our bodies are even more thrown off by these things, I would imagine.

Denise: Yeah. I mean, and yes, for sure. Because I knew even now, I could breathe a brownie at Christmas, and I’m like, “Whoa, I better not ... That’s the real one.” That’s a real one. It’s not gluten-free and sugar-free. I literally, I could feel it in my hands get puffier, my face is puffy the next day. I know so now that’s it, I can’t have it. But all those years of what in my pattern I was doing, I had no idea. And I’d be like, “I just have to eat this. My stomach’s ginormousy bloated. Oh, I can’t go to the bathroom for days. I’m gaining weight." What did I do back then? My method was, let’s exercise more. Let’s push more. Let’s ignore this. 

Kim: Under more stress.

Denise: Exactly. And as you can imagine, someone’s body can’t handle that after a while. Nervous system flags, yay.

Kim: Wow. So, are you telling me that we all have different foods that we need to be staying away from and eating? Our bodies are all so different like that? 

Denise: 100%. 

Kim: Do you need a trend with the same things going on in women? It’s that different?

Denise: Well, and a lot of the, I’m going to say this and slay this at the same time, so many of the things that are being sold to us through social media, like the next quick fix or something, it’s not always the case. And drink this juice or have this product. If you just do a one-off quick fix like that, even what you think is a healthy product and your gut can’t handle it or you’re sensitive to Brazil nuts or something or almond milk, you’re just doing yourself a disservice unless you do a protocol, like a big lab testing and a whole protocol change to figure out what it is that’s happening inside your body.

Kim: Specifically. Yeah.

Denise: Specifically. And that’s the thing is nobody’s the same when you check these specific details because typical lab work that you get done with a medical doctor is only telling you a snippet in time for certain things. And a lot of what we test for has been over months and months and years in your hair as your hair grows, your urine, your saliva, your poo, and then blood spot. But yeah, it’s as unique as you are. And so that’s why people are like, “Wow, my doctor told me to have two Brazil nuts every day. My sensitivity to Brazil nuts can’t have it. Okay.”

Kim: My specific body. It’s almost like we’re all each our own little environment.

Denise: Yes. And we say we’re Sherlock Holmes, so to speak, helping you figure out your science lab inside of you, you’re your own specimen that we have to learn uniquely. And the lab testing is so much more fine-tuned what we do versus when you go to the doctor. 

Kim: Yeah, because they’re saying, “Okay, you have high blood pressure, so let’s put you on things that lower your blood pressure.” And there could be an underlying cause, which it sounds like you’re getting more into the underlying causes.

Denise: 100%. And just much like we look at ourselves as HSPs, there could be an underlying cause as to why we behave these ways because we are shutting down our sensitivity. And so yeah, definitely the root cause, that’s the famous word now, but really looking at what’s going on, what’s causing all this under your skin.  

Kim: That kind of makes me angry that doctors have access to all this, but they choose not to use it.

Denise: Oh, medical doctors don’t.

Kim: Right, because they want to sign you up for prescriptions.

Denise: Yes. So, it’s a different paradigm completely out there. So, now there’s a lot of us floating around that we know how to do this to help you do this in your home. And our mentor always says, we want to put a health coach in every home, whether you use it as a business or not, but so that you know inside yourself, okay, I’m testing these things and I need to do this cleanup protocol or change my lifestyle in some way or supplement with magnesium for a while or B vitamins, but specific to you, not because, oh, I saw the TV commercial that said that.

Kim: Gosh, that’s so insane to me. Now question, do you see links between gut microbiome and the way people are feeling or the emotions that are coming up? Is that linked in some way, would you say?

Denise: Heck yeah. Oh, yeah.

Kim: Tell me about that.

Denise: The gut and the mind are so intimately connected that everything is stored in your gut, and it’s my story specifically, everything I was storing in my gut emotionally, but then added the food to it. Oh gosh, yeah.  

Kim: Like a powder keg of nonsense.

Denise: Right. Yeah. And it’s not normal to be walking around with angry pains or bloating or constipation or swelling. And yes, we know that emotions and a lot of your beliefs and a lot of your mindset can definitely go affect your gut. And then all of a sudden you’re, let’s just say, “Oh, I’m a person that I can’t have kale,” let’s just say. So, everything that you think about is that kale is going to poison me. And if you have a belief about certain things that are going to be poisonous for you, it probably will turn into that. And so, I mean, even though I knew along the way I was harming myself with brownie mix, the self-talk messaging was also contributing to wearing down. Yeah, wearing down in my nervous system and my whole being.  

Kim: So, we’re just ruining everything with what we’re eating and what we’re thinking.

Denise: And that’s why we’re all here to say those of us in my field and what your work is, we can do so much better for ourselves. We don’t have to link up to the outside voices because truly trust from here first and start paying attention. And we can learn this really early. I mean, a lot of my colleagues and I are like, let’s get into elementary schools starting somewhere, or at least our clients and their kids early on, let’s spot these things or make sure you’re not eating in a rushed way or you’re not having a meal after you just had a fight with your partner or whatever and because it’s affecting your gut so powerfully. Yeah. Wow.

Kim: Incredible.

Denise: Yeah.

Kim: And then question, what about intuitive eating? Do you find that foods that you are obviously not the brownie mix, but foods that you tend to gravitate to, how does that work?

Denise: Well, tapping into what we know as HSPs, I believe it’s easier because we are more in tuned and intuitive and a lot of us are on some sort of spiritual path as well. And using tools like kinesiology or muscle testing, I can literally sense and go, “Nope, I’m not going to eat that.” I can get near it and just go, “No, I know not to eat that. “Or, Okay, stop this supplement. It’s not doing me any good.” So, my body’s like a big tuning fork now. It can sense things, whereas before it was not. So yeah, and then that’s how we gauge because even though someone, let’s just say another coach or somebody on the internet said, “You got to have 25 apples a day, but your body is screaming, no, I will never eat an apple, please listen to that and let’s go find something different to match for you and make it as organic and chemical free as possible.”

Kim: Which is possible. That’s incredible. And it’s almost like your intuition knows, but now you have the scientific proof to say, “Oh, that’s why.” And you can kind of reinforce your intuition and you can see that now from a scientific point of view.

Denise: Yes, a thousand percent. And as you’re saying this, it reminds me of growing up, my mother loved tuna, tuna fish.

And I can’t imagine thousands of tuna fish sandwiches on Wonder bread, white bread. And then when I did my hair tissue mineral analysis test a couple years ago, loaded with mercury in my hair. And many things can go from the mom to the baby, but I had so much tuna, and I was like, okay, so I did a detox from getting out those heavy metals from my body because I didn’t want that to drain my energy anymore. 

But like I said, knowing in tune, hopefully people start to know earlier and earlier in life what’s working for them and not going, “Well, the big fad is that you have to eat chicken and broccoli and turkey breasts every day in a can of tuna like we did, which was harming me. I had no idea.” But yeah, those of us are out there now going, “Wait a minute, you don’t have to live with these symptoms and what’s unique for you?

Let’s test you.” And you do it at your house, which is great. That’s

Kim: Awesome. Yeah. Wonder Bread and Miracle Whip. Do you remember Miracle Whip? Who knows and all that stuff. And I was raised on Velveeta mac and cheese. Oh, I think I have to do some testing.

Denise: It would be fun to test you. See, I could hook you up with that. Trust me.

Kim: Let’s look into that. So now that you do all this work with highly sensitive people in this way, what would you say you still struggle with? What can you share about the challenges that your high sensitivity brings you?

Denise: Well, as you can hear from my excitement, I can get so passionate and then sometimes I forget to turn off, and then I’ll get overstimulated and burnt out. And I mean, I catch it quicker now, and then wanting to help more and more people and wanting to give more podcast interviews or write more things, but I have to go “Come back, boundaries,” but that would be it. And there’s so much to learn, I have to be careful with that. Okay, I cannot listen to his podcast and his podcast. Just take little bits of the buffet of life a little bit at a time.

Kim: Oh, I’m so with you. And what’s funny about that is for a while I was taking that as career tip-offs like, oh, I love that. Let me go get all the training and do the thing. And then I’m like, wait, that’s cool too. And it’s like, wait, you can learn about things without diving into them 100%.

Denise: And in line with what I help my clients with, because a lot of us are high achievers, busy women, busy professionals, we do that. We’re like, let’s go learn, let’s go learn. And I’m reminding them, is that a pattern leftover from emotional eating? Is that another way that you’re consuming, but you have to digest it. And if it’s too much, you’re bloated with information.

Kim: Stop, I love that analogy. Yeah. It’s like we’re trying to fix ourselves all the time and take in all this stuff and grow and grow and grow. And yeah, we need to take a minute and digest and let things just sit for a minute.

Denise: Oh gosh. Yeah. Just like when we’re eating and digesting, give yourself 20 minutes to chew, and to eat and to go slow and to register before we scroll and take on more information. Guilty too.

Kim: Yeah, that can be overwhelming. So, much information. And we’re used to that now, getting so much all at once. I’m with you. I feel like the more I put my phone down, the healthier I feel like mind-wise.

Denise: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when I was a kid, we’d have to go to the library, and we’d have to go to encyclopedia. So now it’s everywhere. No wonder why we’re like, oh crap, we’re overloaded with information and tools and tips which way to turn.

Kim: I remember that. I remember my grandma had a whole row of two different types of Encyclopedia Britannica’s and I was like ... I would even pack them on vacation. I think I was just telling someone else on another episode. I have this big ass…it’s like media. I don’t know. Yeah, it’s interesting. I guess that’s just a trait.

Denise: I mean, whatever. You got books behind you. I think you like some books there.

Kim: Yeah, I like books. We all seem to. It seems to be our jam.

Denise: I know. Oh my gosh.

Kim: What do you love about the trait? What do you celebrate and think is just awesome about it?

Denise: I love to be able to sense someone’s joy and ease and peace and sorrow or frustration, difficulties or things that they’re not sharing with the world or they’re having to tuck away because they feel ashamed or...Yeah. And I know that ever since I could remember, I’d say, “Why does everybody want to tell me their problems? Why am I that person? What’s wrong with my face that people feel like they can tell me anything?” I mean, it’s a great thing now, but I love that I really can sense and embrace music. I love Pearl Jam. I love going to their concerts. I love soaking up the environment. I mean, I completely embody everything, which is wonderful, but then I have to also, as we spoke, put the boundaries on, not consume. So yeah, I feel like I’m fully present and soaking up life to the fullest.

Yeah, that’s how I would say it is.

Kim: Yeah, I get that too sometimes. People feel comfortable sharing things with me and people get personal quick. 

Denise: I know. 

Kim: I know. And you’re like, “What’s wrong with my face?” I think it’s just like, I don’t know what it is with me, too. I was buying a car the other day, and the sales guy was going between trying to sell me things and telling me about his life. It was really personal things. I’m like, I guess it’s just me. It’s just my gift.

Denise: Yep. And I mean, it’s great, and it helped me in healthcare. It helps me with clients, everything because I have that nurturing way that being sensitive is awesome. I’m sensing you. And I have to say this, it’s really funny. I have a friend I’ve known for 41 years from high school, and he’s like, every time I look into your big, beautiful blue eyes, I feel like you’re looking at my soul. I’m like, yes, but in a good way. I’m not judging you. I’m capturing you.

Kim: I see the real you, and I love and I adore you. Yeah. Yeah, we see people for who they are without judgment. 

Denise: Yes. 

Kim: And that just eliminates shame, right?

Denise: Yes. Yes. I love that. That could be your bumper sticker. Put it out there.

Kim: You’re right. I’m getting one.

Denise: Send them out.

Kim: I’ll have people knocking on my window. I’m good.

Denise: Yeah, no.

Kim: Yeah. I feel like that’s the thing. People probably sense that we don’t ... Yeah, we just see people, we don’t think less of them and we’re open to things because we know we’ve been there. It’s like we don’t have that judgment that a lot of people do.

Denise: Yeah. We can be really deep and meaningful with our conversations and get it. I mean, sometimes I wish I wasn’t that deep. I would be like, “Can I just be superficial?”

Kim: Yeah, yeah. Everyone else seems to be having a great time.

Denise: I know. They have no care

Kim: Yeah. So, what advice would you give to highly sensitive people who may be struggling finding joy or meaning or purpose in their lives? What would you say?

Denise: Oh my gosh. Well, stop trying to fix yourself, change yourself, be different. Know that you have amazing gifts and resources within, not just inside your brain, inside your whole beautiful soul, spirit, whatever words that resonate with them, because you do know and you have those gifts and trust them and also learn to hang out with other people like us so that you have a community where you’re seen, you’re heard and you’re like, “Okay, cool. I’m validated now.” And to flourish and do so faster than taking so much longer than many of us that don’t know. And so yeah, I feel like we’re a secret society, get to know us.

Kim: Yeah. You don’t have to feel like the oddball out all the time.

Denise: No, no. And I think now in 2026, the more of an oddball and weirdo you are and unique, the better it is. And I mean, granted, you’re not harming anybody or insulting or judging anybody, but savoring and trusting and flowing with what you are. I mean, it’s so good. It makes so much ease and peace.

Kim: Yeah. And not only does it feel good as the person doing that, but I don’t know about you. I just love being around people that are authentic, that like to be themselves, that know who they are. They’re confident in that. We need more authenticity.

Denise: And I have a few people that I was going to mention to you, but we say this a lot in our conversations. It’s so great to be authentic. There’s no fluff, there’s no BS, there’s no superficial and promises and lies. It’s just ...

Kim: Yeah, you get to be yourself. Yeah. There’s just a layer of connection that doesn’t feel forced. It’s just, yeah.

Denise: Yeah. And that’s now one of my...I can even, I’m sure you’ve done this before, but I can even go onto LinkedIn and see something in my DM and be like, “Nope, done.”  

Kim: Yeah. Yeah. God, I know that’s an AI robot. 

Denise: I know. I’d be like, “Nah, you’re nothing.”

Kim: Your old body shuts off. You’re like, “Screw that.”

Denise: But it’s great. No. Whereas before as a people pleaser, I’d be like, “Oh, I have to be friends with everybody online.” Now I’m like, no. So, boundaries. That’s what I would say. If you know you’re like this, learn boundaries, ASAP.

Kim: Know your people, know yourself, and use your boundaries.

Denise: Oh my gosh, yeah.

Kim: Awesome. So, where can people follow along with you on your journey?

Denise: Well, LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram and my website, which is deniselynmorrison.com. I’m floating around on TikTok too, just because I want to be cool like my son who’s on TikTok. 

Kim: Oh, I’ll have to follow you.

Denise: Oh my gosh. TikTok’s insane for me. I’m just goofing off. But yeah, the rest of the places, I’m a little more serious.

Kim: Yeah. And you have a coaching program too that you’re working on. Is that right?

Denise: Yes. 

Kim: Can you talk a bit about what that is?

Denise: Yes, yes. So, I’ve been coaching women one-on-one, mostly for a long time now, since 2006 I started coaching, but I’m making it into a hybrid group program so that I can have more of these beautiful women come together and share things. But we do the coaching program as well as the lab testing for them and the protocols and the supplements so, that we’re all doing this together and everybody can grow and change. And I’m excited for that because I can reach more people that way and teach more women to go, wait a minute, I do not need to keep eating those things that the doctor told me because they’re not good for me. So yeah, I’m excited.

Kim: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for all of that. It was so wonderful to meet you. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Denise: Oh, good. Thank you so much, Kimberly. Yeah.

Thank you so much for listening in on my conversation with Denise. I hope it reminds you that there is so much you can learn about yourself and your needs by going within, whether through meditation, paying attention to your body, or discovering imbalances within your gut health.

Our bodies always keep the score, but be gentle with yourself as you navigate the path toward healing. Each of our journeys to health is unique, and discovering how to help ourselves heal can take time and awareness. 

Until next time. Take care!

About Denise Morrison

Denise Morrison is an Emotional Eating Coach, Integrative Health Practitioner and Highly Sensitive Person who knows firsthand what it’s like to feel everything deeply, and to use food as a way to cope with overwhelm. With a background in healthcare and trauma-informed coaching, Denise helps women understand their patterns without shame and learn how to live in a way that actually supports their nervous systems. Her work is rooted in honesty, compassion, and the belief that sensitivity is not a weakness, it’s wisdom.

Follow along on Denise’s journey:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/denise.l.morrison.1

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deniselynnmorrison/?hl=en

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deniselynnmorrison/

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About Kimberly:

Kimberly Marshall is an ICF-certified Energy and Intuition coach for highly sensitive people (HSPs) and host of The Happy HSP Podcast. After 20 years in the publishing industry working for companies like Time Inc., Monster.com, and W. W. Norton, she left her corporate career to pursue work that better suited her HSP needs. She now helps HSPs reconnect with their intuition, energy, and soul’s purpose so they can live gentle, heart-centered lives in alignment with who they truly are.

Through her work, Kimberly hopes to shed more light on the reality of living with high sensitivity and inspire more HSPs to embrace their empathetic, loving, and gentle natures.

• Hosted/produced by Kimberly Marshall

• Edited by Fonzie Try Media

• Artwork by Tara Corola