Episode #35: High Sensitivity, Creativity, and the Art of “Being,” with Andy Mort

How slowing down, embracing creativity, and going with the flow can help highly sensitive people live with more purpose, meaning, and joy.

Welcome back to The Happy HSP Podcast. I’m your host Kimberly Marshall, and today I’m joined by UK-based songwriter, artist, creativity coach, and host of The Gentle Rebel Podcast Andy Mort.

We discuss what it means to live creatively without chasing productivity metrics, and how highly sensitive people can find meaning, purpose, and alignment without forcing themselves into linear paths or hustle culture ideals.

This episode is a gentle invitation to slow down, allow ourselves to feel deeply, and reconnect with our creative spirit as a way of being in the world, rather than a means to an end.

I hope you enjoy it!

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

Andy: Absolute pleasure, Kimberly. Thank you for inviting me.

Kim: Yeah, same here. So, my first question for you is about your personal journey with high sensitivity, and I’d love to learn about how you found out about what that trait is and what led you to discover that about yourself.

Andy: Yeah, straight into the deep stuff. I like it. Same here.

Yeah, it was probably about 2011, I think, and I’d done a lot of stuff around personality profiling and introversion and things like that. Discovered I was an introvert in about 2010, and it was like, ah, that makes a lot of sense. Reading, it was really blog posts. And then The Introvert Advantage by Marti Olsen Laney, which is one of the earlier books, sort of focusing on that sort of stuff in an accessible way. And I remember in that book, she’d mentioned this highly sensitive person thing, which I hadn’t really paid any attention to.

It was something about the term, it was like, oh, that’s a thing that’s not, doesn’t really sound relevant to me. And then I kept seeing this term appearing in “Signs You Might Be a Highly Sensitive Person,” those sorts of article headlines and things. And all the time I was like, nah, I don’t think so, just off the headline. And then eventually I clicked on one and went through to it, and it had all of the characteristics off the original HSP self-test that Elaine Aron had produced. And I was like, oh, yeah, that’s familiar. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Maybe I am.

And it sort of was a real, I guess a missing piece to some degree from, it’s like I’ve done Myers-Briggs tests and things like that and come out INTJ/INFJ and never really fully relating to the descriptions of either there were elements, enough elements in those profiling descriptions that was like, yeah, I have to kind of crowbar myself into that and to make it totally fit. But then there was something about this high sensitivity as more than just a personality profile as that sort of underlying biological trait that makes so much more sense to me.

And then just went through a process. So, I’m very creative background songwriter and musician. I’ve done through all my life, and so I always reach for creative tools at times of processing and figuring things out. So yeah, hopped into essentially writing a book for myself of just going through all of those items on the self-test and then finding stories from formative years and just through my life and growing up, and I guess reframing them through that lens. And that was really part of my process or processing that new knowledge about who I am in that light. And then coming, I guess, coming to terms with it and then embracing it in a really positive way. And then that sort of led to connecting with other people around it really. So yeah.

Kim: What was that like when you found out? What was the hesitation there, do you think? And what made you finally accept that about yourself, would you say?

Andy: Yeah, it’s a question I’ve asked myself quite a lot over the years. What was it that was resisting clicking on those articles? And I often say there’s a problem with the term highly sensitive because of the word sensitive, and I think that is definitely true for a lot of people, but I don’t think that was the obstacle for me. I think it was the word “highly,” actually. I think I struggled more with that sense of high stuff because it was extreme and high, high pitched and all of that high maintenance, all of these things that are actually probably more laden with baggage in my mind as negatives than the word sensitive. I don’t think I’d been called sensitive by teachers and things growing up, but I don’t think it was ever really a negative in a great way.

So, it had always been like, oh, you’re very sensitive to the needs of others, or you’re sensitive in that sort of light. So, in my mind it was like, no, that’s fine. It’s fine to be sensitive. But equally, there was probably elements because as a young child, I would cry all the time and then suddenly just stopped crying. I think I’d internalized a sense of that is really annoying. And it’s not particularly welcomed by say, parents, not that my parents have…

Kim: Anyone…

Andy: Yeah, exactly.

Kim: Can relate. Yeah…

Andy: That’s it. Yeah. So, I guess there’s those aspects of being a highly sensitive child that may have got switched off. Then the next time I cried, I think was when I was about 17, 18, something like that, watching the film, Shooting Dogs weirdly. And then it was like, oh, that felt good.

Kim: Where has that been?

Andy: Yeah, it was like, oh, that’s, I quite like to do that a bit more often.

Kim: I think that’s something with us too. It’s like the feelings. I enjoy the feelings. I don’t know. I don’t know. I like having that scope of emotion, I guess. And I’m sure that’s same with you, especially in the creative space, would you say?

Andy: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I think it’s one of the, because I remember watching, if you’ve come across the short film animation film, The Snowman, which it’s like a Christmas tradition here in the UK, it was Raymond Briggs. It’s kind of all, colored pencils. Yeah. So, it’s all animated colored pencil drawings. It’s really beautiful film, but it’s got an absolutely devastating end to it, which I remember watching for the first time, I was probably about five, and just I was inconsolable. And so, I think my parents were like, what have we done? We’ve totally traumatized him. And then the next year I was like, can I watch The Snowman again? And they were like, what have you forgotten? And it’s like, no, I know there was something about the feeling that I had watching it, and I’ve no idea what that is, but I think as you say, it’s almost the enjoying that spectrum of emotion.

And so, it happened again. And I think that was a really interesting learning curve, probably for my mom especially, where it would be like, yeah, but you remember what happened.

Kim: Yeah.

Andy: It might happen.

Kim: You like torture…

Andy: It might happen again. And then it’s like, I want it to happen again. And I’ve always been plugged in, I think too, to wanting to see things that move me and wanting to music-wise, experience that fullness of emotion and that not to be something to shy away from or think, oh no, you better not watch that because it will make you cry. It’s like, I want to watch that because it would make me cry.

Kim: And that makes so much sense that you took that into a creative space because if we’re sitting there and we’re watching these things and we’re having these strong emotional responses, but we’re like, wait, there’s something deeper here. What is that in me that it’s striking that I could so relate to what you were saying. I remember absolutely torturing myself with Bridge to Terabithia and all the awful, sorrowful stories, and it was just like, oh, that’s so bad, but it’s so good. Let me watch it again.

Andy: That’s so good.

Kim: Do you remember My Girl with Macaulay Culkin, and he ends up getting killed by bees and it’s awful.

Andy: I haven’t seen it. No.

Kim: It’s like a childhood friendship and her best friend, not just spoil the ending, but it’s been around a while. I think most people have seen it, but yeah, he dies and she’s like, it’s just awful. But yeah, we like to torture ourselves in that way, I guess.

Andy: Yeah, that’s really interesting. Yeah, Bridge to Terabithia definitely got, I remember I showed it to someone because I was like, that’s a really good film, and they weren’t prepared for it, and it was like, why have you shown me that? Because it’s amazing.

Kim: So, what led you to the creative space, and how do you navigate that? What do you do with that? I feel like, especially for professions creative, and maybe this is just my own bias toward it, but creative fields can be so hard to come by as a professional. Everyone always feels like that’s the not icing on the cake, but the side gig, right? The fact that you were able to just step into it as a professional, what led you there?

Andy: Yeah. Well, I mean, it’s kind of taken an integrative place within all of what I do now. So, I do coaching and run a membership site, and it infuses all of that now because it is so hard to make a living, especially the kind of…so, I’m a musician and the kind of music that I make and the way, and my philosophy around it has always been less about the fame and the fortune and more about the exploring ideas and finding interesting ways to create, basically. So that’s produced a need to make that work in a sustainable way.

Which at times has meant making money from the music, but at other times it’s finding the other things to support it. So, I spent six years working as an undertaker for a funeral home, which was an interesting move. That was a great experience, but also one that people are like you say you, how did you do that?

So yeah, it’s kind of, I guess portfolio career would be the phrase that is used for propping up all of those different projects and endeavors. But the creativity’s always been there for as long as I remember. I used to love drawing and stuff as a kid and then picked up the wooden spoons and was playing, I’m a drummer. That’s my sort of first love musically.

So yeah, did all that, the clichéd pots and pans in the kitchen on the floor, and then, yeah, just have been writing music ever since. And then I bring that into, I do a lot of ambient instrumental stuff now that I bring into the work that I do with the coaching. So, I’ll create kind of sound anchors for people, so I do some music and then lay down narrative, meditative things over the top that speak to some of issues or challenges that they’re working through or changes that they want to make and stuff like that. So yeah, found nice ways to bring it all together now.

Kim: That’s amazing. Yeah, especially I feel like, well, so many HSPs do have that creative edge. But yeah, like I said, I feel like we always try and do, I am in awe of you being able to explore that, and I think that’s just awesome because I feel like that is something that we lose touch with so easily today in the hustle culture.

Andy: Yeah, definitely.

Kim: So that’s amazing. And what kind of creativity do you like to explore? Is it mostly through music or are there kind of other avenues that you like to think about?

Andy: Yeah, I mean there’s all, so in the Haven community that I run, I introduced last, when was it? Summer of 2024, I introduced a community zine, so kind of like a magazine-style thing, but quite DIY indie approach to it. And there’s a PDF versions, a digital visual thing, but also there’s a video, audio version of it as well. So put together that, so read through it and compose bespoke music each month.

About every two months we release it. But that gives a really wide spectrum of creative media, essentially. So do a lot of collaging for that, and writing and doodles, drawings, quite low stakes to it as well. So, it doesn’t matter if it looks a bit rubbish, that’s part of it.

Kim: It’s the expression. Yeah.

Andy: Exactly. And what I love about that is it’s just opens the door for other people to, as you were saying, the creative parts of ourselves can get either pushed to the side or they get swamped by messages that we reinforce, the stories we tell ourselves about our creativity, things we might have internalized growing up, whatever. So, it provides a great, again, low-stakes door for people just to encounter their creative spirit and just prod and play with it and see it might be something really tiny that they might produce and contribute.

And to just see the confidence slowly grow in people. And it’s like this, I guess, a safe platform for people to be embedded into. And so, it’s like you don’t have to put your head above the parapet you are like, look at me. It’s like, no, you’re contributing to something bigger. And that’s been really cool and really meaningful.

Kim: That’s awesome. I love that sense that it can be playful. It can be, you don’t have to make it the best, you don’t have to be winning awards with your art, you can just be creative and let things kind of flow out without that pressure. That pressure probably makes it harder in a way, I would think.

Andy: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think it’s the sort of modeling creativity in everyday life and just finding practices that ooze out into other areas of life as well. I think of creativity…it’s not about creating a product or creating, having this outcome. It’s really the way that we orient ourselves in the world. It’s the way we see situations and engage with things and relationships and all of that stuff.

Creativity is at the heart of what it means to be human, but again, we can become automatons and very mechanical in the way that we approach things and see that conflation of creativity and productivity, that’s been, I dunno, over the past decade or two, those things have almost become synonymous with each other in certain fields.

And actually, I think there are big differences and the whole productivity, I guess, like you said, the hustle culture and that kind of thing, like productivity is about getting things done and having measurable outcomes and all of that sort of stuff. And actually it’s just, while that does happen with creative projects and stuff, obviously you have things that you create and you produce by the end at times.

Actually, it’s about that muscle, the process, the sense of creativity being something we do regardless of the outcome. It’s a way of being rather than a way of doing. And I think that’s, for me, the key difference between productivity and creativity. It’s that being versus doing part.

Kim: That’s such a great point because I feel like…I wanted to go into writing, and I took a lot of writing jobs that didn’t really let me be creative. It was like you said, there was a product that we had to get out. There were certain measurements we had to hit. And that just takes all the fun out of it, to be honest. It’s no longer fun and exciting. It feels like work. It’s not that sense of flow. It’s not that being that you were talking about. There’s a difference.

Andy: Yeah, yeah. A hundred percent.

Kim: Yeah. So, when you’re working with your clients, what is that process? How do people come to, and how are they able to let go of those pressures and just kind of explore creatively? I’m curious.

Andy: Yeah. I mean, there’s different layers of the work that I do with people. So, I do, what I’ve been describing so far is community stuff to a membership site where people get together and do it that way. And then there’s one-to-one coaching things that I do, which it’s really, I think the phrase I’d use is slowing down and just opening up to the possibilities. As much as that sounds like a weird non-thing to say, but I think so often it is the stuckness on the productivity that gets in the way.

So often there’s an urgency or a sense of, I need to get to outcomes. I need to change things at the level of doing. So a lot of the stuff that I will do just begins with that sense of the being and the playing with what brings you to life? What comes alive in you when you are engaging with, whether it’s art or music, films? What are the sorts of things that you really connect with?

And just noticing what you notice about what gives you that creative spark. And then really anchoring into that stuff before working out, okay, what’s the path for me forwards? Because I think, I don’t know, whether you notice similar things, but we get caught on or caught up in the goals that other people set for us or the goals we see are important to others that we think, oh, that must be what I need to do in order to be happy or in order to matter or find satisfaction or whatever it is.

And so, really, I talk about the creative spirit because it’s keying into that creative spirit that each of us has. And that’s different in all of us. It might look similar with people, but it’s a very unique thing.

Kim: That’s awesome. And it sounds like there’s so much variety that you can even play with as you’re talking. It’s not just the creativity, the medium. It’s not only what you want to accomplish, it’s the process. There’s just so much more in between from the creative idea and the end product. It’s that journey of discovery, it’s that journey of play. It’s figuring out what gives you that spark. You may not even know what gives you that spark, or you may stumble upon something new that you didn’t even imagine would come out of that.

Andy: Yeah, absolutely. Again, one of the things we can get caught on is the idea that phrases like finding your voice and identifying your purpose and those kinds of things that they can be liberating to some degree, but they can also be real prisons for people. And it’s one of the things I’ve noticed a lot of those that I work with the idea of I don’t have a purpose. I need to find my purpose.

And it’s this conception of the idea that there is this thing out there that is waiting for you to discover it. And once you find that, then that’ll be the answer to everything. And actually it’s sort of flipping the tables on that a little bit and realizing that a sense of purpose comes from anything. I use a lot of prompts, kind of just phrases that I love. So, our zines are based around phrases, now.

The current one we’re working on is around look on the bright side. And so it is phrases that have a pretty immediate connotation, or when you hear that phrase, you might bring something to your mind, probably immediately. Look on the bright side is that positive thinking, do I remember someone who said that to me and it annoyed me? Or is it something I’m trying to say more to myself because I’m getting myself bogged down in negative thoughts or whatever.

And then you just sort of circle back around to it and think of it from other perspective. What else could that mean from, it could be light and shadows, then I’m going to go for a walk and notice lights and shadows and sides. And it just opens up all sorts of possibilities for exploration. And then that sense of purpose coming back to that comes through really simple, really small connections to everyday things. And it’s like, oh, suddenly I’m thinking about that. I’m going to take photo in a purposeful way. It’s like, oh, there you found your purpose for this moment.

Kim: What a great, I love this concept because it is, and I do, I help people in their careers find their purpose. And I know exactly what you’re talking about because it can absolutely stop you in your tracks because you’re waiting for this aha moment to come down and kind of hit you and say, this is what you’re supposed to be doing with your life when you can find purpose in what you’re doing. And it could be different things, it could be at different times, it could change, it can evolve.

You’re kind of stopping yourself from having this tunnel vision of what you think it should be and allowing yourself to kind of expand and flow and grow along with that sense. And that opens up a whole other aspect. It doesn’t have to be so straight and narrow. It can be fluid, it can live.

Andy: Yeah. Yeah, totally. And I think it’s, again, a lot of the people that I come to work with and who get in touch with me have a sort of, it’s distinguishing between an experimental and a conceptual view of things. So, the conceptual view would be, and a good way to work out where someone sits on that is to see how they respond to the question of where do you see yourself in five years’ time? For some people, that’s a question they’re able to, that makes sense to them and that they’re able to engage with, even if they might not be able to tell you, where do I want to be in five years’ time? They work in that conceptual way so I can think of where I want to get to and then work backwards in terms of the steps or the goals that I would need to hit in order to get there.

And then there are experimental people who would hear that and just, there’s nothing liberating in the idea of thinking about five years’ time as something that they’re working towards. And actually, when you look at how life has generally been for them, it’s more of an iterative stepping forwards and finding, okay, this is the thing that is for now. And then each step that they take takes them in another place.

So, in five years’ time, they may well be living a very meaningful life, but their ability to conceptualize now where that would be is impossible. And if you sat here and now looking back to five years ago, would you have been able to conceptualize that this is where you would get to? And if you’re in a place that actually no things are okay, is that something you’d have been able to imagine? And for a lot of people it’s like, no, actually I made that decision because I discovered that, or I met that person, and then I was like, oh yeah, I’ll take that opportunity.

And then it’s all of these stepping stones that for some people that’s just a bit flaky. You don’t know what you want? It’s like, yeah, it’s just how people, and because there’s been studies into this, it comes from Galenson I think was the author of writing around late blooming and that kind of thing. And they’d studied Nobel Laureates of economics and seen that there were these more conceptual types who would make their biggest impact in the field in their twenties. And then there were the experimental types who made their biggest impact in their fifties.

And it was like this deductive approach versus inductive approach. And the experimentalists, they’re just connecting dots and accumulating experiences and accumulating knowledge and then mushing them together. So, it’s quite a creative approach to things as well.

Kim: Yeah, exactly.

Andy: And I think very relatable to highly sensitive people as well, that sort of noticing patterns, bringing things together that don’t necessarily make intuitive sense as like, well, that belongs with that. It does.

Kim: That makes me think that’s just how life seems to naturally flow in general. I think we have such a vision of where we want to be, and we can end up in such a completely different place. And it’s like each step, I almost had the sense when you have that vision and that’s what you’re working toward, if you’re really rigid in that, that can make it even harder. But if you allow the space to have creative solutions, because creativity isn’t just creating music isn’t creating art, it’s also creative ideas and how to manage life or take that next step kind of helps you meander a little bit, maybe going with the flow a little bit more, at least what you’re making me think.

Andy: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s the concertina approach, which is something, I dunno if you think of that in coaching, where there’s moments where you are expanding it out and it’s like, okay, let’s broaden out the horizons and the possibilities and the options and all of that sort of stuff. And then there comes a moment where you need to close that concertina a bit so that, okay, we’re focusing in on that.

And I think the creative process for me is very much like that, where you need those times of exploration and play and say, don’t edit while you’re writing. It’s like those are two different things. And then there comes the time where it’s like, okay, I need to focus in on one part of that, which, what am I going to choose to focus in on? And that’s not restrictive, that’s just sort of harnessing, it’s focusing. And I think, yeah, it’s similar with that approach to life. Yeah, the openness. Okay, what’s the world got for me today?

Kim: What’s the best-case scenario?

Andy: Right? Yeah, exactly. And then moving in for, because at the same time it’s, I think as human beings, we’re sort of wired for progress and for growth and all of that sort of stuff. So, it is how you manage that in a way that is healthy and not pinning everything on the goal, really. And I think that’s another part of it. It’s like, well, the goal is once I hit that again, there’s the happiness, there’s the…everything’s going to be perfect. And it’s like, how often do you hear the stories of people that hit the goal? And it was like, oh, now what? I thought that was going to change everything?

Kim: Neverending growth. That’s the reality of it. It doesn’t end, but that’s a good thing. We continue to expand and grow. But I love that sense of just letting it breathe, letting it happen naturally, and not being so controlling on that outcome because that can restrict you in ways creatively and in general. Yeah. Brilliant.

So, question for you. What do you struggle with when it comes to your sensitivity? What would you say is your challenge?

Andy: Probably being pulled in a million different directions and wanting to pursue everything and realizing that I’m a finite being. You can’t, yeah, I don’t know. I guess it is the caring…let me frame this in a way that doesn’t sound like an asshole.

Kim: You can be yourself.

Andy: Okay, I’ll be an asshole.

Kim: Someone will relate.

Andy: The caring about things that others are, just let that it’s fine. Just let it go. And getting caught on particular things that just, that niggles me, and I need to do something about it. And it is a double-edged sword that again, has been part of that experimental life where it’s like that there’s a Verlyn Klinkenborg who wrote a book about writing, use this phrase about noticing what you notice. Notice the thing that the sleeve of your attention gets caught on like a thorn.

And I love that image of life is you’re just wandering past something and then suddenly it’s like, oh, again, my sleeve is being snagged by something and that can then be this change of direction, which is like, I was not expecting that and now I’m moving in that way, which can be a great thing, but it can also be a, I need to get out of this rabbit hole. What am I doing? So yeah, that’s probably, I mean, that’s the first thing that comes to mind as a struggle, but there’s probably plenty of things.

Kim: Yeah. It’s like we’d love to think so deeply about things, but like you said, we’re finite. We can’t follow everything so deeply. But there are plenty of distractions.

Andy: Exactly. And I think I’ve come to a point probably the last year or so where I’ve become more fascinated by probably the structure of the way that we are distracted than the content of the distractions themselves. So, I’m at the moment working on a very slow project, looking at the history of self-help and just wondering how that became such a prolific genre and why it seems to self-generate itself. It’s like surely we should be sorted now. It’s been around a while and there’s so many books.

Kim: We’ve got it!

Andy: Yeah, exactly. There’s kind of a few hypotheses in my head. Is there just one self-help book that’s been written millions of times? And so that’s part of what I’m looking at is the similarities across books. So, starting with, the first one I did was the 1903 book called As a Man Thinketh and recognizing, Oh yeah, there’s very similar concepts here to books that are being released this year. And is that okay? Maybe that’s okay. And I don’t know. But yeah.

Kim: I hear you and you’re right when you get in those rabbit holes and you’re seeing the same kind of buzzwords and theories, but it also reminds me that it’s all kind of connected and that if it is being repeated so much, maybe there’s some truth there.

Andy: Yeah. And I think from the content versus form perspective, it kind of is that the fascination for me is at the level of engagement that we have with the book. So…

Kim: The obsessions over it?

Andy: Yeah. Are we seeking some impossible mirage? This place that always looks like it’s there on the horizon?

Or are we using the books with the full knowledge that, okay, this is not going to solve all of my problems, but it addresses a useful thing that is an issue for me at the moment in a more instrumental way, or an instruction manual to a certain degree, but, and just noticing, do you know what actually there is, and maybe there’s a two or three threads to that. And there are definitely the sorts of books and the sorts of authors that write things in order to keep you stuck in that loop in order to…

Kim: You’re not good enough. You’re not fixed.

Andy: Yeah, exactly.

Kim: You’re not perfect just yet, right? There’s a healthy way to go about that. If you’re in it for the growth, that’s one thing. But if you’re obsessing over the outcome and wanting to be this perfect person and wondering why you’re not meeting these standards, that’s something you should probably think about. I’ve been there.

Andy: Yeah, exactly. Me too. So yeah, I think that’s what sort of drove that.

Kim: Yeah. Got you started. Got it. It makes a lot of sense. What do you love about high sensitivity? What do you celebrate about the trait?

Andy: I mean, all the stuff we’ve been talking about. I think really, I do enjoy being able to go deep and explore and to flow very easily. And I think that’s the other side of when you notice having conversations with people who aren’t as highly sensitive.

Kim: Yeah, it’s a different experience.

Andy: And it can feel like, oh, I wish I was more like that. And just fitted in a bit more in certain situations where I just found it a bit easier. But then it’s like, I just really enjoy having these conversations.

Kim: I know exactly. You’re making me think of a meme where it’s like, don’t be weird. And then you enter the party and you’re like, so…quantum physics.

Andy: And when you find the people that will have that who are like, oh, great, yeah.

Kim: Yeah, let’s do this for hours. I mean, that’s a great experience. It’s the ones that are like, huh? That you’re just like, oh, I’m just kidding.

Andy: Yeah, exactly. So yeah, that’s definitely something that I celebrate. And also, I guess connecting with people and the empathy side of it. And like I said earlier, what the teachers would say in terms of sensitive to the needs of others, you recognize things. And actually being able to do that naturally without, I remember when I was training as a coach, it was because you’ve got the soft skills and the hard skills and the hard skills like we trained on the grow model, so doing 30-minute assessed sessions where you would take someone through the grow model, so establish a goal, where do they want to get to? And then the reality and then the options, and then settling on a way forward at the end. So very structured coaching session in very short period of time. 30 minutes was just nuts. I found it really difficult, really difficult to do that. And the feedback that I got a lot at the beginning was the soft skills are off the chain, off the charts, and they’re the things that people normally really struggle with. So, people…

Kim: Naturally…yeah.

Andy: There’s a lot of corporate situations that people were coming from trying to learn coaching in order to be more, I guess pastoral or whatever it was that their role was requiring from them. And they were very good at the hard bits of, so what’s your goal? Right, okay. And what’s that at the moment? And what could get in the way of you being, and it was that very directive side of things.  

Kim: I can’t imagine trying to be taught how to care or be empathetic. What is that? I am with you there. It’s like, I’m glad I just have that naturally. I’d rather learn how to be maybe a little bit more stoic and have those feelings than not.

Andy: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So I think I said another big part. Yeah. How did you learn to do that? I didn’t. Yeah. Or normally it’s learn to do what?

Kim: Yeah. You don’t even notice.

Andy: Oblivious to those things that just come naturally.

Kim: So, what advice would you have for highly sensitive people who may be struggling with their trait or finding happiness?

Andy: Yeah, I mean, it would depend on what it is that they’re struggling with, but I would certainly say connect with others. Don’t feel like you’ve got to do it on your own. I think that’s a huge part of it is just listening out for people that resonate and like, oh, it’s a part of what I do is run a podcast called The Gentle Rebel. And this idea of gentle rebellion is a key concept in my, I guess, conceptualizing of it all in the way that I think about high sensitivity, which is you do see things differently and you do engage with the world naturally in a way that society often doesn’t. And the way that we’ve structured things right now in the systems and stuff just don’t necessarily align with a highly sensitive nervous system or the stuff that lots of highly sensitive people we engage with and care about.

And so, there’s a natural rebellion there and often see that fire in the belly of highly sensitive people where there’s like a stubbornness, I’m not going to do that. But there’s also this gentleness to that, and there’s usually not a sense of, I’m going to make a big song and dance about the fact that I’m doing things differently. It’s like I have to do things differently and I will rock the boat probably, but I don’t really enjoy rocking the boat that much. So, then it’s finding people who are also like that that give you that support.

Kim: I love that so much because that’s more of our way. Yes, we want to change. Yes, we want to rebel, but we are gentle beings. And that the harshness and the very, in your face, that’s not always us. So I love that concept very much. It’s a gentle process. We can make a lot of change without, like you said, rocking the boat too much, but also putting pressure on in the right ways, in the ways that make sense to us.

Andy: And getting that boat rocked without, I think, and again, it probably links with those soft skills, the empathy and the social considerations where it’s like, actually, I think there’s a lot of potential in highly sensitive people to change things in massive ways, but in a radically different way from that fight outlaw.

Kim: Yeah. No, the empathetic way. How can we do this with a caring unity rather than all this division?

Andy: Yeah.

Kim: So how can people follow along on your journey? You have your podcast, the Gentle Rebel…

Andy: Got the Gentle Rebel. Yeah. The Haven is my main site, so it’s where my membership site is, but there’s a whole load of free blog loads of stuff on there as well. So that’s the-haven.co. Yeah. And links to everything.

Kim: Are you on social media?

Andy: I am kind. Well, I am, yes, but I don’t feel at home anywhere really. Anyway, I used to be a big Twitter user and yeah, fell away.

Kim: It’s gone down the tubes.

Andy: It’s very much gone down the tubes. So yeah, I’m on Instagram threads, Blue Sky, LinkedIn.

Kim: Everywhere!

Andy: Everywhere to a degree. I sort of check in, not as I say, I don’t feel at home anywhere to the point where I’m constantly posting. But, I do check in and connect with you.

Kim: People can contact you and…

Andy: See they can, yes. Okay.

Kim: Thank you so much for joining me, Andy. It was such a pleasure.

Andy: Thank you so much for having me. It’s always an absolute joy to talk about this sort of stuff. So yeah, I really appreciate the invitation, Kimberly. Thank you.

Thanks so much for listening in on my conversation with Andy. I hope it reminded you that exploring your creativity and what gives you purpose in life doesn’t always have to achieve a specific outcome. It can also allow you to discover more of how you relate to yourself and the world around you.

So let this be your invitation to slow down, feel deeply, and honor your own creative way of being.

Until next time. Take care!

About Andy Mort:

Andy Mort is a UK-based songwriter, artist, and creativity coach. He hosts The Gentle Rebel Podcast, where he explores the intersection of sensitivity, creativity, and culture in the modern world. He also runs The-Haven.co, an online membership community and resource hub for highly sensitive people and other Gentle Rebels to befriend their sensitivity and build a life in a sustainable, meaningful way through connection with their natural creativity and rhythms.

Andy believes everyone is creative, and that creativity helps us understand ourselves and express our emotional responses to the world’s chaos. He loves building spaces and routines that invite accidental creativity, humour, and lightness to emerge, especially for those who might not see themselves as creative.

Follow along on Andy’s journey:

Website:  https://www.andymort.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apmort/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gentlerebelhaven/

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About Kimberly:

Kimberly Marshall is an ICF-certified Intuition and Alignment 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