How Highly Sensitive People Can Transform Their Lives Through Energy with Linda Binns

A conversation with Energy Coach Linda Binns on self-awareness, energy mastery, and reclaiming your power as an HSP.

Welcome back to The Happy HSP Podcast. I’m your host Kimberly Marshall, and today I’m joined by Linda Binns. She’s an energy coach who has spent decades helping highly sensitive people understand themselves through the energetic shifts that we sense and create within and around us.

Linda not only shares how we can transform our lives by understanding and mastering our energy, but also why a deeper sense of self-awareness is the key to lasting transformation.

I hope you enjoy it!

Kim: Okay. Linda, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me today. It’s great to see you.

Linda: Thank you. It’s my pleasure to be here.

Kim: Yeah. So, my first question for you is how did you find out about the highly sensitive trait and what made you identify with that and what did that look like?

Linda: A friend of mine told me about the book. She’d just read it, The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine Aron, and I didn’t pay attention when she told me. I just thought, oh, that’s nice. And she was telling me how much she got out of the book because the word “sensitive” didn’t register with me at all. So, then I heard about it again from somebody else and then again from somebody else. And because I’d heard about it three times, I thought, well, I should probably read this book. But even then, I was thinking, well, there might be something in here that’s helpful for my clients, something that I can use to help other people. And so, I started reading the book and talk about epiphany. It was like for the first time my life made sense. I made sense. It was a huge relief to know, oh my gosh, this isn’t unique to me.

There’s not something wrong with me. This is an actual…it can be explained. And so, it was a real turning point for me. And like I said, the word sensitive didn’t even register for me. I didn’t think that applied to me. But oh boy, once I read that book, everything made sense.

Kim: It’s so funny you mentioned that. I feel like so many of us can relate to that. It’s like when we first hear it, we’re like, yeah, that’s great, but we don’t associate it with ourselves. What made you realize that it was a part of who you were and what was that like?

Linda: Well, the idea that other people can’t understand you because they have no frame of reference for it because I’d always felt, well, I was told in my family there was something wrong with me. Why can’t I just be like everybody else? Constantly told I was too sensitive. I took things too personally. I was too serious. I was too this. I was too that. It seemed like everything about me was wrong.

And then you read in this book and you, as Dr. Aron explains the differences and how we process things differently and how we notice things, there’s always noticed things that other people didn’t. I was more sensitive to smells and crowds and noises and all those things. And people just told me, “Just get over it.” It was my problem. It was not something that was normal. And so, reading that book just made me realize, yeah, actually it’s kind of normal.

It’s not that there’s something wrong with me. So, it was just very freeing. It’s just a real liberating feeling. And that was the start of my journey to really understand that more. And I also realized the more I thought about it that the majority of the people I’d worked with over the years just naturally were highly sensitive just because I suppose I resonated with them, I understood them. And so that just happened naturally without us being aware of it.

Kim: Right. So, it gave you a deeper understanding, not only of yourself, but of the other people that were coming to you in your work and professional life.

Linda: Yes. And it really made me want to know more, to learn more about it. And so, I started studying more. I started looking at some of the research and all of those kinds of things and talking about it more. And it’s almost like it gave me permission as well to…because the recognition that if somebody’s not highly sensitive and it applies to a certain percentage of the population, those people have no frame of reference for what you are experiencing. And so, what I found was, whereas before I’d be embarrassed about something or not want to say something, an example would be I used to go to conferences and things like that where there’d be lots of people. And anytime I went somewhere like that, I would end up with a really, really bad headache. And it felt like an energetic assault. It’s like all this energy coming at me.

I just thought that was weird, something unique to me. So, what I learned after understanding what it means to be highly sensitive is all I do now is I just say to people, I’m feeling just a little bit overwhelmed with all the energy here at the moment. I’m just going to step out for 5, 10 minutes, and then I’ll be right back. And everybody says, “Oh yeah, that’s great.” People understand. Whereas before, I would either have tried to just not say anything and stay there and felt worse and worse, or I would’ve felt really embarrassed about the need to step out and not felt I could say anything.

Or another thing is that I tend to, like many other highly sensitive people with health issues, honestly, just about every health practitioner I’ve ever been to at some point ends up saying to me, “Well, that’s really weird. I’ve never seen that before, but I’ve never seen people respond in that way before.” So I will tell people that ahead of time. So, if I go to a new practitioner, I’ll say, “Oh, typically this is what we find.” So, it also freed me up really to let people know rather than being embarrassed about something. If I’m going to a movie with someone, especially if it’s got animals in, I’ll say it’s very likely that I’ll cry during this movie before I would’ve hidden that away and tried to.

No, I just say it. This is who I am. And I’ve found that people really appreciate it when you let them know what’s going on. It’s when you try to hide things or stifle things that I think that really gets you into trouble or causes difficulties and people don’t really know what to do with that. But once you explain it and just say, “This is how I’m feeling. This is what I need to do,” I think it’s really helpful.

Kim: Yeah. Just matter of fact, this is probably what’s going to happen, and these are my needs. Don’t mind if I step out or…Yeah.

Linda: Yeah. You don’t have to be embarrassed about it. You don’t have to feel bad about it. This is what it is, and this is what I need and this is what I’m going to do.

Kim: Yeah. It’s so funny you mentioned that. Just recently, I went to Dublin with my daughter and I’m still learning about my own limitations and in terms of the energy you were mentioning and being able to only hold so much. And I should not have signed up for the 12-hour tour, but I did. There was a six-hour one, but I’m like, oh, 12 hours, I can do this. And we were on a bus all day and the noise, and the kid kicking the back of my seat. And then at the end of the tour, instead of a nice dinner by the seashore, which is what I thought I was signing up for, they took us to a city to kind of go shopping and the bustle. And I did, I had a little bit of a meltdown in the restaurant.

And my poor daughter, and I had to explain, this has nothing to do with you. You didn’t do anything wrong. I need a minute and there’s nowhere for me to go right now. So yeah, I wish I would’ve known that, but now I do, but in advance without the shame, without the…

Linda: Well, and also as an introvert, I tend to process things. So, if something happens that causes an uncomfortable reaction, maybe makes me upset or sad or something like that, what I tend to do is kind of withdraw, process it myself, and then I’m fine. And I really had to teach my husband that because he would think there was something wrong with me and therefore it must be his fault because I went quiet. So now I just let him know it has nothing to do with you. I just need some space to really process something and then I’ll be fine. And that works. So yeah, I think it’s so important to know to learn what your sensitivities are, how they impact you, and then what do you need? Because there will be times inevitably when you’re overstimulated where it is just too much, what are the things you can do that are really effective for you to help you calm your nervous system down and reset again?

Kim: Right. Yeah, because in the moment, my brain was complete mush, and I couldn’t take anything else in more. And I almost had to put in my earplugs and close my eyes and just go internal for a while when really I needed to do is just go back to the hotel and take a nap.

Linda: Well, we think and we can do these things and it doesn’t sound like a big deal. And you want to do these things, and you want to be like everybody else. And you think, well, everybody else can handle it. I should be able to. But the truth is something like that is really a lot. It really has a big impact on your nervous system.

So, with awareness, then if you’re in that situation again, you might decide, okay, well, I’m going to do this because I really want to do it, but I know that before I go, I’m going to have to really take care of myself to calm my energy down. So, I’m in a really good place when I go on this tour. And then afterwards, I need to ensure that I schedule time just to really decompress and let it all go. It’s all a learning process and we learn as we go along because you can’t say, “Oh, every HSP is the same and you’ll just all do these things,” because what affects me may not affect you and what affects you might not affect me.

So, we have to learn what that means for us as individuals.

Kim: Absolutely. So, once you found out about this trait and you went on this learning and discovery and you were saying you’re making different connections, how did that unfold for you? What were you discovering and what were you learning about yourself and the people that you were working with?

Linda: Well, first of all, learning that it’s not something that needs to be fixed because that was a big thing. And especially with the work that I do energy work and learning that you can change your situation by changing your energy and bring more positive things into your life, I saw it initially as something that had to be fixed. And I think many HSPs feel that. I hear from many who say, can I just make this go away? How can I switch this?

Kim: How can I be less sensitive?

Linda: Yes, you can’t. You learn how to deal with it. So, just having that new understanding that this is what it is, it also helped me to be able to talk about it with people. So very often, like I said, I found I naturally was working with highly sensitive people anyway. So, once I discovered what that meant and I would start to share that with people and then they would have the same realization, “Oh my gosh, that’s why this and this and this.”

And so that was liberating for them as well. But it also helped me, well, I would say in all my relationships, it helped me with my family relationships because I let go of having any expectations of them because they don’t understand me. They have no frame of reference for what I experience. I can, again, share with them when I can, this is what I’m feeling or this is what I need, or something like that to help them.

But also, it just really helped me to let go of expecting that they should treat me any differently, that they should understand me, that all of that, just let it all go. And that was very freeing for me as well.

Kim: Right, especially with family. That’s so tough. I feel like those dynamics never leave us.

Linda: It’s true.

Kim: No matter how much growing up I do, I go back to Thanksgiving dinner, and I feel like the kid sister that gets beat up on.

Linda: Well, yeah, Eckart Tolle, I think it was who said, “If you think you’re enlightened, go and spend a week with your parents."

Kim: Yeah, go back to your family dynamics and see what…

Linda: Go back to the family dynamics, yes. And that’ll soon bring you down back to earth. But it has helped me to be able to interact with them in a much more positive way and not feel hurt. And that’s another thing, not feel hurt, not feel triggered by anything that’s said or done when I visit family.

Kim: Right. So, tell me about this energy work that you do. I’m really interested to learn more about this. How do you say it? Feng Shui? Is that how you say it?

Linda: Yeah, that’s one of the things. So, when I…Oh gosh, I’ve been doing this for over 26 years now, so a long time, but I started off as…I just started as an interest in holistic health, holistic nutrition specifically. I started learning about that, and then I decided, wow, this is really good. I want to study it. So, I took a bachelor’s degree in holistic nutrition. I thought at the time, this is such great information because it’s all about the energy of your body and what you’re putting into your body and how all the different, not just the foods and exercise, but your lifestyle and how that impacts you. And just understanding all that. And everything I learned, I just really loved it so much. And I thought, I need to share this with people. So, I wanted to start a business doing that.

And then around that time, I started to hear about Feng Shui and started looking into that. And again, it just seemed to go so well with the holistic health kind of thing because it was energy of the environment and how that plays a major role in what happens to us, how we feel and our life situations. And so, I decided I studied to become a feng shui practitioner, took my certification, and then I started my business as a holistic health practitioner and feng shui consultant.

So, I did both of those things. And so, I was in actually living in St. Louis in Missouri at the time, originally from England, and we had moved there. And so, for nine years, I ran my business from there and did pretty well in the local community, especially considering I didn’t know what I was doing if I had any business education at all.

So, I did quite well. And one of the things I found that was a little frustrating to me was because I would always, as HSPs, what do we do? We go deep with people. We don’t do superficial. And so now I know that’s because of that trait, but I would always want to go deeper with people. It’s not just about give me a supplement to help me get up in the morning or whatever it is, but okay, let’s look at what’s going on with your life and what’s created this that you’re experiencing now. And it was the same with Feng Shui, but people do want a quick fix, and I understand that, but that was a slight frustration to me. My husband got a new job. We moved from Missouri to Idaho, and I had to start over, had to start again, which was hard because I didn’t know anybody.

And it really caused me to do a lot of self-reflection. And I worked with a business coach to look at how do I start over? And with the business coach, I really identified that what I do is work with energy. It’s not about the feng shui so much. It’s not about the nutrition or whatever it is. I work with energy. I’d done a lot of other energy modalities, things like Reiki, I trained in that and all of those things. But so, we narrowed it down and said, okay, the focus is energy and that’s what really excites me. It’s the idea that no matter what your situation is, if you look at it in terms of energy and you start to change your energy, then you change what’s happening around you. And I also decided since we had moved and it was likely that we might move again, it’d be a really good idea if I did my business online, if I could do my business from anywhere.

And so, I really then started studying a lot more than I ever wanted to about online.

Kim: Yes.

Linda: I was doing online courses before there were platforms for that. And I remember I used to record things and then had to burn them onto CDs and then mail the CDs out to people.

Kim: Wow, CD-ROMS.

Linda: Yes.

Kim: I remember.

Linda: Oh gosh. So anyway, so that’s what I started to do to develop my business in terms of being a focus on energy. And then after six years there, we did move again to Oregon, which is where we are now. And that has just continued to deepen. As I’ve learned more and realized that the key, I think there are really three keys to transformation, especially as an HSP because you feel very often there’s something wrong with you, you’re not good enough, whether you are aware you’re HSP or not.

And there are really three keys that I see. One is self-awareness. The biggest one is self-awareness, and that never stops. I mean, we constantly need to be learning and understanding ourselves. The more we learn and understand ourselves, the deeper the self-awareness, that’s when we start to release the things that we’ve been holding onto like the belief you’re not good enough, like imposter syndrome, like the idea that being sensitive is a bad thing.

We start to release all of those things. And as a result of that self-awareness and that release, we naturally come into alignment then with who we really are and what’s really important to us. So those are the three things I focus on, helping people do that and get to that place where they know that there’s nothing wrong with them. Not only do they know there’s nothing wrong with them, they really start to learn how to use those powerful, excuse me, how to use those powerful gifts that they have in the most positive way and most fulfilling way for them.

So that’s how it’s evolved over the years. And again, I feel I struggled for a long time with knowing how to talk about what I do. Even some of my clients, I would say to them, “What do I do? Tell me what I did for you.” And they would go, “I don’t know, you just make me feel better. Just everything improves.” So, it was really hard to articulate it. And I feel that I’m in a place now where I am comfortable, really comfortable with who I am, with what I do, talking about it and with sharing it with other people. And it’s been a process, a definite process, and I think it’s ongoing. I think it’s always ongoing, the more we learn about ourselves.

Kim: Yeah, and it’s fascinating. So, when you say you work with energy, but you help people understand themselves, how does that look like in a practical way? You were mentioning it’s kind of a shedding of the denser energy. How does that work? How does internal work help us get more energy or improve our energy?

Linda: It’s an understanding that it’s learning to interpret the energy and what’s happening around you and your circumstances. So when something happens and you feel stressed about it and it feels like it’s something that’s happened to you and you’re very frustrated, you feel people have let you down or you feel rejected or whatever it is, when you look at it in terms of energy, instead of saying, why did that person do that or why has this happened to me or making it about the other person or the situation, you turn it around and you say, “What do I need to learn from this?” And so that’s an immediate energy shift right there. And so, once you start to look at things in that way, you start to naturally change how you show up energetically because you are taking full responsibility for yourself and you know that whatever happens, whatever comes to you in your life, you can handle it because you look at it, things happen for a reason.

It’s like life lessons. And when something happens that you don’t want and you don’t like, instead of resisting it or wondering why you take responsibility, say, okay, what does this mean about me? What is it I need to learn about this so that I can move on? Because you do move on. As soon as you learn what it is you need to learn from this situation or this person, you just move on. I spent a weekend once with a client. She’s not from here, so it was over the phone, but she was having a real emotional crisis. It was like all the trauma of many, many years was coming up. And so, I sat with her, I was on the phone with her as this happened and just assuring her that it was all part of the process. And I said to her, I remember saying to her, “Once you let go of this, you will reach a point where you can’t even remember going through this. As bad as it feels to you right now, you won’t even remember it.”

And of course you can’t think of that in the moment. But so, we spent a couple of days and it was all this release, release, release. And then now when I talked to her about it, she really can’t remember how bad it was and what she was feeling at that time because she’d got what she needed to get from what she was going through. So, I think it’s a way of taking responsibility, and especially as HSPs, because we are so…what’s the word? We pick up on energy so much. We are so affected by energy, the energy of other people, the energy of you just look at a natural disaster on the TV, for example, something, a world event. And the thing is, you don’t just think, oh, that’s terrible.

What a terrible thing. We can feel it physically in our bodies. And so, it’s so important as HSPs for us to have that and develop that understanding of our energy, what it feels like, and what we can do to reset or what we need to do to reset, because it impacts everything. It impacts absolutely everything. So, I don’t know if I’ve made that clear. I feel like I was wandering, but it’s essentially just, I call it energy mastery. It’s understanding your energy, how other energy affects you and what you can do with it, what it’s here to teach you.

Kim: Gosh, that’s fascinating. As I was listening to you speak, I think I made a connection that I don’t think I’ve had before. And correct me if I’m wrong or maybe I’m misinterpreting, but it almost sounds like the internal work, you’re helping people do mindset shifts, but if someone comes to you with a negative energy, you can transform that into a positive energy within yourself. The mindset shift and our thoughts are all energy. That’s what I’m picking up on. You can think of it as, yeah, you said something off, but that’s also just energy.

Linda: Yes, everything is energy, and that’s beautifully said. And very often somebody will come on a call with me and their energy is just, even just on a Zoom or on a phone, you can feel that their energy is heavy, they’re very weighed down by it. And then just during the process of the call, you can start to feel that energy shift so that by the end of it, they’ve let go of a lot. They’re much lighter. They feel much better. And the beauty of it, what I love most is that they are doing it. I’m facilitating it, but they are doing it. Now, through my process of learning about myself as an HSP and all of that, there were many times when I went to energy healers, and I believe in energy work, I love energy work, but very often I would go expecting them to fix me.

I’ve got this issue going on and I wanted it to be gone.

Kim: And each fixed my energy…

Linda: Yeah. And energy work is great for helping you do that. But when you do it yourself, when you learn how to, in any moment when something happens and you recognize, oh, my energy’s really off now, something happened, and you look inwards and you’re able to shift that for yourself. Had one of my clients said to me, I was traveling actually to England on this particular day, and she told me afterwards, she said she had this crisis and her immediate thought was, “I need to call Linda. I need to call Linda.”

And she said, “Then I realized that you were on a plane, and I couldn’t call you.” And she said, then I said to myself, “What would Linda tell me?” And then she resolved the whole thing herself. She walked herself through it, she cleared it within herself, and that was so empowering for her.

So, to me, that’s what it’s about. It’s helping people to be able to do that. So, it’s not that they’re coming to me, and I say, “Okay, let me do this for you. It’s let me show you or help you uncover how you do this for yourself.” And that’s the empowering piece.

Kim: Yeah. I really love this conversation because I feel like so much of the internal work people do, it’s more cognitive, more like thinking through our thought process. But if you can equate it to energy, it almost feels like, I mean, it’s probably not simple, but simplified in a way, or maybe just a different way of thinking about it, I guess.

Linda: Yeah. I think when you look at things through the lens of energy, you realize, because we often think we’re powerless to change something, but when you look at it through the lens of energy, you realize you’re not powerless at all. If you work with the energy and energy can be changed, it can be transformed. If you work with that within yourself, within your environment, your environment can absolutely support you in that, that’s when the external situations start to shift, but it starts with the inner shift first. And that’s the thing that blows people away is that where they felt powerless and unable to control a situation, no matter how they tried, when they turn it around and start looking at, okay, energetically, how did I create this and why did I create it? What is it telling me? What do I need to learn? And so, they change their energy.

They’re changing the energy of the situation as well, and so it will transform. It can’t not transform. So, it is giving us our power back. It is very empowering to know that it’s all energy, and when you change energy, things around you will change.

Kim: Do you have an example of that? Where maybe you or a client has had a difficult thing outside of themselves, but when they changed their energy internally, how that had affected their outside?

Linda: Yeah, let me think of a good one. Okay, so this is a good one because it encompasses both in a mindset work, but also environment. So, there’s a woman that came to me because she’d been working at the same company for a long time and she wanted a promotion, but she was always overlooked for promotion. And this was pre my knowledge of HSP. I know now she’s an HSP. So, she was constantly overlooked for promotion, but what they would do is they would bring new people in, ask her to train them. She would train them, and then they would get promoted and she never did. And so that’s why she came to me. “I just want a promotion. I want more money. I think I deserve it.” I agreed. Yes, you do. So, what we looked at though is a couple of things. First of all, it wasn’t really that she just wanted a promotion.

What she wanted, if you look at the energy of it, it was the experience you want. She wanted to be appreciated and valued for the work that she did. So that’s what was underneath it all. And then we looked at her and so we had to work with her mindset about what she felt she deserved and what she was worth and her value and worth and all of that. But then we also looked at her home because she had inherited her house from her parents, and she did not have a happy childhood at all. So, she’s still living in this house. So, everything about the house-

Kim: Reminded her. Yeah.

Linda: It’s a very heavy energy to it. It sort of weighed her down. It reminded her of everything her parents had said about how she wasn’t good enough. So, I suggested making some changes in the home as well as starting to think about changing the mindset around the beliefs of, “I don’t deserve any better than this. I’m not worthy, all of that.” So she worked with her home as well. And initially she called me, and she said, “Oh, this isn’t working.” And I said, “Okay, why is it not working?” She said, “Well, they just told me that they’re restructuring. They’re going to let me go and I won’t have a job.” And I said, “Okay, actually this is working, and I know it’s hard because you’ve just been told you’re not going to have a job now.” I said, “But if you can continue with what we’ve been doing,” I said, “When you start to change energy, what isn’t right for you has to go away and it has to go away so that what is right for you will come in.”

So she calmed down and she continued to do what I suggested. She called me again in about a week or so and she had been contacted by ... This was a company she had worked with in her previous role, and so they knew her, they knew her work, they thought very highly of her. So they offered her a job, just immediately offered her a job. But the best thing to me was not only was it going to be more money, so she got her promotion, if you like, because it was a higher level, but it was in a different state. So, she got to sell the house that she didn’t love anyway, and she got to move somewhere else and buy her own place that really represented her. I mean, that to me is the beauty of working with energy because things can open up in ways you never thought of.

Kim: Wow, that is such a beautiful example. It’s like you don’t realize sometimes when you’re striking out on that journey, when things are falling away and it feels like the chaotic part, that’s because you are aligning with who you are and what you are doing isn’t aligned. So yes, it has to fall away, even to the point of needing to sell the house.

Linda: Yes. Yeah. That was such a beautiful thing because she shouldn’t have been in that house. It didn’t represent her. So I loved that she got to move.

Kim: She made the internal shift with you and your coaching and ended up shifting her entire environment.

Linda: Yeah, and that’s how it works. And I could give you another example because can you take this too far? Yes. So, when I make recommendations to people, very specific recommendations because I want them, it’s got to be slowly at their pace at the pace that’s right for them. So, I had a client quite a few years ago who’s, she’s a real sort of type-A personality, so she thinks if a little is good, then more is better. So, I’d made my recommendations and again, it was a work situation, and it was a difficult work situation. Made some recommendations in her house and she just went crazy in her house. She did far more than I had suggested. And then she called me in a panic because things had just blown up at work and it had gone really crazy. And I said, “What did you do?”

And she told me all the things she’d done in her house. I said, “Well, you’ve created this. So, you’ve created this chaos because it’s almost like you move too much energy, so now it feels like more than you can handle.” And I helped her be able to handle it, but that’s why I would like to take people at the pace that’s right for them because it can get too much sometimes because you move energy, things will change. So how immediately do you want them to change and how big of a change do you want?

Kim: Incredible. So I see the chakras behind you. Can you explain what that is and how the energy in our body works?

Linda: Well, we all have these energy centers and each chakra, they’re called chakras, it’s associated with a different color. And basically, it’s like energy centers where energy comes into the body, circulates, goes out of the body. Those chakras can become blocked and often do when we have trauma or when we’re holding on to things that have happened in the past. This is a very simplified explanation. But basically when we are struggling, those chakras in some way are blocked. And each one represents different parts of the body, different aspect of life. But I mean, essentially when you’re working with energy, you are clearing these chakras. Now you could go to someone and say, do a chakra clearing or you could do a meditation for chakra clearing. There are those online, and that’s all helpful. But what I know is that when you are working energetically in the way I’ve explained, you are naturally clearing out these chakras.

You can have something else to help you with that process as well, but you could just do a body scan really and become aware of where there is energy stuck within you. And when you become aware of that, you can then make the decision that you are ready to release it and you can release it. So, it’s all about energy flow, energy movement. We want energy to move and flow throughout the body, energy to move and flow throughout our environment, energy to move and flow in our life. And anything that’s getting in the way of that, once we’re aware of it, we can clear it. Essentially, that’s it. I mean, for me, it’s maybe a little bit of a different take than just someone who’s doing chakra clearing or working specifically with the chakras, but I see the energy centers clearing through energy mastery, as I like to call it.

Kim: You’re saying you can see it?

Linda: Oh, I can’t see it. No, some people can. No, I just meant that to me, this is what it means, so that when you master your own energy, you are naturally cleaning.

Kim: You’re doing that. So the energy is coming in and flowing out and not coming in and sticking there.

Linda: Well, sometimes it does stick there. I mean, if you’ve been in a traumatic situation, had a traumatic experience, we hold onto the energy of that.

And unless you really work through it, it will stay stuck within your body. So an example could be anger. Very often people have, because anger is bad, we don’t want to be angry, we don’t want to be an angry person, but if something’s happened in your life that’s made you feel angry, we can stuff that somewhere. I mean, they often say the liver holds onto anger, so we hold onto it. So you might be surprised then when something later on in life, something happens and then you get really angry about it and you think, where did that come from? Well, it’s simply that that anger that was already inside you is now coming out. So, the more aware you are that, okay, and it’s not that I am angry, it’s that there is anger in me, there is anger in me, and I can release that anger, if that makes any sense.

But it’s that yes, things can happen, and energy can come in like that, that we hold onto that doesn’t serve us.

Kim: So, allowing ourselves to be angry, allowing ourselves to feel these things and allowing that energy to escape and not get so caught up and suppressed, I guess, right? Suppressed?

Linda: It is suppressed. And I would say the only way to get past something beyond something is to go through it.

And the more you resist that, or if you try to push it down, that’s when it causes problems. But if something happens, and instead of saying, “Oh, I’m angry about it, but I’m not going to let anybody know, I’m just going to stuff it down inside me,” it doesn’t go anywhere. It stays there and it will continue to affect you. But if instead you said, “Okay, this has happened and now I’ve noticed that I’m feeling angry. Where is this coming from? What is it telling me? Is there something that I need to know so that I can move on?” If you take that approach, you’ll move through that much, much faster. It won’t stay around. You won’t keep it in your body.

Kim: Yeah. And even I was reading finding connections between stuck energy in our body and health issues.

Linda: Oh yeah, yeah.

Kim: It’s kind of fascinating. I actually did my first reiki session last week with my massage therapist. She also does energy work and she’s like, “Oh, your throat chakra’s super closed.” And I was like, “That’s weird. I have thyroid issues. I have trouble using my voice. I do. I have trouble. I’ve always grown up trying to be kind and empathetic, and I have a hard time speaking my truth, but it’s something I’m aware of and I’m trying to work through it. But I just find that interesting that they’re starting to find that scientifically and health-wise that…

Linda: Oh, most definitely. Yeah. And as a child, I often have trouble with my voice, and you can hear it now that I’m croaky today. Sometimes this will come up, especially when I’m talking about things like this because as a child, I didn’t have a voice. Anything I said was dismissed or ignored, so I really felt I had nothing of value to say. And yes, I’ve worked on that, and I continue to work on it and it’s so much better than it was, but from time to time, it will still come up and it’ll just manifest in this way of affecting my voice. I mean, I don’t have a cold, I don’t have throat problems, nothing like that. It’s just my voice will go croaky sometimes. So after this, I will probably go and do a little bit more sort of less energy work on myself to see if I can release another layer of that.

Kim: It’s just fascinating. So what is your struggle with high sensitivity? What is something that you find challenging?

Linda: I think the biggest thing for me, it’s been the case for a long time with health issues. I already mentioned that any health issues I’ve had, and I haven’t had big health issues, but nothing like I’d need to be hospitalized for or anything like that. But one of the worst is insomnia. I’ve had issues with sleep or not sleeping on and off for many, many years. And each time I go to someone, and I think what they suggest has helped and I think, “Oh, this is it. This is it.” I finally figured it out and I might be all right for a while and then it’ll come back again.

That’s been extremely challenging, but I also know that it’s pointed me, it’s made me look in so many directions that I wouldn’t have looked at before. And so, I’ve uncovered a lot of things that ... So sometimes I’ve been on the hormone, my voice is going again, doesn’t like me talking about this. Excuse me. I’m so sorry. So, I’ve had hormone issues, so I’ve worked with that. There’s certain dietary things. For example, I don’t digest protein very well. If I eat protein in the evening for my evening meal, I won’t fall asleep. I just discovered that kind of by accident. So, there’s those kinds of things. Right now, there’s a histamine issue, and so we’re looking at that and dealing with that. It’s never been a typical insomnia issue because I’ve been to sleep specialists, I’ve done a sleep study. Any sleep remedies or medications have never worked for me.

So things like that, there are moments when I think, “I just want to be done with this. I would just love to be able to sleep.” But having said that, I’ve also had to learn how to manage it and how to manage my energy because of it. So, it’s taught me a lot, but if there’s been a challenge for me with high sensitivity, I would say that’s the biggest one.

Kim: And what do you love about the trait? What do you celebrate?

Linda: Oh, I love the intuitive aspect of it. Sometimes when I’m working with someone and I’ll, I don’t know, I say something, I wasn’t thinking about it. I’ll just say something, and they’ll say, “Well, how did you know that? Or how did you know to ask that question?” I don’t know. And so that intuitive nature, I do love the fact that as HSPs, we like to go deep into things, don’t do superficial very well. So small talk is difficult, but when I meet someone I can have a real conversation with, I love it. And what else do I love about it? It’s just being able to notice and observe things that other people don’t, I think is a real gift. I mean, so often I’ve just been aware of subtleties or things that other people don’t see, and it’s been really helpful.

Kim: And what advice would you have for highly sensitive people who may be struggling with their trait? What would you say?

Linda: Self-awareness. Self-awareness. Go on a journey of self-awareness. Start the process. Learn as much as you can about yourself, how you’re feeling, what affects you, what doesn’t affect you, what helps you reset and rebalance, learn about yourself, because nobody else has all the answers for you. Trust me, they don’t. People can help you, they can guide you, they can support you, but you have to take responsibility and you’ll want to take responsibility because it’s very empowering when you do.

Kim: Awesome. Thank you so much for joining me today. Where can people follow along on your journey?

Linda: Best way is just to go to my website. Very simple. It’s just lindabinns.com and you’ll find everything I’m up to on there. There are various free things. There are workshops and things I do, so you’ll find out about everything on there.

Kim: Awesome. Thank you so much, Linda. 

Linda: It’s my pleasure. Thank you, Kimberly, for inviting me and having this conversation with me.

Thanks so much for listening in on my conversation with Linda. I hope it served as a powerful reminder that as highly sensitive people, we are deeply perceptive, intuitive, and responsive to energy. And when we learn how to work withour sensitivity and energy instead of against it, everything begins to shift.

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and share it with other HSPs who might need to hear these words. It’s a great and easy way to spread more love and light in the world and support other HSPs along the journey to greater awareness and self-love.

Until next time. Take care!

About Linda Binns:

Linda Binns is an Energy Coach who helps highly sensitive and empathic professionals transform the way they manage their energy so they can move from stuck to unstoppable. Drawing from more than two decades of experience, she guides heart-centered and sensitive professionals to release self-doubt, people-pleasing, and the belief that they’re “not good enough,” helping them reconnect with their true power, purpose, and peace.

As a highly sensitive person herself, Linda understands what it’s like to feel overwhelmed by energy, emotions, and expectations—and she’s made it her mission to show others how to thrive with their sensitivity rather than struggle with it. Through her coaching programs, workshops, and talks, she helps clients align their inner and outer energy so they can experience more ease, clarity, and fulfillment in every area of life.

Follow along on Linda’s journey:

Website:  https://lindabinns.com

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

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

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About Kimberly:

Kimberly Marshall is an Intuition and Soul 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