Episode #17: Recovery, Spirituality, and Purpose on the HSP Healing Journey

A conversation on moving beyond numbing, embracing sensitivity, and finding purpose and spirituality on the HSP healing journey.

Welcome back to The Happy HSP Podcast. I’m your host, Kimberly Marshall, and if you’ve ever felt the need to hide or numb your sensitivity with alcohol, other substances, or even Netflix and cake, then this episode is for you. I’m joined by Jane Elizabeth Aston who is a coach, writer, and researcher based in the UK.

We talk about the HSP journey through the lens of addiction and recovery, discovering our purpose, and leaning into spirituality as a guiding light. Jane’s story is deeply personal and relatable, and I hope it offers hope and wisdom for any HSPs out there who are seeking a more authentic and connected approach to life.

I hope you enjoy it!

Kim: All right, Jane, welcome to The Happy HSP Podcast. I’m so happy to have you today. Thank you for joining me.

Jane: Oh, thanks so much, Kim. I’m so glad to be here. And I just love talking about the HSP experience with others who understand, and also for others who might find it helpful. So, thank you.

Kim: Yeah, absolutely. So, what is your experience with high sensitivity? How did you find out and what did that journey look like for you?

Jane: Such a great question to start with. So I guess I’ve always, like all of us, HSPs, I’ve always experienced the world pretty intensely, but of course, I didn’t know that that was different from many other people, and I had no language or frame of reference to really explain what I was feeling and thinking and processing or why it was normal and OK rather than just a bit weird or a bit “other.”

And so, I got all the way through to 2011 when I was 40. I was 40 in 2011, and that’s when I found out about the trait. So quite a long time ago in the life of HSP awareness, I guess. And I found out about it because I was about a year, just over a year into my second recovery from addiction, alcoholism, that sort of thing. So, I’d had another stint in the early 2000s, which struck for a while and then didn’t. So, in 2011, I was about a year in, and I was going to lots of recovery meetings. So, I was around people a lot.

And what I noticed was that I felt really frazzled after some of those meetings. I felt really disturbed by some of the energy in the room. Some of the people at those meetings were incredible, and some were really not in a good space, of course not…think about the topic. And it was almost like their energy was leaking into me. If I sat next to somebody who was angry or really depressed, I kind of came away feeling like that. And I was thinking, what is wrong with me? I am clearly too sensitive. What can I do about this? How can I fix myself?

Thank goodness we had Google then as well. And so, I remember I was actually in this very room, or that time ago on the sofa over there sitting Googling, and I don’t quite know what I put in, but it might have been frazzled, exhausted, overwhelmed, sensitive. I don’t know what I put into Google, but what came up quite high up the list was Dr. Elaine Aron’s website, The Highly Sensitive Person or whatever it’s called. And I looked and I read, and I could not believe what I was reading, this trait…I just did the quiz scored really highly. And so, I saw she had a book, The Highly Sensitive Person. So, I ordered it, and I couldn’t wait for it to arrive. And it arrived and I read it cover to cover, and I was like, this is a big answer for me. So that’s how I found out.

Kim: Wow. So, it’s almost like you went to get support for one thing that you were struggling with and walked away with a completely new understanding about yourself that maybe you weren’t even expecting. Is that right?

Jane: Well, I didn’t walk away from recovery. I’m still very much involved in the recovery world, and probably will always need to be, because that treats and heals a fundamental part of me. But it was, part of it was a steppingstone. It was like, there’s something about this that’s not working. And actually, that was a big cause of my relapse after four years of sobriety in the early 2000s, I think, because I was having a very different experience in that recovery world from many of my peers. And it was very painful to feel different. It was very painful to feel all of it.

Everything was so much without alcohol and without drugs. Marijuana was my drug, very numbing, really took the edge off my sensitivity. Without those, I couldn’t explain why I felt so different, and I felt wrong for feeling different. And so, what this discovery in my second recovery did was it gave me the information that I needed. The power really, it empowered me to do this recovery and my whole life ever since differently, to really integrate what I knew about the HSP trait and give myself permission to just live in a little bit of a different way that was more aligned with my HSP brain, body, nervous system spirit, all of it.

Kim: So how did that shift for you? As you mentioned suddenly, you’re living life and now you know have high sensitivity, but now you almost have to experience that without the numbing. Is that something you can share with that experience was like?

Jane: Like, yeah, of course. Yes, of course. I mean, in that journey, I’m not much different from any other person in recovery. We numb for a reason. We don’t do it generally just for no reason. There’s, there’s usually been some trauma, some difficulty, and often a genetic component of some sort of addiction in our family of origin as well. So, take that away, and life feels very raw and very painful for a while. And so that’s why I’m very grateful to be part of a recovery community that has taught me how to handle life. And that’s a lot, and I’m sure you’ll understand this because I’ve heard you talk about this with others, but a spiritual connection, spiritual practice is a big part of that.

And so, you take away the drink and the drugs and you put in a spiritual connection instead. And that’s huge. That’s a huge piece. But even so, it was very much about the missing piece was the HSP trait, the fact that I get overwhelmed before neurotypical people. I can’t be out in the world partying for as long or as hard. I have to eat more regularly. I have to sleep more. I have to do really nurturing things. I maybe don’t want to go out for a meal where there’s like 30 people. I might prefer to have a one-to-one, all of that stuff.

So, it’s just the rawness of taking away the substances is, I think the same for me as for anyone really. Yes, I dealt with it too. I did that to help deal with my sensitivity, but once I understood what the trait was, then I could really handle that in a different way. And in that way, I’m no different to any other HSP. It’s like a Ven diagram sort of HSP on one side and recovery from substances on the other, and I’m in the middle. But there’s lots of commonality with both groups.

Kim: I can see that a hundred percent, especially with the numbing part, with sensitivity, because we feel things so deeply, the good and the bad. So, I mean, when you’re out having fun, it’s like you can get carried away and the good stuff. And then when you’re stuck in the downward spirals, you’re trying to forget all the bad stuff. I mean, I feel like for us, that’s such a draw to kind of not feel.

Jane: It really is because we feel a lot, right. Huge range of emotion when now I’ve recovered quite a lot of my emotions because they were frozen in me for all sorts of reasons. But we can go very, very low, and many of us are prone to that. And we can also feel joy to a very high degree, a huge range of emotions that I really don’t think are available to many people who aren’t HSP. And that is both a huge blessing and quite the challenge.

And so, in my teens and 20s, I had a lot of feelings and emotions, and I hadn’t really been taught how to deal with them. So many of us weren’t, and particularly my generation, I’m 54, so there was a lot of trauma in the family that I grew up in just due to having been brought up in that time. And so, yeah, feeling stuff is really difficult. And when you feel stuff as much as we do, then my goodness, me, anything that takes the edge off, I’ll have it.

Give me some of that, and then it becomes a habit, and then it becomes a non-negotiable and necessity, and then it becomes a problem. And then the thing that was the solution becomes the problem. And I just feel so grateful to have got off that particular merry-go-round because I needed to clear away that before I could really, really start to integrate the trait, who I really am with how I live.

And it’s an ongoing process, isn’t it? We’re always doing that.

Kim: Absolutely. And one of the things that kind of came up for me when you were sharing this is there’s always that, there’s always something to fill, a void to fill without the substance, the spiritual journey, and the nurturing. It’s like you have to have that something. And what does that look like for you? How does that help the nurturing, the spirituality part of it?

Jane: Well, I believe, because this is what I witness that as HSPs, we are naturally spiritual people. The meaning that we seek, the purpose that we crave, the depth that we need to live at, the connection that we want in our lives. These are all signs of spirituality, really, and I grew up in a family where there wasn’t really any of that…in a society, largely where there wasn’t really any of that. I grew up in the UK, I live in the UK, there were churches around me when I was a kid. My mom went to church a bit, but my family were not really into the whole God thing.

And so, I didn’t have that, which in some ways I’m grateful for because it might not always have been helpful, but in other ways, it meant there was this void of what’s it all about and who’s going to help when people might not be able to. And so yeah, there is always a void really that we try and fill with all sorts of things. Sugar, drugs, alcohol, shopping, shoes, relationships, chocolate, Netflix, cake. I mean, I’ve done them all.

Kim: Same!

Jane: I mean, who hasn’t a saint? And I bet they did some of them. I just think ultimately what I was always looking for in all of those things, and what, when I continue to do some of the less harmful ones like Netflix or chocolate or whatever it is, we’re always looking for that connection from where we came back to where we came from. We’re always looking for that connection to something greater than us, to the light.

In other people as well as the ultimate, the divine universe intelligence or whatever you want to call it, nature. I have lots of different names for it, and I don’t really know what it is. It’s just that I know it’s there and I didn’t use to. And it’s really been my recovery that’s given me that because it’s what filled the void that I used to have to drink on every day. So, I think that’s the filling, the void and the spirituality piece, I think they’re really big for us. I think they’re big for humans, but they’re really big for us because we’ve got those heightened sensitivities and emotions around it all.

Kim: I agree so much because I feel like part of us being so in tune with each other and nature, we’re always searching for something that’s making us feel alive. And it’s like this journey of searching for something bigger than ourselves. We sense it, we know it’s there. What is it? How do we tap into that? So yeah, it’s like you can’t have nothing because then that’s a sad life. There’s so much to experience.

Jane: Oh, there is. And I know one of the things that’s really important to you is purpose. That seems to be a word that you use quite a lot. And the meaning, the purpose, finding connection, the thing that makes us feel alive, the thing that makes us feel alive. Now, I walk around outside, and I see people who are clearly having quite nice lives. They don’t seem to need that alignment with purpose that I have always needed, and that some of my closest HSP friends and the people that I’ve worked with need. There’s something about the way we are wired, where we’re wired to seek out that meaning and purpose.

And if we don’t find it, we’re often not very happy. And all of the shoes or cake in the world, even having a lovely relationship, children, house, car, garage, all of that stuff, which is not my story, although it sort of has been a little in the past, some of it, even all of that without our purpose, without that thing that makes us vibrate with aliveness where we’re not going to feel right, we’re just not going to feel right. This seems to be the case for us.

Kim: It’s funny when you say that. It almost makes me feel like if we don’t find our purpose, we’re not going to feel right because until we sink into it and find it almost like we’re being kind of guided.

Jane: I mean, I look back over my life and it’s not been easy in many ways. It looked pretty nice from the outside, nothing really terrible happened, but addiction’s, no fun, physical health stuff’s no fun. All of that depression, anxiety, that’s no fun. Ugh, awful. It’s not been easy. And yet I was given the exact conditions that I needed to get the level of awareness that I’ve got now.

And I’m grateful for that. And I literally feel as though my higher power has given me a donkey following a carrot, never quite gets to the carrot, the carrot’s being dangled in front of the donkeys, walking along, and then the carrot goes that way, and the donkey walks that way. I really feel like that’s what my higher power has done in my life and has always got me to where I’ve needed to go to next to the next steppingstone in the least painful and the shortest way doesn’t mean it wasn’t quite long. Sometimes it was, and it doesn’t mean it wasn’t painful because sometimes it was excruciating. But I look back and I’m like, there’s actually no other way I could have ever learned that or got there or done that or made that decision. And so, I absolutely feel mean. Do you feel like that as well? Do you feel like you’ve been guided and led?

Kim: A hundred percent. There are layers to this. I mean, like you said, that carrot, it’s like you think you level up and you’re like, I got it. And then it’s like another lesson. But it’s like when you look back, all the growth that you’ve done, the path that this has led you to, it just fits together. And you had to have every piece of you fine-tuned in just the right way. And how do you use that? How do you not sink with that and use it to lift yourself up in that purpose? And for the greater good of others is my belief.

Jane: And isn’t that an incredible thing to be aware of, that that’s what we’re actually living in, as well as doing our laundry and the groceries. We’re also living in that way.

Kim: Yeah. Yeah. It’s a balance.

Jane: Yeah. Yeah, it is a balance. I still got to do the laundry and the groceries.

Kim: All the boring stuff.

Jane: Absolutely. All part of the joyful routine.

Kim: A hundred percent. So, what is the work that you do? I know that you mentioned, did you have stuff about autism? Do you have?

Jane: So yeah, the autism piece is interesting. I always thought there’s no way I could be autistic because I had a really skewed view of what it is. But last year I was speaking to another HSP who I identify with very strongly as being very similar to, and they told me that they’d recently had an autism diagnosis. And I just thought, well, you can’t have, that’s clearly wrong,

Because if you are, it means I am. And I remembered as well that the previous year, another close friend who’s also HSP, and these friends live in different continents to me, live in different places around the world, but they’d also said that they’d had this diagnosis. And I just thought, no, no. And so just to rule it out, I did a couple of quizzes online, and of course what came up was you have a really high number of autistic traits that might be whether of getting assessed worth, getting further assessed. And so, I did.

And yes, turns out I meet the criteria for autism, which is not what I thought it was, because I always thought if you felt things like empathy and experience sort of energy and things like that, then you couldn’t be autistic. You were only really autistic if you really weren’t very good at communicating with people. And it just shows how ignorant I was about the trait. There’s a huge crossover. It’s not a hundred percent crossover with HSP, but there is a huge crossover with some of the sort of higher scoring end of the HSP scale. I guess there’s a crossover with autism, I think. Yeah. So, it was really interesting. It sort of blew my mind a little bit that, and for about six months, I was so like, this is who I am. This is who I am.

And now it’s just all become part of the soup that is me. It’s just all part of the same thing.

Kim: And how do you help others in this way?

Jane: Well, there’s a, I’ve got a few sort of irons in the fire. So, I’m a coach and I am a spiritual connection coach. Ultimately, that’s what I do. I work to help people connect back to their authentic selves, who we really are in this world. Being HSP, being neurodivergent, we often grow up hiding great swathes of who we really are because it’s simply not safe to do anything else. And that when we were growing up was often a really good decision. And in my own case, doing that helped me to get degrees and get jobs and hold down jobs and have friends and not lose friends and do all sorts of things. Like it helped me to look reasonably successful. I mean, I say reasonably. I couldn’t be super, super successful in any of those things because I was always on the edge of burnout from doing that, always on the edge of burnout, from covering that up.

I simply can’t hammer ahead like people without the HSP trait can. I need such a lot of downtime and rest and recovery time. And I used to get physically very ill as well from being so stressed. My immune system was really poor. So, I have experience of hiding myself. And I also have learned through integrating recovery, being an HSP, doing lots of, I’m a trained nutritional therapist as well, so I can do the physical piece as well.

And so, I work to help people who need help connecting back with themselves in any aspect at all really, because only when we really connect back to who we really are with acceptance first and appreciation and love, that can be a tough one for us to really love who we are rather than try and be somebody else. Then we’re open. We’re open to connect with others and to connect with everything that life has to offer. So that’s a really long way of saying, I like to work with people who want to get back to their true selves. And I do that one-to-one. Sometimes I do it in groups. I’ve got some courses planned at the moment. They’re sort of mainly in my head and on my laptop, but they’re coming.

And I absolutely love working with people in all of those ways. I’m also a researcher and I’m a writer. I’ve got a couple of books on the go. So, lots of iron in the fire.

Kim: That is right. And just to circle back quick too about the masks, you made me feel like that’s such a part of our journey, I feel like is when you said all the jobs that you hold and the people that you’re around that you, they’re just not a good fit for you, but you try and be a good fit for them. And we’re constantly trying to fit in and how do I do better at my job and how do I fit better into this friend group? And then it’s like once you hit that, going back to yourself, it’s taking things away, those stories away to get down to the root of who you actually are. Is that your experience?

Jane: That’s so true, Kim. It’s like nothing’s really fundamentally got to change. Just we have to strip back some of the layers that we’ve built, the protective layers of pretense of armor that we’ve built, because that armor is so heavy, so heavy. I was working with a coaching client once, and she talked about how the armor that she was carrying, she went somewhere. She went to a planetarium with the night sky, and it was dark, and she laid back and she felt able under that sky to drop the armor just for a bit. And it was so profound for her to be able to just drop that armor just for a bit that she lay there crying. And I think what she said just encapsulates what it’s like to grow up highly sensitive in a world that when we were growing up, didn’t know a thing about that.

And I think it affects us in at least two ways. One is we’re so highly sensitive. We can attune very well to what the people around us want and need the extent to which they want and need us to be different maybe to our detriment. But we’ll do it anyway. We will do it anyway, because that’s kind of what we learned. And that’s kind of who we are as well in some ways. And then the other thing is the people in the world around us, the majority are wired differently to us.

And so, the conditions that they thrive in are different. They’re nervous systems have a much higher threshold. That’s why festivals are full of noise and bright and everything, because most people will really need that level of stimulation in order to have a good time. And we generally don’t. I might have a good time in that environment for 30 minutes, and then I’ve got to get out of there.

Kim: I’m down for the count!

Jane: And find a hammock somewhere. I mean a while since I’ve been to a festival because of exactly that. But yeah, we do, we bend ourselves into all sorts of unhelpful shapes.

And I think we become people pleasers with the mask. It’s difficult to not, until I really understood that my brain and body were wired differently to most people and a lot of my family and a lot of my friends in the past, until I really understood that there was a reason for that, I just used to try and be like them. And when I understood there was a reason, then I started to put in more boundaries and go, I’d love to see you, but can I meet you later? I’d love to see you, but can I not meet you at that party? Can we maybe just do a coffee?

Just doing things a little bit differently. And it is taken a while, but I’m largely there. There’s always situations that we can’t control. Side-swipe us and overwhelm airports. It’s often to do with travel. I find traveling. That’s when life really happens, and we can’t control it.

Kim: Absolutely. So, speaking of traveling and not being able to control that, what are some of the other challenges that you have with your high sensitivity?

Jane: Yeah, some of the challenges. So, I mean, I think over stimulation in busy environments continues to be one that I have to guard against. And that gets much worse when I’m tired, if I’m sleep deprived or if I’m hungry.

Kim: I was just thinking hungry.

Jane: No, eat tactically before I go into a busy environment. So, every stimulation in busy environments, it doesn’t happen that often now, but occasionally it’s unavoidable. I was in London last week and I have to go there for work sometimes. I sometimes go there to meet friends. That can be super, super stimulating. I remember almost having a meltdown in the middle of New York City once because I was tired, jet lagged. And it’s New York. It’s great. I mean, I love it. You’ve got relaxed. Yeah, I adore Manhattan, it’s fantastic.

But yeah, if I went back there, I’d probably do it a bit differently rather than expect myself to just be out there for 10 hours pacing the streets. So, overstimulation. The other thing I think is, and this was a big one for me, feeling misunderstood. If we’re not with the right people, if I spend a lot of time with people who aren’t HSP, I feel very unheard and unseen and unvalidated. And so, the solution really is to limit the amount of time I spend with people that are not like me. And I’ve managed to do that quite successfully as well.   

Kim: You can be kind about it. Just you know what you need. And if people have a problem about it, then they’re not your people.

Jane: Exactly. Exactly. And I work with people who find it’s very difficult. It’s like using a new muscle. It’s like using a muscle that we forgot we had. When we start flexing that muscle and sort of limiting our time with people or saying no to people, sometimes I can’t, it can feel really painful. The muscle gets sore, it’s weak and it gets sore.

But the more that we do it gently and kindly putting in boundaries, the easier it gets. And then I think the other big challenge that I have is my old emotional triggers can still be my emotional triggers, and that’s a work in progress. I think sometimes things do just sideswipe me because of old conditioning, but I think the more awareness that I have of my reactions, not pretending that they’re not there or that there’s something wrong or I shouldn’t feel like that, the more awareness I have of what’s actually going on in my body and how it works, the easier it is to kind of handle it with the tools that we pick up along the way from mixing with other people in the HSP community. Just stop, take a break, talk to somebody, journal, meditate, have something to eat, have a nice cup of tea, stroke a cat, whatever it is. Just that compassion I just used to be, I dunno if it’s the same for you, but I used to be so hard on myself.

Kim: Awful…

Jane: The way I talked to myself was awful. And instead of going, don’t be so stupid, stop feeling like that. Just get on with it. Stop making a fuss. That would be my narrative. Yeah. It’s now like, oh, oh, we’re upset about this. Okay, why is that? And what do we need to do? Maybe we just need to go, “Yeah, that’s upsetting. That wasn’t very nice, was it? Oh, that’s because that happened when you were like seven. Of course that’s going to be upsetting.” So, there’s quite a lot of, I like to talk to my inner child a little bit these days and tell her what she could have done with hearing

Kim: So beautiful. It’s like extending that compassion that we extend so freely to others, to ourselves. That’s such a foreign concept to some of us.

Jane: I think it is. And to me and the wonderful people that I work with, it is the most foreign concept. It’s like the last undiscovered land. We do it for everybody else around us before we turn our gifts for kindness, acceptance, compassion, and love towards ourselves. And it can feel, I speak from my own experience, excruciating to start doing that. Who am I to? Because I have my own compassion. How dare I be nice to myself?

Kim: Look at this chip on my shoulder, and you’re just being kind to yourself.

Jane: Yeah. Yeah. I can’t take that off. The world might end.

Kim: Yeah. I’m so arrogant over here.

Jane: I’m so arrogant over here. Yeah. We are supposed to not think that we’re not even, not think that we’re good. We’re not even supposed to think that we’re okay. I don’t know where that message comes from. I don’t know if it’s the same in the States, but in Britain, we’re just terribly self-effacing.

Kim: It’s society. Absolutely. A hundred percent. It’s our workplaces, it’s our family. Be tough, suck it up. I mean, that’s just so against our nature. And then we learn to hide who we are to fit in, to feel safe and..

Jane: Yeah, suck it up. Yeah, that’s right, isn’t it? And there are occasions where we do just have to suck it up. There absolutely are. But there are some occasions when that’s not necessary at all. There might be some other kind of ways to deal with it.

Kim: Exactly. I’m so with you there, and what do you celebrate about the trait and love about it?

Jane: So many things. I mean, connection. Is one of my most important words. Connection is what makes life worth living to me. With other people, with animals, with the natural world. I’m very fond of a good tree.

Talk to them, go past stroke, the branches. Sometimes I just stand and stare at a flower for ages and go like, you are really good, aren’t you? I talk to the flowers. I don’t really care if I look like a crazy middle aged lady or not. And the same when I talk to cats in the street, whatever. It’s fine. So, I love all of that. Yeah, absolutely. Connecting with other people, other like-minded people at depth, talking about having the kind of amazing conversation that you and I are having that is so meaningful. I can lose myself in the moment in it.  

Kim: I’m so with you.

Jane: A glorious thing, isn’t it?

Kim: The best feeling? And it’s not only that, but there’s such a difference when you’re talking to people who don’t have our trait and the shallowness of it. Just the comparison. When you and I connect this way, and I’ve had a couple conversations about this recently too, it’s so fulfilling. You walk away just feeling lighter and brighter and higher vibration.

Jane: Yes. It’s like I think we can feel it. We can feel it across a continent, across a time zone. 

Kim: It strikes a genuine chord that we typically don’t have struck.

Jane: It’s an incredible thing. And whilst I enjoy my little chats and connections with people out in the world, people in shops, people, I might pass on the street. I enjoy those too. I do. There’s something very joyful about that momentary connection. It’s a completely different, when we talk about life, the universe, everything meaning purpose.

Kim: Yeah. I hear you.

Jane: Of course. Spiritual connection’s really important for me because it basically saved my life and now it guides me that being led and trusting that things will be revealed as I’m ready. That’s enormous. And I don’t do it perfectly, of course, because sometimes cake and Netflix get in the way…

Kim: Our humanness…

Jane: Just gets in the way. And that is absolutely as it’s supposed to be. If we were connected all the time, we’d be sitting up there on a cloud with all the angels. It’s not what we came here for. We came here to experience the duality of it.

And I think my rich inner life is something I enjoy very much as being an HSP, the endless ways I can amuse myself with creativity. Yeah, there’s a lot going on in here. Even if I just appear to be staring at a flower like a crazy woman. And I think something that I talked about earlier our huge range of emotion. I mean, I certainly in the past have not loved sinking to some of the dark depths that I’ve been to in the past. Not so much recently, but in my past. It’s got pretty dark, but no mud, no lotus.

So, you got to get the dark. You got to go pretty dark to get the real bright and the really, the joy, the fulfillment, the connection, that feeling of aliveness. Well, quite frankly, I would not trade being HSP for anything in the world. I’ll hold onto that, thanks. And I’ll take the tough times again, and again and again cause I don’t want to be without the good stuff.

Kim: It reminds me of that quote. I forget how it goes. And it’s probably not a quote, just maybe a concept, but you really can’t feel the lightness of the light unless you have the darkness of the dark. It makes it that much more enjoyable and refreshing, that dichotomy.

Jane: We need the contrast. If there was no dark, we wouldn’t know the light.

Kim: Yes.

Jane: We wouldn’t know. So, I think when I first found out I was HSPI was a bit like, well, this explains a lot, but it kind of sucks.

Kim: Yeah. That’s why!

Jane: This is a common reaction. I think. Although I was reading actually on Elaine Aron’s website blog yesterday. It’s not a post she put on yesterday, but it’s recent that they are, she is, her and her team are redoing the test, aren’t they? Yeah. I saw that it less about the deficit model, about, oh, we can’t do this. We get overwhelmed by that. It’s really awful. And into more of the, we experience the world in amazing, beautiful, brightly colored ways.

Kim: Even just the test giving that feedback. That makes sense.

Jane: Yeah. So, I think the reaction that I had, and certainly a lot of people that I know and have worked with, when they found out they were HSP, they were like, I don’t know how to cope with this. And I had to point out, you’ve actually been coping with it your whole life. This is not a new thing. Knowledge is power.

Kim: No, it’s so such. Now you have an intention about the things that you’re working on because some things are innate and hopefully to be celebrated. And some things are, I mean, it’s just who we are.

Jane: It’s who we are, and also who we are is what the world needs. I really believe that…we do bring something different and special. It might not shout as loudly, but for the people who look, it’ll be bright, and it’ll be just what’s needed. So, I think one of the reasons why so many of us, so many of us have this drive to find our purpose is because that we have a purpose, that we have important things that we need to do. That’s not necessarily, we’re not all going to rule our countries and stuff, but the way we are will have ripples in our families and communities and places of business, or the people that we coach or our children or whatever. We’ve got important stuff to do.

Kim: That’s absolutely right. And what advice would you give highly sensitive people who may be struggling with their trait or finding happiness?

Jane: I love this question so much. It’s such a great question. So, the main thing, I think, is there’s nothing wrong with you if you just take one thing from this, I would say there is nothing wrong with you. The way that you are wired is valid, it’s needed. And life gets so much richer when you stop fighting it and start working with it.

And key in that is just be really kind to yourself. Things started changing for me when I stopped comparing myself to neurotypical others because I have different challenges to them, and I have different strengths. And that’s the case for every HSP, different challenges, different strengths. And I think probably the most helpful thing that I’ve done as an HSP is find community. And we are so lucky.

When I found out about the trait in 2011, I looked online for HSP communities in the UK and there were none, nothing. And of course, this was pre-Zoom, pre community networks and stuff. That was Facebook. But there was nothing. There was nothing. So, I just sort of went away and did it myself and spent time with people that made me feel good. But these days, there are so many wonderful ways to find HSP communities. There are loads of them and there are lots of coaches. There are YouTube channels. There are so many ways. So, find people, whether it’s in person or online, who get you.

Kim: And what you just said is such a great point. I just feel like it brings our conversation full circle with the masks, with our purpose. You and I both had a lot that we were lacking in terms of community with the HSP awareness, and it’s grown. And I know it’s because there’s so many people. You and I are in this industry. There are so many incredible coaches out there, so many people writing, so many people researching, and that we needed that, and now we’re creating this space for others to kind of thrive in it. So, it’s like when you started and had nothing, now there’s so much because those people that didn’t have it needed it and created it. I just feel like even with this podcast is spreading awareness. People need to know they’re not alone in this.

Jane: They really do. And I’m sure this has maybe happened to you. It has a little on my YouTube channel, people comment and say, this was helpful. I feel like this. I’ve done this. Oh, my goodness. And it’s so good to know that we can have an impact, not just one-to-one or in small groups with the people that we coach, but also in the world all over the world by putting this podcast out. It’s like a beacon for other HSPs who need to hear it.

Kim: Absolutely. So where can people follow along with you that want to kind of follow along on your journey? And you mentioned your YouTube channel. Can you explain what that is quickly?

Jane: Oh, I’d love to. Thank you. Yeah. So, I started it only six months ago, so I’m quite new at that. But it’s a lot of fun. It’s a wonderful avenue for my creativity and my inner life to become outer. So the channel is called Made for Meaning, Wired for Light, but you only need to search for Made for Meaning. And my handle, if that’s what it’s called, would be @janeelizabethaston. My website is janeelizabethaston.com, where you can find out more about the coaching work that I do and a little bit more about me as well.

Kim: Perfect. Thank you so much for joining me today. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Jane: Such a pleasure, Kim. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for listening in on my conversation with Jane. I hope it encourages you to approach your healing journey with more compassion and curiosity than shame, and that it also gives you permission be overly generous with self-love and acceptance, no matter where you are in your life.

If this episode resonated with you, I’d love if could write a review or share it with another HSP in your life who might need to hear these words. It’s a great way to spread the love and help other HSPs find more connection and support.

Until next time. Take care!

About Jane Elizabeth Aston:

Jane Elizabeth Aston is a coach, writer, and researcher based on the south coast of the UK, with a BSc in Psychology and an MPhil from the University of Cambridge. She works with HSPs and neurodivergent spiritual seekers — often those who have faced many challenges and are ready to stop hiding who they are and live in a way that truly fits. Jane’s work guides clients toward self-trust and deeper connection — with their true selves, with others, and with the meaning that runs through all of our lives.

Her approach combines lived experience, spirituality, and practical tools. Having discovered her own HSP trait in 2011 and receiving a late autism diagnosis in 2024, Jane brings profound self-knowledge and compassion to her coaching. She is also in long-term recovery, having been sober for over 15 years — an experience that deeply informs her work.

Jane shares weekly reflections for HSPs and neurodivergent folks on spirituality, healing, recovery, and meaningful living on her Made for Meaning, Wired for Light YouTube channel and podcast. Previously, she co-hosted nearly 50 episodes of the High Sensory People Podcast, reframing being HSP and neurodivergent as a vibrant strength rather than a burden.

Follow along on Jane’s journey:

Website: https://janeelizabethaston.com/

YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@JaneElizabethAston

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About Kimberly:

Kimberly Marshall is a career 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 overcome burnout and low confidence in the workplace and create gentle and nurturing careers that bring them lots of purpose, meaning, and joy. 

Through her work and creative ventures, 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