Episode #8: Mind-Body-Soul Connection on the HSP Journey
How nervous-system awareness, embodiment practices, and spiritual alignment in tandem can help HSPs heal from within.
Welcome back to The Happy HSP Podcast. I’m your host Kimberly Marshall, and if you’ve ever felt like you’ve struggled to find your footing or confidence as an HSP, then this episode is for you. Today, I’m joined by HSP life coach Louise Smith, and together we explore how HSPs can benefit from inviting our minds, bodies, and souls to our healing conversation in unison.
Louise shares how nervous system regulation, embodiment practices, and deep spiritual work has helped both her and her clients reconnect to themselves and thrive on a deeper level than each of the practices separately. Louise also shares how her personal struggle with finding confidence and understanding her sensitivity led her to help others overcome the same obstacles. It’s packed with lots of reassurance and wisdom, and I hope you enjoy it!
Kim: All right. Welcome, Louise. So good to see you.
Louise: Thank you so much for inviting me. Thank you.
Kim: Thank you so much for joining me today. So, I like to start by asking about your journey to finding out how you were an HSP. So, what did that look like for you? How did you find out what kind of happened in and around that?
Louise: Okay, so it was quite late on, so I’m in my late forties now, and it was my early forties when I found out. So, I’d always really been into looking into how I could make the best of myself and cope with my stress and anxiety and overwhelm. So, I had my bedside table’s always full of self-help books, and the next one's always going to be the latest new thing that's going to be the one where I discover what's happening with me. So, they definitely helped, but I always felt, I think there’s something going on with me and I’m not quite sure what, and then I kind of had this realization that it wasn’t just my mind, it wasn’t just that I was an overthinker and I got anxious and stressed and worried. It was also a body thing. So, I realized that I was quite sensitive to caffeine and drinks, certain drinks, I could get quite jittery and I thought there’s something else going on.
I also, I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, Kim, but you probably sometimes just feel really tired and you notice that other people have got more physical stamina. So, if you weren’t on holiday, I’d be the one that would have to have a late afternoon nap to keep going with the busy days and then maybe the later nights. So, it was that realization that it was a complete mind, body, soul. Everything about me was sensitive. So, I remember actually one evening I researched sensitive nervous system and then the HSP thing just came up and I thought, and I read into it, and I did the Elena quiz, and I scored quite highly on that, and I thought, that’s it. That's what I am, so that was the realization I would say it. I think for some people it’s like this amazing feeling that you’ve discovered it and this relief and some people get really emotional.
I had quite mixed emotions. I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it. And I think it was that sort of concrete evidence. Yes, actually you are kind of in the minority the way you think and it’s 15 to 20% of the population, isn’t it? That's highly sensitive. So, I think after discovering, I needed a bit of time to process it, and I did leave it for a while, so I did shelve it for a little bit and I just thought, I’m just going to, I’m just going to shelve this for a bit and process it. Probably true HSP style.
Kim: Yeah. I need to think about this a bit deeply here.
Louise: I need to overanalyze this. So, I didn’t really look into it any further. So, I think it was probably maybe a couple of months and then I started to accept it and feel okay about it. I thought, right, I’m really going to research into this. And then it’s just flown and I’ve gone the opposite way and looking into everything and researching into it and being a coach in it now.
Kim: That is such an interesting take is that at first you had all these mixed emotions, and you ended up actually using it to help other highly sensitive people.
Louise: Yeah.
Kim: Can you tell me a bit about that journey. What was that journey like when you came to accept it, and then how did it come to be that you thought, “Hey, I can really help others here?” How did that journey kind of unfold?
Louise: Yeah. Well, like I say, it’s been later in life, so I’ve gone through my whole life thinking what's going on and then finding out and then having all these mixed emotions. And a lot of people I speak to, they are adults when they realize that the HSP, so I think you can develop quite a lot of shame. You, it's like these years of what's going on, why can't I cope with things that could, the people can…
Kim: From your childhood on, there’s so much to unpack and reasoning and oh my gosh, I imagine.
Louise: Yeah. So I thought if there’s people that can help get there a lot faster without being in their forties when they realize, or even if they are in the forties or older, just to process it a little bit faster than I did, it still took me years after finding out the strategies and the techniques and realizing that I was always working against my sensitivity rather than with it. And yeah, I was just, we’re empaths by nature, aren’t we? A lot of us. So just wanting to help other people get there a lot faster than I did.
Kim: They say that HSPs are late bloomers, and I tend to agree with that because I think you’re right. I think your point, we spend so much time fighting our sensitivity, and we probably get to a point later in life when we’re just like, you know what? This is who I am. Hopefully you find out and you find a way to celebrate it and work with it. It just makes it much easier than you’re trying to fit in and fight it and trying to mask who you are. I mean, no one wants to live their life that way.
Louise: It’s exhausting. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And like you say, realizing the advantages of it because an amazing trait to have. It’s such a positive thing to have, and that took me a while. But yeah, it's great and I think the world needs more of it.
Kim: So, what do you do for your work? How do you explain the kind of process that you take HSPs through, you help them thrive and build self-acceptance, right?
Louise: Yeah. So, confidence is, I suppose the thing that really resonates with me because that’s what I felt I struggled with the most, being highly sensitive. So yeah, it’s the confidence side, the self-esteem, the self-worth, but again, because I realize it’s so much mind and body, it is also supporting the body side. So, regulation, all those techniques that help our nervous system regulate. So, breath work, meditation, just the basics. Hydration, eating right. We know how much that affects us getting, I’m getting enough sleep, looking at all those different things, mindfulness, various techniques, parts work as well. Inner critic was huge for me, huge part. And just realizing that that’s actually something that is actually trying to help us, but just not in a very healthy, helpful way.
Kim: Wow. I love that. It’s kind of mirroring the journey I’ve been on. I feel like we live in such a fast-paced, hustle type culture, and I’m finding that I am literally happy, healthy when I take care of my body, my mind first. I think that’s maybe it’s, it's so strong for us that mind-body connection and yeah, I can’t even work or do something until I’ve processed things. I’ve journaled, I’ve stretched, I’ve meditated so much of my day and energy, and it actually gives me energy. I’m learning is taking care of my body, my mind, my soul, before I can do the work, before I can do the hard thing, before I can have hard out conversations. Is that your experience and your clients and things like that, and how does that work?
Louise: Definitely. And I find that in the past I would have left that as a last priority. So, it would’ve been get everything else done, see to everybody else, do your job, do everything else, and then, oh, if I’ve got time, I’ll do that bit of self-care, I’ll do that meditation or whatever. Whereas now I’ve flipped it, but it actually has a better impact on everything else that I need to do because like you say, it gives you that energy and it doesn’t have to be time-consuming, so you don’t have to be blocking out an hour a day to sit on your yoga mats and meditate. It can be learning breathing techniques that you can do every day through your day. Little things, like am I drinking enough? Am I giving myself breaks? Just simple things like that as well.
Kim: Yeah. What about the confidence part between your experience and how you help your clients? What do you think is one of the ways that HSPs can build more confidence, and how do you see that being helpful for us?
Louise: Yeah. I mean, confidence just affects so much of our life. It affects our self-worth. So self-compassion is huge, huge thing. So again, flipping that, making it the opposite of what it was originally.
So, with me, it was an extremely loud inner critic on steroids, constantly telling me how rubbish I was. I wasn’t doing anything very well. And then flipping that over to the self-compassion, and it doesn’t have to be false or something you don’t believe. It doesn’t have to be, yeah, I’m the greatest person in the world, but just balancing it out and making it more realistic.
So, I don’t know, you’ve forgotten to do something that you were meant to do at work. You’ve missed a deadline. So instead of beating yourself up about it, well, saying, well, actually, I felt really run down that day. I didn’t sleep very well. I can understand why this has happened. I was trying my best. And just balancing it out, just the way we talk to ourselves and making that conscious, it’s just so important. And I don’t think we always realize how much we do beat ourselves up and just building awareness of that. I always talk about awareness so much in my coaching. I think that’s quite an important first step, being aware, how are you actually talking to yourself?
Sometimes you don’t even realize you’re doing it, and it might be that you just suddenly feel awful, well, that your thoughts connect to your emotions and your feelings. So, when you’re feeling awful, you’ve probably had a thought that’s made you think something awful is going to happen. And then of course we get the catastrophizing as well.
Kim: We don’t just have the thought and let it go. We sit and we think about it from every different angle, and then we internalize it, and we do that some more.
Louise: Up from the worst-case scenario.
Kim: Yeah, all the time. How do you stop that cycle? Is there a trick that you have or something you can share? I feel like that’s so common with us.
Louise: Us. It is, isn’t it catastrophizing? I mean, I, I’ll admit, I still sometimes catastrophize. I think it’s, like I say, it’s sometimes quite an automatic thing, especially feeling tired and run down. Something happens. Oh no, I think, yeah, again, it’s that awareness, isn’t it? It’s awareness that as HSPs, we might be prone to catastrophizing. And just having that awareness that you’re having this horrendous thought that, oh, actually, is that correct? Is there any evidence against this fact? So, it’s like judge and jury, you’re thinking a certain thing, but is there evidence against it?
And is it a day where you are particularly feeling low anyway? And that’s when you’re more likely to struggle with these sorts of thoughts, I think as well.
And another good strategy is visualization. So that’s another way we can use our imagination in a positive way. So, visualizing something going well, visualizing how you can see it playing out in detail. And then it kind of links in with that manifesting as well, doesn’t it, where it doesn’t seem out of reach for you to achieve something because you’ve visualized it, you’ve gone over it. It becomes, yeah, that’s a natural course. That’s kind of what I’m expecting to happen. So then that also links in with the growth mindset, and so we really can use our imaginations for good.
If you’ve already kind of thought in your head, you’re already there, you already feel like you’re there and you’re living that. I know it’s not always easy to do, but you then start looking out for the opportunities. So that’s the bit of manifestation I take is that I can see how it logically works, and it’s linked to that mindset that it gives you a wider mindset to see the opportunities that otherwise you wouldn’t have noticed because you thought, oh, well that wouldn’t ever happen to me. So you don’t take those opportunities.
Kim: Yes, where put your attention grows when you think about all of the stuff that’s going wrong in your life that then you see all the negative and you’re training your mind to look for all the things that are going to go wrong and can’t happen for you. But when you imagine your life and showing up confidently how that looks like, how you’re feeling, how you’re interacting with people, and you’re constantly rehearsing that, it becomes so much more easy to show up that way.
Louise: Definitely. Yeah. And you’re right, and it’s kind of like you say about those negative distortions that you think a certain way, so you notice all the negative bits, whereas if you can shift your mindset a bit to actually accept that good things could potentially happen, then you start to notice the good things as well.
Kim: So, what is your idea about the harder aspects of being a highly sensitive person? What do you and your clients mostly struggle with, would you say?
Louise: Yeah, so I would say it’s sometimes dealing with other people and setting boundaries and questioning themselves. Questioning should I be setting a boundary is the other person, right? Because if we are lacking in self-confidence, we tend to lack that self-trust. We’re making the right decisions and we’re questioning ourselves.
So, it can be dealing with other people. It can be, like I say, about that sort of limited mindset that they don’t feel they deserve good things to happen to them. So, they’re subconsciously limiting their opportunities and expectations.
And then also, like I say, the body as well. So, they’re having a difficult time, they’re struggling, so their nervous system’s, dysregulated, the struggling with physical symptoms of stress and anxiety, maybe struggling to sleep, difficulty relaxing when they’re not at work because their minds on overdrive, overthinking there different aspects to it.
Kim: Yeah, that is my experience too. But with the boundary thing, it’s like I’m starting to learn kind of how to stand up for myself that you can still be kind and say, this doesn’t work for me, where I used to not want to rock the boat, which I don’t think a lot of people do.
Louise: Definitely. Yeah. So yeah, I think you’re completely right. The easiest thing to do when you’re lacking confidence is just to not rock the boat, isn’t it? And just go along with things to feel safe, but it’s a short-term fix because afterwards you feel that resentment. So yeah, you’re completely right. And to start with it is difficult setting boundaries. So I’d say start with the easier things and then build it up to something that feels a bit more challenging, but you’re doing something a bit more difficult in the short term for a longer term game. Definitely.
I always say consistency and progress is like that. It’s not like that we’re human. And some things might be, some days we might say, yeah, I’m going to set a boundary. I’m going to do this, and other days you might just be really, I can’t do it today. But as long as you keep going back and trying, that progress should keep going up.
Because we were often perfectionists as well. We we’re pushing ourselves quite hard. So, the irony is you can be perfectionist about your self-care and your progress with this. Well, this is meant to be positive and helpful, and I don’t want you any clients to beat themselves up for not being perfect at taking those steps.
I don’t even like the word perfect anymore since starting coaching and researching. I don’t even like the word because it’s so subjective. What is perfect?
Kim: Perfect, it’s perfect to you, may not perfect to me the box that we’re trying to fit ourselves into.
Louise: Yeah. And it’s exhausting trying to be perfect because things aren’t perfect. So, it’s trying to be a, I don’t know what the saying is, a square peg in a round hole, something like that. Yeah, just doing your best, showing up again. That’s all you need to do.
Kim: So, what is your favorite thing about being highly sensitive? What do you love about this trait?
Louise: I’m not sure if you’ve heard of the term vantage sensitivity, where we have, so, basically, it’s a term I love because as much as we can feel the negative things intensely, the negative aspects of life and emotions, we also feel the positive sides of life and emotions more intensely. I love that term vantage sensitivity.
When we’re in the right environment, when we have the right support, that’s when we thrive and we can experience this. So, it can just be things like I like go to music concerts and the bands are playing the favorite song and all the crowds together and singing. And I might be the one that’s filling up getting emotional just because that’s a good example of vantage sensitivity. And it can just be simple things like walking in nature. This time of year in England, seeing daffodils deals come up and just that’s lovely. And the sunshine, it’s getting brighter. Just simple things like that really.
And just a coaching point of view, the skills that I think a lot of HSPs have, the intuition, the empathy. Somebody might be saying something verbally, but you notice a little facial expression or change and you are able to pick that up. And so not that you criticize them for it, but you might challenge them, say, well, you said that, but I noticed that maybe you feel this way about it. So, it can be really handy for caring professions and being, working with people, people, person.
Kim: There’s a lot of good that HSPs can do in those types of fields. We do. We’re so in tune with others, even though people drain us. If you’re in the right field and you’re doing the right work, it can give you so much joy, so much energy.
Louise: Definitely.
Louise: Like? You say it’s finding the right, yeah, the right environment for you, the right job roles for you.
Kim: Exactly. So, what advice would you give to highly sensitive people who may be struggling to find happiness in their life?
Louise: First and foremost, I would say that you don’t need to be fixed. It’s not something that you need to change. It’s an amazing quality that you have and to embrace it. I think sometimes, I know when I spoke to you last time, Kim, I said I’ve had various job roles and sometimes we can go through our careers, especially at the start, maybe doing things that we feel like we should be doing that maybe either because we feel it’s something respectful or it gives us a certain level of status, it gives us that external validation, but might be causing us a lot of stress.
So really to think about how authentically you are living and how much your career is in line with that, and what were the reasons for you choosing that career in the first place, and is it in line with who you actually are? And sometimes I think sometimes we can sort of lose who we are, and it can be really difficult to strip that back. And that’s where coaches such as yourself, career coaches can be invaluable to really help strip that back and see.
Kim: Love that so much. It’s so true. And anybody can do it on their own. It’s just working with a good coach, especially one that really sees you and knows how to help you, just makes that process faster, smoother, just helps you get there.
Louise: Definitely being a cheerleader for hard times. Keep going in the right direction and yeah, it’s so much harder on your own.
Kim: Yeah, I think when you’re in that authenticity that you speak of is hard to see.
Louise: Yeah, you really can find it hard to think actually, who am I and what do I enjoy? So really thinking about what you’re good at, what your values are. A lot of us get so much from helping other people, and I think that’s a really common career for a lot of us, isn’t it?
Kim: Yeah. It’s actually one of the reasons I’m doing what I do. I feel like there’s a lot of us stuck in office jobs that could be doing so much good in the world. And yeah, I just feel like the work that you and I do just helps people kind of connect with themselves and understand what’s really important in their lives, which you and I have struggled with, and it’s just something that we can help people do maybe a little bit more quickly.
Louise: Yeah, definitely.
Kim: Well, thank you for that. That was so beautiful. I appreciate you joining me today. How is a way that people can follow along with your journey and get in touch with you?
Louise: So I’m on Instagram, so it’s @hsp.time.to.thrive, but there’s a “.” in between each word, so HSP time to thrive. So yeah, I’m on there. My email is louisehspcoaching@gmail com.
Kim: Perfect. Thank you so much for joining me today. It was so good to see you and connect.
Louise: Thank you for inviting me. Enjoyed it. It’s been lovely talking to you.
Thank you so much for listening in on my conversation with Louise. I hope it reminded you that when it comes to your sensitivity, there is nothing to fix, and if you continue to struggle with anxiety or self-confidence, you’re definitely not alone.
If you enjoyed this episode of The Happy HSP Podcast, I’d love if you could leave a review or share it with someone who may enjoy it. There are so many HSPs out there who can really benefit from more support and community, so it’s a great and easy way you can spread the love.
Also, if you have a story to share about your high sensitivity, I’m always looking for my next guest. You can reach out to me on Instagram at @happyhsppodcast or send me an email at kmarshall@happyhspcoaching.com. I’d love to hear from you and learn more about your journey.
Until next time. Take care!
About Louise Smith:
Louise is a women’s life coach and a Highly Sensitive Person. She provides life coaching to sensitive women who feel stuck and that their low self-confidence is holding them back and affecting their well-being.
She supports women to achieve confidence and personal growth, empowers and guides them through small steps of action and mindset shifts to overcome self-limiting beliefs, and helps them learn how to regulate the nervous system. Through her support, Louise helps amazing HSP women to thrive rather than just survive.
Follow along with Louise’s journey:
Intagram: @hsp.time.to.thrive
Email: louisehspcoaching@gmail com
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About Kimberly:
After 20 years in the publishing industry working for companies like Time Inc., Monster.com, and W. W. Norton, Kimberly Marshall left her corporate work to create a gentler and more nurturing career that better suited her as an HSP. After repeatedly struggling with burnout and low confidence in the workplace, she now helps HSPs create careers that bring them lots of purpose, meaning, and joy. With the Happy HSP Podcast, Kimberly hopes to shed more light on the reality of living with high sensitivity and inspire more HSPs to embrace their empathetic, generous, and loving natures.
Hosted/produced by Kimberly Marshall
Edited by Fonzie Try Media
Artwork by Tara Corola