Episode #24: The HSP’s Journey in Personal Growth, Intuition, and Spiritual Awakening

How tuning into your intuition can support deep emotional, spiritual, and personal growth as a highly sensitive person.

Welcome back to The Happy HSP Podcast. I’m your host, Kimberly Marshall, and today we’re diving into a topic that so many highly sensitive people feel deeply connected to — spiritual awakening, recognizing your intuition, and the path to personal growth.

I’m joined by Intuitive Energy Coach Elisha May, who is the founder of Freedom of Self®, a transformational program that helps soul-led humans let go of who they think they should be and live as they really are.

We explore how sensitivity can become a powerful doorway into spiritual awareness, how to recognize your intuitive language in the body, and what it looks like to honor your inner wisdom and personal growth without overwhelming your nervous system.

I hope you enjoy it!

Kim: Right. Awesome. Elisha, thank you so much for joining me today. It’s great to meet you.

Elisha: Great to be here. Great to be here.

Kim: Yeah. So, the first thing I really want to know about you is how you found out about high sensitivity and what that journey looked like for you.

Elisha: Yeah, great question to start with. So, for me was I didn’t actually know about the technicality of it until about four or five years ago, so quite new in that sense. But I always knew I was sensitive, if that makes any sense. So, I’d gone throughout my life feeling different, feeling awkward, feeling broken, feeling just that hypersensitive and just feeling just completely different to everybody else. And just thinking, why am I experiencing life so differently to everybody?

And I was very fortunate, actually. My dad is an HSP as well, and my brother, my late brother was. And so, I was very lucky that my dad had the appreciation towards my sensitivity. But again, he didn’t know the words, he didn’t know the biology, he didn’t even know himself. He just would see me in primary school thinking, gosh, my daughter is very similar to me at that age.

So, he would be very understanding, but because he hasn’t necessarily done all the work, he didn’t necessarily fulfill those needs as much as we do as sensitive kids. And then through my teens, my brother and I became very, very close. And he would always say, sis, you’re so sensitive. But he would say it in a factual, in a very pragmatic way that made you just feel okay about it. And because he was as well, and because it was almost like we were twins, but there was four and a half years between us, he would just make it sound as if it was normal and it was okay.

So, we would be in this cocoon together and we’d have our conversations, but then when it came to the outside world, it was like, whoa, this is so noisy. This is, being sensitive is unacceptable. Apparently, it’s just inappropriate.

So, I was very lucky that my very unique, tiny family were very accepting of it. But they still struggled because I was very intense with it. And as we’re realizing with HSPs, you’ve got introverted, you’ve got extroverted, you’ve got people that are really passionate like me, who are very verbal, very energetic, very intense.

And then you have people that are just as passionate, but they’re more quiet with it. And so, they didn’t always know how to deal with my intensity with a sensitivity. But yeah, so I always knew I was really, really sensitive, knew I was different, but again, couldn’t put the words to it. It was always like, stop taking it personally. It was almost like, stop being you. Stop this. Stop that. I was the problem. And then when it came to 2020? 2020, yeah, I think it might have been 2020, 2021. I was given a book, which I’m sure a lot of your listeners will know.

It’s by, oh my God, the names completely gone out of my head. It’s a relationship book for HSPs by the really famous lady whose name I’ve completely forgotten.

Kim: Was it Elaine Aron? The Highly Sensitive Person in Love?

Elisha: That’s the one. Elaine Aron in relationships or so, yeah, it was that one. My previous psychotherapist suggested it to me, and I just started reading it and I thought, whoa, hang on a minute. This is me in a book. What the heck? And even though I knew I was an empath, I was still at that point in denial of myself, in denial of my empathy, my gifts, my sensitivity, very unaccepting of it, because society tells you to be unaccepting of it.

And so, I read this book, and it just opened up my Pandora’s box. I can’t explain it. It just became a spiritual awakening. And then I read her other book, the HSP book, and for me it was all these aha moments, and I got all these flashbacks, all these memories of Oh my God, yeah, when I was five and I freaked out on my birthday party, cause I was overwhelmed. Oh, when so-and-so said that to me in that way. That’s why I felt the way I did. It was intense for quite a few weeks. And it was this complete spiritual unraveling, reclaiming. It was just a huge volcano of realizations, basically. Yeah. I hope that makes sense.

Kim: Oh my gosh, I’m just feeling that all over my body. I’m getting chills because I feel like, I think a lot of us go through something similar, and definitely I did when I read the book, it was like, that explains it. That explains it. Why I did that, why I did that. And it takes the shame from being like, there’s something wrong with me. And I’m overreacting to like, oh, I was overwhelmed at my birthday party as a little five-year-old. I get it.

Elisha: Yeah, that’s it. And it just gave you so many answers, like you said, for all the times we felt guilt and shame and felt broken and felt that we were the problem. All of a sudden reading these books. And then as we do as HSPs, we then get obsessed and then we start reading all these, yeah, yeah, that’s it. The rabbit hole. And then we’re reading all these articles, and we are just having all this clarification and all this acknowledgement of, oh, so I’m fine exactly the way I am. I’m not broken. I’m not awkward. I just have completely different needs to 70% of the human population. Well, or at least half of it. Obviously, you’ve got the other neurodiverse individuals as well. So yeah, the shame was a huge part for me as well. Huge. Huge.

Kim: Wow. So, can you talk to me about the denial part of it and how that shaped your understanding of yourself once you were able to accept it?

Elisha: Yeah, so it was always a part of me that, so I’m very energetically in tune. I’m very spiritual. I’m very much an empath, clairsentient, bit of clairvoyance and a few other things, but I’m very energetically in tune, which I know HSPs are, but I seem to sort of take it to another level. So, I always knew and felt this sort of energy within my body, and I would have these different experiences. And obviously being HSPs and empaths, we pick up other people’s feelings.

So, it was almost like I was carrying a part of me, but I was always disconnected from it. And it was like I knew it was there, but I was sort of in denial of it being there because society had denied me accepting that part of me. So, when I found out about the HSP side of things, all of a sudden it was coming home to myself. It was almost like welcoming an old friend back into my life that I’d been walking with for over 35, 36 years. And I was able to just love her and accept her and no longer keep her at arm’s length. I could just walk alongside her in life, if that makes sense.

Kim: Beautiful. Yes. It’s like you’re kind of turning your back on this part of yourself and you find this information and it is like, wait, this is natural, and dare we say, beautiful, let’s bring that back in. Let’s incorporate her. And actually, you’re making me kind of wonder, there is a point where we learn this about ourselves and then we kind of have to accept it, but then we have to learn how to reintegrate that part of ourselves in life, in society. How do you show up as that newly accepted, highly sensitive person.

Elisha: And there’s always different layers to it, isn’t it? So, whether it’s going out to society, into society, you’ve got version, I don’t know, 1.2 of you with that HSP side, and then maybe a couple months later you are challenged. But it’s the challenge to get that version of you 1.3 out into the world. But I was noticing, I was applying it to friendships, relationships, work, life, like you said, everything. And it was the initial version of me was getting accepted, but then it was like, no, no, no, there’s an even bigger, better version of you that now needs to be newly accepted. And it just kind of keeps going and going like that, if that makes any sense. Different versions of us. And I do like the numbers thing.

Kim: That is so incredible, and I love that you bring that up because it’s complex. It’s not like you just find like, oh, I’m highly sensitive and now I’m me. It’s like we have different roles in our lives, and as deep thinkers we’re like, okay, well how do I show up at work now? How do I show up in my friendships now? How do I make everything work for me? It’s like you’re kind of relearning every angle and every aspect.

Elisha: Yeah, it’s huge. And we’re always being challenged. We say, we think, yeah, great. I’ve accepted this part of me. And then something will happen with a friend or a colleague or something then, or out in society, I dunno, your food shopping or something. And then all of a sudden that sensitive part of you is being challenged. And it’s an invitation to be like, well, how much of this version of you are you really accepting? How much of you really integrated that aspect of you? And it’s almost like it’s not about defending our honor, but there is this, it’s very similar to that inner child. We’re being challenged to go, no, I’m standing up for myself. I’m standing up for the right to be who I am. And my sensitivity is a huge part of me.

And like you said earlier, it’s a massive gift. And that was huge for me because I know a lot of us, it’s a curse. It’s a curse. It’s something we hate about ourselves, because that’s what society told us to do. It’s like, oh, no, no, no, you can’t accept that about you. That’s wrong. So, when we’re able to accept that part of us, oh, it’s just huge, huge, huge difference.

Kim: It’s almost like that’s when the real work starts. It’s like that’s not the finish line, friends. That’s where it begins the real journey. It’s coming back to self.

Elisha: Totally. And for me, I always see our lives as a puzzle piece, and all of a sudden when I found out about being HSP, it was like all of a sudden, the puzzle of my life went from black and white to technicolor, and then all of a sudden, these pieces that had been missing for years just started slotting in. And then I just saw this bigger picture of myself. And even now it’s like, oh, there’s another bit of me that I need to reclaim and integrate and love back in.

So, it’s like, oh, because another puzzle piece to go into that puzzle. And obviously that puzzle piece is never done. It’s never done until we are done. But it really is about reclamation. And that reclaiming, I would say, the most important part of us because it just comes with so many gifts. It can be applied in any situation. And as we know and everybody listening, it’s here to take the world into a much better place to raise the consciousness of the planet and to just be living how we’re supposed to as humans, which is not this mindless grind force noisy place. Oh, thank you.

Kim: Yes. We are so stuck in the matrix and what is expected of us and what we think we need to survive that survival mode, that we’re really putting that beauty of humanness and spirituality on the back burner. So, I was looking at your sites and everything, and I know you do spiritual work, and it’s funny, it comes up a lot with HSPs right now and the collective and this new kind of age that we’re entering into. I would love, is that something you’re comfortable with, kind of sharing your spiritual journey?

Elisha: Absolutely. I love it. Love it. Let’s do it.

Kim: Me too.

Elisha: Favorite part of me. Yes.

Kim: It’s so exciting and hard. Let’s not sugar coat this…

Elisha: Yeah, absolutely. I’m not going to lie, I’m going through a phase at the moment. It’s clearly a death and rebirth. And that’s the thing, the more we do this work, I put a reel on my Instagram yesterday and I was like, do you know what? I’m not having a great time. And that’s okay. It’s how you navigate it, because a lot of these coaches or therapists, they sell you this story of, once you know your purpose, once you’re in alignment, life’s easy.

Kim: Perfect.

Elisha: No, it’s not. You get to a level where, yeah, it does feel amazing, and you’re like, whoa, there’s this new sense of joy in me and love and just, wow, life is so beautiful. And you’re living in that for days, weeks, maybe a couple of months. And then it’s like, no, no, no. The universe is like, come on another layer. Let’s peel back another layer.

Kim: There’s level up!

Elisha: Yeah, there’s more of you. We’ve got to get her out into the world, and we’ve got to get him out into the world. The world wants more of you. So, it’s really important to acknowledge that not every day is easy. Not every month is easy, depending on what we’ve signed up for with our sole purpose, who we’ve signed up for to interact in with life. We’ve got people constantly teaching us, giving us lessons. And then I’m very, very into astrology and Human Designand all these spiritual things. And life is so not linear yet we still, so many of us are understanding that it’s not linear, but there’s still the story and narrative that it’s a linear world, and it really isn’t. It’s so cyclical, isn’t it?

Kim: Yes. And you’re making me think back to the puzzle thing. It’s like you think you get a piece and this aha moment, you’re like, oh, I got it. And then it’s another, like you said, there’s more the universe. I feel like the ones who are doing the work and really are here to grow, are continuing to grow. It’s like a never-ending difficult, beautiful landscape that we’re just being kind of, well, sometimes walking along, but also tossed along, it feels…

Elisha: Frankly, it’s very much this rollercoaster and it’s the ups, the downs. And being HSP, we’re very, we are designed to have the highs and the lows. As frustrating as they are, we are meant to have the highs and the lows because there’s gifts within that. And it means that we’re in, I wouldn’t say enjoying, because pain isn’t nice to enjoy, but we are enjoying or enduring every feeling there is to be a human. And for me, my human experience is about experiencing things, not accruing items and physical stuff. It’s the experience within myself. And yeah, life really is a rollercoaster for sure.

Kim: How do you help people apply that? Because you use this in your coaching, how do you inspire people to take this path? You and I know that when you sign up, it’s like the death and rebirth. It’s like it’s pretty much setting a match to your entire life and watching it burn before your very eyes, so you can be a more authentic version of yourself. How do you not sell that to people? But what’s the benefit, I guess?

Elisha: Again, in the video, I was saying something about I’d rather live in alignment with myself and still have the highs and the lows than be out of alignment with myself and be having the highs and the lows.

Kim: Wow. I love that.

Elisha: Because they’re still gray, they’re still numb, they’re still lacking. But when I have the highs and the lows, when I’m in alignment, they have purpose. They have more meaning. Whereas when I was out of alignment and totally disconnected with myself after traumas, it was just, I felt so numb to life and just I was going through these motions. So quite often with my clients, my recent ones, they’ve said to me, they’re like, but this is so painful. And when you’re in it, it is so painful. But then they come through whatever it is they’re having to shed. And for me, I often liken it to an exorcism, because for me being so energetically in tune, it’s almost like the more we’ve abandoned ourselves, the more painful it is to come back to ourselves. But it’s worth it, if that makes any sense. That’s been my experience that I spent years and years denying me my own self.

And then reclaiming aspects of myself has been one of the most painful experiences of my life. However, like I said, with those highs and those lows, the joy that I’ve experienced, I can’t even describe the joy, the love, the euphoria, the bliss, the peace, that divine feminine. And with my clients, they quite often, once they’re through a particular cycle, they go, do you know what? That was awful, but really worth it. Because again, yeah, they’ve reconnected and re-met something of themselves.

And a friend said to me recently that I’ve been working with actually coaching. And she said to me back in the summer, she says, Alicia, I can’t, it’s so hard to describe. She’s like, I can’t thank you. It’s like, it’s like you freed me from myself. And that was the most humbling, beautiful, honoring words I could have heard. And that’s the thing I want to free people from their conditioning, from their wounding, from their trauma. And yet, it’s a bloody painful process. And this is the thing. This work is not easy, but it’s so worth it. And when you’re doing it, you do realize, yeah, it’s fucking uncomfortable. Damn. On the other side, on the side.

Kim: And every time, it’s like every time you’re shedding something, it’s like you face the pain and then you shed it, and you feel amazing, and then you face more pain, and then you shed it, and you feel amazing. It’s like a constant one-up.

Elisha: Yeah, and my analogy, it’s like climbing a mountain. You’re climbing this rock face that’s awful. It’s rocky, it’s gale-force winds. It’s raining, it’s icy, it’s, awful. And you’re bleeding, you’re in your hands and your knees, and you’re crying and you’re like, when am I going to get to the top? And then you just get to the top of that mountain and the heavens come, the clouds part, the sun shines, and there’s this, I’m getting more tingly as I say this. And there’s this beautiful path down the mountain. It’s like a jungle, but it’s an oasis. And there’s all these wonderful things to experience on the other side of that mountain.

Kim: Yeah, yeah. Someone recently I saw or read, or probably saw on TikTok, if I’m being honest, I didn’t read this. And it was like, it’s harder to carry our pain without facing it than to face it once or twice and heal it and kind of grow out of it, which I kind of resonated with.

Elisha: I completely agree. For me. So, I would say I had kind of a decade, definitely seven years bordering on a decade. It was a decade of sort of trauma stress, but it was really seven years where I’d disconnected from myself. And when I look back, those seven years were far worse than, I don’t know, the last five or six, seven years where I’ve been doing this work, doing this healing, accepting myself, I would say. Yeah, those first seven years, you’ve just said it was way heavier. It was way harder. Life was potentially simpler, but not nicer.

Kim: How do you explain alignment? What does that mean to you? What is alignment? When you say you’re living more in alignment, what is that?

Elisha: Yeah, so it’s very much listening to my body now. I’ve realized, and with the help of human design as well, our body speaks to us all the time. And being HSP, we’re so good at this once we tune in, but again, it’s like this native language that we’ve had since we were children, but we were told to not listen to it, to disconnect from it, don’t trust it, all those things. And so, for me, when I’m in alignment, I am at peace within myself. I’m not battling myself. I’m sort of communicating with my soul, my intuition.

I’m trying to live in flow as much as possible. Obviously, life happens, things happen, but it’s about honoring myself now, trusting myself, listening to myself. And for me, it was very much an integration process of my human self, my energy body, my soul. And it was just coming back in together as one rather than these separate entities. They’re all living in symbiosis with each other, if that makes sense. So yeah, it’s very much living in your truth and not betraying yourself anymore.

Kim: That sounds like a journey in and of itself, figuring out how the body works, how the energy works, how the soul works, how the intuition works, and then learning how to marry all that together. Has that been your experience?

Elisha: Definitely. It really has. And like you said earlier, learning about the HSP thing, but everything else that makes us who we are, it is like you’re just completely relearning everything. You are relearning a language, you’re relearning this thing called a nervous system. And it’s like, oh, okay. So, I actually have to listen to that, and it takes a while, but it is like a muscle. It gets finely tuned and you start really feeling the subtleties and sort of the yes’s and the no’s and things like that. But yeah, I wouldn’t say it’s been easy. Again, it’s not been easy, but it’s absolutely been worth it.

Kim: That’s why it’s probably helpful to work with someone who can help you say like, oh, that ringing in your ears, or that pit in your stomach. Yeah, you’re right. We’re so out of our bodies that it’s hard to remember. We don’t know how to use them. We’ve never been taught how to use them.

Elisha: Because you think of children, they’re so instinctual, and as we know, up until the age of seven, they’re so intuitive. They say what’s on their mind, they’re so honest. And they’re just like, I’m hungry. I want to play. I’m tired.

Kim: You’re speaking up for their needs, like matter of fact. But we learn that that’s not safe.

Elisha: And I love it when you ask kids questions and they just go, no. And I’m like, fair play. They know what they want, obviously depends on the context, but for the most part, children really know themselves before that conditioning sets in. So, it’s, again, they’re living from a place of just, it’s instinctual. It’s just a natural instinct. So, once we, and it is that language, it’s relearning the language of our body, of just how it communicates with us. And we’re all different. And this is what I love about Human Design is we’ve all got slight nuances on how our intuition talks to us. And we might sort of get thoughts, we might get visuals, we might just get this yes or no. So, it’s really important to find out how your intuition talks to you.

Kim: Can you share a little bit about that? About Human Design and then what that is?

Elisha: I’m not an expert in Human Design, but it’s very much a tool that I always make sure my clients have, because for me, it’s been a game changer. It helps you learn how you function in the world. It helps you to learn what your soul purpose theme has been, what your specific gift is. So, my main gift, a gate is 36, so I’m chaos to clarity. I’m darkness to light. So, when somebody’s, because I’ve had to go through so many of my own, and to your point earlier, you have to do this work with somebody that’s walked the steps, preferably a very similar path to you because you have to resonate. It has to be a soul. I can’t explain this, I just know I need to work with you mirror than, yeah, yeah. That rapport, not just any therapist, not just any coach. They have to be right for you.

So yeah, with the Human Design, I am really good at taking people through any kind of chaos. So, whether it’s a relationship. So, somebody I was working with during the summer, she was coming out of a 15-year relationship where she realized there was codependency, she was mothering him and all these things. And so, she would have sessions with me and there would be sort of the odd voice message as well. And I would just guide her through like I feel chaotic and she’s going through it, and I just have this ability to just have that calm presence. And it’s almost like I become a portal, a vortex for people sort of energetically to move through. And sometimes I am very much a catalyst as well, so I might actually kick off people’s spiritual awakenings. So, it’s like their soul comes to me and I can feel it, and I’m like, they’re not ready for this work yet.

They’ll come and go, and then eventually they’re ready. And I can feel an activation in my energy body. And I’m like, yeah, the time is now. But everybody works in their own time with your Human Design, it is a great way of learning your specific gift, how you function, how you should eat, how you should best operate environments and things.

And then I think it’s the authority. So, it’s how you make decisions. So, for me, it’s the sacral. So, I need to ask myself yes and no questions. And with HSPs, this actually works in a general rule, I think is when somebody asks you an open-ended question and you are overwhelmed, you’re overstimulated, which even happens to me, years on life will have been really busy or you haven’t slept, you can get overstimulated. And if somebody comes at me and asks me an open question, I literally, I’ve noticed now I’ve been finetuning it where I literally can’t quite answer them.

But if they ask me a yes or no question, it’s almost like an instant response. And if I don’t have an instant response, then I know to just sit on it for a bit. But it could be a no, but it could be a yes, but later on. But I think there’s splenic, there’s, gosh, I can’t think off the top of my head, but there are a few sort of nuances, and it is really powerful to know which one you are. It can be really, really helpful.

Kim: It’s almost like a little bit of a roadmap to show you more about your alignment so you’re not just kind of flailing around figuring it out on your own. It sounds like it brings a lot of clarity in that department.

Elisha: Huge. Yeah. I’m very much an advocate in people realizing that we’re not just one blueprint. We’re almost like we’re made up of several blueprints that makes us us. So, for me, or you’re looking at a pie chart and I don’t know, we’re chopped into nine pieces or something. And so, you’ve got maybe the fact that, so for me, I’m white, I’m British, I’m a female. Then another section of me would be my astrology. Knowing my astrology, that is a game changer. Knowing what your moon, your sun, and your ascendant is, that is huge. And I found out that the opposite of your ascendant is your descendant, which is basically your ideal partner. So, astrology really is fantastic. And then another section of you or another bit of your blueprint is being HSP. That’s a whole another layer of you. And then your human design is another layer. And then there’s just all these other little things that make us us. And again, it’s even more of a confirmation that we are so unique. We are so unique.

Kim: And multifaceted. Yeah, that’s awesome. So, what do you struggle with, would you say as a highly sensitive person?

Elisha: It’s really hard to pin that down because it depends on the situation. It depends on the time of year. It might be depending on what I’m dealing with at the time. So, for me, let’s talk about today. So, for me today, what is my challenge today, it’s lack of sleep. Last night I had a situation with a dog that I’m looking after, and I didn’t realize that it actually subconsciously really stressed me out. And so, I spent the night stressing about it. I was doing my EFT, I was tapping.

Kim: Tapping away!

Elisha: I was tapping away. And that’s another tool like EFT, tapping. Do you know what? My late brother introduced it to me about 20 years ago, and I was there, I don’t know, like 19 tapping away, going, it’s not working. I’m hormonal now. My gosh. It’s brilliant. EFT tapping is brilliant. So anyway, so today the challenge today has been lack of sleep.

That’s been the challenge. So, you are feeling a bit raw. You might be feeling a bit more tearful. So, some days it could be lack of sleep is the challenge. Then other times it could be my hormones as a woman, oh my goodness, I would write a book on the experiences, excruciating pain of hormones, and then maybe another time, I really struggle with relationships in that, not hopefully now, because I’ve really done a lot of work in three years when it comes to relationships.

But again, looking at my astrology, looking at my Human Design, I had to actually have those experiences with those different men to get me to have the wisdom that I have now to take with me into the next relationship and hopefully the permanent one. And also, to pass on to the people. So, over the years, relationships have been a real challenge. Socializing was a real challenge for me. It still is now, I kind of have a 90-minute, two-hour window, and then I’m cooked, and then I have to just step away or just not come back. So again, socializing can be a real challenge.

So, it just depends. And some days it could just be something really simple that going grocery shopping, you’re just like, I just haven’t got the bandwidth for grocery shopping. I have to plug in my noise-canceling headphones. Game changer.

Kim: Yeah. Put on your own music. Yeah. Try not to freak when you’re in someone’s armpit on accident, it’s a madhouse out there. Oh, man. So what advice, I’m sorry, I don’t want to skip one. I didn’t get what you love and celebrate about being a highly sensitive person.

Elisha: For me, it’s having this profound connection to the universe, to the life force, to the divine, to the spiritual realm, to my soul, to my energy body. Having that sensitive connection is I love that. And I love being so sensitive and empathic when it comes to my clients and helping them through their darkest days, that when they’re in their chaos, when they’re in their spiritual awakening or they’re traversing the hardest parts of their life, being so sensitive to be able to know what to say, to know that I’ve been there. And when I am saying what I’m saying, it comes from a place of lived experience. I didn’t study it in university, I didn’t read about it in textbooks. I’ve lived it. So having that sensitivity for my clients, I love being able to do that for them. Yeah.

Kim: Yes. Yeah, I am with you. Just having that empathy of non-judgment space where it’s like, I hear you. I see you. Same here.

Elisha: Yeah, and it’s incredible the way we have this compassion as well. We just have this immense compassion for other people more than we do for ourselves. And that’s where the work is, is it’s got to be 50/50. It’s got to cut both ways, but we do have this profound compassion towards so many people and so many situations. And quickly finishing off that is that when, for me, when I look back, when I wasn’t compassionate towards other people, it’s because I was in survival mode. I was on empty and actually sensitive people can come across really insensitive when they’re totally overwhelmed and totally overstimulated. It doesn’t make us bad people. It just makes us human.

Kim: Oh yeah. I had a friend of mine, we went out the other night and it was just really overwhelming, and I hurt her deeply because I got angry with her, and it wasn’t her. It was the overwhelm, and it was like me trying to figure out myself and my environment, and it can just, well up without. But to your point about the shame and the self-acceptance, it’s okay. That’s how we’re wired. It was not against you and all that. No one’s perfect.   

Elisha: Perfect. It is hard when we’re overwhelmed to put words to how we feel, it’s not always easy,

Kim: Especially when you’re trying not to say anything. And it keeps welling up. I feel like when I’m trying to be kind and then it just comes out awful.   

Elisha: For me it’s just better to just say it as it is. Just get it out there is the best policy.

Kim: I love that. So, what advice would you have for HSPs who may be struggling finding joy or contentment in their lives?

Elisha: Just seriously keep going. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Doesn’t always feel like it doesn’t always look like it. And the advice from me is just for the love of God, trust yourself. Nobody knows you better than you know yourself. And whether you need to take time away from people to figure it out, then that’s what you need to do. Because by honoring who you are and your needs, it’s a game-changer.

And it’s just trusting yourself, even if it feels uncomfortable, even more if it doesn’t make any sense, just trust yourself. And that knowing, even if it doesn’t make sense, yeah, it’s just seriously, trust yourself. Your needs learned the hard way and the long way that when I sat with them for long enough, when I look back, I’ve realized I actually knew what I wanted the whole time. I just denied myself what I knew I wanted for myself. And that’s been a huge lesson for me. So, it’s just whatever you do, trust yourself.

Kim: I am so with you there, and I feel like we hang too long in spaces that we’re not meant for because we don’t know or are afraid to stand up for our needs. We know what we need. It’s just maybe the learning is learning how to stand up for our needs, I feel and practicing that because it is uncomfortable.

Elisha: Because we’re so wired to know other people’s needs before they do. So, we have this, again, it comes down to conditioning as well, but it’s this, well, I better not do what’s right for me because that’s going to upset somebody else. So again, we’re putting other people’s needs before our own.

Kim: Yes, that’s a hundred percent amazing. So, you do one-on-ones with coaching. Can you share a little bit about that and how people can follow along on your journey?

Elisha: Yeah, absolutely. So, they can find me on my website or on my socials, which I know are at the bottom. I’m on Instagram, I’m on LinkedIn. So, if people want to say hi, if they want to ask me some questions, I do do a 15-minute discovery call just to connect if people would like to find out a bit more.

But again, like with our conversation, this healing process isn’t comfortable. It’s not linear, but it’s absolutely worth it. I do create a very powerful, energetic container, and it can be quite intense, but there’s a lot of love and power that comes with it. And the results are, from what I hear and gather, they’re worth it.

Kim: And you’re going through something really difficult from a supportive and loving space.

Elisha: Absolutely. Because it’s holding that container for people. It’s being able to sit in that mud with them, so

Kim: They’re not alone in that. Amazing, Elicia, thank you so much for the work that you do, and thank you so much for joining me today. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Elisha: Thanks for having me, Kim. Really appreciate it.

Thank you so much for joining me for this conversation with Elisha. I hope today’s episode helped you feel more connected to your inner knowing and reminded you that your sensitivity is not just a trait — it can also serve as a compass and a pathway toward deeper alignment with your spiritual self.

If this episode resonated with you, I’d love for you to share it with another sensitive soul who might need this reminder today.   

Until next time, take care.

About Elisha May:

Elisha May is an Intuitive Energy Coach, Empath, and Founder of Freedom of Self® - a soul-led movement helping people let go of who they think they should be and live as who they really are.

After years of navigating trauma, loss, burnout, and breakdowns of identity, Elisha reclaimed her truth - not by fixing herself, but by remembering who she was underneath it all.

Now, through her signature program Freedom of Self® (coming soon!), she guides empaths, sensitives, and soul-led rebels out of emotional chaos, self-abandonment, and suppression - and into clarity, confidence, and a life that actually feels like theirs.

Her work isn’t about mindset hacks or behaviour change - it’s deep, embodied liberation.

This is the transformation that begins when you stop performing… and start living true.

Follow along on Elisha’s journey:

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

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iamelishamay/

LinkedIn: https://www.facebook.com/iamelishamay/

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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