Biz's BLOGFor Sensitive Wise Women
Resources and inspiration from Elizabeth Cush
People Pleasing and Perfectionism
If you were raised in a family that didn’t know and understand HSPs, the messages you often heard were to shut down or control your feelings, control the over-stimulation and overwhelm, don’t be so sensitive. But you are sensitive! It’s an integral part of who you are, and it’s not something that needs “fixing!”
High Sensitivity, Meditation, and Mindfulness
I needed tools to help me slow down, listen, to turn inward. That’s where mindfulness and meditation come in.
Caring for the Caregiver
Taking care of your nervous system — taking care of yourself while you care for others — is important.
Spiraling: In A Good Way
What if instead of getting caught up in distress of the experience, we start to notice each time we come back to that worry or devalued sense of worth. Like the spiral in my picture above of the horseshoe crab.
The Power of Self-Compassion
Those long-heard messages around being tough, not wallowing in your feelings, and moving on, have deep roots. So, doing things differently—giving myself care and kindness—takes a lot of practice. And can feel just as uncomfortable as the memories and feelings of trauma.
Life on Repeat
And each time you fall back into old patterns, behaviors, or ways of being you might wonder if this will ever end. You might be asking yourself, “Will there be a time when I don’t make the same mistakes, or think the same things, or do the same things?” Will I ever fully heal?”
Mid-Life Introspection and Reflection
As you enter and move through midlife you might find you’re more curious and patient with yourself. And maybe new insights are arising. And if you have highly sensitive traits, you’re probably very attuned to your strengths and weaknesses already.
Feeling Overstimulated and Overwhelmed?
Do you get easily overwhelmed by having to make decisions, or projects that involve lots of steps? Or maybe looking ahead to a future event and everything that needs to happen between now and then feels impossible?
Why do bad things happen to good people?
The myth that bad things shouldn’t happen to good people conversely means that bad things should only happen to bad people. And that everyone is either good or bad. Is anyone of us one or the other.
Feeling Stuck and Unfulfilled: Longing for Deeper Connection
For highly sensitive women in midlife, you’re particularly attuned to your inner life and emotional experiences. But instead of feeling freeing, midlife can be overwhelming if you’re feeling unfulfilled, out of alignment, or just burned out.
Being Highly Sensitive is a Gift
Did you know that 15-20% of people are highly sensitive people (HSPs)? For years I attributed my high sensitivity to my anxiety. And I didn’t have a lot of compassion for when I felt overwhelmed or stressed out. I felt that I was the “problem.”
Mid-Life Challenges and Choices
Midlife has many challenges—but what my clients want at this point is to let go of some of the old baggage they’ve carried for so long. To live life from now, this point forward.
The Difference Between Coaching and Therapy: How Do You Choose?
The Difference Between Coaching and Therapy: How Do You Choose?
Life coaching and therapy have many similarities, but they are different in some significant ways.
Keeping Promises To Yourself
How often do we, as women, make promises to ourselves only to break them? And then we feel bad about all the ways we’re not showing up for ourselves.
Opening Space for Growth and Move Through Burn-Out
When we’re busying ourselves because we want to feel productive—not because we have the energy and creativity for it—it’s a sure-fire way to end up burned out. And burnout leads to a lack of motivation and avoidance.
Shameless in 2022
Our shame lessens, and its power diminishes when we bring it into the light. When we explore the fears that lie behind the shame, it gives us a chance to see our shame with a little more compassion. And as we share our pain and our feelings of shame with the people we trust, it lightens. We’re no longer carrying the burden alone.
Moving Through Self-Doubt, Imposter Syndrome and Shame
I like to imagine the Imposter like the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz. When Toto pulls back the curtain and he’s frantically pushing buttons for the sound, smoke and light effects, and he says, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”
Just like the Wizard, the Imposter makes you feel like you need to make a dazzling light show or a smoke screen to distract everyone’s attention away from you, because although you might look like you have it altogether, you really are a poser and at any moment everyone will find out.
The Hidden Magic of Halloween
Halloween is fast approaching! For me, Halloween has always been a sign of fall, cooler weather, and the beginning of the holiday season.
Dressing up, wearing costumes, play acting, and improvising give us a chance to try on and inhabit the different parts of ourselves that we might feel uncomfortable exploring in our everyday life.
