Radical* Psychotherapy for Highly Sensitive Women in Oregon & Washington
*Radical: rad·i·cal | \ ˈra-di-kəl: favoring extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions, or institutions ie; F*ck the Patriarchy
Hello, I’m Christina & I Guide Highly Sensitive Women to:
Embrace their sensitive and intuitive gifts,
Heal their childhood trauma,
End perfectionism and people-pleasing,
Become comfortable with boundaries,
Recover from narcissitic relationships.
Believe Themselves
What Does it Mean to be Highly Sensitive?
You walk into a party and rather then just noticing (as most do) where the food & booze is
: heading there now- I see quac,
you also feel the tension between the hosts
: hmm, they were just fighting, I wonder if I should help?
you know that the friend you just waved at is feeling self conscious
: I’ll have to remember to tell her how awesome she is.
& they’ve completely remodeled the kitchen and nobody has noticed
: and now I will need to remember to compliment the host so she doesn’t get hurt.
All that in just in the first scan of the room. That is what you are processing in the space of a typical person making a beeline for the spread and getting excited about the guacamole.
That doesn’t even include all the other thoughts you have about yourself! Your own anxieties, feelings, social phobias… fear of dropping quac down your shirt, etc. And now you feel responsible for helping the people you saw were distressed. And when you choose to enjoy the party (instead of saving everyone else), you feel guilty.
You think there is something wrong with you for not being able to socialize as easily and/or needing more alone/down time. Maybe you think you are weak and over sensitive, you just need to toughen up and not take everything personally. You push yourself to fit in with your families and friends, (whom we love) but you wish it didn’t all take so much damn effort!
Of course something is fundamentally Wrong with you.
Nope.
You have unique abilities that only manifest in 15-20% of people. You are doing a buttload* more cognitive sensory processing then the typical person. You aren’t weak, you just do more work in the same time frame. Put a hamster and a guinea pig in side-by-side wheels, and that hamster will be working much harder to go the same distance. A hamster is not better or worse than a guinea pig, just different. But it is easy to feel a little hopeless when it appears that everyone is a guinea pig and you are a lonely hamster (but one of those cool ones in the fancy car).
*buttload (plural buttloads)(obsolete, Britain, West Country): A regional English measure of capacity of a heavy cart (a butt), containing 6 seams, or 48 bushels, equivalent to 384 gallons. (SEE - it is a real thing! I am not just being vulgar.)
Services.
Midlife (Crisis) Transitions
Midlife begins around 35 - hey don’t blame the messenger! Many HSPers feel more lost and confused then ever in the middle years. They have spent their lives trying to fit in, people pleasing, striving to do everything perfectly in order to stay safe, loved and valued in society. Rather than feeling proud and happy of what they have accomplished, they feel emotionally exhausted, unhappy, stressed and irritable.
Believe Yourself
No, I don’t mean believe -IN- yourself, I mean ‘Believe Yourself’. Your intuition, your inner knowing, your own wants & needs. Highly Sensitive People (HSP) often struggle with self doubt, overwhelm, anxiety and depression. And no wonder! Self-belief takes a HUGE hit when you have felt different in ways that you may have had no words to communicate. It’s time to Believe Yourself.
Self Esteem & Soul Work
Soul work is all about empowerment. It’s about deciding to move in a direction that honors what you truly want for yourself, not what your family or society believe is best for you. Our culture has worked hard to have a powerful hold on us and it takes courage to take a look at ourselves and our lives to see if we are leading it, or if others are doing it for us.
