What are your guiding parts?
Guided by my sensitivity.
I opened my inbox to see an email from my Reiki instructor, Molly. She was providing feedback on my final submission of the Reiki II course, a self-reflection form on the sessions I had completed.
In my submission, I asked “I’m wondering how my high sensitivity (HSP) is going to keep showing up in this work. I want to stay tender and sensitive, and I love this part of me. I believe my high sensitivity is a guide, even. But I also don’t want to make things weird1 by being emotional whenever something beautiful happens. Any insight on that would be lovely.”
What she wrote back to this question was exactly what I needed:
“Do not be ashamed of your tears or being sentimental-- not to get on a whole soapbox here but we have so many messages in our life telling us we ‘feel too much’ but what you're describing is compassion, and we can NEVER have too much of that. So don't close yourself off to it, if you get teary in a session with a client it just means you are human and connected to them and there is no shame in that. To quote YOU, ‘high sensitivity is a guide’ and the right people will be drawn to you because of it. Don't hide what makes you, you and what keeps your heart tender.”
So as I write to you now, I am recalling a moment yesterday when I was resetting my office between clients. Fluffing the pillows and clearing the energy. I tuned into the energy of my next client, who hadn’t arrived yet. “He’s sad today, the grief has been a bit bigger this week.” I thought, no, knew, no, felt (?) to myself. I double-checked that the tissue box had plenty left, and when he arrived, he told me about how his grief had felt bigger since I saw him last, and we had a sacred and holy session about how that is the nature of grief.
My sensitivity and intuition are guides for me. Little guides sometimes, and Big Guides sometimes. Sometimes it is this small alert to grab an extra tissue box today. Sometimes it’s a bigger alert that a new relationship isn’t for me. Sometimes it’s the metaphor I share that someone says “That’s exactly what I needed to hear.” Most painfully, my sensitivity is almost always the guide to know when I have created harm and have to muster the bravery for an apology.
What are your guiding parts? Maybe these are the parts of you that you’ve previously worked really hard to quiet, bury, or make as small as possible because they “make things weird.” What if they are actually your guiding parts? The parts of you that should most be in the driver’s seat? Your playful part, your just-seeking part, your gentle and compassionate part? Your loud part?2 Your inspiring part, your affectionate part, your warrior part?
I hope today’s piece will serve as a gentle entry point into a series I’d like to do in which I have some written interviews with “experts in mundane things.” If you have a catchier name for something like that, I’m very open to suggestions.
Be well this week and see if you can allow some new parts to drive for a while.
“Making things weirdly sentimental” is a constant for me.
If your loud part is in the driver’s seat, please live fully expressed, but I can’t sit next to you at a restaurant or I will listen to your whole conversation at neglect of my own dining companion because my nosiest part will nudge it’s way right into my driver’s seat.
This deeply resonates. Thank you, Jesie 💕