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Dear reader,
Welcome to the first installment of Mindful Crybaby! In this monthly edition, I will share self-soothing tools to support — nay, celebrate — our sensitive nature. My hope is that we can come together in practice and that some part of this experience soothes you.
I’d also like to use this space to share more of how being a highly sensitive person (HSP) manifests specifically in my life. Swapping stories can be a powerful tool in itself. I want to share some here, and I’d love to hear from you as well. With that said, I find it super challenging to put these feelings into words without over-intellectualizing it. Most of my agony in being hyper-sensitive is in my inability to explain what I am feeling, which is why I spend a lot of time alone with them. Translating it into words is like trying to shove an ocean through a straw. But alas, I shall try!
Generally for me being a highly sensitive person feels like there is a subtle energetic buzz that is just stimulating enough to my nervous system that it slowly drains me, kind of all the time. Whether it’s lights that are slightly too blue or the tinny sound in the background of a song or a corrupt character in a film — all if it pierces me and plants a tiny seed in my soul. And sometimes it happens without me consciously registering it. So then I move about my day carrying all of this around and wonder why I suddenly feel overwhelmed. I have a hard time watching television shows with problematic characters. I have to drive in silence to my doctor’s appointments. I crawl in bed after long bouts of meetings. It all sounds silly, and I guess that’s why I have avoided describing it so plainly.
There are good aspects of being a HSP. Most times I am grateful for this strange personality trait. While it’s exhausting to be so porous to the world, it is this sensitive nature that brings more depth into my relationships and nearly every experience I have. Sensitivity can be a magnificent gift. It allows me to be moved easily by life — all of which makes me feel more alive, makes everything feel richer.
While I’m sure not every reader here experiences the same feelings, it is likely you have someone in your life who does. So if you’re either a highly sensitive person or love someone who is, I hope these tools can help.
Writing practice for you
I am an expert collector of coping mechanisms. I have a treasure trove of meditations, prompts, and techniques to get me through whatever emotional minefield I'm dealing with. But above all, there is one I use the most. Let’s see if it can help you, too.
Whenever I become overwhelmed, I have a practice of writing down every single thought in my mind — tasks, feelings, worries, you name it. Whatever it is, it gets added to the page. That’s it. That is the whole practice.
A couple of things happen when I do this. 1) Something about the tangible nature of my anxieties makes them feel more manageable, as if penning my worries takes back my power over them, and 2) about a third of things I can remove altogether and no one would be the wiser due to the fact that most items are undo pressure I place upon myself.
Granted, you may be dealing with worries that are unavoidable, things you cannot simply erase by writing it down. But that’s okay. Continue the practice anyway. Sometimes, maintaining the practice is all we can do. At the very least, this will help you build self-compassion for how much you are going through at any given moment. I already know — it is a lot!
I have more on writing as a coping mechanism in future dispatches, but let’s stick to this simple practice for now and see how it goes. When you write everything down, note the feelings that come up and where you may be giving your power away. Try your best not to judge how you’re feeling and simply make note of what surfaces when you look at the page. If you’d like to continue writing about what’s there, do it. If you want to burn the paper and start from the beginning, well dear, you are my hero.
A mindful meditation to begin your morning
No matter where you are in your meditation practice, I always find it helpful to allow oneself to begin again (and again and again). Whether you’ve been meditating every day for decades, or you’re just not sure about this whole meditation thing and find it all a little burdensome. Fine. I get it! But let’s see what we can do together today.
This month’s recorded meditation is a simple body scan — breathe, pay attention to the body parts I call out, and breathe some more. You can listen to it as often as needed. See it as an invitation to come back to your body and this present moment.
While I don’t have hard and fast rules around it, I find it helpful to meditate as soon as I wake up. I am in a much better mood throughout the day when I demand at least 10-15 minutes to myself straight away. Remember that sensitivity I mentioned? Well meditating in the morning is like shaking out all the embedded energy that I hadn’t released from the previous day. In short, morning meditation is essential maintenance work for the highly sensitive person.
The meditation begins at the 6-minute mark. Feel free to dive back into it whenever you like. I would also love to know — what other kind of meditations do you enjoy? I’m down to make this a collaboration! Let me know if there are certain topics or themes you are exploring, and I can incorporate them in future dispatches.
What is inspiring me this week
This week, I have been re-reading one of my favorite poems by Mary Oliver — When I am Among the Trees. Take a moment to read it, and if you like, I have included a few journaling prompts below.
When I am Among the Trees — Mary Oliver
When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me, and daily.I am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness, and discernment, and never hurry through the world but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, “Stay awhile.” The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say, “and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.”
Reflection prompts
There are many ways to explore these prompts, but one way is to reflect on one each week of the month. Write about them, contemplate them on a walk, talk about it with a friend. Take it slow.
When are you most distant from the hope of yourself?
What does walking slowly through your life look like?
How can you turn this into a small ritual?
What must be released to make room for this?
Behind the art
The painting at the top of this newsletter is called Extinction of Useless Lights by Yves Tanguy, a surrealist painter from the early 1900s. I have zero knowledge of art history or of the lexicon used, so I’ll spare us both from attempting to say anything remotely intellectual about it. But I do absorb art just like the next HSP… very deeply. This piece brings me to a place of deep stillness, and also sadness. Perhaps they occupy the same home.
For those curious about Tanguy, here is an excerpt from The Art Story.
Yves Tanguy was in many respects the quintessential Surrealist. A sociable eccentric who ate spiders as a party trick, and a close friend of Andre Breton, Tanguy was best-known for his misshapen rocks and molten surfaces that lent definition to the Surrealist aesthetic. Self-taught but enormously skilled, Tanguy painted a hyper-real world with exacting precision. His landscapes, a high-octane blend of fact and fiction, captured the attention of important artists and thinkers from Salvador Dalí to Mark Rothko who admitted their debt to the older artist. And even Carl Gustav Jung used a canvas by Tanguy to illustrate his theory of the collective unconscious.
Let me know what this piece makes you feel and what art is inspiring you in the comments.
I am so happy to be here in community with you again. Please let me know what is ailing your inner crybaby these days, and I will do my best to continue offering self-soothing practices. Let’s chat about it in the comments.
—B.
I am definitely someone who needs a prompt for my journaling to feel cathartic or helpful in any way, so I realllyyyy appreciate your questions, especially that first one. Oof. A doozy. Thank you so much for sharing.