Empowering High Sensitivty - Interview Part 2 of 2

Interview Continued from Part One...Specific Techniques are in Orange

Douglas Eby: How do you counsel people who are conflicted about working or being with others, but also need to protect themselves, emotionally?

Jenna Forrest: One thing that really helps is for sensitive people to understand that there's an energetic field that each person, animal and object, carries. When working with other people feels overwhelming or dangerous, it's because the other's energetic fields are bombarding the body, causing the self to lose its definition as a separate identity.

Without an understanding of what's happening, the sensitive person naturally becomes guarded, defensive, or controlling, ready to protect his or her self.

Eventually, this response might become isolating and exhausting, making the person unhappy.

Douglas Eby: So how do you counsel people to overcome that?

Jenna Forrest: For people who feel vulnerable out in the world, whether or not they are highly sensitive, it can help to read books or getting coaching to learn how to define personal boundaries and develop an empowered energy field.

One technique can be done every morning when you wake up. Sit up in bed or in your chair at the start of the day. Ask Spirit to surround you with an impenetrable capsule of healing light. Ask for help to release all darkness and negative emotions from the lid of that capsule before it's sealed and imagine that the darkness released has been turned into light. Physically feel all of the residual darkness, doubts, fears, anger, and sadness go out of you. You may not realize what was in there until you've cleared it. Now, you're mentally feeling empowered because you've taken charge of identifying and protecting your own energy field.

I just recently read something by Abraham-Hicks that said, "If you will give more attention to what is flowing through you toward something-- instead of what's flowing through someone else toward you, things will get better right away."

In other words, as you go out into the workplace or in social situations, instead of fearing how you'll be affected by other's energies, you can imagine how your love, beauty, and inner peace will positively affect all the people you come in contact with.

There are many ways to turn fear into power. Replacing a need to protect the self with something that feels more strong, centered and confident is the key.

Douglas Eby: That sounds like it can be a powerful shift.

Jenna Forrest: Yes, shift - that's a good word. We're replacing the need to protect ourselves, and can turn into that centered person, and that's the key to this transcendence we're talking about. It becomes feeling comfortable in the world, and being able to do the things we want to do, and are invited to do, and feeling good about it.

Douglas Eby: What would you say are a couple of the most helpful ways sensitive people, especially writers, actors and other artists, can encourage their own success and growth in life without losing the advantages of their sensitivity?

Jenna Forrest: If you were to list the advantages of sensitivity and write down the characteristics of awareness, you would see they're both the same. So as we romance our own awareness daily (meaning watching our thoughts and feelings without analysis or judgment), it automatically attracts success and growth.

This is because we're allowing the truth of the self to surface. There's no more hiding, no more pretending, and no more attachment to false identities.

When writers, actors and other artists can watch the feelings that come up as they work and as they relate to people, their very presence with those feelings is bringing in success.

So here's an exercise to try when a feeling comes up in the body as fear or another unwanted emotion. Say for example, your heart is aching with anxiousness because of tension in one of your significant relationships. Pull up an imaginary chair and sit down beside that feeling or pain in the body just as you would sit beside a hurting friend. Just be there with it. Offer no judgment or analysis. You'll notice that the fear, tension and pain goes away very quickly, because it's gotten through to you. It's no longer being ignored. This is a clearing process that dissolves the size and power of emotional pain through acknowledgement.

Douglas Eby: That's really interesting. It sounds like one of the techniques in Gestalt Therapy, in which you imagine a significant person sitting opposite you in an empty chair, and reacting to them - then switching to that chair and imagining their reactions to you. It can be powerful.

But the technique you mentioned - do you find that is helpful with a number of people you work with?

Jenna Forrest: Yes, and I have been using it myself. I find it forces me to be honest about how I'm feeling, and not judge myself.

Another thing that can help is to make an intention to find any help you need, and a technique will come up in something you read or listen to, or you'll meet the right person with the right message.

One thing that works for many people in personal growth is the Paraliminal audio recordings, which are favored by a lot of people who want to quickly re-program their subconscious thought patterns.

I've been using them for a year or two now. I have used the titles Positive Relationships and Prosperity. There are so many more I'd love to. I would love to have the full library, and I intend to. So I'll put that intention out there. (laughs)

I hear that Emotional Freedom Technique is used a lot. It combines affirmations, forgiveness and tapping of trigger points on the body to release old pain. All of these can be used separately or together to release layers of pain while building up strength and ability.

The important thing to remember is that even if you think you're not making progress, you most likely are. But everyone's got their own story, and their own technique.

Just keep trying. There's a cumulative value of doing little things with intention over time. There's nothing right or wrong in the journey. The fact that we're trying means we're growing.

I've had impatience with my process over the years, and what's really helped me is the book "Transcending the Levels of Consciousness" by David Hawkins.

It has helped me gauge my progress. It's really empowering to stand back and get perspective on our lives, and recognize where we are, and be okay with that.