How Feminine Embodiment Supports Highly Sensitive Women

I have always been highly sensitive. As a highly sensitive person, I am a deeply feeling, intuitive, compassionate individual who loves supporting others. While wanting to help those around me is a beautiful trait to have, like other highly sensitive people (HSPs), I often struggle with:

• Feeling shame around my high sensitivity

Since I was a child I have felt that my high sensitivity was “too much,” annoying, off putting, and weak. This led me to ignore, deny, and suppress my feelings, which left me feeling overwhelmed, lonely, and misunderstood. 

• People pleasing to earn love and validation 

Due to my shame around my sensitivity, I began to believe that I was only worthy of love, care, and compassion when I was pleasing others. That became my whole existence: trying to make the people around me happy, and terrified that I would do or say something that would make them upset with me. As you can imagine, this added to my sense of overwhelm and unworthiness.

• Setting healthy boundaries that protect my energy 

To be honest, it took me until my mid thirties to become aware of boundaries and the impact that not setting them was having on my life. Since I felt such deep shame around my sensitivity and was constantly working so hard to hide it, I never gave myself space to examine what my needs were. This lack of self-awareness made it impossible for me to set loving and healthy boundaries.

• Sensory overload

I used to believe I was weird for being sensitive to light, sound, smells, crowds, and temperature. Wanting to be like all of my peers who were not highly sensitive, I would force myself into environments and situations that were overwhelming, draining and unpleasant.

• Emotional burnout

As an HSP and an empath, being aware of when I am close to emotional burnout has been especially challenging. Since I am constantly absorbing the energy and emotions of others, I can quickly become burned out in social situations, especially in larger groups and with people I am not close with. 

Due to these common challenges, it is essential for HSPs to understand and honor our unique needs by creating daily time and space to care for ourselves. Let’s dive into how feminine embodiment can support us. 

HOW DOES FEMININE EMBODIMENT SUPPORT HIGHLY SENSITIVE WOMEN?

Before beginning my feminine embodiment journey, I felt disconnected from myself, my body, and my truth. I was unconsciously dishonoring myself, my body, and my needs. I was exhausted from constantly going against my true nature. Feminine embodiment helps highly sensitive women care for ourselves by helping us to honor, embrace, and express our deeply feeling hearts in a variety of ways:

1. Develop Self-Awareness

Many highly sensitive people feel far removed from their true selves because we have grown up not knowing and understanding our sensitivity and how it has impacted our lives. Feminine embodiment helps HSPs to get to the core of who we truly are by teaching us how to shift from our masculine, thinking/doing energy, into our feminine, feeling/being energy. Tapping into our feminine energy allows HSPs to access our truth, instead of living by the expectations that have been put upon us by society, our culture, families, etc. This truth is accessed through our body’s sensitivity. Learning to listen to the messages our bodies are sending us supports highly sensitive souls to sense what is right, authentic, aligned, and supportive to us and our unique needs.

2. Embrace Sensitivity As Strength

Highly sensitive people often feel a great deal of shame. Since our fast-paced world is not built to support the needs of highly sensitive people, many HSPs feel that our sensitivity is a weakness, weird, undesired, or off-putting to others. Feminine embodiment supports HSPs in embracing our sensitivity as one of our greatest strengths and empowers us to use it. It reminds HSPs that being a sensitive soul allows us to:

• connect deeply with ourselves through the sensations of our bodies
• use our intuition to make authentic and aligned choices
• notice areas of tension/stress in our minds, bodies, and hearts so we can begin to release them
• connect deeply with nature and use it to decrease feelings of overwhelm

3. Set Embodied Boundaries

Setting and upholding embodied boundaries can be especially challenging for highly sensitive people, who often people please in order to gain a sense of validation, worthiness, respect, and love. Feminine embodiment can support HSPs in setting boundaries that are created from a place of deep knowing instead of fear or confusion, by helping us to tune into how our bodies experience different situations, people, or environments (e.g. How our body experiences having a difficult conversation with a friend). After listening to our body’s wisdom about how a certain experience feels, we can then get clear on what we desire to feel instead, and create a boundary that will support us in moving in that direction. 

4. Cultivate Self-Compassion

Engaging in the practice of feminine embodiment supports highly sensitive people in deepening our ability to offer ourselves compassion. Feminine embodiment teaches HSPs how to become intimate with our thoughts, emotions, feelings, and energies. As we tune into these languages of our bodies, we can begin to notice patterns, behaviors, and beliefs that no longer serve us. We can then offer ourselves love, compassion, tenderness, and patience as we learn to let them go to make more space for flow, ease, and joy. One powerful practice that can be of benefit to HSPs learning to cultivate more self-compassion is the Loving Connected Presence practice created by Dr. Kristin Neff.

5. Express Authentically

One of the greatest gifts feminine embodiment can give to highly sensitive people is the ability to express our thoughts, emotions, feelings, and energies authentically. Many of us struggle to express ourselves authentically for fear of being labeled “too sensitive,” fear of pushing people away, or feeling unworthy of expressing our needs and desires. Feminine embodiment provides HSPs with a variety of tools, practices, and rituals, such as embodied movement, dance, and meditation, that invite us to express through our bodies so we can release tension and stress and honor ourselves as deeply feeling beings.

6. Protect Their Energy And Release What Isn’t Theirs

Many highly sensitive people, especially empaths, discover that we constantly absorb the emotions and energies of the people around us. While this can be a pleasant experience if we are around healthy, happy, loving people, it can also be very overwhelming and confusing if we are around people who are unhealthy, unhappy, or unkind. Feminine embodiment supports HSPs in tuning into our truth, our own emotions and energies, so we can become more aware of what emotions and energies are not ours and when we are most likely to absorb them from others. This clarity of what is ours to manage and what is not, as well as when we are most likely to become an emotional and energetic sponge, allows HSPs to be proactive in protecting our energy and to create sacred space to release what does not belong to us.

TO SUM IT ALL UP

And here you have it, instead of feeling stuck in the common limiting beliefs and challenges that HSPs face, you now know the many ways feminine embodiment can support you to honor the power of your sensitive nature. Feminine embodiment can lovingly guide you in developing self-awareness, embracing your sensitivity as strength, setting embodied boundaries, cultivating self-compassion, expressing your emotions authentically, and protecting your energy so that you can thrive.

I’M HERE TO SUPPORT YOU

Not sure where to start on your feminine embodiment journey? I’ve got you! I’m a feminine embodiment coach who specializes in working with highly sensitive women. Work with me 1:1 or in a group coaching container where together we will dive deep into understanding your sensitivity, how it impacts your life, and how you can use embodiment practices, tools, and rituals to live an empowered, authentic, and aligned life. Interested in exploring what working with a feminine embodiment coach is like? Schedule a 30 minute clarity call with me to see how I can support you.