The Highly-Sensitive Leader Podcast

Join me this week as I discuss the 5 Values I think all highly sensitive professionals could use as their North Star to avoid overwhelm, create safe relationships and have confidence in what they do. These are my 5 company values and the values I live by as a highly sensitive person and business leader: #1 - Self-love and Self-trust #2 - Motivation #3 - Diversity and Inclusion #4 - Community #5 - Grit In this episode, I share with you how I define each value and talk you through why they are so meaningful and worth pursuing in the context of being highly sensitive. They also speak to the sort of community and space I am cultivating for highly sensitive professionals to join and develop themselves in a safe and fulfilling environment. Join my bi-weekly HSP-focused newsletter to learn more, get tips and stay up to date with events and opportunities:  https://www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com/

Almost a decade ago, I had a major conflict with one of my siblings. And the truth is, I wasn't equipped to handle it. Not like I am today.  Fear of conflict is very common for HSPs. Simply because of the emotional charge these conversations involve. A non-HSP would feel an average emotional charge. You get 220 volts, just because of the way your nervous system and your brain are wired. Managing conflict for an HSP, at first, feels like asking a teddy bear to go to war. It just isn't our thing. But if we leave or bury our head in the sand every time there is a downward curve in the relationship, we won't be able to maintain the relationships which are most valuable to us, whether it is in our friends, at work, or with our family. In this episode and in my upcoming Exclusive workshop, I teach you how to be ok with the idea of conflict, and how to approach it with more confidence in ourselves, and in others, in a way which is less emotional, and a bit more objective. Learning to navigate these emotionally charged conversations will allow you to set the boundaries which you need to set, to say No (or Yes) when you need to, and generally create space for yourself within any relationship. Managing and reframing your fear of conflict will also enable you to collaborate with others, in various contexts, more confidently and comfortably. RSVP for your Exclusive Fear of conflict workshop HERE – 3 spaces left. Join our free community of highly sensitive leaders and professionals HERE. I will see you inside!

Does receiving feedback or criticism trigger alarm bells in your mind? Does it become a dreaded conversation where you feel attacked, rather than an open conversation you welcome and learn from? If that's you, join me this week on the podcast as I teach you 3 strategies you can implement today to turn feedback and criticism into endless opportunities in your life and career. HSPs can find these conversations difficult and we dive into the reasons why as it is important to understand our context and automatic reactions. Then we start shifting towards the benefits of being open and acceptant of any feedback coming your way, in a way that is going to release a lot of energy for you. Finally, I lay out my 3 favourite strategies to practice and nail receiving criticism in any situation, whether formally or informally, and whether we are expecting it or not. Join us this month at the HSP Power Hub HERE to dig deeper into this topic, and getting all the support you need to create your best life and career as an HSP. I will see you there!

Have you ever felt constrained by time, pressured by it, or anxious about it? Conversely, have you ever felt anxious at the idea of having a long stretch of time ahead of you? This is something that, as a highly sensitive person, I have experienced time and time again.  And this has led to a lot of confusion and overwhelm when it was time to plan, organise and prioritise, because I wasn't comfortable with the time element, and I didn't know why. Later on, I figured out that I was highly sensitive, and it all started to make sense. If you are someone who gets anxious, overwhelmed or confused around planning, prioritising, organising your time, but also if you find yourself not being able to stick to deadlines and see your commitments or project through to the end, this episode is for you. Today, we are figuring out how to get time on our side. So, friends, let's get started. Join our 3-day challenge, "Get time on your side", HERE. Join the HSP Power Hub, my exclusive monthly membership, HERE.

Join me on the podcast today to learn to manage your perfectionist inclinations, so that you are able to show up confidently, even when things get scary, and you can really focus on your growth, on your journey, and on your power to bring incredible things to the table, rather than constantly worrying and being upset about not being “perfect” enough. Today, I am sharing with you how I have built acceptance towards things being messy and imperfect, and now use it as a superpower, and teach HSPs in my community to do the same. To join us on this journey, go to www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com/powerhub

Join HSP and leadership expert Muriel this week on the podcast to explore the best strategies to thrive when you feel misunderstood as an HSP. Today, we talk about this feeling of being misunderstood, or perhaps not being understood at all, when you are HSP. She shares two stories around feeling misunderstood which she has experienced over the Christmas holiday – you're not alone! She shares how she's managed these situations, the strategies she has used to thrive, and what she has learned to keep growing. She is teaching you 5 strategies in order to keep going and keep thriving even when people around seem completely disconnected from your experience as an HSP. We naturally want to insist, re-explain, repeat – out of frustration – but how about we take a step back and regain our power with the strategies she suggests? Applying these strategies will allow you to navigate people's reactions in a balanced way, and find solutions that work for you as an HSP with ease and in peace. Join us within the HSP Power Hub membership HERE from 1st of February to start creating your best life as an HSP.

“When you're tired, learn to rest, not to quit.” - Banksy Join me on the podcast this week as I explore the significance of this quote for us as HSPs. We often equate “I am tired/overwhelmed” with “I can't do this”, and therefore quit on our dreams or on some goals which feel out of reach because we are highly sensitive and often depleted of our energy levels, or experience intense peaks and throughs which scrape away our self-confidence. I share my biggest lesson from 2023 around stopping the confusion and seeing that my dreams are completely within my reach if I feel rested.  I teach you how rest and being away from stimulation is paramount and maybe the only non-negotiable we have to work with as HSPs to achieve our goals. I share 3 top tips with you to help you on your journey towards feeling more rested and maintaining motivation, strength and resilience to achieve anything you put your mind to. Learning to rest is my version of sustainable success for HSPs. Join our community on Meetup HERE and take part in our free live events for HSPs.

Self-care is a true gift to yourself as an HSP. We are exploring self-care in this last episode of the year, with the intention of giving it centre-stage all year long to feel at our best. I give you important context around self-care, its true meaning and its importance for HSPs. We deep dive into our main challenge when it comes to self-care and the reason why we have a tendency to put it on the back burner. I give you three solutions to start practicing and applying today, over the Holiday season but also throughout the year. I teach you how to become really good at hearing and honouring your emotional, physical and mental needs, every single day of the year, so that you consistently calm your nervous system, recharge away from stimulation and feel aligned with the best version of you day in and day out. Join of thriving community of highly sensitive leaders and contributors HERE and why not give us a try in January?

Join me on the podcast this week as I discuss and teach our key strategies to celebrate yourself (for real!) this season, but also regularly throughout the year, in line with your HSP trait. As HSPs, we naturally focus on others, on supporting, on giving, on completing projects perfectly. So it is sometimes hard for us to stop and look back. This podcast is an invitation to celebrate yourself starting today, and develop a daily celebration practice. I teach you why this is important, and how to do it in a way that is sustainable. It's hard for us to be proud of ourselves – being proud of myself is still very much a work in progress for me. So this episode is our opportunity to stop and reflect on what you are most proud of this year. I share with you my best celebration practices, both as reflections and real-life celebration events. I show you how to overcome your tendency to look for other people's feedback and get re-acquainted with our own feedback and support system, which is always available. My 3-step framework will be invaluable for you to look at your accomplishments from different perspectives and start easing yourself into celebration mode, and start enjoying the process! More info and join my Exclusive Boundaries Workshop (and community) HERE.

Join us on the podcast this week to hear more about our relationship to time as HSPs, and how this relationship might be triggering some of the anxiety and overwhelm you might be experiencing. Our perception and experience of time is different from the rest of the population because, as HSPs, our brain processes information differently. This might impact how we feel about time passing, about the time we have or don't have to do our tasks, or maybe our feeling of having too much time, which can also trigger anxiety. We explore other elements such as time estimation and productivity, always with a focus on neurodivergence and where we HSPs are on the spectrum between neurodivergence and neurotypicality. I offer good questions, tips and an experiment to really start exploring your relationship with time, and get on track to make time your ally for feeling calm, in control and staying productive. Join our amazing community of highly sensitive leaders and contributors HERE and attend free live events to kickstart your HSP journey.

Join me on the podcast today for a deep dive into your overwhelm triggers, which are causing you to be frequently overwhelmed as an highly sensitive person. This “paralysis” of the mind and body is how I and many of my clients experience overwhelm. As HSPs, it is really important that we spend time understanding why we get overwhelmed, and what triggers this experience. So that we can make changes where they are needed to avoid being overwhelmed. I show you how to map out your triggers and examine each of them, so that you can start managing your experience better, and create or place yourself in the best environments for you as an HSP. This episode is all about taking the power back on your emotion of overwhelm, by learning to manage what creates it, at the source. Join our Exclusive workshop HERE – limited space!

The experience of Overwhelm is very common for a lot of highly sensitive people and this is what we are discussing in this episode. Overwhelm is an intense, gripping emotion which can hold us back from thinking, contributing and performing at our best. It can also hinder our wellbeing and happiness.  But, on the flipside, Overwhelm is also here to teach us something.  An emotion is a response to an environment and perhaps, when we are overwhelmed, it means something needs our attention, something needs to change, either internally or externally.  Today, I am sharing my 3 biggest Overwhelm lessons and what this emotion has taught me about myself, about what's best for me, and about how to best work and live as an HSP. Let's dive in! Join our workshop (limited space) HERE: “Managing overwhelm as an HSP – In-depth workshop: clear-minded, calm and in charge 93% of the time” I will see you there!

Today, we are talking about how to shift perfectionism as it participates in the imposter syndrome you might be experiencing.  My experience as an HSP, and working with dozens of highly sensitive leaders and contributors, is that, for us, imposter syndrome is mostly triggered by perfectionism, and a deep, deep fear to be, or appear im-perfect. This episode will help you understand how you experience imposter syndrome as an HSP and give you tools to shift your narrative around perfection in order to increase your quality of life. This practice has allowed me to create a different baseline in my life as an HSP, where I feel relaxed, valued and feel like I'm doing the right thing, at my own pace. This episode will teach you how to make the impact you want to make AND still feel valuable and content when things are not perfect. This will free up space for you to be content with what you have, and what you have created so far. This is the best space to create more from and be your awesome HSP self! Join our thriving community of highly sensitive leaders and contributors here.

Overwhelm used to be a big part of my life as an HSP - 95% of my time was spent feeling overwhelmed. Drastically reducing my overwhelm has freed up time, space and capability for me to create an extraordinary life where I have quality time to focus on my dreams, my decisions, my wellbeing, my contributions, my team and my hobbies in a calm and constructive way. This is what I call my “overwhelm-free plan”. The after-story, if you will. Today, I am sharing 5 items on my overwhelm-free plan and discussing how these items came to be and are fully available to me now that I am not in coping, survival overwhelmed mode anymore. Tune in and get a feel for what your overwhelm-free plan could look like. Join our community and in-depth workshop “Managing overwhelm as an HSP – In-depth workshop: clear-minded, calm and in charge 93% of the time” here.

Join me this week as I share my 4-ingredient antidote to staying anxiety-free as an HSP, as much of the time as possible. I teach you two key secrets – how to be prepared for anxiety and how to treat it, sometimes even before it shows up! I teach you the difference between anxiety and stress, and then goes on to share my own definition of anxiety as an HSP. Anxiety completely changes my perspective on a day which could have been experienced which lightness and joy on a different week – I can't let that happen! Because of the unpredictable nature of anxiety, I have changed my tactic and sharing it with you today, partly because it works so well but also because I know many HSPs are experiencing high does of anxiety, and I want to help. You are not alone! Even when we have worked a lot on our self-development, like I have, we often have to come back to the drawing board and seek better solutions – which is what I am offering today in relation to treating anxiety in a way which will work for you as an HSP. Join our thriving community of highly sensitive leaders and contributors here.

Join my wonderful guest, educator, coach and author Jay fields and myself for an exploration of our nervous system as it relates to being HSP. This interview will tell you everything you need to know about the 3 parts of your nervous system and how each part impacts your emotions, mood and the safety and trust you are able to build with yourself and with the rest of the world. Jay imparts invaluable knowledge and wisdom to help HSPs learn to be in the driver's seat within their body, take back the ownership on how they feel and use simple yet effective strategies to feel and be at our best as we navigate the ebb and flow of our day. What you will learn from this episode: ✅ An overview of the nervous system and how it impacts how you feel ✅ The principle of embodiment and “felt” presence ✅ The challenges of having a highly sensitive nervous system and adapted solutions ✅ How to regain ownership and the driver's seat within your body and, by extension, in your life and relationships ✅ How to build a trusting and safe relationship with yourself so you can create the same with other people   Links to Jay's LI courses: https://jay-fields.com/courses To join Jay's newsletter: https://jay-fields.com/contact-jay

Join to explore Connection & Trust, two central concepts at the core of how HSPs approach and build relationships. In this series on HSPs & Relationships (this is part 2 – Part 1 is episode 82), I aim to give you a clear blueprint to understand yourself as an HSP when it comes to how you approach and navigate relationships, not only with other people, but also with yourself. I teach you why these two concepts are so critical for HSPs and the challenges which they can bring to us building and maintaining healthy, fulfilling and productive relationships both in our personal and professional life. I lay the foundations for each concept, and give you practical strategies and exercises for you to raise your self-awareness and see what might need tweaking in order for you to create smoother, fulfilling and regulated relationships around you. Understanding your need for Connection and Trust as an HSP, and how your search for these both drives your behaviour and can get in the way, is critical for you to progress towards having a more rewarding relationship with yourself, and with others. The questions and strategies I teach you are readily applicable and will bring both awareness and relief, if this is a topic you have been wrestling with, like I have for a long time.

Join to explore Connection & Trust, two central concepts at the core of how HSPs approach and build relationships. In this series on HSPs & Relationships (this is part 2 – Part 1 is episode 82), I aim to give you a clear blueprint to understand yourself as an HSP when it comes to how you approach and navigate relationships, not only with other people, but also with yourself. I teach you why these two concepts are so critical for HSPs and the challenges which they can bring to us when building and maintaining healthy, fulfilling and productive relationships both in our personal and professional life. I lay the foundations for each concept, and give you practical strategies and exercises for you to raise your self-awareness and see what might need tweaking in order for you to create smoother, more fulfilling and more regulated relationships around you. Understanding your need for Connection and Trust as an HSP, and how your search for these both drives your behaviour and can get in the way, is critical for you to progress towards having a more rewarding relationship with yourself, and with others. The questions and strategies I teach you are readily applicable and will bring both awareness and relief, if this is a topic you have been wrestling with, like I have for a long time. - Link to the Highly sensitive refuge article by Andrew Sólo here. - RSVP to our next live community events here. - Explore Journey to Power (JTP) and everything you could achieve from studying this course here.

Join me this week as I explore 3 ways your HSP trait operates behind the scenes and influences your life, your career and your capacity to progress towards fulfilling your potential. It is often the non-obvious details which, as HSPs, derail us in the most profound ways and in the long -term. This episode is for us to go one step further and ask ourselves: How does my HSP trait show up behind the scenes, in the way I experience people and situations, without being really aware of it?  How does it potentially slow me down, or prevent me from being the contributing and empowered individual I truly want to be?  Today, we are discussing three of the ways your HSP trait shows up, in a perhaps non-obvious way. How it gently but surely influences you in a way which might hold you back from fulfilling your potential.  I also give you 3 strategies to be more aware, but also gain more control on your sensitivity in order to feel and contribute at your best. Click here to find the JTP brochure and roadmap.

Join HSP, coach and teacher Muriel Kosovsky this week as she shares her journey from isolation to finding the power of community as an HSP. Being HSP can be very lonely and lead to isolation.  Our experience of the world can leave us feeling isolated because our ways of thinking and reactions are different than most people.  Like Muriel, you might have spent years and years trying to do it all by yourself, because the rest of the world proved that it couldn't understand you.  But what if there was a way to step out of this isolation we experience as HSPs?  What if being part of a community was a big part of the answer, of how we can grow our self-confidence, our leadership skills and our power in the way we build our life and career?  What you will take away from this episode: ✅The reasons why isolation seems the best option when you are HSP ✅ Why being isolated is not serving you ✅ How to challenge our previous coping mechanisms to enable us to step out of isolation ✅ How joining a community can provide safety and empowerment for HSPs ✅ What you can gain from joining the community and live events Join Muriel's growing community of highly sensitive Leaders and contributors HERE. We'll looking forward to seeing you!

Relationships… I don't think there is a juicier topic for HSPs, and we'll start to understand why in this first episode. In my experience, one of our main source of intense emotions as HSPs is our relationships. This episode gives you a blueprint to understand yourself as an HSP when it comes to how you approach and navigate relationships, not only to other people, but also to yourself. That relationship to ourselves is always the starting point, and we often by-pass it – so I make sure we have a look at that. I teach you how our default setting as HSPs is to constantly seek connection and harmony within that connection with others.  I also tell you the reasons why we as HSPs are always looking to validate our sense of safety. We also learn, in this episode, how we sometimes delegate this harmony and safety fully to other people, and build the road to our own disappointment. I teach you two exercises to start developing that relationship to yourself, which is the very foundation for building safe, healthy, joyful and consistent relationship with others. Join our thriving (and free) community of highly sensitive leaders here. Join the JTP waitlist here. Download your free JTP brochure here.

If, like me and many of my highly sensitive clients, you have found yourself consistently overwhelmed as you navigate the relationships in your life, the Positioning tool I am introducing to you today will be a complete game-changer. If you are doubting yourself and feeling a lack of self-confidence when you interact with colleagues at work, managers or even within your social circles, this tool will help you regain control on how you feel and how you show up in your personal or professional relationships, instead of letting your emotions, your sensitivity and other people take full control.  The concept of Positioning, which I have fully shaped to suit the HSP trait, is hands down what has changed my clients' life, and mine, the most. I share with you a powerful testimonial for my client Aurelie, which I hope will inspire you to take action. I teach you the basic principles behind positioning and share the reasons why this concept and tool is so powerful particularly for HSPs and the pain points which we encounter in our life and work. I offer you to practice one of my empowering positionings and leave behind the dis-empowering ways of thinking and behaving which you think were keeping you safe, but which in reality were holding you back from finding your voice and fulfilling your amazing HSP potential. Download your free JTP roadmap here and give yourself access to a whole different HSP ball game.

Join me this week as I show you how I have reversed my anxiety ratio simply by giving my HSP trait the attention it deserves, and building a process which has allowed me to go from 100% anxious, overwhelmed and scared, to spending the vast majority of my time anxiety-free.  And this is not only me – my community members and clients are on this journey too, and have reported great results. I teach you what worry and anxiety really are and how they might affect your wellbeing but also your contributions, sense of purpose and performance. I lead you to question how much time you spend with these emotions and how they affect you – this is the hard part, looking at the honest truth! I then lead you to see the possibilities. What would your life be like if you were able to reverse this ratio? How would you be feeling? What could you do if this anxiety-filled space was finally freed up? I show you what my journey has been like and the results I got from applying a simple, 3-step process, which as changed the way I experience my life, my work, and my leadership as an HSP. I also share some of my clients' experience, so you can get a taste of what it could be like for you. What HSP strengths could you shine if you were to reverse your anxiety ratio? I can't wait to see that. Join the JTP waitlist: https://www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com/jtpwaitlist Share your experience and questions with me directly: muriel@highly-sensitive-leaders.com

Join me this week on the podcast for an exploration of our HSP strengths, where we not only identify what these strengths are, but also learn how to play and rely on these strengths in a way that always serves us. Because the truth is, we often don't utilise these strengths correctly - we don't really master them. In this episode, I share with you the 5 HSP strengths I have learned to master on my journey to power, so you can start using the same process today with your own HSP strengths. I share with you what I think holds us back from utilising these strengths to our full advantage, starting with knowing what these strengths are. I then share a simple 3-step process that will help you identify the barriers to mastering these strengths, as well as a simple daily process you can start implementing to stand out using your HSP strengths. I then go into the details of the 5 top HSP strengths I have learned to master over time, and which I am today using very well, 95% of the time – I am human too and we're not looking for perfection here. I apply the process to these strengths to really give you a taste of the power, value and wellbeing you could generate by learning to master your HSP strengths. If this episode resonates, join our thriving community of highly sensitive leaders and attend my exclusive live events where we go deeper into the podcast topics. Check the line-up and register here: www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com/community

Join me this week on the Highly sensitive leader podcast to reflect and find ways to deliver the unique value that you have to bring to the world as an HSP, a leader and a contributor. This episode is based on what my community regularly shares with me and what I have experienced on my journey in terms of figuring out what value we can bring to the world, and how we can best deliver it.  I share my way of developing self-confidence, and how I can help you with this skill set, which is the centrepiece to creating and delivering your top value and contributions in your work, your business and your wider community. I invite you to question, and perhaps even challenge, the voice inside your head telling you not to take too much space. That voice telling you to be satisfied with what you have. I also invite you to seek and give more microphone time to that other voice, that voice in the background telling you that you could deliver value in a different way, that you could come into your full power utilizing your HSP strengths. That voice is the key to unlocking your potential and ultimately feeling and showing up at your best as an HSP. I take you through a simple 6-step process which will help you get connected to that voice, get familiar and more comfortable with it, learn to re-invest the value you are already bringing, and put your HSP trait at the centre of your reflection and vision. Finally, I speak about compound action, the key to developing self-confidence, and how to get started today. Join our exclusive live events, including my upcoming Journey to Power discovery experience here: www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com/community

If you experience an internal conflict between resting and being out in the world, you might be part of the 30% of HSPs who also are high sensation seekers (HSS). Today, we are discussing what it means to be a high sensation seeking HSP, and what it looks like to have both traits, both from a personal and professional standpoint. I share with you examples and stories from members of my community, as well as from my own life, centered around this dilemma we experience between staying out, resting and recharging, and saying yes to invitations, getting involved and creating new experiences for ourselves. If this is a dilemma you are commonly experiencing, and you are sometimes “getting it wrong” and over-exhausting yourself, this episode is for you. I share 4 strategies you can start using today to approach this dilemma and plan in a way which will increase comfort and balance for you. You will be able to find the amounts of both rest and explore which are right for you, and possibly reframe some of the “all guns blazing” habits which might not always be serving you as an HSP. Join the highly sensitive leaders community, questionnaire and experience @www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com

Making timely and effective decisions is, in my opinion, the number 1 skill set which makes our life easier, decreases anxiety and allows us to reach our full potential.  9 times out of time, the highly sensitive leaders I speak with have difficulty making decisions, both for themselves personally and also in the context of their work and leadership. Today, we are getting unstuck and out of indecision! We are also approaching decision-making in a way which suits your HSP trait and your experience of the world – we know that the one-size-fits-all doesn't work for us. We explore the reasons why the skill of decision-making is particularly important for you as an HSP and a highly sensitive leader. We discuss the challenges you might be encountering and what growing that skill will unlock for you. Then I zoom in on your HSP trait and what gets in the way of you making timely and effective decisions. We need to approach this with our HSP lens to understand your specific challenges before we solve them. Finally, I teach you 3 life-changing strategies to improve, streamline and structure your decision making, along with adding the element of commitment, which is often missing from the process as we are so tempted to change our mind. Have you joined our thriving community of highly sensitive leaders and contributors yet? Next (free) live event coming up!  Join us at www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com

Join me this week as I explore how we as HSPs experience time and the importance of building a harmonious relationship with that very important, ever-present entity in our life. I explore the reasons why we as HSPs are more likely to experience Time anxiety and how it manifests, based on many of my own personal examples and what my clients have shared with me. We discuss the various ways we might relate to time, based on attachment theory, and how this might impact our day-to-day. I provide guidance on how to take a deeper exploration of your relationship to time and how this might serve you. I provide 3 key strategies to get started now on decreasing the time anxiety or pressure you experience. To go deeper and learn to manage Time anxiety, book your Power hour here: https://www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com/thepowerhour Article by Dr Elaine Aron discussed in this episode: FAQ: Is Sensory Processing (or Integration) Disorder (SPD) the same as Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS)? https://hsperson.com/faq/spd-vs-sps/ I look forward to seeing you at our next live event! Sign up here: https://www.meetup.com/sheffield-highly-sensitive-people-meetup-group/

Join Aiste K., HSP Yoga business owner and self-care advocate, and myself for an insightful conversation about how self-care routines can completely change our life for the better as HSPs. We explore Aiste's self-care journey, how it has transformed the way she experiences her day-to-day as an HSP, and how it allows her to show up at her best in her business, looking after her clients. We discuss the challenges HSPs face, which are simply a matter of management and regulation, which is best achieved by having ring-fenced, consistent and organised routines. We also explore how these routines allow us to utilise our amazing gifts, without feeling held back. Aiste talks us through sleep, yoga, meditation, evening routines, as ways to preserve our energy levels, staying calm in the midst of the complexity of our thinking, and have clarity and patience in the way we communicate with non-HSPs. Aiste highlights the importance of these routines for any HSP and ways to make them very accessible and practical. It is about awareness and self-compassion, not about having the perfect routine all of the time! Find Aiste on her website: https://footprintyoga.co.uk And on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aiste-kalinauskaite/ To learn more about her classes and programmes.

Welcome to the highly sensitive leader podcast, which brings leadership development solutions to highly sensitive humans.  Join us this week as we take a deep dive into conflict management and explore this leadership topic with our HSP lens. We know that the one-size-fits-all doesn't work for us, so I show you why and how conflict affects us in a very specific way, as highly sensitive people. I also teach you the importance of developing that skill of managing conflict for leaders and how it positively impact your capacity to lead yourself, but also to lead others. I go over three life-changing tactics which will not only allow you to manage conflict effectively as a highly sensitive leader, but also to shift your narrative around conflict and experience it from a place of empowerment. Join our thriving community and take your FREE sensitivity questionnaire @ www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com

Join the highly sensitive leaders podcast this week, where we use the HSP lens to elevate our leadership, combining brain hacks, self-care and leadership development. This week, I share with you the 3 ways I feel empowered as a highly sensitive leader, both in my personal and in my professional life. I discarded these strategies for so long and discovered their true power as various points of my highly sensitive journey. I teach you the power of community and support and show how this can change your life and create a solid foundation for you to feel and perform at your best. I show you how feeling and showing kind and compassion to myself has been a game changer for me, and how it can positively impact your life and leadership. Finally, I share my way of speaking to others about my HSP trait, and about my mental health in general, to allow you to speak from a place of empowerment rather than a place of needing validation from  others. To join our growing community of highly sensitive leaders and contributors, simply head to: https://www.meetup.com/sheffield-highly-sensitive-people-meetup-group/ I look forward to seeing you there. Email me with questions and topics you'd like me to cover: muriel@highly-sensitive-leaders.com Quote by Eleanor Roosevelt: “The encouraging thing is that every time you meet a situation, though you may think at the time it is an impossibility and you go through the tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it you find that forever after you are freer than you ever were before. If you can live through that you can live through anything. You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face.”

As highly sensitive leaders and contributors, we sometimes develop habits or a pace which is not sustainable for us – which can hold us back from feeling and performing at our best. Join me this week as I explore the topic of sustainability and why it is important for every HSP to pay attention to it in our life, our work and our leadership. I explore what sustainability, or the lack thereof, can look like for us, in order to create more of it in 2023 and beyond, in the form of a balanced ecosystem which layers mental, emotional, physical and energetic elements. I show you the pitfalls we can easily fall into if we are not careful, and which can create overwhelm, worry and anxiety for us, and negatively impact our wellbeing and experience.  I teach you the key elements to pay attention to, as well as four simple strategies to use both as intentions and practical tips to manage your day in order to create sustainability in the long term. I also redefine consistency and show you how to use it as an asset for HSPs and add more of it in your life. To join our growing community of highly sensitive leaders and contributors, simply head to: https://www.meetup.com/sheffield-highly-sensitive-people-meetup-group/ I look forward to seeing you there.

Join us on the podcast this week as confidence expert and HopStairs founder Nadine Pfeifer and myself explore the topic of confidence and provide simple and accessible to tips and ways of growing your confidence when you are highly sensitive and an empth, possibly prone to low confidence through seeking external validation. Nadine shares her journey of being a “confidence survivor”, her mental health journey and going from doubting herself to calmly handling situations which in the past would have deeply affected her: body image, receiving feedback, wondering what others think of her, living according to other people's expectations, struggling to set boundaries – many of the challenges highly sensitive people and leaders face on a daily basis. We discuss the difference between confidence and self-confidence, and show that self-confidence is often more of a challenge than doing activities confidently. Nadine provides tips and strategies to start working on our self-confidence and improve that core area – which will have a knock-on effect on how we are able to live our purpose. We show how being part of a community can enhance our confidence and how surrounding ourselves with the right people, in an intentional way, will be a complete game-changer. We discuss social media and the deep negative impact it can have on our confidence, as well as tips and strategies to navigate and take control over this immense and often draining space. Nadine Pfeifer is the founder and CEO of HopStairs, a community platform here to help its users grow their confidence through information as well as short-term and long-term intervention. Join the waitlist and become a tester at Hopstairs.com LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/hopstair/ Newsletter - http://eepurl.com/h8eKqD

Join me on this final podcast week for 2022 to dive into your very own highly sensitive inventory. I will teach you how to process your highly sensitive experience and extract the most relevant things you can learn from, always keeping in mind your HSP trait and how it impacts the way you approach situations. I will share with you some key questions I have asked myself to make this inventory as relevant as possible, including how we treat ourselves when the going gets tough. I discuss the 3 elements which have stood out for me this year, along with their many positive ramifications on my life, my business and my leadership. I invite you to join this highly sensitive inventory journey, which I think is one of the best ways to end the year, and is something valuable you will take into the next. Book your free ticket to my next Community Gathering dedicated to highly sensitive leaders on January 31st 2023 here: https://calendly.com/highly-sensitive-leaders/community-gathering-highly-sensitive-leaders21-jan-23  Thank you for being here x

Book your FREE ticket to our community gathering 6th December 2022: https://calendly.com/highly-sensitive-leaders/community-gathering-highly-sensitive-leaders-6th-dec-22 Join me this week as I discuss the “Saviour Complex”, as it is known in modern psychology, and which in my experience can be a real challenge for highly sensitive leaders and contributors. I explore why and how many of us HSPs position ourselves as saviours and use our gifts of empathy and service to an extreme which is detrimental to us. I discuss the neuroscience behind this behaviour and how being a saviour is a treat for the brain, which sought in excess can also become a threat to wellbeing, delegation and collaboration. We dive into the consequences of being in saviour mode all the time, and how this affects, amongst other things, our ability to ask for help. I share 3 strategies to start restoring this balance and make sure you are positioning yourself in a way which is healthy and constructive, even whilst being in service.

Join me this week as I give you tips and inspiration to talk about your HSP trait and communicate the ways you work best to non-HSP colleagues and friends. I dive into the importance of communicating about your trait for you, for our HSP community, for others so they can support us, but also for the upcoming generation of HSPs for whom we want to pave the way. This can be a tricky task for us and I show you how to do it in a calm and thoughtful way, exploring elements of mindset, content and how to build relationships to nurture a good foundation to have these conversations. I teach that communicating about your HSP trait is actually easier than we think and mostly requires a light touch approach, some strategic thinking as well as consistency, all of which is within our grasp. I show you how to deal with the frustration which comes up for us when we feel unheard and misunderstood. I give you tips on how to manage this frustration in order to spread more of the key messages we want to spread about the HSP trait. Access my Sensitivity questionnaire at www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com

Join me this week for a case study and deep exploration of self-confidence as it manifests for highly sensitive leaders, especially when remaining confident in leadership situations becomes a challenge. We explore the relevance of self-confidence particularly for HSPs, as exemplified with my client case study. I show you the importance of getting to the bottom of things when it comes to self-confidence, which can be difficult for us to do on our own.  I teach you my 3-step process to make sure you are able to get to the core issues and avoid these challenges coming back over and over again in your leadership, and in your life. We explore the contexts and symptoms around lack of self-confidence using the HSP lens and how to go deeper to really understand where these symptoms are coming from for us. Finally, I show you how to add tangible elements of progress to developing skills which feel very intangible, like self-confidence. I give you some tools to get started and track your progress just like you would do with any other skill. !Awareness is key! Access my FREE Sensitivity questionnaire at www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com

Join me this week as I discussed how HSPs often experience irrational fears and how these fears influence and impact our life and performance on a daily basis. I teach you how irrational fears are different than phobias in the context of being HSP, as well as give you strategies and tools to help you identify where you might have irrational fears – which, most of the time, go unnoticed purely because they seem very real to us.  I show you all the reasons why a highly sensitive person might be prone to irrational fears and will need to learn to deal with them in order to get un-stuck.  I teach you why it is important for you, for your future and your career to pay attention to them and what could be the consequences of letting them run your life in the background.  I discuss some of the tell-tale signs of having irrational fears running our life as well as three key strategies for you to start working on these fears, process them and perhaps give them less importance than you think they have, in order to focus on what's truly important to move your life and career forward as a highly sensitive leader. Access my Sensitivity questionnaire and free trainings at www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com

Join us this week as I explore what it really means to get out of our comfort zone, why we do it and what the best strategies are to do it in a way that works with our high sensitivity. I share my vision of the out of comfort zone experience and how we experience it as highly sensitive leaders and contributors, so you can identify your own pockets of comfort/discomfort and when you get in and out of them, either intentionally or un-intentionally. I teach you the two main benefits of creating out of comfort zone experiences for ourselves, particularly as highly sensitive leaders, and show you that sometimes the courage lies in slowing down and backing out of it. I explore the Why behind this guidance we constantly received of getting out of our comfort zone and show you how to find your own Why. I teach out my top strategies to create an out of comfort zone experience that will not only allow you to access more of your potential, but will also keep you wanting to get out there in your own terms. Access your FREE Sensitivity questionnaire at www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com Link to Yerkes and Dodson's Law – Optimal anxiety and performance https://positivepsychology.com/comfort-zone/

Join me this week as I explore what under-performance means and how it shows up for highly sensitive leaders. I show you how it is possible to do our best and to be under-performing at the same time, due to us being held back by our old coping mechanisms, our sensitivity, our emotions and the messages we have heard repeatedly that “tough” is the way forward. I teach you the importance and relevance of this concept for highly sensitive leaders and contributors and how it can affect a range of areas in our life and work. I help you shed light on this concept of under-performance and how to work on it in order to access and use your full capabilities and HSP gifts consistently and successfully, if this is what you desire. I show you exactly how under-performance shows up but also the underlying reasons for this happening, which often go undetected even when we are experiencing it. I share with you proven strategies and tips to start breaking the cycle of under-performance and put yourself on your desired path to performing to the best of your capabilities as a highly sensitive leader. Access your Sensitivity questionnaire at www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com 

Join me this week as we explore how your emotions change the way you show up and make decisions as a leader, especially when you are feeling stressed or under pressure. This episode explores the contribution of Catherine Sandler and her Emotional profile Triangle (EPT). I am showing you why and how this framework is so relevant to highly sensitive leaders and how to use it in order to gain control on the emotions which might steer your leadership in directions which are not helpful. I teach you a simple exercise, as well as top tips for you to notice how your behaviour changes under pressure and observe where the triggers are. You can start applying the strategies I suggest today to understand more about your fears and, in the moment, regain focus and composure. Access your Sensitivity questionnaire at https://www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com/sensitivity-questionnaire

Many of us are duped into believing that being highly sensitive means that we won't be able to be as successful as others, or perform as well as others as leaders. I am here to tell you that this isn't true. This week, discover how your life and your leadership will change once you have learned to manage and master your overwhelm. I share with you how tough it has been for me growing up experiencing overwhelm and anxiety in most situations and with most people. I show you how I have overcome this and how your world will open up once you have learned to allow and process negative emotions such as overwhelm. I'm here to tell you that you can be highly sensitive and a high performer. That you can experience strong negative emotions and feel amazing. You can learn to control your sensitivity the way I did.  And that it doesn't have to be a complicated process. I invite you to attend my free training and introduce you to the 3 simple steps I teach to get you out of overwhelm pronto, so you can spend more time thriving as a leader. To access your free training, simply click: https://www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com/free-training-stop-overwhelm 

Join me this week as I discuss how we as highly sensitive leaders sometimes set expectations for others to behave in a certain way to match our sensitive experience of the world. I show you how these expectations can hinder our wellbeing and performance. Part of the reason why we get overwhelmed is because we are not taking responsibility for our own emotions and are relying on other people to give us safety, reassurance and a sense of belonging. I show you what are the things we expect from others and how we do this to protect ourselves and to have control on how much we get upset and hurt. I teach you how this approach of setting expectations on others has in fact the opposite effect and keeps us in disappointment and friction with the world. I teach you 4 strategies to reframe your expectations, re-align and learn from the non-sensitive world. I show you how much we have to learn from the non-sensitive world, as much as they have a lot to learn from us. I encourage a compassionate and skilful collaboration rather than constant friction and shares practical tips to achieve this. Access your free questionnaire at www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com Free training “Master your emotions and avoid overwhelm in 3 simple steps” to be released on August 22nd – stay tuned to my website!

Join me this week as I explore our tendency to procrastinate on our own self-care as highly sensitive leaders. I share with you how I envision and have worked on my own self-care over the years in order to feel and perform at my best as a highly sensitive person. I teach you essential skills you need to develop to take your own self-care to the next level and avoid delaying it. I discuss how important self-care is for highly sensitive leaders and how we very subtly (or not so subtly!) delay, push and procrastinate taking care of ourselves and driving ourselves into overwhelm as a result. I share with you three top tips and a skillset which will allow you not only to stop self-care procrastination, but to also take your self-care to the next level, in order to master your emotions and perform at your best. Access your free sensitivity questionnaire and other free resources at www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com Link to Brittin Oakman's LI profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittin-oakman-msc-5543baab/ Thank you, Brittin, for sharing your poetry with the world.

Join us this week as I discuss how highly sensitive leaders and professionals experience perfectionism in our life and in our work. This week the focus is on understanding how perfectionism holds us back and how we can reframe it with developing a mindset of “practice” instead. I teach you where perfectionism is coming from for us as highly sensitive people and how it manifests in ourselves and in our relationships with other people. I discuss my concept of strength in excess as applied to perfectionism and show you its negative impacts on our work and leadership when we are out of balance. I also remind us of the value we get from perfectionism and how important it is to keep it in check at all times. I teach you three ways of reframing the parts of perfectionism which don't serve us, with three simple practices which you can start applying today. I suggest effective ways of reframing your current perfectionist practices and start implementing alternative ones which will serve you more and allow you to shine and perform as the leader and role-model you truly want to be in the world. Access your Sensitivity questionnaire and other valuable resources at www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com

Join me this week for a deeper exploration of our highly sensitive body. We learn how our HSP body is wired in its own special way, and the integral place which our body holds in our highly sensitive experience, although we don't always realize it. I introduce you to a more “somatic” (focused on the body – “soma” meaning body in ancient Greek) approach to your highly sensitive experience and cover the details of how your brain and nervous system are set up as an HSP. I discuss the importance for highly sensitive leaders to be connected to our bodies and how the separation of mind and body can be particularly unhelpful for us and our ability to control our sensitive experience. I encourage you to reconnect with your body and the need for safety and belonging which often drive the highly sensitive body. I give you examples of how your body might respond to certain experiences and shape itself in particular ways which are not always helpful for you. I share a simple, 3-step approach to re-connecting with your body in a deeper and meaningful way in order to, if needed, re-shape the response and experience your highly sensitive body has learned over time. Get access to your Sensitive questionnaire at www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com

Join me this week as I help you question whether what your highly sensitive brain sees as a problem is in actual fact a problem. This way of questioning my own reading of situations and conflicts has been invaluable for me as it allowed me to spend more time and energy on the things which truly needed my attention, and much less time in overwhelm and confusion. I teach you how this problem-oriented way of thinking impacts us negatively with the way it triggers our emotions, preventing us from achieving our full potential as highly sensitive leaders.  I show you how worrying about potential problems hinders our experience and the way we are able to access our creativity and problem-solving skills. I share with you the exact strategy you need to stop this unhelpful pattern, create some space to focus on fewer and real problems, and get rid of the ones which we have somehow absorbed due to our hyper-vigilance. This strategy is transferable to all areas of your life and will be a game-changer, because it frees up so much space which was previously taken by worrying and which can now be dedicated to using your full potential as a highly sensitive leader. Access your free Sensitivity questionnaire at www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com

Join me this week as I discuss how highly sensitive leaders naturally tend to take responsibility for other people's emotions. The professions we go into give us plenty of opportunities to use our empathy. Problems start for us when we cross the line between listening and taking responsibility for what we hear. When we are on this mad race to “fix” others and make everyone feel OK. I show you how easy it is for us to cross the line between being empathetic and feeling guilty about what others experience. I teach you the difference between being purely empathetic and taking responsibility for other people's emotions, experience and even happiness. I show you how to manage your gift of empathy in a way which is beneficial to you and to the people you are leading and supporting.  I teach you several ways to reframe your mindset, as well as practical strategies you can use today to create positive impact for others whilst using a more intentional approach to being empathetic. I show you how to avoid overwhelm and perform at your best in the process. Head to www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com to access your Sensitivity questionnaire as well as other useful resources.

Join us this week as we explore and celebrate taking things OFF our plate, as opposed to adding things on.  Highly sensitive leaders often naturally default to stacking up ideas and details of things to do. I share two client stories which show how stacking up drives highly sensitives into overwhelm, which often leads to either procrastination or burn-out. I show you the three main reasons why highly sensitives resort to “adding on” strategies and struggle to let things go. The overall result is that we think about what needs to be done but actually either don't get things done, or drive ourselves into the exhaustion crash by over-doing. I offer a fresh perspective and ways to reframe your “adding on” mindset, to replace it with a “taking off” mindset. This allows you to bring relief immediately, today, as well as start dissolving the deeper-rooted fears keeping you stuck into this unhelpful pattern. I also share one concrete, immediately applicable strategy which has been a complete game-changer for me and many of my clients. I'm sure it will be for you too! Eisenhower's 4D matrix: https://slab.com/blog/eisenhower-matrix/ Head to www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com to access your FREE Sensitivity questionnaire, which is a thorough investigation into your physical, mental and emotional sensitivity. It is inspired from the work of Elaine Aron and has been expanded to explore the various ways your sensitivity shows up in your personal life but also in work and leadership situations. It will give you a clear diagnosis and score to evaluate your sensitivity. It will also unlock your access to the FREE Cheat sheet I have created called “What high sensitivity is and how it manifests” which summarizes in 5 slides all the ways your high sensitivity will show up at work, so you can gain a deep awareness and know where to start.

Join me this week as I explore over-adaptation and how this concept applies to highly sensitive leaders and professionals. I discuss the theory and frameworks I use to make this concept simple and easy for you to understand. I show you how highly sensitive people are naturally likely to over-adapt without being aware of it and how detrimental this can be to your wellbeing and performance. I teach you the various ways we highly sensitives over-adapt in personal and professional settings, and how this can be thrilling for us at first. I show you how you are using your natural gifts in excess and how you can rein them in to preserve your physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. I also bring to the surface some of the deep-rooted fears, like our fear of conflict, which lead us to over-adapt even when this is not the best thing for us to do. Finally, I show you how over-adaptation can easily switch to under-adaptation and how to bring this to your awareness. I provide a step-by-step strategy for you to reflect on your experience of over-adaptation and start reacting to people and situations in a way which is more centered on you and your needs. Find my cheat sheet “What high sensitivity is and how it manifests” at www.highly-sensitive-leaders.com to find out exactly how your high sensitivity manifests in the workplace and in your leadership role.

Join me this week as we discuss what it is like for highly sensitive leaders and professionals to be on the receiving end of intense colleagues. This intensity we perceive and absorb can trigger emotions on our end, and leave us frozen or unable to respond with the clarity of mind we normally have access to. We as HSPs experience life in an intense way already, physically, emotionally, mentally, socially, and so being exposed to more intensity can be unsettling. Managing unexpected levels of intensity from others, whether positive or negative, can hold us back from voicing our opinions, showing leadership or making quick effective decisions. First I show you what I mean by “intensity”, how it can manifest in others and how we might respond to it. I share many examples from my own experience and that of several of my clients. I discuss different ways we can be impacted by this intensity and how it can get in the way of how performance, leadership or simply our wellbeing. Then I share 3 tried and tested strategies which you can start using today to make sense of this intensity you receive, manage it as you receive it and integrate it to your leadership strategy.  The idea is to embrace our HSP trait and start preparing ourselves accordingly, to be able to manage intensity effectively on the spot, in real situations involving other people, and show up as the leader we truly want to be.