Finding my inner peace…

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This post is only available in English, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. Let me know in the comments

(In the pictures I am wearing the new flower power workout pieces by Stronger and I am using the La Vie Boheme yoga mat in the design Havana) pictures were taken by Elena Engels in beautiful Riad BE Marrakech.

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BEING HSP

I wanted to write this post for a long time now but never really got the time.

So here we are in a fast living vibrant world trying to keep up and trying to live in the moment, too.

I am a HSP (Highly Sensitive Person or hyper sensitive person). HSP is not a disease it is something you are born with. Almost every 6th Person is HSP, so we are quite a lot out there :) My brain is producing too much Cortisol, which means everything around me is getting into my head in an unfiltered version. I experience pain, smell, light, empathy deeper than others and my brain is constantly stressed. Good news is- that is not a bad thing. HSP persons are very creative, very reliable, very empathic and we have a good seventh sense. On the other side we tend to always want to please others, are very hard on us, may get depressed and stressed out faster than others.

So how do you keep up in the fashion world with this?

First of all it is a process – you are constantly working on yourself and you should never work against yourself. Embrace this ability you have and don’t try not to accept it. Learn to see your limits, learn to say no (in a good way, for yourself), don’t be so hard on yourself and try to use these abilities. Isn’t it great to appreciate the collateral beauty of the world? Isn’t it amazing how much you can feel and how happy you can be when you see and feel everything?

I am not going to lie, I still get overwhelmed with impressions and feelings sometimes. When I was a child and even nowadays – I was and I am not able to eat cooked carrots and other veggies. I just can’t chew on them – it makes me wanting to throw up. Which is kind of weird, I never really understood why it is that way. Now I know that it is connected to being HSP. There are different parts of HSP and in which you might be HSP – some are HSP when it comes to noise, some for smell, some for feelings. Even animals can be HSP (I want to believe my dog is).

If you want to test yourself, because you thing you might be HSP too, have a look here.

If you are HSP too let me know it the comments and what kind you are experiencing.

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WHAT CAN I DO?

I have tried several methods to keep up with being HSP. From not accepting it, to working against it to embracing it. If you are getting older you might experience it stronger, so I had to find a better way to work around it than rather not accepting it at all.

So here are some hacks that work well for me:

Visualizing 

I am sometimes having a hard time to fall asleep and visualizing helps me a lot with it. Not only for sleeping but also for a positive mindset when I am stressed or for something I want to achieve in the future. I believe that your thoughts can do a lot and can maybe even be the key to your dreams.

So when I cannot sleep I imagine something like my happy place (which would be a beach in Hawaii). I imagine how that place looks and try to smell the ocean, the flowers, hear the waves and feel the sand on my toes. I try to make it as detailed as possible and then I just fall asleep (easy haha). Or if I am stressed I am trying to visualize the goal that I want to achieve, how I imagine it to be, how I see myself there, what it feels like. Visualizing works for everything and the more detailed you are and you can imagine it, the more it will help you I promise.

Meditation

Since I experience my brain constantly working meditating is something that calms me down. I cannot sit and meditate for like two hours, that does not work for me but I can calm down on my yoga mat and sit there between 10 minutes to an hour and just breath and listen to the sounds around me. Soaking in everything that is around me, like the sun, the warmth of my home or the sounds of the birds. It calms me down when I am stressed out, you can do it everywhere (yes even at the toilet in your office) and afterwards you are more focussed.

Working with it

For me the hardest part. I never know if the impressions I have will affect me or if my guts are telling me the truth, so I had to learn (and I am still learning) to rely on my HSP. Which is great if you are working with a client and you have that feeling that he/she is not happy with your work or if you feel like you know exactly what they want without saying it. Being creative gives me also lots of options. Sometimes I see a place or fashion and I just have that concept in my head that I want to do. Usually these photoshoots are the best ones.

What I also have to learn still is not being to hard on myself, not being able to help everybody and sometimes saying „no“ to friends and clients. I tend to wanting to do everything and helping everybody, which is great, but you are loosing yourself within that. So I have to learn when to realize that I should not help my friends, because they have to learn to do it by themselves or when to say no, because I am already stressed out with my job. I also have to learn when to just have some „me-time“. Being by myself, doing something that calms me down and not thinking of any obligations.

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I am still learning something new every day and I hope you understand that this is a very personal matter for me. If you want to learn more about HSP drop me a message, leave a comment or let me know what you think, what your hacks are.