A Gentle Reminder for Sensitive Souls at the Turning of the Year

This reflection is adapted from Rise & Realign: Conversations for the Sensitive Soul - Episode 9:
When Sensitivity Leads the Way: Nervous System Care, Nature, & Inner Guidance, recorded on December 31.

Welcome to Rise & Realign: Conversations for the Sensitive Soul.

This space is for those of us who feel deeply, love fiercely, and sense the world in ways that are hard to explain - but impossible to ignore. Here, we honor sensitivity as a strength, not something to fix.

As we arrive at the turning of the year, many sensitive souls feel more than usual. This time of year can bring things up for all of us - but especially for those of us with a more finely tuned nervous system.

When you feel more, sense more, and think more, there is simply more moving through your system. The holidays, the closing of a year, and the collective pace of the world can feel overwhelming - not because there is something wrong with you, but because your system is deeply perceptive.

This season often brings up grief, reflection, and what I sometimes call anticipatory sorrow. And it’s important to allow yourself the time and space you need to tend to what is arising. To feel what needs to be felt. To write about what feels unresolved, yet ready to be witnessed.

Sometimes we assume that if an old memory, emotion, or even a physical symptom resurfaces, it means there is a problem. But when we understand that healing happens in cycles - that healing is a spiral - we can see something different.

What returns is not always regression.
Often, it is integration.

Old memories, emotions, or sensations may resurface not because something is wrong, but because there is now enough space and safety to witness them differently. This is part of the healing process, not a sign that you are going backward.

I want to honor wherever you are today and whatever you are experiencing. Being on this planet at this time is not easy. That doesn’t mean other generations haven’t faced their own collective challenges - but the level of exposure we live with now is unprecedented.

The internet, social media, constant information streams - we are inundated with what’s happening everywhere, all at once. For sensitive nervous systems, this level of exposure can be deeply unsettling.

That’s why it’s so important to slow down.
To return to your breath, your body, your heart.
To honor your own path.

Earlier this week, I wrote in my Rise & Realign Lunar Letter:

“Knowing thyself is the path to healing thyself - from previously accepted incorrect notions about thyself.”

What I’m speaking to here is how unique each of us truly is. Even within the roughly 20% of the population with a more finely tuned nervous system, each person’s sensory experience is distinct. Our anatomy, our history, the way we perceive our inner and outer worlds - none of it is generic.

Knowing yourself matters.

Many of us were raised without language for how we were designed. We took on beliefs about ourselves that weren’t true - because we were trying to make sense of something others didn’t yet understand.

This is why I’m so grateful for Dr. Elaine Aron’s decades of research on highly sensitive individuals. There is an evolutionary reason for this trait. It exists across more than 100 species. Sensitivity is not a flaw - it is sensory intelligence.

And that sensory intelligence often lets us know sooner when something isn’t right for us.

It’s not that environments, relationships, or experiences are inherently more harmful for sensitive people. It’s that our systems register impact earlier. What might feel manageable for others can feel overwhelming for us - not because we are weak, but because we are perceptive.

Knowing yourself allows you to reframe your past. And when you reframe your past, it changes how you show up - for yourself and for others.

There is no one right way.
No single approach that works forever.

What supports me has changed many times over my life. There were moments when I thought I had finally “figured it out,” only to realize later that what worked was right for that season, in that environment, during that chapter.

This applies to mental health, physical health, emotional well-being, and spiritual growth.

I’ve walked an awakening path for seventeen years. It began with a spontaneous awakening that shifted my consciousness dramatically. I didn’t have mentors who could truly meet me where I was, so I learned to walk my path by listening inwardly - to my breath, my body, my heart, and my own inner guidance.

That’s why I encourage you to believe in yourself.

The more you tune inward, the more confident you become in choosing what is right for you - because no one else knows what it’s like to walk your path.

Having this kind of sensory intelligence is an invitation to tend to yourself. Many of us were conditioned to outsource our authority - to family, partners, professionals, systems. But healing always comes back to one essential question:

Does this feel true for me?

I’ve explored many approaches over the years. I’ve seen what people will pay for in the name of health, longevity, and healing. And what I discovered - again and again - is that the most powerful supports are often the simplest and most accessible.

Sunlight.
Fresh air.
Nature.
Breath.
Rhythm.

These are not luxuries. They are foundational.

A Brief Note of Confirmation from Research

In recent years, research has begun to catch up with what many sensitive people have long felt intuitively.

A 2025 mixed-methods study published in Frontiers in Psychology explored what helps highly sensitive people truly flourish. The findings were clear: connection to nature plays a significant protective and stabilizing role for highly sensitive individuals, particularly when home or relational environments feel chaotic or overwhelming.

In other words, time in nature is not simply calming - it is regulating. For sensitive nervous systems, natural environments help restore coherence, support emotional well-being, and buffer the effects of overstimulation.

This research affirms what many of us already know through lived experience: our systems are designed to recalibrate in relationship with the natural world.

Sensitivity does not require fixing.
It requires the right environment - and a right relationship with self.

Nature has been one of the most consistent supports for my own healing. And this is especially important for sensitive bodies, sensitive minds, and sensitive souls.

My own understanding of this deepened significantly through my training in Quantum Biology Health with Catherine Clinton, ND. What resonated so deeply for me was how much of healing comes back to environmental coherence - light, rhythm, nature, and nervous system safety - rather than force or intervention.

Quantum biology helped me see, in a very tangible way, how sensitive systems respond not just to what we do, but to the fields we live in. It affirmed what my body had already learned through experience: when we restore rhythm and reduce interference, the body knows how to regulate, repair, and return to balance.

There is not one correct practice. Even things that are widely praised - like cold exposure require discernment. What your nervous system can tolerate depends on your current state, your capacity, and your level of stress.

There were times in my life when my system could handle certain practices. There were other times when they were not safe for me at all.

This is why knowing yourself matters.

Nature, breathing, fresh air, sunlight, moonlight - these are gentle regulators. They help sensitive systems return to coherence without force.

So I invite you to pause.
To breathe.
To go at your own pace.

Place a hand on your heart.
Inhale gently through your nose.
Exhale slowly through your mouth.

Breathe love back into yourself.

Right here, right now, is where your life is unfolding. This moment is enough.

Where the heart leads, the body remembers, and the soul awakens.

From my heart to yours, take really good care of you.

A Gentle Invitation for Those Ready to Rise & Realign

If what you’re reading here feels familiar, you may be sensing that you’re ready for more than reassurance alone - you may be ready to rise out of old subconscious conditioning and remember that new possibilities are already waiting for space to be revealed.

I offer Rise & Realign: An Integrative Intensive for Sensitive Women, a contained, one-to-one, four-hour experience designed to support this exact moment of transition. This intensive is not about fixing or pushing change. It’s about creating the spaciousness needed to see beyond inherited patterns, quiet survival-based narratives, and reconnect with the deeper intelligence that has always been guiding you.

Together, we gently explore the beliefs, stress responses, and internal loops that may have once served you but are no longer aligned - so that clarity, choice, and new perspectives can naturally emerge. Many women describe this experience as a turning point: a moment where they stop circling old questions and begin to sense what’s possible again.

If this feels like the right kind of support, you can learn more here: Rise & Realign: An Integrative Intensive for Sensitive Women

And if now isn’t the moment, you’re warmly invited to stay connected through the Rise & Realign Lunar Letter below.