What Superhero Are You?

In this talk I share two parts. The first part is a talk about one of my clients, Carla, and her journey to understanding her hidden and unexpected superpowers. These new gifts were triggered by her awakening journey. In the second part of the talk, I share a little about myself and my journey into learning how to harness my own gifts. My hope by sharing these two pieces is to bring light and understanding into your own superpowers and how to turn these gifts into a benefit for our world.

Transcript

Hi,

Thank you so much for joining me today.

I'm grateful that you're here,

And I bet you're wondering what the talk might be about today.

First I'm going to share with you how this topic came into being,

And then I'll share with you part of my own story around this particular topic as well.

My hope is that by sharing this idea,

As well as my own story,

It will give you the opportunity to work with your own belief system,

And the possibility of reframing your own experiences in regards to who you are as a person and how you show up in the world.

First,

The idea.

I currently have a client that I work with,

Her name is Carla.

She has given me permission to share her story here with our community today.

Three years ago,

Carla came to me with symptoms of extreme dizziness and neck and shoulder pain.

She had trouble laying down flat without creating the dizziness and couldn't sleep at night very well.

Now she'd already gone to the doctor and had diagnostic tests run along with CAT scans and MRIs.

All the tests and the imaging came back negative.

There was no real diagnosis.

She herself is a nurse and was trying to figure out what was creating the symptoms.

She was referred to me by another client of mine that I've been working with for a few years.

I myself do a combination of massage,

Cranial sacral therapy,

Reiki,

And spiritual direction,

And weave all those elements together.

And I've been in practice for over 20 years.

When we talked about what was going on,

I felt comfortable working with her,

Knowing that she'd seen the doctor to make sure that there were no negative test results to be aware of,

Nothing impinging her spine,

Nothing going on with her brain.

All of her blood work and labs had come back normal.

So I felt like we could continue on in exploring what was creating some of these symptoms.

Through our first few sessions together,

I was able to discern that her symptoms were that of her awakening process.

Her energy flow through her nervous system was continuously flooding all of the nervous tissue and overwhelming her,

Creating this dizziness.

Her body didn't have time to ground this new awakening that was happening in her body.

And her body was trying to navigate this new amount of energy coming in and find its center ground.

This was disrupting her equilibrium.

Her nervous system was literally going through an upgrade.

Also because of the uncertainty of not understanding what was happening in these changes,

Carla at night when she would sleep would clench her teeth together.

This was creating neck pain that was creating the pain in her shoulders.

For the first two years of sessions regularly,

We worked in conjunction with myself and a chiropractor.

Occasionally she would continue to see medical doctors just to make sure that no other physical ailments were occurring.

During this time,

We learned to do grounding work,

Massage,

Reflexology,

And at the same time she was incorporating practices of meditation as well as learning breathing techniques.

All of these things woven together and as we walked this path together,

Carla was able to learn her body's new normal,

Learn her nervous system's new normal.

We also included several times her family in the conversation so that they felt safe,

So that they felt like they understood what was happening.

The beginning of the process was very challenging for Carla and there was a lot of fear that came up as you can imagine.

Over these two years,

She was able to become more grounded,

Work with her nervous system,

And begin to incorporate normal daily living activities that she'd enjoyed in the past like riding a bike or going hiking.

Now it's been three years and I'm happy to say that Carla is doing very well.

When we last spoke with each other,

She had learned that during this process of awakening and establishing this new operating system within her body,

It was an incredible journey.

What she has learned to do is plan things based around what her body is wanting to do versus what her mind is telling her to do.

She chooses when to do these things and checks in with her body and if it feels like it needs more rest,

She honors that in the process.

We sat down the other day and had a conversation to review where she'd come from and how much she's learned.

We began to look at the fact that her new nervous system was operating at a heightened,

More highly sensitive and aware system that could pick up on what was happening around her and that she became more conscious of her choices.

By seeing this as a gift rather than a curse or something bad that was happening,

I said we could see it as like her superhuman superpower that she was learning to use daily.

So I asked her to visualize what superpower or superhero she imagines that she emulates with this new nervous system of hers.

Her immediate response was,

Wonder woman.

We laughed because there was no way that she would have ever said that she felt like wonder woman at that time.

But now that she's learned to orient her skills and learned how to adapt them,

These difficulties,

These challenges have truly become a gift in her life.

It is very sweet to see her laughing and having fun with her new beautiful life and her own eyes light up as she imagines herself as wonder woman and her new superpower,

Heightened sensitivity.

So that's the first part of the talk and how this idea came into being.

Now the second part of the talk is more about my own personal story and what I've gone through in my life that allowed me to also walk with Karla on her path.

As a child,

I was extraordinarily shy,

Introverted,

Painfully so.

My joy was more spent in nature,

Up trees,

Outdoors,

Or any place that I could tuck myself away and do lots of reading.

Where I grew up,

We lived in the middle of orange groves,

So there wasn't a lot of other people around us.

We grew up with lots of animals,

Both indoors and wild animals all around us.

Animals were often stopping by our house to say hi to me and to my mom.

Sometimes they would just come in and say hi,

And sometimes they would come to us because they were injured.

One time there was a mouse my mom found and it let us know that her little babies were having trouble,

That she couldn't feed them.

So my mom and I tried to rescue them and for days we tried to hand feed them,

But they did not make it.

Because of the closeness that we had connected to the animals,

We were able to help them on their transition.

They were able to find peace in our hands even though we weren't able to save them.

These types of experiences were constantly happening to me throughout my childhood and into my teen years.

I was extremely sensitive,

But I didn't really know what that meant.

I didn't know about energy and picking up on signals around me.

In junior high my sensitivity increased and I became labeled too emotional,

Too sensitive.

It actually became a very negative label for me and carried a quite overwhelming sense of heaviness for me.

I began believing that there was something wrong with me.

And into college the overwhelm grew and I had no words to explain to anyone what I felt inside.

I didn't even know myself.

Back then they might have labeled it depression,

But truly there was more to it than that.

I don't blame my family for not knowing we weren't of that generation that understood about star seeds or Reiki or energy medicine.

We didn't grow up with that.

Back when I was growing up,

I don't think there was a lot of labels around being empathic or being a highly sensitive person.

I went on a journey of 20 years learning about myself studying energy medicine,

Understanding my family's ancestry also affect my nervous system and how to work with myself as an empath once I discovered that definition and understood that what I was actually feeling was everything around me and not just myself.

That helped me begin to set more healthy boundaries between the two worlds.

After many years of working with that and also working with others on their journey,

I began to see it truly as a gift,

Truly as a superpower,

If you will,

Being highly sensitive in the world that I might also be able to walk with others and help them on their path.

There were many times on my journey when I was told to toughen up,

Get a tougher skin,

Put up my walls.

I had to meditate long and hard on those things.

Is that really how I wanted to approach it?

And over these 20 years,

As I've sat with it,

I've discovered that it is being able to feel what others feel that allows me to care so much and to be present.

What I have had to learn are the skills of separating the energies between the two and not taking them on.

And that's how I've learned to work with the superpower of high sensitivity.

I never wanted to put up my walls so much that I couldn't experience joy as well as pain.

I didn't want to dim myself in order to not feel anymore.

So instead,

I've spent a long time trying to work with it.

Is it perfect?

No,

There are often times,

Especially now,

Where it becomes overwhelming.

That I use my skills of meditation,

Of feeling things and letting it run through me,

Of Buddhist practices and prayer that allow me to keep calling this empathy,

This high sensitivity,

A gift.

I have also had to learn the balance between introversion and extroversion that allows me to share my path with other people,

To come out of my shell,

If you will,

So that I can be present in the world for other people too.

That means sharing my story and the story of others that come to me as well.

It is definitely a continuous learning process.

And I don't believe the process will ever end but continue to expand.

When I thought about the same question that I had asked Carla about what superhero she thought she emulated,

I myself would close to say I'm the superhero Jean Grey from X-Men.

Because Jean is beautiful and fiery and when she loses control,

She burns too brightly,

Too fast.

And sometimes her powers can hurt herself.

And those around her,

When she learns to control the energy and is not affected by that which is around her so much,

She can beautifully channel those gifts.

This becomes a gift to those around her as well.

Now I'd like to invite you to also think about your own gifts in your life.

Those that are a challenge as well as a gift that may look like a weakness but actually can become a strength.

So over the next day,

Week or month as you're meditating,

Reflect on these things.

Reflect on the story of Carla.

Reflect on the story that I've shared with you about myself.

What gifts do you possess?

What are your superpowers?

What superhero do you represent?

And how do you show up in the world?

As we learn to reframe these stories about ourselves,

It allows us to enter our world as being courageous and strong.

I'm grateful that you joined me here today.

And I'd love to hear from you about what superpowers you have.

Have a beautiful day.

And I look forward to hearing from you.

Namaste.

Reviews

Thank you for sharing this insightful talk , I can relate to both yourself and Carla's journey. Blessings to you both 🙏

Interesting stories and I can relate to being an empath. My super hero is Captain Marvel, loyal. Smart, hardworking , and determined - she
knows her worth. Of course I googled because Super hero's were not on my radar, that is until now. 🥰☀️🙏💃

Thank you for sharing your story and your gifts. May you and Carla be well💜🌸