Why We Disconnect From Ourselves

Marie O’Neill 0:00

We come to the conclusion something must be wrong with me. I'm the one who's not how people want me to be, or people find me a bit too much, or not enough, or both. It's confusing. And so the natural step then is to disconnect or create this gap between who I know myself to truly be and who I have to be in order to be acceptable to those around me and feel safe in relationship, which of course is crucial when you're a child and at any age.

Meet Sensitive Stories And Marie

April Snow 0:38

Welcome to Sensitive Stories, the podcast for the people who live with hearts and eyes wide open. I'm your host, psychotherapist and author April Snow. I invite you to join me as I deep dive into rich conversations with fellow highly sensitive people that will inspire you to live a more fulfilling life as an HSP without all the overwhelm. In this episode, I talk with Marie O'Neill about reconnecting to yourself after periods of chronic stress and self-doubt by caring for your nervous system and finding meaning through connections with nature, community, or spirituality. Marie is a holistic psychotherapist and a spiritual coach specializing in working with HSPs. She offers programs, services, and community for highly sensitive people who want to heal their relationship with themselves on all levels body, nervous system, mind, and soul, based on her sensitive soul framework. And just a reminder that this episode is for educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for treatment with a mental health or medical professional. Let's dive in the welcome to the podcast.

Discovering High Sensitivity Through Illness

April Snow 2:10

I am so thrilled to have you here today. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Of course. So I want to get started by finding out your HSP discovery story. If you can remember when or how you realize that you're highly sensitive.

Marie O’Neill 2:25

Yeah, so I think like a lot of HSPs, I've always had that feeling of being different, probably being more sensitive, feeling more than others, definitely perceiving more depth, having a lot more interest in the big questions, like from a young age. I remember being obsessed with trying to find out the meaning of life from the age of five, and nobody around me really kind of getting that, like not seeming interested, actually, and finding that quite jarring. Like, why don't people care about this? It's really crucial, you guys. But not really having like a language or a way to understand why I was like this and why I was different. And it wasn't actually till much later when I was recovering from stress-induced illness and studying mind-body medicine, and I came across the concept of high sensitivity in regards to the nervous system, and how having a more sensitive nervous system can make you more prone to nervous system dysregulation, which can make you more prone to neuroplastic mind-body conditions, which is what I was dealing with, learning about, studying. And then it just all made sense. It was like, okay, so it's not just this thing, but it's actually like my whole life makes sense now. It all fits together in one really yeah, easy to understand now why it's always been like it is.

April Snow 3:58

Yeah, that's so relatable that yeah, everything starts to click into place. Oh, this is why I'm having this physical experience or this emotional experience, and why I've always felt so different. And I also was a very existential kid and was trying to wrap my mind around big questions. And yeah, oh, I'm having this life, and these people over here are having a life simultaneously, and how is that possible? And how are we related? And not familiarly, but you know, just in the universe. And yeah, I don't think a lot of adults know what to do with those kinds of questions.

Marie O’Neill 4:34

No, yeah. No. And to understand how that's connected with oh, that's also to do with why I jump scare easily, or I can't handle a lot of noise, or I get really exhausted when I'm in crowded spaces. Like, you know, it didn't make sense before how those were connected.

April Snow 4:55

It's true because those are very different experiences, right? It's like how I'm my nervous system is reacting in a space versus how I'm thinking about my place in the universe or in the world and what the meaning of life is. It's not intuitive, I don't think, on the surface, until you learn more about the trait.

Marie O’Neill 5:12

Yeah, when you understand the depth of processing and what's really going on, all those layers of experience, it starts to all make sense. Like, yeah, of course, that would be overwhelming.

The Too Sensitive Story And Self Doubt

April Snow 5:22

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it is. It's like, oh, there's a common thread here. And yeah, being more easily overstimulated, we do start to see impacts on our health and our nervous system. I think a lot of times we can try to disconnect from those experiences. They can be really intense, whether it's emotionally or physically. So I'm wondering if you could share your own experiences or things that you've seen with clients around why we tend to disconnect from ourselves. Why is that so common for us as HSPs?

Marie O’Neill 5:54

Yeah, I do see that as kind of like a thread running through, you know, a lot of experiences I've had with myself and in work with clients as well. That I think we do just often from a young age feel a bit out of place. We feel a bit out of step with the people around us when they don't get it. And, you know, so often as well, I hear from people like being directly told, you're too sensitive, you're too emotional, stop being so dramatic. And you know, sometimes it's explicit like that, and sometimes it's just maybe more of a hidden, or you just get the sense that somebody doesn't quite like it when I'm being like this, or people are impatient, or they just don't have the depth to meet us necessarily where we are. And so that can I think cause a lot of confusion, and of course, when we're young, you know, we internalize all of that, we come to the conclusion something must be wrong with me. I'm the one who's not how people want me to be, or people find me a bit too much, or not enough, or both, you know, it's yeah, all at once confusing. Yeah. And so the natural step then is to almost like disconnect or create this gap between who I know myself to truly be and who I have to be in order to be acceptable to those around me and feel safe in relationship, which of course is crucial when you're a child and at any age.

April Snow 7:23

Yeah, it really is. I mean, you have to do that to survive. I definitely did that as a child, just disconnect from myself, just kind of live from the neck up. Because it's hard whether it's overt or covert, hearing those messages of like you're not okay as you are. You need to change yourself, whether that's toning your emotion down or amping up your spontaneity or your decisiveness, whatever it is. And yeah, we really take that in as little, as young people.

Marie O’Neill 7:50

Yeah. And I think there's another implicit message in that as well that your senses can't be trusted. Like the way that you're experiencing the world is somehow incorrect. You know, you're feeling too much, you're too bothered, you shouldn't feel this strongly about this, or that wasn't a loud noise. You shouldn't find that difficult, or you should be able to be in these spaces and just be fine like everybody else. And so then that doubt creeps in about well, yeah, what my senses are reporting must be somehow incorrect, or I'm misinterpreting reality, you know. So then, of course, it's even harder than to trust our true experience.

April Snow 8:28

Because I'm just taking all that in remembering that it's so destabilizing to be told what you're viscerally experiencing in the world is wrong. Like, wait, I'm feeling this, I'm sensing this, and yet we're told that it's not true. It's no wonder, yeah, no wonder we have a lot of self-doubt as HSPs. Yeah, yeah. Wow. So, how do we start to find our way back to ourselves?

Closing The Gap With The Sensitive Soul Framework

April Snow 8:56

How do we soften that doubt and start to trust our emotions or our senses, our intuition? Is there something that's helped you do that? Find your way back?

Marie O’Neill 9:08

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of things. And part of my work is how I've kind of like distilled my experience and what I've seen with working with clients over the years into kind of a framework that I now use, and all my work is sort of built around this, what I call the sensitive soul framework, which is all um aimed at bringing back that alignment, bringing us back into that wholeness and connection with ourselves. And I see that kind of working across all the levels of our experience. So, of course, that happens in our minds, right? And psychotherapy is a very cerebral process. Often it can be, it's a lot of thinking about, you know, why are we like this and where did that come from? And I find HSP is very suited to that. You know, most people that I see are extremely self-aware, very highly emotionally intelligent, perfectly understand these things. So often that's not the problem, you know, often it's more to do with how does this disconnection that we know we have, right? We've thought about and we know where it started, and we can remember, you know, we can tell the story. How does that present in the nervous system, in the body? So, what does that mean to our wholeness as a whole being? If I believe on some core level that it's not safe to be myself, that's gonna register in the nervous system as a pretty big threat. So that's gonna cause a lot of chronic dysregulation. And then when we have these layers of I can't trust my sensations, it leads to that disconnection from the body, body keeps the score, you know, all those experiences that haven't been processed, that we haven't felt safe to express and to be with ourselves, you know, fully and know ourselves on a physical level. And yeah. So working with that together is part of the framework, bringing in somatic work, mindfulness, meditation, and psychotherapy, but kind of widening it out to include these different levels of our experience. So we're not kind of just staying in the mind telling a story, but really feeling into what's the felt sense of that, you know, and bringing in that nervous system regulation to create a felt sense of safety and so that we can work at that deeper level. And I like to bring in a soul-level aspect as well, that when we have that disconnection from our truth, from our true being, and being connected to something greater than ourselves, you know, however, we understand that. I find a lot of HSPs have that dimension, have some kind of spiritual or existential view of the world. You know, it's not important what we call that really, but just that it makes sense to ourselves, to the individual. And yeah, I think that can be one of the most painful things when we feel disconnected from our very essence, you know, so bringing that in as well, bringing ourselves back to that's part of our wholeness as well, to get to reclaim these parts of ourselves that yeah, maybe we've had to disconnect from for survival.

April Snow 12:23

Yeah. Yeah, we are very good at being insightful, knowing the roots and how we got to this space and being able to tell the story. And I remember having a moment of awareness and therapy of like, oh, I'm just performing therapy. I'm saying all the right things, but I'm not feeling it. And that was a wake-up call for me. And I did move more towards somatic therapy and spirituality and things than you know, diving into those other parts of my healing. So what you're saying is really resonating with me. Because that's the way back to self. It's through the nervous system, it's through the body, it's through those deeper layers. I really love that you're bringing in the soul here. Yeah. Because it is often the missing puzzle piece.

Marie O’Neill 13:09

Yeah, I think so. And I think having them all together as well, because sometimes you see people almost go too far the other way, where it can be like all spiritual seeking and looking for ways almost out of our human experience, you know, like it's all happening for a reason, or I don't need to concern myself with that kind of ego stuff. Human, the body is, you know, it's not my reality. I'm kind of like higher. Do you know? You see a lot of that, especially in the new age world, which I think that's not necessarily very grounded. And if we're here to have a human experience, even though we also have this soul aspect, like we need to live in this body, you know, we need to feel at home in ourselves. It's all connected, it's all part of who we are. So to me, it's really important to not only focus on one or another, or even to have like any kind of hierarchy in there, but it's all part of our whole being.

April Snow 14:08

Yes, right, because the spiritual bypassing, you know, kind of over aligning with spiritual practices and not doing other parts of the work. Yeah, is the same as maybe intellectualizing and cutting off from the body. It's we're only focusing on one isolated part of ourselves instead of trying

Regulation Before Deep Emotional Work

April Snow 14:24

to integrate all those layers back together, reconnecting. Yeah, that makes sense that it's all about bringing all the pieces in.

Marie O’Neill 14:33

Yeah. Yeah.

April Snow 14:34

Yeah. And that there's not a hierarchy. So you're holding each of those equally.

Marie O’Neill 14:39

Yeah. And I think as much as I separate them for the purpose of being able to speak about them, of course, the kind of bottom line is they're not separate because we are fully connected as a whole. You know, you don't have a nervous system if you don't have a body, right? You don't have a mind, like where's the mind? It's processes in the brain. The brain is part of the body, you know, who created all of that, if not some kind of source of creation, higher power, whatever we want to, you know, how we think of that. So it's only really meaningful to disconnect in terms of language to try and show which angle we're coming from. But ultimately the whole point is that they are the same.

April Snow 15:22

Yes.

Marie O’Neill 15:22

Oh, I love that.

April Snow 15:23

Yeah, they're the same. We can equalize them. Yeah. I love that perspective. So if someone is maybe just starting this process, I can just imagine an HSP listener who's feeling disconnected, who's maybe been really struggling with chronic stress, they're feeling perpetually overwhelmed. What does the start of that recovery process look like? Maybe you've had some personal experience. I'm sure you've had you have clinical insights around that. Yeah, what does that look like starting that recovery process from chronic stress?

Marie O’Neill 15:57

Yeah, for me, I would start with, and in my framework, I do always start with nervous system. That's just a really important like foundation, because if we are going to get into the deeper stuff, and you know, we do have to when we want to think about that deeper healing, and we can't heal from disconnection without getting into the disconnection and how painful that's been. So we need that nervous system regulation to be able to hold that, to be able to be with what comes up when we then get brave and go there. Yes. Um, because otherwise, of course, you know, especially for HSPs, it's going to be incredibly overwhelming if we go straight into our pain and our trauma without having that regulation in place first and having ways to keep ourselves safe and yeah, to regulate and keep ourselves on an even keel as much as possible so that we can tolerate the work.

April Snow 16:56

That makes sense. We want to make sure we kind of have a life refers. We can resource ourselves before we start opening everything up.

Marie O’Neill 17:04

Yeah. Yeah. And I think this is the part that gets often misunderstood with, you know, there's so much stuff out there about nervous system regulation. It's almost being presented sometimes, I think, as well, you don't have to feel any feelings because you can just regulate, you know. So if you feel stressed, if you feel angry, upset, just regulate your nervous system, you'll be fine. It's like, yeah. No, I don't see it that way. You know, I think we use these regulation tools so that we can sit with the feelings and let the feelings be there, because the feelings are the truth, the truth of ourselves, which if we want to be connected with ourselves, we need to be connected with our feelings. Otherwise, it's just another escapism, isn't it? Another way to abandon ourselves if we don't have these tools to stay close to ourselves.

April Snow 17:51

Oh, I agree. It sounds exactly or seems exactly like spiritual bypassing, right? We're stepping over the emotion. Yeah, or intellectualizing. Yeah, same. Exactly. It's just another, yeah, it's just another way to do that. Yeah. Yeah. And I appreciate that because there is a lot of nervous system information out there, some of it better than others. And I have seen it really distilled down as that like just use this to skip through your feelings and skip over it. And we have to be really careful about that for the long-term impact. And I love that you said that I have to say it again: that your feelings are your truth. It's so powerful. It's so true. So we don't want to miss ourselves. We don't want to once again disconnect.

Marie O’Neill 18:34

Yeah, exactly. It's just the perpetuating of that message, you know, that you can't trust your feelings. Your feelings need to be managed or gotten rid of or regulate yourself out of them or something.

April Snow 18:46

That is so true that it's the same sentiment with a different mask. Right. We're reliving those messages, we're perpetuating those messages of saying, Yeah, your feelings are inconvenient, they're too much, they're not true, whatever it is. Like, no, let's soften those, embrace the emotions. Because as we know, the more that we're able to sit with our emotions, the softer they become. They're less monstrous.

Marie O’Neill 19:13

Yeah, and the more whole we feel in ourselves, yeah. Because we know then these parts of ourselves that, yeah, we thought were monsters are actually just very scared, very sad, you know, little wounded parts that when we reclaim them, we just feel so much more whole in ourselves.

April Snow 19:30

Absolutely. Yeah,

Nervous System Care Without Avoidance

April Snow 19:32

it's like puzzle pieces are coming back together. I know in your framework you talked about, you know, mindfulness, somatics, working with the nervous system, but you also talked about spirituality. And I'm really curious what that might look like, especially for listeners who maybe be a little hesitant to bring in spirituality or they think of spirituality as religion. Yeah, what does that part of your practice look like? What does that include?

Marie O’Neill 19:57

Yeah, I do think that's kind of like a wound in our culture, in our humanity, where a lot of times there can be religious trauma, there can be these kind of confusion around like what does spirituality mean? Or some people even don't like that word, you know, find that word quite difficult. Like I'm not spiritual, you know. And so I keep a very kind of light touch with that. I don't impose that word either, like whatever people are comfortable with. If somebody feels that they just feel connected to nature or to the world as a whole, to a sense of themselves that feels really true inside. I think ultimately we're trying to put words to something that can't be described in words. So no words are gonna really get there. So it's less important how we describe these things, and it's much more important that any individual finds their own meaning. I talk about it more in terms of like meaning, purpose, you know, sense of why we're here. So if that doesn't feel spiritual, it might feel that it's to do with expressing empathy for our shared humanity, feeling like we're part of a community, part of the world. You know, I think care is very spiritual in and of itself. It's that connection to others, which comes through when we feel connected with ourselves, we feel connected with life. To me, these all go together. And I'm not really here to impose any type of language or framework for that. And if somebody has a religion, if somebody does feel like there is a higher power and they have a framework for relating to that, you know, that's great. And if people don't have that, that's equally fine. You know, it doesn't have to be prescribed. And indeed, it doesn't always help when it is prescribed, you know, rather when somebody can arrive at that truth, at that real, genuine like I know this feels right for me. I know that. This is true for me. And yeah, I feel like that's more powerful.

April Snow 22:05

For sure. And what great practice permission to find what works for you, what's meaningful to you as an individual, while within that collective. Yeah, I always hold it as just whatever's bigger than myself. And I love that you brought in community and purpose. It reminded me of maybe five-year-old Marie who's thinking existential questions and looking beyond herself and trying to connect to the bigger picture. Yeah, we can bring that back in again in this part of the process, but it sounds soft, it sounds inviting because it is very subjective and it shifts over time depending on where you're at in your personal process. Yeah. Yeah.

Marie O’Neill 22:49

Yeah. And I think there's a big difference between religious or spiritual leaders who want to teach somebody their ways or somebody who wants to facilitate somebody to find their own way. You know, if you need your relationship with that higher existence,

Spirituality As Meaning Nature And Community

Marie O’Neill 23:10

you know, if you need that brokered, or if you're allowed to go ahead and have a direct experience for yourself.

April Snow 23:18

Sounds like a great practice in building that self-trust again, right? Yeah. Not getting caught in those absolutes, whether it's with nervous system care or spirituality. Just coming back to that. Yeah, what's working for me? What makes sense for me in this moment and letting that be fluid, flexible? Yeah. Yeah. That's a great reminder. I'm wondering, Maria, as we start to wrap up, if there was a message you might want to share with HSP listeners who maybe do want to feel more connected with their inner world or with themselves.

Marie O’Neill 23:52

Yeah, I think the most important thing always comes back to that relationship with yourself. Because most HSPs already have a lot of amazing tools and skills and that capacity for deep connection, empathy, intuition. But if we don't have that trust in ourselves, if we're always doubting and second-guessing ourselves, then we don't get to, you know, always have the benefit of those. So instead of seeing sensitivity as a problem, as something that needs to be managed, you know, life is hard. And yes, that can be, especially if we haven't maybe made those adaptations to really bring in the care that we need for ourselves. So really working with that relationship and healing our relationship with ourselves internally, then I think those external problems become more easily solved because when we see ourselves as someone worthy of care and worth looking after, we can more easily make those decisions to take care of ourselves and honor ourselves and live more in alignment and have more access to those superpowers as well that kind of come alongside, you know, hardwired into us.

April Snow 25:05

Oh, it's so true that you know all the answers are already in there, already within ourselves. Yes. Yeah, just a matter of is it okay to look inward? Can we trust ourselves? And yeah, it's okay. You you have what you need and you're enough as you are. It's such a good reminder. Yeah, thank you for that. And I want to make sure if folks want to reach out to you, I'll be sure to share your website, your Instagram in the show notes. I'm wondering if you could say a little bit more about the different ways people can work with you.

Marie O’Neill 25:35

Yeah, so my sensitive soul framework is at the heart of all that I do because I do see that as being the most kind of foundational way of working that's been really built on my own experience and working with people. So there's a few different ways that people can work with me with that. So they can work with me one-to-one, or I have a group program, and I also have a community membership where people can, if they don't want to work a whole program, they just want to be connected with others and like-minded people who share an understanding. And we have a monthly community call around different topics, and that's a kind of lighter touch to be involved. And yeah, I also have a free masterclass on my website if people want to just check it out and just see what's right, yeah, what's there.

April Snow 26:27

Perfect. I love that you have different options depending on where people are and maybe how much capacity or interest they have, how much they're ready for. And I'll make sure I share those in the show notes as well as your free masterclass. That's a great way to get started and working with you. All right, thank you so much for today. I love this conversation. I really appreciate your integral approach to working with HSPs and just bringing in all the parts of ourselves back together. I think that's such important work. So thank you for sharing that.

Marie O’Neill 26:58

Thank you so much for having me. It's been so great to talk to you.

April Snow 27:02

It's been wonderful. Thanks so much for joining me and Marie for today's conversation. I hope you're walking away remembering that there's nothing wrong with you and that it is possible to find your way back to your authentic self. If you'd like to join Marie in any of her programs or community, you can head to the link in the show notes or visit spacefortesoul.co.uk. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the Sensitive Stories podcast so you don't miss our upcoming conversations. Reviews and ratings are also helpful and appreciated. Check out the show notes or head to sensitivestories.com to find all the resources and the transcript from today's episode. Thanks for listening.