Conscious Living with Lucy
Through this podcast I engage in dialogue with spiritual practitioners, therapists, coaches, mental health and wellbeing professionals to support my mission in guiding people to live consciously in relationships with themselves, others and the world.
This podcast provides a platform to share the work of many wonderful souls working in service, offering their work to support people in discovering themselves and supporting them on their spiritual, healing and transformative journey.
Conscious Living with Lucy
Embracing High Sensitivity with Jules DeVitto – insights into understanding HSP traits and practices for self care
Unlock the secrets to embracing high sensitivity as a superpower with insights from my conversation with Jules DeVitto, the inspiring founder of the Highly Sensitive Human Academy. Jules shares her personal journey of self-discovery, using the enlightening acronym DOES—Depth of processing, Overstimulation, Empathy, and Sensitivity to subtleties—to understand what it truly means to be a highly sensitive person (HSP). You'll gain a fresh perspective on how sensitivity can be reframed from a vulnerability into a unique strength, with scientific support from fascinating topics like mirror neurons and differential susceptibility. Our discussion also reveals the complexities HSPs face in relationships, navigating both challenges and blessings with a new understanding.
Explore transformative practices such as mindfulness, yoga, and self-compassion, all designed to support HSPs in their daily lives. We dive into the significance of setting boundaries and utilizing resources like Dr. Elaine Aron's self-report measure to identify HSP traits. You'll find intriguing discussions about distinguishing HSP traits from conditions like ADHD and autism, especially in today's digital age. Jules introduces us to the powerful RAIN meditation technique from Tara Brach, a tool that encourages self-care and personal growth through a compassionate approach to handling emotions. Join us as we wrap up with expressions of gratitude and a wish for positivity, leaving you equipped with practical advice and a deeper understanding of high sensitivity.
You can connect with Jules Devitto and her work here www.julesdevitto.com and
https://academy.highlysensitivehumans.com/
If you enjoyed this episode please take the time to rate us on your podcast app. It is appreciated and helps other potential listeners to find the podcast.
It would also be appreciated if you could follow my instagram account and sign up to the newsletter on my website to receive news, updates and details of new podcast releases.
If you are interested in Life Coaching, Energy Healing or Yoga sessions with me then please contact me through my website.
www.consciouslivingwithlucy.com
Instagram @consciouslivingwithlucy
Podcast Music created by Vitaliy Dominichenko
Title: Long Road Trip
To hear the full track and others from Vitaliy please visit https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=iuOM-gVaUgQ&list=OLAK5uy_lQQ7YHnzEbywBY3y4SOiPITLFqrXymtJo
Welcome. I'm Lucy, host of Conscious Living with Lucy podcast. Today I'm joined by Jules DeVito. Jules has a BSc in Psychology, an MA in Education and MSc in Transpersonal Psychology, consciousness and Spirituality. Jules is an accredited and certified transpersonal coach as well as an experienced educator. She works on the Aleph Trust Faculty as part of the one-year certificate in transpersonal coaching psychology.
Speaker 1:Jules is the founder of the Highly Sensitive Human Academy, a central hub that offers courses, coaching articles and a podcast for highly sensitive people. Jules helps those who identify with the traits of high sensitivity to navigate emotional overwhelm, step into their authentic power and align with their true purpose in life. Jules published the book Resilience Navigating Loss in a Time of Crisis, which provides practical resources to cultivate greater resilience and find greater meaning and purpose through times of crisis. Jules has also published her research in the peer-reviewed journal Consciousness, spirituality and Transpersonal Psychology. So I'm delighted to be joined by Jules today. Jules is a fellow colleague, friend, and also we study together, so very delighted to be with you, jules. So your work is centered around supporting people who are highly sensitive. What led you to this work?
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much for having me on the podcast today. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. So, yeah, in terms of my work, I've always been a highly sensitive person myself. I didn't actually realize this until about 10 years ago when I discovered the term. There's a documentary called Sensitive that I ended up watching, and when I came across this documentary I was like, wow, this describes my lived experience and who I am so well and it was really an eye-opening experience for me. And I think the term Nahaliyah Sunster person has really helped me to have a framework in terms of has really helped me to have a framework in terms of understanding who I am and how I experience the world.
Speaker 2:And so back then I used to be a teacher. So I worked as a teacher for about 10, 12 years and then I went into transpersonal psychology and transpersonal coaching. So in the beginning I was working as a transpersonal coach and really wanting to help everyone, and at the time I started to notice that a lot of the people who were coming to me were naturally very sensitive and empathetic, and I was noticing that and thinking this is interesting, I'm attracting a certain type of person, and that's really when I decided that it was important for me to focus on working with highly sensitive people, and that was when the Highly Sensitive Human Academy was born and all of the work that I do today. So that was kind of the natural progression of me coming into this work Wonderful.
Speaker 1:Thank you. So just for our listeners, who are hearing this for the first time today. So what does being highly sensitive mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it's a really good question, because what I have found is there's quite a lot of myths around the term sensitive. So when we hear the word sensitive or the highly sensitive person, I think a lot of people think it means being fragile, being broken, being weak somehow. So my work and what I'm trying to do is really move people away from those more negative associations with the word, and so it was Dr Elaine Aron that coined the phrase the highly sensitive person. It was in the mid 1990s, so still quite recently. It's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the research is still in its early days, but there's an acronym that I really like to use to describe what it means to be a highly sensitive person, so the acronym is DOENS, and I think this is a great way to remember it if you're wanting to explain it to someone. So the D stands for depth of processing, so this is all about how, as highly sensitive people, we tend to process things more deeply. That can include the world around us, but also our internal psyche. So we are deep thinkers and, yeah, we like to really analyze and look at things in depth. The O stands for overstimulation, so this is all about how our nervous systems can get easily overstimulated and I like to describe it in terms of our window of tolerance, so the sense that our window of tolerance can be a bit more narrow and we're more easily knocked into the fight or flight or the freeze response. And then the E stands for empathy. So we have really high levels of empathy and that's actually been shown in brain scans, showing that we have mirror neurons in our brain and in highly sensitive people have mirror neurons in our brain, and in highly sensitive people these mirror neurons which are responsible for empathy are more activated. And then the S stands for sensitivity to subtleties. So we really notice subtle details in our environment, and it can be our internal landscape, but also the external.
Speaker 2:And then just one more thing I would like to mention. There is this term called differential susceptibility, and I think this term is really important because it's talking about how, if we're in really difficult circumstances or if in in childhood we didn't grow up in a really nurturing and nourishing environment, then as adults we can be more likely to struggle with our sensitivity and struggle with things like anxiety or feeling overwhelmed. But this term also explains that if we're in very nurturing and nourishing environments, then we're also more likely to thrive and flourish. So it's as if the spectrum of our experience is more diverse, can also thrive more when we have that potential to really um, yeah, thrive and nourish. So I think that's really important and a big part of what it means to be a highly sensitive person wonderful, thank you.
Speaker 1:I can definitely relate to um lots of those those traits, so I'm really interested in hearing and learning more about this whole area of work. Any relationship in life can be challenging for people. Would you say it's harder for people who are highly sensitive to be in relationships, or easier and are there any kind of particular blessings or challenges?
Speaker 2:Yeah, really good question. So I think it really depends on who you're in relationship with. There can be a tendency for highly sensitive people to struggle in relationships that can be, you know, romantic relationships or family dynamics, friendships if that person or those people don't understand high sensitivity and don't understand the trait. So I think something else I should have said earlier is that being highly sensitive is an innate trait, it's something we're born with. So I think, unfortunately, a lot of people can think if you say, oh, I'm sensitive to that or, yeah, I'm a highly sensitive person, they can think that you're maybe making excuses for things or you're being too much or you're being difficult, and again, I think that's really unfortunate and that's not accurate. So it's really important to, I think, be an advocate and educate other people about high sensitivity. So if you are in a relationship with someone and they're not really understanding why you're struggling with certain things, then it would be important to let that person know that it might be because or related to your sensitivity, that it might be because or related to your sensitivity.
Speaker 2:And there's also certain relationship dynamics that I've noticed with highly sensitive people, and one is this common attraction between the highly sensitive person and someone who is more empathetic and then someone with more narcissistic personality traits, and I don't really like this black and white distinction.
Speaker 2:A lot of people talk about the empath and the narcissist and it is a valid dynamic that I have noticed, but I think many of these relationships are not as black and white as that and there can be a way to find a meeting point in people who are willing to understand the sensitivity and where you're coming from. So, yeah, I think there can be more challenges. You know, I think a good example I can think of with a lot of highly sensitive people. They can really struggle with sleep and their environment and needing particular conditions to sleep well and maybe needing to sleep longer actually, and if you're in a relationship with someone who isn't sensitive, then that can be a sticky point often in terms of making sure your environment is comfortable and meeting your needs as a highly sensitive person. So I think a big part of it is communication and being able to communicate what you're feeling, what you're needing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And also just so you know, how can highly sensitive people use their qualities as well to enhance their relationships? Is that something in your experience you've heard about or experienced yourself?
Speaker 2:Yeah, again, a really good question. So you know, as highly sensitive people, we're very empathetic, we're very intuitive, we're really good at sensing what other people need. So, you know, often we can walk into a room and really know if someone is struggling with something or if they're feeling uncomfortable, and so we tend to, yeah, go out of our way to help other people feel more comfortable in meeting their needs. So this is a positive because we can really empathize with other people and be supportive in relationships, wanting to talk about things more deeply because of that depth of processing. So we tend to not like superficial conversations.
Speaker 2:So, you know, if something has happened, we're not the type of people who just want to brush over that and pretend it didn't happen and just get on with things. We need to actually talk about it and understand it, and that's really important in relationships, I would say, with highly sensitive people listens to people. So we do have these gifts of empathy, compassion, intuition, yeah, really sensing what people need. I think the most important thing is we give ourselves permission to, yeah, talk about these things and find a way to use our voices, because that can be a struggle actually finding our voices and knowing that our voices have a right to be heard. So yeah, I hope that makes sense and that was your question.
Speaker 1:It does make sense and, yeah, I can see that in relationships that can be a real blessing. You can definitely create more depth in relationships and, you know, people who are less sensitive in the relationship can learn more. However, I can also imagine it can be challenging if you're with someone who isn't sensitive and then it might feel too much for them. So really trying to find that balance of you know relationships help you to grow and develop anyway, but really kind of being in a relationship that would support being highly sensitive is really important, it seems. So, yeah, thank you, and kind of moving beyond individual relationships, how can being highly sensitive benefit us being you know in the world in a larger capacity? And also to look at the flip side of that. So what can some of the barriers be to creating and living a fulfilled life as a highly sensitive person? Sorry, many questions in one yeah, no problem.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I think, if I speak to first of all, I see our role as highly sensitive people as having an important place in society and the collective. So I've experienced that we are naturally actually very good leaders. And again, just going back to that empathy and that compassion that we have, I think when we can really step into our power and our authenticity as highly sensitive people, that we can be well, we are excellent leaders. And, yeah, unfortunately in the world we're living at the moment, more sensitive, empathetic, compassionate leaders is what we're needing, because it's lacking. So I think it's really important that we can feel empowered and we navigate you know the struggles that we can often face so that we are feeling more resourced so we can step into those leadership positions.
Speaker 2:And something else I often speak about is as HSPs. I believe we are the wounded healers of this world. So this wounded healer archetype is someone who's been through a lot of struggles in life, a lot of challenges, but it is those challenges that end up being our gifts and what propellers on to our healing journey. So, in order to maybe be a healer or you know, a lot of highly sensitive people end up being therapists or coaches or some kind of healer. I think in order for us to do that work, which we do really well, we often have to have been on our own path of healing and transformation. So that is the wounded healer. So I think for any highly sensitive person who is struggling or going through something really challenging, it's important to recognize that that could be part of your purpose in life. And maybe you're not quite there yet, but eventually, with the right support, you can find a way to really step onto your, your calling in life.
Speaker 2:So if I talk about the barriers, I think a lot of the barriers are the fact that a lot of high listens to people can struggle with their confidence and their self-esteem, and that's often because in childhood we're often told that our sensitivity is maybe too much. Or let's say, you're a sensitive person who cries a lot. In childhood you might have experienced people saying that's too much, you need to stop. Now there's something wrong with you. Why are you being so emotional? Why are you so sensitive?
Speaker 2:So what happens is that person will grow up and start to push these parts of themselves away, these more sensitive parts, and they get pushed into the shadow and then they become disowned aspects of who we are, and so that can lead to that person not feeling empowered and not feeling confident and not feeling that it's okay to be who they really are. So this is a big part of my work that I want to help people to bring these parts of themselves back into their consciousness and integrate them and have compassion for those parts so that they can start to accept who they are and they can start to feel that their authentic nature is actually a gift and it is something that needs to be brought into the world and shared with others. So I think, with all of that, it's really good and helpful to remember that healing is possible and, if you are struggling as a HSP, that there are ways to yeah, bring your power back and to reconnect with your sensitivity and all of the gifts that it brings.
Speaker 1:Wonderful thank you, and actually I was just thinking about asking you what practices you recommend highly sensitive people engage in to support them in life. So that would flow on nicely from what you've just said.
Speaker 2:So anything to share in relation to, yeah, practices for highly sensitive people yeah, so there's quite a few practices that I talk about, and the first one is really I'm a big fan of mindfulness to help us with emotional regulation and nervous system regulation. So, as I said at the beginning, because of our sensitive nervous systems, it takes less for us to become overstimulated or knocked out of our window of tolerance. So that's, as I mentioned earlier, the freeze response or the fight or flight response. So I would recommend any highly sensitive person to have a regular mindfulness practice, something that is helping to regulate their nervous system on a daily basis, but that can also take the form of yoga, breath work, movement practices too. I think all of those are really, really important. And then, on top of that, I also have been really inspired by the work of Kristen Neff, who talks about the importance of compassion and self-compassion, and I found that a lot of HSPs really struggle with having quite a strong inner critic. So, related to what I was saying earlier, they can be quite critical on themselves, and so it's really important for us to develop a self-compassion practice so that can also help us to regulate our nervous system, come into acceptance of who we are, and so there's lots of benefits of self-compassion, and it relates strongly to the benefits of mindfulness, and then just a couple more things.
Speaker 2:As I mentioned, as HSPs we really like to talk deeply about things, but interestingly, we can really struggle with finding our voices, and I think again, this can relate to a lot of wounding in childhood, but feeling that our voices are not valid or we don't have a right to express our needs and what we're feeling.
Speaker 2:So often our ability to communicate can be a bit blocked or stuck. So one thing I like to encourage HSPs to do is really find their voices and find a way to communicate what they're feeling, what they need, communicating their boundaries too, because we are so empathetic, we can often feel ourselves taking on the emotions or energies of other people and the world around us, which can be a gift, because that's how we intuit and know things that maybe other people don't. But we have to find a way to discern and know when it's okay to be more open and when we need to close down and protect ourselves with our boundaries. So that's something else which I think is really important for us to really step into our authenticity. Like I said, we need to discern healthy boundaries. So those are a few things which obviously take a bit of practice, but are really important for HSPs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, some really great practices and tools there and things to recognize as well to support highly sensitive people. Thank you. How can people find out if they are highly sensitive?
Speaker 2:Yeah, good question. So it's really important to know that being a highly sensitive person is not a diagnosis, so there isn't an official assessment to do, so it's not something you can go to your doctor or psychologist and get diagnosed with. So I just wanted to mention that because often it can be confused with being a diagnosis or there being something wrong with you. But, as we're talking about, that's not the case. But there are some quizzes that you can take. So they're not formal assessments, but they're quizzes which help you to, yeah, see if you are a highly sensitive person. So the most common one that you can do is a self-report measure that Dr Elaine Aron has on her website. So there's 27 items and if you score more than 14, then it's very likely that you are a highly sensitive person. And that scale is testing for three different areas. So the first one is ease of excitation, so this is all about a tendency to feel overwhelmed more easily. Then there's something called low sensory threshold, so this is the fact that, as I mentioned, our window of tolerance can be more narrow, so we're more sensitive to stimulation. And then the third part is ascetic sensitivity, which is all about our ability to have an awareness of the world around us and beauty and awe and things like that.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, those are kind of the three subscales, and I also have a couple of quizzes on my website which people are welcome to check out, which have been adapted from Dr Elaine Aron's test. But they look at things like are you a highly sensitive person? Are you a highly sensitive person and an empath? Because being an empath is also a separate topic, even though it's highly connected and highly related and then there's something called high sensation seeking. That's it. So I have a quiz on my website which tries to find out if you're a highly sensitive person and a high sensation seeker. So there's this whole area research which is looking at highly sensitive people who might have the sensitivity but then also have something called high sensation seeking, which is where they like to seek out novelty and they enjoy new environments and highly stimulating environments which, as you can imagine, can create a conflict in a person. So they have part of them which needs lots of rest, needs to slow down, needs space, and then a part of them which is seeking out these novel, exciting experiences.
Speaker 1:So I find, yeah, that's a really interesting dynamic as well yeah, I guess as well there could be some crossover as well, because I know you mentioned, obviously, with being highly sensitive. There's no kind of formal diagnosis, but increasingly people are getting diagnosis is like ADHD and you know things on the autism spectrum, so I can imagine there's some areas where there's a bit of crossover as well or trying to. You know, how do you separate that you're not just highly sensitive rather than them being given a diagnosis? Just something that made me think of when you were discussing that area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's a really big topic of discussion at the moment actually. Big topic of discussion at the moment actually. And I think there's a lot of confusion about the diagnoses and high sensitivity. And unfortunately, I think now with social media, there's a lot of people sharing information on social media that isn't always accurate information on social media that isn't always accurate. So I think I would just say to anyone who's feeling confused about whether they're a highly sensitive person or whether they have a diagnosis, to really seek out a professional to help them discern, because, yeah, there's a lot of research out there and there's a lot of experienced professionals who can really help you discern and pull these different diagnoses apart.
Speaker 2:But there is an overlap, there is a crossover.
Speaker 2:So if you are someone who is diagnosed with ADD, adhd or is on the autism spectrum, you do have high levels of sensitivity, and so I think this is where the confusion comes in, because they do have this aspect of sensitivity.
Speaker 2:But being a highly sensitive person, as I mentioned earlier, is talking about this differential susceptibility and this is why I would never put being a highly sensitive person into the category of being a disorder, because not everyone who is highly sensitive is struggling with aspects, as I said, if you're in a nourishing environment and you're thriving. But I will add that I think this is the case for autism or if you have ADHD. I think we all have these gifts and I think it's all about how we frame these labels and how we approach them. So, with all of them, my preference is to not put people into boxes but to really look at what their gifts are and help to nourish and nurture those. So, yeah, it's a really big topic of discussion, but an important one. And again, I'll just add that, whatever the label we're using, I think it's important to work with the individual and how they experience the world as an individual, and that's always the meeting point, the starting point, always the meeting point, the starting point?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and, as you said as well, also, you know, not looking at these things as negative and really recognising the gifts that each individual has. Absolutely, yeah. So we have obviously touched on it in your bio and you've mentioned some of it briefly, but is there anything else you want to say about the work that you offer to support highly sensitive people and ways in which people can connect with you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 2:I run the Highly Sensitive Human Academy and that is really a hub, for there's lots of different things in the academy, but mainly I'm working with professionals who want to support other highly sensitive people.
Speaker 2:So I have a course and I train coaches or anyone who wants to learn how to coach highly sensitive people. So that's really my main offering, because something I've noticed is that a lot of professionals that include psychologists, therapists, teachers, doctors have never heard of the highly sensitive person, and I think that's really unfortunate, because if you have someone in front of you who is highly sensitive and you haven't heard about this term, then you're not able to support them in the way that they need. So a big part of my work is trying to empower the professionals on how to support highly sensitive people. So that's one of the main areas that I work with and also because, as you know, I used to be a teacher and I've worked a lot with children, I have a course all about how to understand and empower highly sensitive children. So, again, that's a big passion of mine, because I think, unfortunately, there's a lot of children who are not receiving the support they need and yeah, that's really where this work begins in in childhood.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's really important in the school setting, which would be really important. So I can imagine you know how they go kind of unnoticed and may struggle in the environment and with that awareness, I can imagine they will be greatly supported and would really enhance their time in school. So, yes, educating educators is a wonderful thing that you're doing. It's really important. Um, and what is your most important message for highly sensitive people? If you could just kind of put it into one sentence or one short message. I know there are so many aspects and facets to it, but what? Yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, in one sentence that's a tough one, but I would say that my message is really that sensitivity is not a weakness, it's not a flaw. We have incredible gifts and so when we can feel resourced and empowered, then we can really tap into those gifts and share them with the world, and the world really needs those gifts. As I said earlier, we need to see a shift in the way the world is functioning no-transcript. That I'm really focusing on, which is community. I think, yeah, often we can feel alone, and I know I did feel alone for a long time. And then when I found the term the highly sensitive person and I started to realize one thing I didn't mention earlier was that it's about 20 to 30% of the population who are highly sensitive, so that's not a small number. That's a lot of people. And again, there's obviously there is a reason that so many people are highly sensitive. It's been shown to have advantages in terms of our evolution and survival. So, yeah, community and finding other people like you is really important. Thank you.
Speaker 1:So thank you so much for sharing all of this information and giving us a much deeper insight into what being highly sensitive means and what it is. I've definitely learned a lot more and resonated even more so with what you've been sharing, so I really appreciate that and, before you go, it would be lovely for you to close our conversation with a short meditation or practice that people can use to utilise their connection to sensitivity.
Speaker 2:Great yeah, absolutely I'd love to.
Speaker 1:If you would like to. Sorry, I'm just offering that to you.
Speaker 2:No, absolutely. So. Yeah, I'd love to invite you just to take a moment to take a few deep breaths, so just breathing in through the nose if possible, breathing out through the mouth. Just breathing in through the nose if possible, breathing out through the mouth, so really just allowing the breath to wherever you're sat or standing or laying at the moment, noticing that connection to earth. And so we're simply recognizing what's present in this moment, so noticing the different sounds around you, noticing the different sounds around you, noticing the different sensations in the body, and as we notice, as we recognize what's here, we're simply allowing, so continuing with the breath, allowing the breath to flow in and out at ease, seeing how much you can simply allow what's within you and around you to simply be here. So perhaps, as a softening, as surrendering, as you allow your experience to be as it is, and as we do that, we can bring in an element of curiosity. So just being curious rather than judging.
Speaker 2:So isn't it interesting, perhaps, that we're experiencing a certain, a few moments now to just nourish or nurture ourselves, so bringing in self-compassion? So I'd like to invite you, if it's available to you, to place a hand on the part of the body that's needing some compassion at the moment. It could be the heart center, it could be a different area. If that's not available, just imagining a warmth meeting you and your body and bringing in a statement of self-compassion. It could be I'm here for you, you're good enough for you. You're good enough, even if things are difficult right now. You're doing the.
Speaker 2:So just notice how it feels, just lowering that, letting that go, and we'll just take a deep in and out breath and slowly bringing awareness back to the entire body and just noticing how you're feeling now, how that practice is resonating with you. And so that's a practice I really love to share with people. It's all about recognizing, allowing, being curious and nurturing ourselves. It's been inspired by the work of Tara Brach. That's where I first came across this practice. She calls it the RAIN meditation, which stands for recognize, allow, investigate and nourish.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. I really enjoyed that. I stayed there for ages, okay well, thank you so much. It's wonderful and, yeah, I hope you have a good day.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you, thank you.