Ritu Kaushal's Blog, page 10

These are a few of my favorite gifts for highly sensitive creatives!

One of the best gifts I ever received was a 1-year Reader’s Digest subscription from an uncle. As a child, it was a cherished gift, not because of the cost but because it was so thoughtful and made me feel seen. Just in case you can’t spend much on gifts at the end of this hard year, I hope you remember this, that the truly memorable gifts are actually gifts of our attention.

And if you are looking for gifts, here are some of my favorites. These are either things I have bought for myself...

The Empath’s Journey is for 99 Cents this Thanksgiving Weekend Only!

To celebrate all the good that has come my way, The Empath’s Journey will be for 99 cents this Thanksgiving long weekend (November 26-29). So, if you want to get a Kindle copy for yourself or gift it to someone else, this would be a great time!

Get your copy here.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

With love,
Ritu

Black Jaguars, The Animal Wisdom Tarot & Intuitive Flashes.

This was my year of the Black Jaguar. It came to me in a shamanic journey I did earlier this year when its fearsome image flashed very strongly in my mind. I felt scared. After that, it has come several times in my dreams.

When symbols like this come up, I try to feel into them. I know there is no one meaning that I can pin them down to (it’s easy to misinterpret), so it’s not about fixing on one meaning.

I do look up the various archetypal meanings and see whether the glove fit...

“I was always ashamed to take. So I gave. It was not a virtue. It was a disguise.”

Sometimes, the same thing keeps bobbing up in our awareness, and this is a quote by author Anais Nin that I have come across multiple times recently. Now that we are heading into the holiday season, into a season of giving, it feels especially poignant.

Often, we hear the saying, “It’s more blessed to give than to receive.”

But for habitual overgivers and “recovering people pleasers” like me, I think the opposite is true. We need to strive for something different.

It’s at lea...

This might be making your anxiety worse as a highly sensitive person.

As highly sensitive people, we feel all emotions intensely, whether it’s joy and happiness or fear and anger. And because we feel so deeply, we can sometimes get stuck in a loop. We can overthink, and anxiety can become the shadow side of our experience.

Last year, I interviewed Dr. Connie L. Habash, the author of Awakening from Anxiety, a book I highly recommend if you are highly sensitive & experiencing anxiety. I wanted to re-share something from that interview.

As a highly ...

Being scatterbrained is half of the creative equation for intuitive INFP writers.

If you have ever had a nagging suspicion that you are scatterbrained, you are probably a highly creative writer. You never run out of ideas. You love opening new doors. You love asking questions.

There’s so much to discover, so much to learn!

But this same amazing part of you that makes you so good with coming up with ideas also makes it hard to choose.

As highly creative writers, we can feel paralyzed at the thought of shutting down our options.

As a highly intuitive wri...

I am Built for Depth, Not Speed as a Highly Sensitive Person.

When I first heard fellow highly sensitive person and author Alice Archer articulate how she is “built for depth, not speed,” I resonated so deeply with it, I felt it in my heart.

I thought, I am just like her. I am someone who is built for depth, not speed. How wonderful to be able to understand that, to not compete or try to rush or “hustle” to be the first one in the metaphorical line.

I would rather just be me.

Of course, sometimes, this is easier said than done. I think o...

“All I know is that I’ve wasted all these years looking for something, a sort of trophy I’d get only if I really, really did enough to deserve it.”

As highly sensitive people who grow up feeling like outsiders, looking-in, we can often spend years looking outside ourselves for love and approval. If we can only achieve what we’ve been told is important — whether it’s fame or money or awards — we can fill the empty hole that is inside us.

But then, we get it, and it doesn’t.

This quote by the writer Kazuo Ishiguro from his book When We Were Orphans really resonated with how I have been feeling:

“All I know is that I’ve w...

10 Tips for Highly Sensitive People Struggling with Overwhelm.

While being highly sensitive comes with many great things, such as being highly emotionally responsive and creative, there is also a flip side to it. As a highly sensitive person, you get overwhelmed and overstimulated more quickly than others.

I have had many overwhelming moments recently, especially with all the turmoil that’s going on here in the States. So, I thought I would do a list of tips to deal with overwhelm (and also talk about some of what didn’t work and why).

I...

3 Signs You are a Highly Sensitive Person.

If you are a highly sensitive person (HSP), you experience the world differently than the majority of people. This difference is biologically hardwired in you. You were born with it.

You are more aware of subtleties. You process information deeply.

This means that you tend to be empathetic, thoughtful and creative. But this same tendency to notice details means that you can also get overwhelmed more quickly than other people.

Then, of course, there is the fact that although be...