I love great questions. Sometimes, even more than facts, questions can nudge you in the right direction. And if the question is framed “just so,” it can start a train of associations.
I especially love journaling questions.
And I found some great ones recently in psychologist Lori L Cangilla’s lovely guided journal, Wander and Delve, a journal for “bright, creative, highly sensitive people forging their way.” There is so much good stuff in it!
Here are three of Lori’s great questions for highly sensitive people as well as a little of what they made me think about:
- “Having a foot on the gas and a foot on the brake will burn out your engine and limit your progress. What do you need to do now, accelerate or brake? Or perhaps coast? How will you know when you need to switch pedals? How can you do this without wearing yourself out?”
This made me think of being a highly sensitive person who is ALSO a high-sensation-seeker. I have used the gas and brake analogy myself to describe these two paradoxical parts of myself.
But something about the way this question was framed really startled me.
It made me think of how while I often do have a foot on the gas (trying new things and feeding my variety-seeking side), I also often have a foot on the brake. And I need to stop braking so much, otherwise I will burn out, even if I am exploring & nourishing myself in other ways.
- “Kangaroos cannot hop backwards. They can only move sideways and forwards. What can the kangaroo teach you about being willing to circle around, take an indirect path, or reconsider whether you really need to move backwards after all? How can you learn to move beyond coping with your identity to embracing it and the uniqueness it brings to your life?”
I love questions with symbols in them! This one made me think of how, like other HSPs, my tendency to notice details can often slide into overthinking.
Also, for HSPs, it can be really frustrating when we are told to “just let things go.” We want to analyze and consider where things went wrong. We want to figure out how to not repeat our own steps in the dance if it was, let’s say, a relationship problem.
But of course, going backwards to understand something loses its usefulness at a certain point. And this question made me think of how, if I were a kangaroo, instead of trying to force myself to “let things go,” (it’s hard to forget when you have been manipulated, for example), I would instead think about moving sideways – focusing on other things, other people, other activities.
- “Labeling a swamp as a swamp lets you prepare for a different kind of hike than ignoring it or pretending that the swamp is a desert or a beach. How can you commit to precisely naming or labeling the aspects of your experience? How does doing so transform what was ambiguous into something that is clear and defined? What prevents you from labeling aspects of the terrain with this level of accuracy and precision? What could support you in improving this skill?”
This made me think of the terrains that come up in my dreams. I haven’t had “swamp dreams.” But other terrains – mountains, the ocean, a river – show up in my dreams regularly. And thinking of how “the swamp is not a desert or a beach” made me think of how important it is to name where I am psychologically.
My dreams often show me that. Sometimes, I am sitting fearfully by the riverbank. Sometimes, I am swimming in the ocean.
Whatever I am doing helps me map where I am psychologically. Dreams are such wonderful bridges to accessing our deep intuition. I went a little sideways while answering this question (like a kangaroo!) but this is one question I think I can explore again & again.
All in all, I loved this guided journal.
The questions had a lot of symbolic aspects, which I absolutely love. And how they were framed was interesting. It’s also easy to see (and appreciate) when an author has a lived experience of something. This journal felt very much like that – coming from someone’s lived and felt experience with their sensitivity.
If you enjoy journaling, you’ll enjoy Wander and Delve. Like me, it may give you sparks of new insight!
Ritu Kaushal is the author of the book The Empath’s Journey. Find more about Ritu HERE.
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