OK, I actually do know why I attract these types of people. Through studying advanced astrology, I found that every single person with Pluto in their first house will experience these extreme dynamics in relationships, because we trigger others to their core, forcing them to confront their shadows.

It’s not something that is in my power to change; it is an energetic blueprint I’ve been given at birth, but I can choose who can be in my life and who cannot.

I’m sure you know the type I’m talking about. Or maybe you don’t.

Those who say one thing but do another.

The wishy-washy people.

The toxic ones. The narcissists.

Those who praise you to your face and then they gossip about you behind your back or they ghost you as if you never existed.

Those who try to control your every piece of heart because either they love you too much or they feel threatened by you.

Those who adore you and then become your stalkers because they can’t accept your rejection, or those who are your haters no matter how loving you are and what you do.

It’s like I grew up on a different planet and every day I still wake up and hope that things will change. But they never do. So many people are wounded and never want to heal.

Some of these are pleasers; they have no backbone, they are afraid to be authentic, and so they say whatever they think is expected of them and then they realize that they can’t follow through.

I’ve talked about one other type, specifically my narcissistic mother, in this post.

But no matter how differently these types of people act, they have one major thing in common—they are double-faced. Sometimes intentionally, other times unconsciously. But neither of them is a great asset because they are not willing to do the inner work required for authentic connection.

Today, however, I’m going to talk about a friend who is also a distant relative and worked for me for many years. I never quite liked her, but being family, somehow it was easier to manage certain things between us.

So even if in the last year or so I felt deeply that she is no longer a good friend for me, because of our business together, I still maintained our relationship, although at a very surface level. No meetings, only texts or emails, and only if something was really important to communicate.

Last week, however, I had to take a decision that involved her too, and I asked her to tell me what option feels best for her. She was supposed to give me some administrative documents, and so I asked her if she could send them through a courier.

She said it was too expensive for me, to which I asked what the price was, but she would never say. The only thing I could understand from her was that there was a very big box of papers that would cost a tremendous amount of money to be sent.

Now, this distant relative and “friend” of mine was also one of my mother’s enablers. You know the kind. The flying monkeys. The ones with no spine who admire the narcissist and agree with everything they say because they see the liar as THE beacon of light.

So I was not surprised when she asked me why I am not calling my mother, who visits her often, to pick up my documents and bring them to me.

I’m sure that she already knew about my separation from my mother, but I answered calmly that I’ve not been speaking to my mom for a year or so and I wouldn’t ask her to do this for me.

Then my friend, who seemed utterly surprised (oh well!), said she would bring me the documents to my door the next time she’ll be out downtown.

I said all right, then asked, “How much would your car fuel cost?” (because she lives far away) to come to me, and she said, “Absolutely nothing, only a hug from you.” And then she sent a big heart emoji.

She is always sweet in her messages. Hearts, smiling faces. Typical people- pleaser.

Until she isn’t.

But I’m used to her moody shifts by now, always expecting her to change course from one state to another.

Anyway, after saying that she would do it for a hug, I had to text her announcing that I made a payment for her previous services. To which she never answered, which was so unlike her. She is always happy to receive money.

So this felt totally strange, but also not too much, because I was already doubting her fake heart emoji.

I just knew in that moment that her whole attitude shifted.

She wasn’t going to bring my documents at all. She just realized it herself, but she couldn’t take it back yet.

That was a week ago. So I waited to see if my Intuition was right.

Today she emailed me saying that “as we spoke a week ago”, she will send me the documents through the courier. After she said she’d bring them to me in exchange for a hug.

WHAT THE …?

I wasn’t even angry. I started to laugh.

I was relieved that another wounded person is cutting herself off from my life.

Because after tomorrow, when these papers arrive, I will block her everywhere.

She didn’t even bother to say that she changed her mind - to recognize that she made a promise a week ago. She said: “Just as we spoke”. As if she completely ignored her promise.

A few years ago, I would have gone so mad with anger. I mean, people should keep their promises, shouldn’t they? Or so I thought.

But now I realize that asking someone who changed their mind to keep their promise is not fair to their heart.

No one should go against their heart.

These people annoy me and I don’t want them in my life anymore.

Years ago, I wished others would be more trustworthy, doing what they say they’ll do.

Today, I want around me only those who know exactly who they are and who only follow their heart. And if they still change their mind, they’ll be courageous enough to own it.

I’m glad this person showed me her true colors once again. It makes it easier for me to cut her off and also allows me to set even higher standards for the new people who will come into my life.

Oh, and by the way, do you know how much the courier actually cost to bring me the papers? 9 USD. Not the tremendous amount she was talking about after all. And the big box was actually a small bag containing 3 dossiers.

So why all the drama?

Well, it’s because wounded people, often refuse to do the healing work necessary to live a calm, grounded life.

As for me, I’m wondering what other benefits will appear in my life now that I am cutting her off. As you know, after releasing my mother, I regained my adrenal strength, increased my stamina, and was able to walk more than 15k steps a day, feeling rejuvenated.

So here are some journaling prompts for you:

Who annoys you, drains your energy, or makes you feel uncomfortable?

Could you let them go? If not, why not?

What is the cost of them staying in your life and exhausting your life force?

What are you actually afraid of if you cannot let them go? What is the core need behind this fear?

How can you fulfill this core need yourself, or find someone else who can do so in a caring way?

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First, there was this doctor who seems to be famous on Substack, talking about several ‘unknown’ ways to regulate your nervous system.

In his post, he thoroughly explained the four phases of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn, and how we react when we find ourselves in each of them. Then he added a few steps for getting out of these phases, specifically naming the state you’re in, making one move with your hand or body, and noticing what’s there in your space to ground yourself.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard this advice and how many more times I’ve realized it’s useless. Like every other piece of medical advice out there about treating nervous system, this one was full of rational knowledge; it assumed that if we talk about the feelings and just look around to be present to our environment, we can regulate ourselves.

Now, being psychic, as I was looking at this doctor’s photo and energy, I could feel he is definitely not a sensitive person. He may have not even experienced deep, traumatic feelings as we sensitives or neurodivergent people do. He was just passing on medical, psychiatric knowledge that he learned in university. And people loved it. It was not helpful—no one releases feelings just by naming them or looking around—but his post was loved nonetheless.

The other thing that happened on the same day was that someone I was talking to online, to whom I was offering some advice, was saying how she tried in vain for seven years to cure her grief by understanding the psychiatric process behind it: how the nervous system works, why it appears, and so on. She was exhausted from trying to approach grief rationally by doing all the ‘right steps’ suggested in books, courses, or by therapists, and yet she was still in deep pain.

These two experiences reminded me once again of how people, including the medical system, are trying to fix feelings by rationalizing trauma—naming it, analyzing it, explaining it, and doing all the ‘nervous system regulation tips’ (which, by the way, were not at all ‘unknown’ as the doctor was suggesting; you can find these in every single book on the subject).

But no one wants to (or knows how to) actually feel and process these feelings. Which is probably why everyone relates to rationality.

This young doctor, so sure of his university textbooks, has yet to meet a storm that logic cannot weather. One day, life will deliver a 'shaking moment' that his own tips won't fix

Anyway, if you’re a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) or ND, it’s more likely that these tips don’t work for you AT ALL, mostly because the sensitive brain feels everything so amplified and so deep that it almost hurts physically.

This is something that medical doctors who use logic to understand feelings cannot even comprehend.

So, what works, you might ask?

Well, I’ve already talked about several ways that I found on my own or through other mentors in my articles here on Substack. But let me be clear once again:

the sensitive brain needs a different kind of fuel—a solid foundation first—in order for the nervous system to feel safe enough to release.

YOU CANNOT DO THINGS THE OTHER WAY AROUND.

It is the difference between a bull (the non sensitive) and a butterfly. They are not the same; they don’t feel the same. The HSP is the butterfly: airy, ethereal, head in the clouds, disconnected. You can sting the bull, and through his thick skin, he will feel nothing. But if you touch even gently a butterfly, it will lose its wings and stop flying because even the softest caress feels harsh on its delicate body.

So, how do we make the nervous system of an HSP feel safe first in order to be ready to process emotions?

We fuel the brain with protein, no sugar, no alcohol, good sleep, meditative activities, and Earthing. Only when it feels fed and safe enough can it allow us to release the pain.

So to recap: it’s a brain-chemistry thing. Trying to release emotional pain when your foundation is weak will be an impossible task. You can only find emotional balance (naturally) when you’re preparing your brain for the tremendous healing work that follows, because your delicate nervous system has different neuropathays than others’ that need deep care.

So, just by naming your pain when your nervous system feels in danger and your brain is not well nourished—it will never work. And telling an HSP to “look around” to regulate is a fundamental misunderstanding of our biology. To a destabilized sensitive, the environment isn't a refuge - it's a threat.

So here are the steps on how to regulate the nervous system the right way (from someone who lived this experience but doesn’t have a medical degree to prove it, only the scars to show for it):

• You create a strong safe foundation first

1. Start here and then implement these steps or these ones

2. Keep your spirits high during these challenging times

3. While you’re feeding your brain, you also need to fuel your soul. Read more about adding contentment to your life here and here.

• Only after you feel nourished and grounded enough and your nervous system feels ready to release, you can start processing emotions - I wrote about several ways to do this here and here.

You must respect the natural order of things that work for your sensitive brain.

Do not try to release emotions when you are not grounded enough because your nervous system will backfire, due to the lack of safety.

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Anyway, we ALL do this at least at one point in life, trying to romanticize things, because it is too hard to face the present moment where all the pain is stored. So we do our best by trying to mask it even to our own eyes.

But in truth, this is never a healing path, only a very large detour, that means you prefer escapism of any kind instead of confronting your demons.

The reality is, wherever you will go, no matter with whom you are, you will always bring this unresolved painful baggage with you, which needs to be heard, seen, witnessed, accepted fully, to liberate yourself.

Because the truth is, you can liberate yourself wherever you are and sometimes, being in deep pain is actually helping you become stronger than you ever imagined, when you stay with it.

I owe my biggest breakthroughs and insights to my darkest and most painful moments.

So, I was pondering while reading this article and the decision of its author to escape it, on the side effects of leaving a painful place just because you cannot handle it emotionally and mentally and you try to find the silver lining somewhere else, where beautiful rainbows are, butterflies abound and sun is always shining.

But there is no such place.

And if there is, you can only find it in your heart.

Because if you left a place, a relationship, a job, etc, yet you still carry the heavy weight of pain and you never actually moved on, they will always be with you.

So you will try in vain to go to other lands, travel as far as you can, rekindle the sparkling light between you and another lover, taste the deliciousness of something sweeter on the other side of the world, while your heart is still unhealed and left alone in the dark.

And then you’ll wonder, why is it that I still feel so empty when I am triggered, even though I romanticize life so much?

Well, you never actually left your pain behind, it is still with you, waiting to be released, and your heart is not ready to be truly happy yet.

She is crying for your presence and unconditional witnessing, but you choose to still say NO. And you prefer to fly away, from one flower to another, and another, to constantly fuel your endlessly dry fountain, like a thirsty bee, because the source is never out there, and it is always found inside. You can only reach it when you have the courage to assist your heart in her pain.

So, is it romanticizing life truly the answer for those who are seeking true healing? Absolutely not. It is only a postponing of the terrifying phase when you will be forced maybe, to sit with all the lack of presence you avoided. This usually happens through another heartbreak, rejection of any kind (like the visa issues in this case), an illness, or just a deep feeling of emptiness that follows you no matter what.

Life will always find a way to bring you back to your pain, over and over, in different ways, through different places, people or situations, until you are brave enough to face it.

Because by chasing joy, being somewhere else or with someone else other than yourself, you are always distancing your head from your heart. Your head is saying no to her plea every time she cries for being held through pain.

And is it worth it, saying no to her? Of course not. Are people aware of doing so? Mostly no. Would they want to really heal, if they knew what they are doing to her? Not really.

No one wants to sit with the pain when they can chase joy. Which basically means, your mind is unable (and too immature) to witness yourself.

People think that if they focus on joy and positivity only, they can manifest good things and heal pretty much anything. But somewhere deep inside, there will always be a seed of heaviness that was not witnessed enough, to help it alchemize into a beautiful flower.

These “Beautiful Heart Flowers” - as a poetic expression of alchemizing pain into wisdom and true joy - can only bloom from a very nourished inner soil. While you are working with your mind to manifest things into existence and dream about joyful things, you cannot hear your heart whispering, unless you are really present to whatever is arising.

The fact that one only chooses to witness the joy in their heart and dismisses the pain says a lot about not only how much they really love their true selves, but also about their own healing journey.

However, by coupling romanticizing life with deep healing practices, you WILL help your heart heal.

So, choose intentionally to NOT romanticize your life too much, to the detriment of healing. Yes, focus on bringing more beauty, harmony, delight and contentment on a daily basis to support your well being, but don’t make it your solely goal, don’t use it as an excuse for escaping your pain and don’t abandon your heart, ever.

Your heart is the only connection to your true self (and God) and the most important relationship in your life is happening right there. Not with another human being. Not with a place, not with some gorgeous lifestyle or fame.

She is too precious to be left behind. Your heart must feel ready enough to move along with you.

I hope this intense post serves you well in your healing journey.

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The moment she mentioned this I immediately knew it was all about my thyroid. Every doctor I met up to that point told me that my thyroid is acting weird, sometimes hypo (underactive, couldn’t produce hormones), sometimes hyper (overactive, ‘producing excess of hormones), and they were confused because they didn’t know how to help me.

99% of people have “normal” anomalies if I may call them so, meaning that they are either hypo, or hyper, but never both. Their bodies only go awry into one side. But for me, this was happening in all directions, as if I was always living on a thin edge.

This seems to be the story of my life though. I am the “in between” type in every quiz I tried, I could never fit in a single category or diagnosis, and every time I try to fix one thing, I get worse on another.

This imbalance can also be found in every astrology chart I studied. I am a Gemini sun (extremely social and extroverted), with a stelium of 4 planets in Taurus and 3 in Virgo, which are more introverted and calm. I am a Projector by day and a Generator by night in Human Design, two completely different types. I am person that needs lots of fun but thrives only through peace in Chinese Face Reading system. And so on. My inner world is made of conflicts. High intensity and depth on one side, a need for lightness and ease on the other.

It was a nightmare to realize how imbalanced I am naturally, but I was even more terrified of being centered.

And when I asked for help, my mentors and therapists were always trying to fix only one side of me, because they couldn’t understand how on earth someone could have two opposite sides in one human being.

Today however, I am actually grateful that unlike other people who can only experience one side in life, I got to experience two. It is exactly because of this constant battle inside me that I am able to dive deep into each perspective of any matter, dissecting everything like a surgeon, on both aspects, until I find a centered approach that satisfy me (and both of my sides). I thought this would be an impossible task, but it’s not and if I could do it, you sure can too.

So it took me a while to find someone who could understand my unique design and offered me the right tool. This mentor taught me the technique that I am about to share with you and after several months of applying it to every single moment of emotional and mental pain, I was a changed person.

What surprised me the most was how similar this technique was to my way of thinking and feeling, because it was addressing the opposite sides. You’ll understand what I mean in a minute.

So let’s dive in.

Whenever you experience an intense feeling, either good or bad, you need to sit with the opposite one. Why do we need to do that? Because this is how we neutralize our emotions and we become centered. Just like a swing that goes from one side to another, when both sides are experienced, they are fully integrated, processed and the wholeness is restored.

So, for example, if you experience deep happiness, you need to sit for a few minutes with the feeling of sadness, grief or depression.

If you feel sadness, then you need to sit with joy.

If you feel anger, then you require peace. If you only feel peace and cannot access your anger, you need to sit with the angry side of you.

Now, how exactly do you do this?

You first start by naming the present intense feeling. Let’s say it is grief.

You start by giving it a number of intensity from 1 to 10, where 10 is most intense.

Then you identify the opposite feeling that needs to be felt, which would be joy or bliss in this case. You can always google the terminology of emotions scale to find the right one for you if you cannot name it.

Now, to really access this opposite feeling you need to find the first memory that comes to mind, when you felt it (the sadness). So, to be clear, if now you are feeling intense sadness, you need to go to the earliest memory when you felt this sadness.

When you find that memory, you start by closing your eyes and becoming present to it. Notice how sadness felt in your body then, what was happening at that moment in your life or in your environment, the sounds, the smells, the tears. Sit with it for a while. Don’t analyze it, just feel it for few seconds.

Now, the healing part starts.

To neutralize this sadness felt in that moment, notice where exactly could you find the feeling of joy or bliss (the opposite). But it needs to be found in the same memory.

Maybe the bliss is found when, in that memory, you look outside the window and there is a little bird singing, or sun rays are shining through. Maybe there is a pet in your memory that warms your heart with joy. Or maybe you can only find bliss in God, which is always present, no matter where you are in time. Just notice where it is, because it is always there, happening at the same time with the negative feeling, and be with it, feeling it deeply for a few moments. No need to do anything else but find it and feel it.

Now when you feel a bit more satiated with this opposite feeling in that memory, notice if your environment changed in your mind’s eye. Do people around you seem different? Do you feel different or have another perspective on what happened then? People usually change a lot in these few minutes, so don’t be surprised if you did too.

Now come to the present moment, open your eyes and notice how you feel.

Did the intensity number you gave to the sadness feeling changed? If it only dropped a little then you need to go back to the memory and sit more with the feeling of bliss or joy until your sadness number drops to a 3 or less.

And that’s how you do it.

It is a very simple tool but intense. The good news is that is very effective and it only takes a short amount of time and you can do it anywhere, even when you are in public, because it is all happening in your mind.

The real gift of this capacity to neutralize your emotions is that your heart will start opening more while being more grounded. Your nervous system will feel safer and safer. You will start to find your center without feeling bored or like you are missing something. You will feel integrated, whole and satisfied.

A new sense of aliveness will take over you, turning simple moments into vibrant experiences, helping you to see things you never saw before.

The second major gift of this emotional neutrality is that you will now be able to sit more with your pain and let it flow through you to be released, because now you are no longer afraid of it. You will actually welcome it because you will know that by neutralizing it, you will heal deeper and deeper, feeling better and better.

I hope this tool is serving you well.

And if you need more help, don’t forget to check my RESOURCES page for life changing book recommendations if you need help to navigate difficult times.

This post also appears on Medium, where you can start following me for more articles (some of them will be different).

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Thank you so much for reading.

Writing these posts takes time and energy but what keeps me going is knowing how much it means to so many of you to read these essays. If you enjoyed this post or the previous ones, I would love you to help me get them out into the world. If you have any friends who you think might enjoy them, please do feel free to share my writings with them. It would mean a lot to me. Thank you again for your support.

The first time I heard of such a journal it was when I read Kathleen DesMaisons book, Potatoes Not Prozac, which I am highly recommending it in my Resources Page because it literally changed my life. She is a neuroscientist pioneer in the field of healing the brain of highly sensitive people through eating sugar free foods based on high protein content and whole carbs. In her book, she was talking about keeping a food and mood diary, to help you know when you need to add more protein and serotonin increasing activities (if you don’t know, serotonin is the happiness neurotransmitter in the brain).

It seems that the sensitive brain, especially the introverted one which has longer neuropathways for transmitting the information (in order to make deeper sense of it from the right brain of metaphors and senses to the logical mind) needs way more Acetylcholine to perform this ability, which is a vital neurotransmitter and a chemical messenger in the central and peripheral nervous system. And the simplest way to help the brain get more of this chemical naturally, is to add more protein to your diet.

I was struck by the message that there was nothing wrong with having a sensitive introverted brain, and that in fact, it needed a different way of eating and lifestyle to function well.

I've read about all these things more than 18 years ago and I still follow the steps Kathleen mentioned in her book to this day, although I’ve changed my diet into becoming more Paleo, according to what my journal suggested, because I could see the amazing benefits of it.

The first thing I noticed as improvement was my SLEEP.

Before eating through following this routine of steps, I was in deep adrenal fatigue mess, battling strong suicidal depression and having excruciating panic attacks. Shortly after, I realized that in my case, through constant communication with my body, my journal and my needs, I needed lots of protein and lots or wholemeal carbs in order to stay sane and release insomnia. I cannot eat only protein (as some diets suggest) and I cannot eat only whole carbs (vegan) either, it has to be a mix of both to stay grounded for me.

This was extremely surprising to me.

I thought that negative emotions and lack of sleep were always rooted in doing something wrong with my life, but in her book, Kathleen demonstrates that this is not the case for sensitive people. Because we need more fuel for the brain in order to process and function in a world that overstimulates us to the max, when we change the way we eat and live, the chemicals in our brain start balancing naturally.

She also suggested that in the last step of the protocol (and only then, after the brain is settled into the new way of functioning) we should start adding more serotonin inducing activities which are basically meditative ones.

The interesting and surprising fact here though is that someone who is not fueled enough with the basic needs through healthy foods and sleep, is less able to practice mindfulness, exactly because the brain is not ready to receive it yet. In other words, the more restlessness you have, the more you need to leave the meditative practice behind and start focusing first on eating and sleeping well for your brain.

This is why for so many sensitive creatives meditation doesn’t work.

So how can you use your journal to track your mood and start resetting your mental health naturally?

• If you can, read Kathleen’s book first, to know exactly what steps to follow, in which order and when you are ready to move from one to the next because the brain needs to feel SAFE first before accepting new habits

• Create a special journal just for this practice; after years of daily writing in my journals about daily habits, I am now using only one mainly notebook where I take notes in different colors, so that I can spot the issues or the benefits right away; but in the beginning, keeping only one journal may be overwhelming, so start focusing only on your food and mood in this diary

• Take notes in it every time something happened:

  when you eat something, write what you ate, in what quantity and be fully honest about it, read the ingredients labels to know if they contain sugars or white carbs and write that down; write if you had a small chewing gum full of “healthy” sweeteners or a glass of wine; then wait for 1-2 hours or less after eating to see how you feel and write the feeling too

  write about each important thing you did during the day, maybe meeting someone, maybe running errands, maybe going to the supermarket, anything and how you felt during and after that; write when you feel hungry (emotionally or mentally), when you feel low or high; write about how your work made you feel, how the people you met triggered or uplifted you, how drained or excited you feel and write about your evening activities before going to bed, describe what you do and the time you went to bed and how well you slept or how many hours

• At the end of the week, look back to your previous days described in the journal and make marks with a colored pen to see exactly what were the triggers of your negative states, when they happened, what were you doing then, who you were with and how healthy you ate and sleep

• See if there are any patterns and notice if there was something else you should have done when triggers felt overwhelming; decide what needs to be changed for the next week and start noticing improvements at the end of each month

• To help yourself more, beside focusing on healthy eating for your brain, sleeping and detoxing what no longer fits your needs, after stabilizing yourself into this journaling routine, start adding more notes that can help your sensitive nature thrive:

  for example, take notes about the Yang phases of the moon (New Moon, Full Moon, First Quarter and Last Quarter) and the Yin ones (the in between), especially if you are a woman, because moon energy is highly influencing you; I noticed that whenever there is a powerful Yang Moon phase I have trouble sleeping so I am now planning ahead whenever I know this happens by pacing myself down during the day, making sure I ate well and stayed grounded

  another important trigger I noticed for me is the energy of stars (astrology transits and Feng Shui influences) that can really put me into chaos, but this only happens if your energy field is extremely porous (open)

• The main focus here should be on how you feel on a daily basis and what is supporting yourself through eating healthy and releasing unnecessary triggers to stay on your nourishing path; only you will know what works for you, what drains you and supports you, when you read your unique journal insights; the idea is to stay supportive of yourself and embrace your need for deep fueling instead of fighting against it

• One last thing - if you find writing in your journal too exhausting or time consuming, take audio notes on your phone, save them in a folder but make sure that at the end of the week you will listen to them to help you move forward

I hope this helps you on your self nourishing journey and if you need more help, don’t forget to check my RESOURCES page for more book recommendations in the list I created to help you navigate difficult times, while healing and growing.

Also, if you are new here and didn’t subscribe to my newsletter yet, when you do that you will receive two beautiful free guides in pdf format:

1. “How to manifest your desired feeling at a sensory level” - a specific way to manifest for sensitives and neurodivergent people

2. “How to access your intuition to make a decision” - even when you don’t know how, because one of the ways you can do that is already written in your astrology

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Thank you so much for reading.

Writing these posts takes time and even though I love doing it, it requires a lot of energy to put thoughts on paper and choose images that speak to me. What keeps me going though is knowing how much it means to so many of you to read these essays. If you enjoyed this post or the previous ones, I would love you to help me get them out into the world. If you have any friends who you think might enjoy them, please do feel free to share my writings with them. It would mean a lot to me. Thank you again for your support.

This article appeared also on Dr Gazala Shaikh’s platform, owner of Medical Ink and Women Write Publications

If you tried almost everything under the sun to find calm and let go of any negative states but nothing quite works, you might be interested in reading further. In the last 20 years or so I have worked with many therapists, healers and mentors to help myself find peace and after wasting most of my money on various therapies without achieving it, I decided to take the matter into my own hands.

This is how I started researching not only externally, through reading and watching videos on Youtube, but mostly through experimenting within, playing with my internal world of emotions and thoughts in ways I never imagined.

Turns out that my body knows how to deal with emotions, pains and doubts better than anyone else and it was far more cheaper. Every new thing I learned I had to bring it inside and explore it through my body’s intelligence and ability to heal. Every crazy idea I had about how to release feelings and thoughts had to be brought on this altar within, to experiment with it.

This is how I created my own version of somatic healing, my own energy clearing system, my own intuitive art processes and healing through storytelling, all based on sensory awareness.

Today I am going to share with you some of these tools that still work very well for me. As a side note, it you too are a neurodivergent, sensitive, creative, kinetic person or maybe an INFJ, I would highly recommend trying them.

Some of these tools have strong foundations in well known therapies, which I will be mentioning below, while others are really my own unique way of healing the mind, body and soul.

So here are some of the simplest tools to release emotions while helping your nervous system regulate (so that your soul can feel safe in the body):

1. Shaking your body

You maybe heard of this one. The simplest method is to just shake your whole body, arms and legs, torso and head, for a period of at least 15 minutes a day. I have known this tool for many years but I never did it as a daily routine because it never quite worked.

Back in 2023 though, I felt inspired to do at least 100 days of shaking, for a minimum of 15 minutes routine and then see if I notice a difference. To make sure that I knew exactly how I felt, I kept a journal in which I described the exact time spent shaking (which often went up to 30 minutes) and the emotional shifts I sensed while doing it. Through this process I realized that after 15=20 minutes my mind would start transform the limiting beliefs, alchemizing them into positive thoughts and emotions. I ended up doing 147 days just because it felt so good. To this day, I still practice shaking, although I do it for shorter periods of time, because my emotional state improved a lot.

The most important and unexpected positive effect of shaking my body daily was that my voice expression truly unleashed and my creativity skyrocketed. In the beginning I was a bit terrified because I had so much anger that wanted to come out in weird ways, but by continuing doing the shaking, I started to feel safe being authentic and not fear confrontation anymore.

The shaking protocol that works for me:

if it helps you, play music that incites your body to move (I love African drums and African tribal songs)

think of a limiting belief or negative emotion

start shaking your body

alternate slow shaking with fast shaking and gentle with tough

see which one feels right for your body

while you shake, you think about the issue and feel into it, breathing deeply

continue doing this for a minimum of 15 -20 minutes

from time to time notice if there is any change in your belief or emotion

when you finish shaking, write down in a journal what you experienced during the process and see if your inner state shifted

Suggested websites that use shaking as a form of medicine:

• Tre

• Shaking Medicine

TRE technique never worked for me, but I saw that it did wonders for others. Explore all the shaking techniques and see what really works for you.

2. Sensory movement

As I have already described in this post it is my go to tool whenever I feel an emotional upset. It only takes me a minute to release usually and it also leaves me with a sense of inner connection that I honestly didn’t find anywhere else.

I cannot recommend websites where you can learn this tool because it is something that I developed on my own but the closest to it are any somatic therapies especially the teachings of Peter Levine.

Another simple way to start exploring with sensory movements is to practice Tai Chi, which is a Qi Qong form of meditation in motion. To begin this routine I highly recommend Tai Chi Academy Australia which offers extremely easy to follow practices online. It is through practicing their programs that I first learned how to sense my inner world.

And if you want to start moving with sensory awareness by yourself I would also suggest following my daily notes section where I post tips and examples on how to do this as well as my routine shared below.

Here is a short version of the steps that create my own protocol of movement with sensory awareness:

you become still, standing in silence (never use music so that you can be fully present with your body)

breathe deeply

think of a limiting belief or negative emotion

come inside your body

search for the area where the belief or emotion reside

focus on it

breathe deeply there

try to move with it slowly or to express it with your whole body

when you don’t know how it moves through you, explore it through snake like slow movements

maybe it has a specific sound, so if it wants to come forth express it

pay attention to your sensations as you move

do you need to change the movement? does it take you somewhere else?

if you changed the way you move your body, do you feel a shift?

from time to time come back to your thought or emotion

notice if something changed

if yes, relax into it, welcome it fully

if no, repeat the process until you feel a change

3. Vagus Nerve humming

Another very simple way to release emotions which is also very grounding is through humming. It literally means to say the word HU as of it was a mantra, for longer periods of time. This is the Chinese medicine version.

The Peter Levine version is to make this sound as if it resembles a ship’s horn. The word used in this case is VOO, lowering the voice to make it sound like a grave note, as if it is coming from the base of your body.

While you are expressing this sound you are focused within and you think of your issue or emotion, breathing deeply in between sounds. Usually, after 3 repeated long VOOs you will feel a release or like your soul just landed inside your body in a calm state.

Humming stimulates the vagus nerve through vibrations in the throat and chest, activating the calming parasympathetic nervous system and counteracting the stress response while opening your fifth chackra related to creativity and speaking your truth. Aim for practicing the VOO sound several times a day, to regulate yourself.

4. Brushing off the energy

One day, as I was desperately trying to soothe myself, I was playing with different ways to release emotions. Being a very sensitive person with an energetic field that is extremely porous and absorbs everything from the outside, I already knew that energy healing is very helpful. In fact I created my own tool that I used it often with clients who needed instant miracles. But sometimes, when I did it for myself, it just wasn’t working.

So I started experimenting with various ways of physically brushing off the energy from my body areas, just as it is done in Chinese medicine. It still didn’t work. CM suggests that brushing should be powerful, done with bold strokes and sometimes hitting the area to release stuck energies.

But this felt extremely damaging to my nervous system, as if I was rushed, pushed, forced and aggressively hit. After each round, instead of feeling great, I was feeling wired, as if 1000 electrical volts circuits were running through me. It felt as if my electrical pathways (which are the nervous system) could burnout in an instant because the energy was too intense.

This is when I realized that my sensitive body needs a different and very gentle approach.

(As a side note, this is also why EFT which is a technique that works wonders for others, always made me feel worse after releasing, as if my body was electrically charged.)

So on that day when I was desperate enough to try anything, I started brushing off the energy with gentle caresses, softly touching my body (it works even over clothes), as if I was sweeping the energy field. As I was doing this, I was breathing deeply and focusing on the inner sensations and I suddenly found myself shifting, just like a veil was lifted. The emotion was gone as if it was never there.

From there on, I explored many avenues to do this and one way that I found that works almost every time is through applying this gentle brushing technique over my stomach area which is the third chackra and solar plexus, a very challenged part of the energetic field for any sensitive person. Sometimes I combine this with the VOO sound and shaking the body. It works in 99% of cases and it dissipates the negative energy in seconds.

5. Intuitive art

Making art is a great way to stay present and even alchemize your beliefs or emotions. Beyond any creative act that requires hands on explorations (therefore it is not a writing or journaling process coming from the mind), intuitive art and drawings are one of the easiest paths to transform your inner state and subconscious. There are many ways to do that and you can start with simple tools like those provided in art therapy.

I talk a bit about my own releasing processes using art in this post here.

But to start your own journey in healing with intuitive art or drawings, I would recommend reading books or watching Youtube videos on art therapy.

Here are some recommendations:

• the books that started my own path in intuitive art, by Barbara Ganim

• Intuitive art mentors that have a gentle approach and offer free classes online: Aimee Blair and Deborah Epstein

From there, you can start your own explorations, going deeper with mentors that combine intuitive art with other healing methods like shamanism, energy healing, movement, etc.

I hope these 5 tools serve you well and they help you just as much as they helped me. And if you feel this post was of service to you, please share it with others. We can never have enough releasing tools at this time in life. Thank you and wishing you a very prosperous and happy New Year.

Also, check my RESOURCES page for the book recommendations list I created to help you navigate difficult times, while healing and growing.

And if you didn’t subscribe to my newsletter yet, when you do that you will receive two beautiful free guides in pdf format. “How to manifest your desired feeling at a sensory level” and “How to access your intuition”.

All photos source - Pinterest

On another note …

I’ve been posting daily notes on my wall to challenge you to express yourself freely with the help of movement, art, affirmations and journaling questions. From time to time I will also post any free offers (classes, retreats, summits) that resonate with my work and values. You can check them out here.

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And yes, I carefully chose the word “narcissistic” to describe my mother, because she is the epitome of it. A person who prioritizes her own needs, craves constant admiration, lacks empathy, is highly jealous of her daughter, demands attention, manipulates, lies as easy as she breathes, feels entitled to receive others energy, time and care, while she gives very little in return, but most of all, a person who tries to destroy her child’s dreams and abilities, gaslighting her, to make her dependent so that the child will never be able to leave her mother.

For as long as I remember, since childhood, this mother of mine never liked me. I didn’t say LOVE ME, because I instinctively knew she was unable to love, but she just didn’t like me at all. Everything I did was wrong in her eyes, so she always wanted to correct me and put me in my place.

The problem was that I was a rebel since infancy and I could always tell when she was lying. Her actions were never in support of my uniqueness, instead, she tried to control me, my identity, my looks (hairstyle, clothing, life decisions, etc) through threats and force. When I was 5 years old, my brother, her golden perfect child, was born and then, her cruelty towards me was amplified.

All of the sudden, I became the child who is big enough to take strolls with her little brother, go to the grocery shop, do chores around the house and expected to be obedient, because now I had responsibilities as the first born.

Until one day, when I said NO because I wanted to go out and play. She threatened me, started beating me, deprived me of food and water for days and then, she decided to put me in a very small closet in the dark, behind closed doors, because I was misbehaving.

She was waiting for me to comply and to agree to do my chores as she planed. She told me that I will stay in that closet every single day until I will say YES to her demands.

Although I was afraid of the dark (remember, I was only 5 years old), hungry and all I wanted was to go out and play with other children, I said NO over and over. Which drove my mother nuts. She was screaming like a wild animal, enraged. I will never forget those terrifying moments.

This whole situation took a very long time. For a whole year, I was put in that closet with minimal food and water and only a pillow, to reflect upon my rebellious acts toward her. Somehow, something happened and one of my grandmothers came to stay with us and she started taking care of my brother, and this is how I was finally set free.

But this situation decided the trajectory of the tumultuous relationship with my mother for the rest of my life. Because her acts of meanness toward me continued even after I was married and her punishments were tougher and tougher.

No matter how much inner work I have done though, how much forgiveness I have practiced, or how much I released my emotions, the relationship with her was always challenging and extremely draining for me.

Being a mix of an empath but also a warrior, I always wanted to have harmony with her before anything else, based on truth, but she always proved that she was hooked on drama and she cannot live with integrity and an open clean heart.

This year, at about the end of March, I started to feel though that enough was enough. That I just cannot move forward on the same path with her.

She is now 84 and she is terribly frightened of death and loneliness. So after my brother left the country to live in Spain (because even he was looking for some space from her), she expected me to be the one who will take care of her needs when she is aging.

The phone calls that were very rare before now started to happen once or twice daily, demanding for attention, pressuring me with questions to test me if I was really obedient to please her needs.

I don’t know exactly what was it. Maybe the astrology that was so powerful this year, as my last months in the second Saturn Return, or the fact that I had the fortune to start healing my body in a way I never thought possible. The important thing is that I just couldn’t take it anymore. As if time has come to do something that I was never able to do as a child, to give her back some of her own poison.

I know it may sound harsh, but I was carrying so much resentment towards her, even after doing so much healing work. The only thing that felt like would help my Plutonian nature really cool down (I have Pluto on Ascendent which means I can be very explosive), was to watch her ego being ripped off to pieces.

In other words, I felt the time has come for her to receive the karmic pay for her mean nature. Up to that point, I always felt that this would be too cruel, I would be too mean (as she would always say to me when I had boundaries with her), because her soul would suffer too much. I thought it was my duty as a nurturing empath to take care of her pain, on my expense, which was exactly what she wanted.

But now it felt different, as if her soul actually needed this lesson to grow spiritually in this life, and I was helping her.

And so, with tremendous guilt in my heart, I cut her off. I blocked her everywhere. I sent her back the gifts she tried to bribe me with and the money. I also said very clearly that I do not wish to interact with her anymore and then I became completely silent. Since March.

Today, as I was reflecting upon the blessings of this year and I was looking back to each month in my journal related to moon phases, ups and downs, wins and setbacks, so I can decide on what I really want for 2026, I suddenly realized something. That 10 days after cutting my mother off, my body started to have so much more energy than before that was almost unbelievable.

You see, in the last 20 years my energy was so low, due to burnout, an autoimmune illness and giving so much to others, that even though in my youth I was a competitive athlete, now I couldn’t even walk more than a mile without being tired.

Last year I was able for the first time to walk several miles (very slowly) and be fine.

But this year, I noticed looking at my journal that after separating from my mother, I could walk 10k steps a day and feel rejuvenated, just like I was 20 years ago. In the last months I also added intensive weight exercises and cardio dancing, just because it felt fun and refreshing.

This only happened because I made space for myself, loving myself, in relationship to my mother.

And so, it stunned me how much impact the emotional and mental drain of a negative person can have on one’s life. For years I’ve tried so many natural remedies, therapies, different ways to increase my energy level and have more stamina, and it just didn’t work. I thought this will be it, for the rest of my life.

So now, I wonder, what else is sucking my energy and it just doesn’t belong to my private space? What else is draining me and needs to go so that I can have even more stamina?

And what about you? Where in your life do you need to let go of something or someone that is exhausting your soul and is robbing your life force?

I can only say this. That after feeling guilty for disconnecting from her, I asked for God’s loving presence to show me the truth about my choice and what I felt was more than a confirmation. It was as if now I could finally understand what self love is and that sometimes, in order to preserve our inner light, we have to let go of those who want to dim it, even when they are family.

I hope you will always choose to love yourself, no matter what.

Also, check my RESOURCES page for the book recommendations list I created to help you navigate difficult times, while healing and growing.

And if you didn’t subscribe to my newsletter yet, when you do that you will receive two beautiful free guides in pdf format. “How to manifest your desired feeling at a sensory level” and “How to access your intuition”.

Subscribe now

I wish you a Merry Christmas with your loved ones and if this is not possible, always know that you are never alone and you are loved. There will always be the light of God inside you where you can come back again and again, and feel like home.

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