Do you want to Step into your power as an HSP?
Unlock Your Superpower: Mental Fitness for Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)
As a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), you experience the world more deeply—emotionally, physically, and intuitively. This sensitivity is a gift, but without the right tools, it can also lead to stress, overstimulation, and self-doubt. Imagine harnessing your sensitivity as your greatest strength. Our Mental Fitness Program is designed specifically for HSPs, helping you navigate life’s unique challenges while fostering resilience, self-compassion, and mental clarity.
Using the science-backed Positive Intelligence (PQ) framework, this 8-week journey will empower you to build mental fitness, master your emotions, and shift from self-sabotage to self-empowerment. You’ll learn to transform your sensitivity into a superpower that enhances both your personal and professional life.
Next group will start on January 6, 2025, weekly Monday meetings live at 10am Pacific time. For more info watch the video below, check out the page Mental Fitness for HSP program, or reach out to me for information! We can plan a Zoom session so you can ask all your questions or you can email me!
So what is a Highly Sensitive Person, an HSP exactly?
Dr. Elaine Aron coined this term in the 1990’s and in that time there has been done a lot of research. In general youcould say that an. HSP has a more sensitive nervous system, and that as all kinds of effects. You think about things much more deeply than others and you feel things more intensely. About 15 to 20 % of all people are more sensitive than others to their surroundings, emotions and body. You see, hear, taste, smell and sense more. Je react more intensely, you process things more intensely and your body reacts more intensely.
Every HSP is unique, all sorts of things have influence in how your process the world. For example, your upbringing, education, experiences and all kinds of other traits or even diseases can effect your personality. Everything has influence on how you experience your sensitivity and which things you have difficulty dealing with and what goes very fluently in your life. So all your personal circumstances create who you are.
There are a lot of tests and lists on the internet on what criteria an HSP meets, not always correct and based on scientific basis. The scientific research of Dr. Elaine Aron and many others have given us much clarity and insights on what SPS is. ( Sensory Processing Sensitivity, the scientific name for High Sensitivity)
HSP is a neutral trait, which means you can live a great active life without any problems that another person wouldn’t experience. Of course you can have many different experiences and things influencing your life which can prevent you from living happily but such things are not automatically a consequence of being an HSP. Unfortunately many HSP’s have difficulty thriving in life. The main reason for that is they adjust too much to the norms of the other 80% of people who are not Highly Sensitive, so in other words, they live in a way that is not very well suited for them. This shows itself in all kinds of situations, maybe they work too much, or have a job they don’t fit in, mostly they do things that that are not a very good match or are in their nature. And this could also apply to non-HSP’s of course, everyone who works too hard or is in an environment which doesn’t suit them will get problems sooner or later. Everyone has a need for the exact right amount of stimulation in their life. The problem can be for HSP’s that they are more easily overstimulated and stressed by what is not good for them than others and if you are too long in that surrounding you start to get problems. And HSP’s adapt so easily to other norms and expectations so we encounter problems sometimes very often. But the most important thing to know is; the HSP trait in itself does not stop you from living a happy and successful life!
Dr. Elaine Aron’s created an acronym based on her experience and research; D.O.E.S. This describes very clearly the four indicators that each HSP has.
D is for Depth of Processing. This means HSP’s process information more deeply. For example they can overthink decisions, ruminate on past experiences, deeply think about consequences or possible outcomes of a situation.
O is for Overstimulation. Because of the deeply processing they do, they also are overstimulated sooner. Every person gets overstimulated but this happens much quicker in HSP’s. Therefore they need much more downtime.
E is for Emotional Reactivity. Research has shown that HSP’s have stronger reactions to both positive and negative experiences.
S is for Sensing the Subtle. Your senses will also provide you with more information than for other people. You can see, hear, taste, smell and feel more intense, both psychically as emotionally.
Listen to the podcast Sensitive and Strong. All kinds of information and interviews with inspiring people, like Dr. Elaine Aron, Jacquelyn Strickland and Tom Falkenstein, the author of the book ‘The Sensitive Man’. Just click here! If you have any requests for what topics you would like me to discuss let me know and send me an email! I love to hear from you!
So what can you do to have a more succesful and thriving life?
You create a life that is perfect for you. A life that is designed especially for you. Unfortunately there is no instant recipe for you to follow to have a great life, each person and circumstances are very different and so every persons needs other things by which they thrive. Sometimes you have a life which actually does not suit you very well. Once you realize that things are not going very well, and most HSP’s have a that realization at a certain point in life, you can start making changes to your life that will create a better suiting experience for you. Soemtimes it is an easy adaptation but sometimes it is much harder to even see what is not working very well for you. You just know that things are not working very well and you feel down, stressed, anxious and even depressed. So the key here is to find out what it is that is not working for you, and start making a plan what will create a better fit for you and then start doing that!
So how can coaching help?
Coaching is a way to get answers from yourself. It will not work very well if I tell you what to do. Through coaching you will learn how to find the answers in yourself, how to honestly look at what is working well and what is not. Most people have a ton of habits that do not actually work very well for them, they are just there based on past experiences, rules and norms from childhood that you just automatically apply to life, sometimes out of a need to survive in a specific time in your life. But these habits and unconscious rules that guide and steer your life can be changed into new habits and norms. Through coaching you will discover these habits and replace them with ones that suit your life at thismoment much better. Sometimes you need a certain way of dealing with things to get through a specific time in your life but it becomes a habit, and when you move on but still have this habit it will create difficulty in stead of thriving in your life. Once you become conscious of it, you can choose to change it, which requires some persistance. It is said that you only want change once there is enough pain or uncomfort, but you can also choose to change something before it starts to be a pain or uncomfort. And that is when coaching can really help. The power of coaching is in the cooperation and alliance.
Besides a specific issue you want to change, these are some of issues you can often encounter with coaching:
Personal Leadership
Learn to guide yourself to situations you want, to create the life you want. If a situation in life is not how you would like it, learn how to make changes, to coach yourself to what you do want.
Dealing with Overwhelm
It can be hard to create a life where you have a balance. To do this you will learn how to deal with the overwhelm, to have enough downtime and rest, and to set boundaries for yourself.
Learning about yourself
Knowing how you function, what creates overwhelm, how do you recover, when do you need rest, how do you thrive? Also knowing your other traits like, introversion/extroversion, ar eyou High Sensation Seeking or not? All these things influence what works well for you and what not, knowing about these traits is crucial to have a good balance and satisfying life.
Personal growth
Coaching will make you strive for the best and at the same time accept what is. It will make you aware of the constant process, sometimes struggle, between what is and what you want. Sometimes these two things seem completely out of alignment and coaching provides you with the opportunity to keep growing and learning.
What is coaching and is it for me?
With coaching you are invited to honestly look at yourself and find out what is working for you and what not. You will not be told what to do, since this is not a very succesful way to change, together we will uncover what it is that you want to change and how to do that. With coaching you will enter the process of synergy. Together we will explore what it is that could work better, I will ask a lot of questions to get you thinking about yourself and the situation, so you will gain new insights and solutions that will be just perfect and unique for you. You will learn techniques and tools that will help you relax, focus, and discover your strenghts and how to use them.
Just below you’ll find some of the principles I strongly believe in.
Food for thought
Each moment you can choose who you want to be
Every situation gives you the opportunity to change how you deal with things. We have a tendency to do things like we always do, not how we want to do things. Now you need to have a certain amount of automatism’s, otherwise you would be overwhelmed by opportunities. Sometimes it is good to look at these things and assess whether they are actually working good for you, and if not, do something different.
All experiences are opportunities for growth
Each experience can help us grow, determine our values, how we don’t want things to go. All experiences are a compass for where we want to go, what we need, what we value, the accompanying feelings help us to clarify further. With each experience you can ask, what does this give me? Is there something to learn or change?
Each person we meet is our student and our teacher.
From each person you can learn something, and each person can teach us something. It is as simple as that.
Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional
We all experience hard things in life, and how we deal with that is up to us, you can be a victim or you can take responsibility for your own actions. (If you struggle with this read Man’s search for Meaning by Victor Frankl)
Energy attracts like energy
A simple law of physics, what you focus on you see, and thus attract in your life. If you focus on the good things you experience you will have a more positive life than if you focus on the negative. Everything that gets attention grows. So ask yourself often; what am I focusing on?
More information:
If you want more information on coaching or ask me a question, please fill out the form below. Please note that I will try to reply to you within 24 hours so if you don’t receive anything within that time, check your spam folder. Unfortunately they sometimes end up there.
Working with Coach Annet for me was a pleasant experience. There was never a session in which I didn’t feel my agenda and success was her top priority. Annet’s coaching is effortless as she naturally embodies what it means to live from an empowered place. I truly appreciated that she neither rushed me forward nor did she allow me to get lost in my “stuckness”. Annet’s coaching presence feels much like working with a gentle yet fierce warrior. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend working with Annet to anyone.
I find Annet her coaching style very pleasant. She is a very good listener and observer and shares her insights, suggestions and observations without being controlling. She offers very practical tools which you can use in daily life.
When I chose to explore my High Sensitivity further with Annet I have, in hindsight, made a very important step to self-acceptance of my HSP self. Her coaching has helped me to accept myself and being different and to be more conscious of my daily life.
Thank you Annet! You did such a wonderful job. I was especially impressed with the respect you had for each individual comment and the way you worked to keep us all on topic and focused. Participant of group program.
Annet, thank you so much for the great coaching sessions in which I could really share everything that was going on in my head. You created that space for me. When I started with the session I never thought I could regain such balance and to re discover myself in such a different way. Thank you so much for that!
