How could I not be drawn to Sarah Seidelmann and Suzi Vandersteen? As designers, they guide clients to find the sweet spot where self-acceptance meets great design. As unabashed emissaries of friendship and play, they teach self-exploration and design recovery through entertainment. They laugh, they whoop it up, and they invite whole people to join the party – all our bits are not only welcome, but necessary.

Suzi and Sarah’s design business is Kitchee Gammi Design Company. Joy Junket is their amusement park of a website.

In what way are you most successfully sensitive?

I think what we do really well is that when we have the initial meeting with the client we carefully gather information regarding what’s important to them in terms of the space we’re designing. Then we interpret all the information and collaborate with them on the design. With each update and new idea presented we watch carefully for reactions and feedback so we know when to make changes in the plan and when to reassure the client.

What or who has inspired you to embrace your sensitivity?

Probably responding to and working with many of our clients who had worked with other artists and designers who didn’t listen carefully to their needs and concerns. We feel design is intensely personal and intimate, and we’re privileged to be asked to work with people in their homes. The fact that we’re both always working towards spiritual progress (not perfection) leads us to listen carefully to everyone we work with, from clients to sub-contractors. We then, of course, take those data points and feed them into the design filter of Kitchee Gammi Design Company, resulting in a design that reflects the collaboration.

What are your eternal fascinations?

Beauty, function, the infinite possibilities inherent in how different people live in their homes, nature, good flea markets (treasure hunting), other businesses that bring their own points of view and have fun doing it, fashion, travel to exotic locales (Istanbul, India, Japan …), the makings of a good party, new food finds – essentially all the creative arts and the infinite offerings of new creations that we see every day.

What quest currently captivates you?

Finding a balance between work, play, and family, as all the variables are constantly changing.

We realize that many people don’t need a COUCH, they need a COACH to help them realign with their heart’s desires, so we’ve added coaching services to our menu. Sarah is currently doing additional coaching training with Oprah’s Martha Beck and is freaked out by how limitless personal transformation is.

What is your favourite kind of help to give?

We love to encourage others to live beautifully on their own terms: Don’t do what we do. Do what you do! And we love to encourage fun and laughter all along the way.

Related Reading: Successfully Sensitive | Dolly Hopkins, Book | A Pattern Language

Tribe – the new website and magazine created by Todd Hagler and his intriguing cohorts – makes my jaw drop. The site provides deep, interesting information that gets me thinking in new ways; the forums offer ways to connect on a variety of topics; and the magazine promises involvement and community through the inclusive production format they’ve chosen.

I particularly enjoy the lateral thinking that’s apparent throughout the site, obviously a sign of the creators’ sensibilities. And Todd embodies Tribe’s tag line – “Your passion. Our purpose.” – through his gentle and responsible manner and the obvious pleasure he gets from helping others.

Todd’s review of Daniel Pink’s stellar book A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the World (which I’ve been chomping at the bit to review on Highly Sensitive Power), thoughtfully written to highlight the book’s relevance for sensitive people, is further proof that his finger is on the pulse of sensitive empowerment.

* * *

In what way are you most successfully sensitive?

As a creative, being highly sensitive is invaluable to “the process.” Not too long ago I realized that I could have a career as a futurist. My sensitivity extends beyond my immediate surroundings to society at large. Oddly, that knowledge came from looking back over my creative life. It dawned on me that, time and time again, I had been slightly ahead of the curve when it came to popular culture.

I created ceramic vessels that looked like bamboo stalks and shoots several years before bamboo and all things Eastern became the rage with designers across America.

Silhouettes became a central theme in my artwork several years ago. My artist statement at the time described my attempts, in a “world overwhelmed by information and visual stimulation,” to tell more – by actually showing less. By distilling my images down to the most basic outlines I hoped to encourage the viewer to see the objects anew.

After about a year of working with this silhouetted imagery, my focus began to shift slightly. I started to incorporate bird images, in silhouette, into my work. Today, the silhouette is in vogue and is seen everywhere from TV and movie title sequences to packaging and textiles.

It has taken me years to finally hear, and trust, that positive inner voice.

What or who has inspired you to embrace your sensitivity?

I grew up in a very small town in northeast Texas. Like most highly sensitive people (HSPs), I always had this feeling of being somehow different. Fortunately, my parents always encouraged a strong sense of individuality in both my sister and me. They taught me that I mattered and that my ideas, no matter how novel, were valid.

My father taught agribusiness at the local high school. It was in one of his classes that I learned to weld (a very practical skill for life on a farm). I’ll never forget how, while the other students were concentrating on learning to make a strong clean weld to join two pieces of metal together, I was creating little abstract sculptures out of scraps of iron. Most importantly, I remember how that was perfectly OK with my dad.

What are your eternal fascinations?

The human drive to create and the need to connect, to communicate, are central to everything I do. It all comes down to communication for me. How can we honestly face ourselves and how do we express what we find to others?

What quest currently captivates you?

I’m working with Tina Bentley to launch an online community and magazine for HSPs, called Tribe. Our goal is to celebrate the boundless creative potential of HSPs – to explore and even awaken their passions by showcasing their skills and talents in Tribe magazine. We have launched the Tribe website and forum and hope to have the premier issue of the magazine ready early in 2010.

It has been an incredible journey so far. We are connecting with sensitive and creative people from around the world. A surprising number of people who had not heard of the HSP trait until they discovered Tribe have embraced being highly sensitive. It’s exciting to see them embark on their own journeys of self-discovery.

I’m also beginning training toward becoming a certified creativity coach. I’m enthusiastic about the opportunity to help motivate creative people to develop meaning in their lives.

The idea for Tribe solidified after Tina attended the 2008 HSP Gathering, hosted by Jacquelyn Strickland, at Menla Mountain Retreat Center in Phoenicia, New York. During the gathering, Tina realized the great pools of talent in the HSP community. When she returned from the event, we talked about what we could do to encourage HSPs and decided the forum and magazine combination was an ideal format for strengthening the highly sensitive community.

My work with Tribe has shown me how many creative people, especially HSPs, are in need of the guidance and nurturing support of a creativity coach. I believe my experience as a professional creative and my perspective as an HSP will enable me to help my clients transform their relationship with the creative process. People interested in creativity coaching can reach me at Creativity Meaning Coach.

What is your favourite kind of help to give?

There are two kinds of help that give me a special sense of fulfillment. One is the kind I hope to achieve with my creativity coaching. I’ve done it naturally all my life. It’s about being a good listener, putting my HSP and empathic traits to use, and offering my best advice and honest encouragement. It feels really great to get a call or an email from an old friend or former co-worker who expresses how some bit of past advice or encouragement continues to help them years later.

The other stems from simple human kindness: holding the door for a stranger, helping a fellow shopper at the market get something down from a high shelf (I’m tall), allowing other drivers to get in front of me on the highway – I call it “road sage,” the opposite of road rage. These are the kind of things that take no effort, yet it always amazes me how surprised people are to simply be treated kindly.

The easiest way to put a smile on your face is to put one on someone else’s first.

Photo from Todd

Related reading: Successfully Sensitive | Dolly Hopkins, Successfully Sensitive | Richard Sharpe

Have you ever met someone and instantly felt like you’ve know them a long, long time? That’s how it was with me and Stella, my husband’s sister. She practically glows with connectivity.

In spite of the geographical distance between us (she lives in Berlin and I live in Vancouver) and the language barrier (I finally know enough German to have conversations with her, but barely), for years we’ve had long, long conversations that soothe and connect us both. She understands me perfectly, even when we struggle with our words.

The energy work she does, which I’ve experienced firsthand, doesn’t take place in person (unless you live in Berlin) or over the phone. An appointment is made, and at the appointed time the client gets comfortable and Stella gets to work, focusing healing energy on the client, no matter where in the world they are and even if they have no language in common. After the session, she has lots of information about the client’s energy blocks and suggestions for continuing to clear and heal.

Many in our society poo-poo this kind of work, but there’s more and more information coming to light via the scientific community that actually backs it up. Uniquely talented, sensitive people like Stella are finding more and more acceptance.

In what way are you most successfully sensitive?

My sensitivity enriches me most in my energy work. I am so sensitive that I can perceive different cosmic energies, deliberately summon them, and take them in. I can perceive and feel the different energies of precious stones and the way they work in different areas of the body. And I’ve been able to turn my calling into my profession. I now support others, heal them, and bring them into their power through my distance treatments. And that fills me with deep gratitude and great joy.

What or who has inspired you to embrace your sensitivity?

Inspiration has come through my first experiences with the ethereal world and through my dear sister-in-law, Grace, and her Highly Sensitive Power website, which is so interesting that ever since I started reading it I’ve devoted myself to this topic and can now definitely say, “Thank you for my high sensitivity!”

What are your eternal fascinations?

Finding out who we really are behind our masks, walls, and façades, and discovering that, behind it all, we are amazingly beautiful, great, and luminous beings. And everything else having to do with the topic of ethereal energies: their effects, their gifts to us, their healing powers, and their unbelievable, unlimited possibilities.

What quest currently captivates you?

I am more and more intrigued to find out how working with ethereal energies can radically and quickly change our daily routines, our health, our whole life and personality in a positive way; how these energies can give us incredibly much joy and power, and increase our quality of life; how working with these energies can, step by step, lead us to greater knowledge of the incredibly beautiful, great, and luminous beings we actually, intrinsically are.

What is your favourite kind of help to give?

My energy work and talking with people, whom I can often help because – as a result of my sensitivity – I have great empathy and compassion. I can tell them much about what has helped me in my own life and encourage them in theirs.

Translated from the original German version

Photo from Stella’s website

Related reading: Successfully Sensitive | Saskia Röell,
Quantum Physics and the Art of Manifestation,
The Sensitivity of Water

Wie kannst du deine Feinfühligkeit und Hochsensibilität am besten einsetzen?

Am meisten bereichert mich meine Sensibilität in meiner Energiearbeit. Ich bin so feinfühlig, dass ich unterschiedliche kosmische energien wahrnemen,willentlich herbeirufen, aufnehmen und fühlen kann; ich kann die verschiedenen Energien von Edelsteinen wahrnemen und fühlen, wie und in welchem Körperbereich sie wirken. Und so konnte ich meine Berufung zu meinem Beruf machen und kann andere Menschen mit meinen fernenergetischen Behandlungen unterstützen, heilen und in ihre Kraft bringen. Und das erfüllt mich mit tiefster Dankbarkeit und größter Freude.

Wer oder was hat dich dazu inspiriert, deine Hochsensibilität anzunehmen und sie als Gabe zu verstehen?

Meine ersten Erfahrungen mit der feinstofflichen Welt und meine liebe Schwägerin Grace mit ihrer Website, die so interessant ist, dass ich mich seitdem viel mit diesem Thema beschäftige und sagen kann: “Danke für meine hohe Sensibilität!”

Was übt eine konstante Faszination in deinem Leben aus?

Herauszufinden wer wir wirklich sind hinter unseren Masken, Mauern und Fassaden, und festzustellen, dass wir dahinter unglaublich schöne, große, lichtvolle Wesen sind. Und alles, was mit dem Thema – feinstoffliche energien – zu tun hat: ihre Wirkungsweise, ihre Geschenke an uns, ihre heilenden, unglaublichen und unbegrenzten Möglichkeiten.

Welche Themen fesseln dich momentan?

Es fasziniert mich immer mehr herauszufinden wie die Arbeit mit feinstofflichen Energien unseren Alltag, die Gesundheit, unser ganzes Leben und unsere Persönlichkeit radikal und schnell positiv verändern kann, uns unglaublich viel Freude, Kraft und eine viel größere Lebensqualität schenken kann und uns Stück für Stück zu diesem unglaublich schönen,großen, lichtvollen Wesen führt, das wir eigentlich sind.

Welche Art von Hilfe bietest du am liebsten?

Meine Energiearbeit und Gespräche zu führen mit Menschen, denen ich oft helfen kann, weil ich durch meine Sensibilität auch ein großes Einfühlungsvermögen und Mitgefühl habe und viel von dem erzählen kann, was mir in meinem Leben weitergeholfen hat.

www.stellaprisca.de

I love this clear statement from Julie Cusmariu’s website: “At the root of Julie’s mission and philosophy is that we can best serve the world when we first serve ourselves.” This speaks directly to the sensitive soul’s challenges of balancing our own needs with the needs of others and finding empowerment.

Extensively trained and wonderfully easy to connect with, Julie helps people develop intuition as a tool for tuning in – to ourselves and others – through her coaching, consulting, writing, website, blog, and radio broadcasts.

In every one of Julie’s broadcasts I’ve listened to and in the online pages and emails I’ve read, her calming manner, deep wisdom, and genuine willingness to listen and learn shine through.

* * *

In what way are you most successfully sensitive?

In understanding what I need most in order to feel good and be at my best in any given situation and in understanding others and the environment in which we are in. My sixth sense (aka intuition) works in partnership with my five senses and thus I stay informed, aware, and open to my environment and the possibilities.

What or who has inspired you to embrace your sensitivity?

Lots of important teachers, mentors, and therapists along the way. My life partner has played a pivotal role in inspiring me to embrace my sensitivity. His incredible emotional sensitivity and his willingness to be vulnerable have enabled me to love and accept this sensitivity in myself. My mother is very intuitive and through her way of being I see what sensitivity feels and looks like.

What are your eternal fascinations?

An interesting question! Well, I’m eternally fascinated by the sky and the earth. This idea of Mother Earth fascinates me. The subtle energies I cannot see but can sense and wonder about eternally fascinate me. What also fascinates me to an infinite end is the strength of the human spirit.

What quest currently captivates you?

The quest to not have a quest! And at the same time, the quest to experience peace in each moment and also to experience moments of great fun and excitement. That’s no small or unfamiliar quest for me!

What is your favourite kind of help to give?

The kind that allows me to be me while inviting others to be themselves as they open to who they truly are and to all the infinite possibilities available to them. To give the kind of support that heals, uplifts, and inspires.

* * *

For more information, explore Julie’s blog and radio broadcasts.

Photo from Julie’s blog.

Related reading: Successfully Sensitive | Saskia Röell, Personal Symbology and Intuition

As a Creative Architect, Dolly Hopkins “changes the landscape through celebration.” She consults with and advises people and organizations all over the world. Since she’s based in Vancouver, where I live, I’ve participated in many of the awe-inspiring community events she’s helped to create.

Long before I met Dolly in person, I was a huge fan of the events put on by Public Dreams Society, which Dolly co-founded. The photos on their website give a small sense of the utter magic that captivates our community during two long-standing celebrations Public Dreams coordinates: the Illuminares Lantern Festival, to celebrate the summer solstice, and the Parade of the Lost Souls at Halloween.

Each time I’ve attended these night-time events I’ve marvelled at the atmosphere of hundreds and hundreds of people gathered peacefully in wonder. Public Dreams events invite – even require – participation, so it’s almost impossible to attend as an observer. Instead, I feel and sense in others a heart-thumping pride and a deep connection with the members of my community as we laugh and gawk and ooh and ahh together.

Dolly and Public Dreams are experts at collecting pure joy and sharing it with everyone in sight. If you discover that Dolly’s involved in an event that’s near enough to you to attend, consider it worth your while to do so. And please check back in late July when Dolly’s new website will be up and ready.

* * *

In what way are you most successfully sensitive?

Through my emotional intelligence – my creative self.

What or who has inspired you to embrace your sensitivity?

Being sensitive was not a conscious decision. The best part of me chose this way of being. My sensitivity is who I am and nothing can pry me from it. It’s in my DNA and it drives my daily decisions because it’s always close to the surface of my life.

What are your eternal fascinations?

How to be at peace with myself and others around me. Knowing there’s an end while remembering to live consciously in the present. Living in the moment, remembering the past, and building a future with what I know, through what I am presently discovering and what I hope to achieve and evolve into.

What quest currently captivates you?

How to meet face-to-face with people from around the world and share and explore our humanness through the power of creative engagement. Awakening in others the ability to see themselves as creative living beings.

What is your favourite kind of help to give?

I see myself as a catalyst who pokes, looking to see if others will see – if they will reach for the insight – of what’s possible when you give your self permission to be greater then you think you are. I recognize the power of the creative.

Photo from Dolly Hopkins’ website

Related reading: Successfully Sensitive | Denise Smith, The High Demand for Sensitivity

Richard Sharpe, as played by Sean Bean in the British TV series based on Bernard Cornwell’s novels, may seem an odd choice for a Successfully Sensitive interview. He is, after all, a soldier and a fictional character. Nevertheless, he embodies many qualities I want to embody.

Through watching the series that begins with Sharpe’s Rifles, I’ve found Richard Sharpe’s influence following me through my daily challenges. If I repeatedly ask myself, “What would Richard Sharpe do?” then I consider him a worthy role model – and fiction, era, gender, and battle-experience differences (or the fact that I imagined this interview) need not get in the way.

* * *

In what way are you most successfully sensitive?

The troubles I’ve landed myself into come from butting heads with authority figures that see morality differently than I do. As soldiers, we agree to fight for King George, so that’s what I do. If someone I’m fighting with or under – or someone who’s fighting under my command – sees fit to go off in a direction that’s dishonourable, I’ll do what I can to stop them and to expose or fix the problem they create. That’s rough when it takes me into a stand-off with a superior officer.

The fact that I came up through the ranks rather than buying my officer’s commission like all the others doesn’t help me in most cases. People are quick to judge me, to assume I barely speak English, when I can read and write and have learned Spanish and French, too. They assume – because of my accent and being rough around the edges – that I’m stupid (and frankly, that’s a handy tool to use against them at times). But you can’t judge character by how a person speaks or how much money they have or what rank they are. You judge people by the values they hold and how they stick to them when their back’s against the wall.

I seem to easily see people’s values and their intent. I suppose, on top of getting me into lots of tight spots, that’s part of what’s gotten me as far along as I’ve come.

What or who has inspired you to embrace your sensitivity?

The fellow who taught me to read and write saw enough in me to think that was a worthwhile thing to spend time on. Coming up from a lad as hard as I did, I’m grateful for the care he took to recognize something worth teaching in me.

Lord Wellington, of course, gave me my first officer’s command, after I saved his life that day, which I did out of instinct more than anything else – the three Frenchies suddenly rode into camp and surprised me as I was washing up. All I could think of was to get between them and Lord Wellington, so I grabbed my weapons and did them in. Since that first leg-up, Lord Wellington’s been good to me. I’m glad he seems to see me for what I am and wants to use me for what I’ve got rather than make me into someone I’m not. It’s hard work, going out on his orders and coming back having done the job well, but there’s never a dull moment.

And my wife, Teresa – she may be the one who most inspired me. She captivated me, body and soul, from the start: a woman leader of the Spanish resistance, a damaged beauty who still found a way to open her heart for me. I learned so much from her about so many things.

What are your eternal fascinations?

Strategy’s an endless source of interest. There’s always a different way to do something, a way around or through a situation to the desired outcome. The biggest challenges, and the most satisfying to get right, are the ones where things seem impossible, but you keep at it, don’t compromise, keep going toward the strategy that allows success on all levels. Endless fascination, that is.

What quest currently captivates you?

Getting back home in one piece. Having something to show for it. Seeing that my men get through, too.

Holding my head up, even when men from my own country, powerful men – much more powerful than I am – are determined to put me down, or do away with me altogether.

What is your favourite kind of help to give?

I seem able to help people steer true, even in times when it seems impossible. I do that naturally and get pleasure from seeing someone go right, as it were. And I’ve got some fire in me, a drive that seems to come right out when the soldiers need to find their courage.

I can’t help but think about the poor folks who don’t have anyone else to help them along – the women being beaten by the men they’re forced into marrying, or the mistreated soldiers (no more than boys) who are so scared they can’t breathe. My heart goes out to them all and I try to help when I can, to get them to safety, even if that means only helping to change the way they think about themselves. Sometimes the smallest effort to help makes a bigger difference than I’d imagined, so I keep trying.

* * *

Bernard Cornwell – His official, authorized website

Wikipedia entry for Bernard Cornwell – Includes historical order of Sharpe books

Wikipedia entry for Sharpe TV Series – Includes episode order

Amazon – Bernard Cornwell’s author page

SharpeFilm – TV Series information

The Mighty Bean – Sean Bean website

Photo: www.southessex.co.uk

Related reading: Successfully Sensitive | Samantha Reynolds, Hero Practice

I know you have had successes and I believe we are all sensitive in myriad ways, so how would you answer the Successfully Sensitive questions?

By sharing your answers to any or all of the questions via a comment, you help and inspire other readers to gain an expanded idea of what’s possible — you lob yourself into the open so the ripples can affect others.

It’s time to come out into the open so we can see your beautiful self.

The Questions:

• In what way are you most successfully sensitive?
• What or who has inspired you to embrace your sensitivity?
• What are your eternal fascinations?
• What quest currently captivates you?
• What is your favourite kind of help to give?

Flickr photo: espejo, by A6U571N

Related reading: Kudos for Sensitivity, Successfully Sensitive | Dr. Judith Orloff

Jo Martin’s suggestion for her introductory paragraph says it best, I think:

“Bottom line? I’m just a person. I do the best I can every day to pay forward the blessings I’ve received and to be of service to others within the boundaries of being loving and supportive of my own self.”

Jo plans to have a website called (at least for now) Together on the Path. She welcomes insights from sensitive people about what the site could be like. If you feel moved to open a discussion with her, write to her at thehive@cybermesa.com.

* * *

In what way are you most successfully sensitive?

I’m most successfully sensitive when I allow myself to see through the eyes of my heart. Seeing what I need or what someone else needs at this moment. Seeing that this person – the clerk at the check-out, the person in line with me (the possibilities are endless) – needs a kind word, a smile, something easily given. Seeing a need and responding.

What or who has inspired you to embrace your sensitivity?

Experience. Acceptance. Being disabled. Aging. Time. The Dalai Lama. Thich Nhat Hahn.

Experience? Well, by now, I’ve pretty much been there and done that. I even have the postcards and t-shirts to prove it. Experience has combined with acceptance: I know I’m sensitive and that’s okay. Through experience I’ve learned that each time I use or acknowledge my sensitivity it gives me an even firmer foundation for being more sensitive.

The physical problems I have now are the result of years of abuse and inattention. Five years ago I was blessed by being granted full disability from the U.S. Government. Now I don’t have to struggle to make a living. That, coupled with other life experiences, have made me more compassionate, towards both myself and others.

Being over 60 is another huge blessing. Old ladies can ask questions, can be curious, eccentric and odd – it’s almost expected of us. So now I’m free to say almost anything to anyone, with a smile and with genuine curiosity. People love to talk about their children, their work, their lives, and I learn so much from them.

Time is such a gift; a gift that has allowed me to explore, think, learn, teach, and focus on what is or is becoming important to me. Experience, acceptance, and time have also been vital in helping me learn to set and accept appropriate boundaries.

The teachings of His Holiness The Dalai Lama, and Thich Nhat Hanh continually point me in the direction my soul seeks, showing me how to “be” – be peace, be compassionate, be human.

What are your eternal fascinations?

People. Why are they the way they are? And how does being the way they are affect their life? Endlessly fascinating.

How and Why. I am curious about everything!

What quest currently captivates you?

Exploring aging-death-consciousness (I haven’t found one inclusive word for the overlapping aspects). And simple living.

Aging - we all do it. Some gracefully, others not. Aging leads to death. Again, we all do it, some gracefully, others not. In my head, I am in my mid-30s. In “reality,” I am over 60. So, how can I grow older physically and yet be true to that 30-something inside me? How do I maintain a focus outside myself and not on the changes that could lead me to intense self-focused interest? How do I care for myself in ways that nurture and sustain my health and well-being? How – when death seems imminent or desirable – do I die in such a way that my life is vindicated, that I remain true to my values, my ethos? What provisions do I make for my body at my death? How have others aged? Who among “old people” do I admire and wish to emulate?

Consciousness is. We all are. And we all are one. The more I learn, the more I know that everything (really, everything) has consciousness. Take the focus off of being one human – expand one’s own consciousness – and what is possible? Communication and awareness. I have sat in a stream and known what it feels like to be flowing water. I have stuck my face in a busy bee-feeding dish and sensed what it’s like to be a bee. Consciousness is learning to be here now (thank you, Ram Dass).

I’ve been struck recently by the close resemblance of the core concept of Krishna, the Tao, Shinto’s Kami, and certain teachings of the Dalai Lama with each other and with physics’ Unified Field Theory. When existence is pared down to nano-bits (and smaller), everything is connected to everything else. And – how cool is this? – the observer affects the results of what is seen. Isn’t that fascinating?

Regarding simple living, I ask how and what I can streamline, pare down, or eliminate so that my life can be the most rewarding? What do I really need in order to live a life of comfort and joy? What brings joy and beauty to my life? How do I have the best life for me and yet leave the lightest footprint?

There is so much more to learn!

What is your favourite kind of help to give?

At the risk of being smarty, my favourite kind of help to give is whatever I can:

Being courteous. Smiling at someone who seems to need it. Holding the door (with a flourish) for someone. Complimenting someone on how they look or how beautiful their child is.

Discovering that someone needs (or could use) something, and then providing it. A pregnant clerk in a store for whom I can crochet a baby blanket. Finding a safe place to park for a homeless man who felt he had to sleep in his car to protect his wood-working tools.

Listening to people, really listening – hearing, not just waiting for them to shut up so I can blather on about myself.

Giving referrals. I often learn things that are not relevant to my own life, but – within just a short bit of time – I then encounter someone who needs to know what I just learned, so I pass the information along.

I firmly believe that if I stay open and look at the world through the eyes of my heart, I will see many, many ways to be of service.

Photo from Jo Martin.

Related reading: Successfully Sensitive | Saskia Röell, Hidden Lives Revealed

Denise thrives in her work as a professional communitarian (she’s inspired me to invent a new word), fostering connections as an event planner for Metzger Associates and the founder of ChicksWhoClick.net – a system of one-day networking conferences in different cities, to help people “Create. Connect. Collaborate.” on the topics of social networking, technology, and empowerment.

For information, including upcoming conference details, see the Chicks Who Click website. For inspiration and profiles, see the Chicks Who Click blog.

In what way are you most successfully sensitive?

With this current project – Chicks Who Click, being successfully sensitive has to do with being open-minded, inclusive, and energized. I’m enjoying building and facilitating an online community of like-minded women. Through our conferences we’re empowering, educating, and facilitating an important and lively conversation. It is hugely rewarding to watch an idea take shape just as I had envisioned it would. To witness a community collaborating and connecting in this space is completely encouraging and stimulating.

What or who has inspired you to embrace your sensitivity?

Becoming a mother and raising a son is a big contributor to me embracing my sensitivity. The caring and compassion that emerges with my children is like no other experience. When I have to stop and realize that I’m not the number one priority anymore and that someone is counting on me to be present and to be a role model, that definitely forces me to take a step back and think about putting my best foot forward.

What are your eternal fascinations?

Exploring the world through the colors, the people, and the cultures. It completely energizes me to see how other people live and to be able to contrast that with my life. Being able to incorporate customs, flavors, and aesthetics from other regions of the world is enthralling to me.

What quest currently captivates you?

Being whole and balanced, feeling comfortable in my skin, embracing my chronological progression, staying young at heart, constantly striving for intellectual challenge, opening my heart and giving back to my community.

What is your favourite kind of help to give?

I am a connector of people. I love to network and bring people together either through common interests or from complete opposite walks of life. It’s amazing how much we can all learn from each other.

Photo from Chicks Who Click site.

Related reading: Successfully Sensitive | Samantha Reynolds, WORK Is Not a Four-Letter Word