all you need is love

One of my favourite sayings is “all you need is love”. The problem, I am realizing with that phrase, is that most of the love that you will want or need in your life comes from yourself. It has to! Even the people that do really and truly love you get sick of you from time to time or need their love for other purposes. Love needs to come from within. Why is that such a hard thing for me to remember/practice? Why do I get so easily out of balance and feel the opposite; like all the love needs to come from outside of me, to make me feel good again. That clearly isn’t the answer but it’s really hard to build yourself back up from that.

I feel like I’m at such a low right now, sick of almost everything in my life and unsure of where to really go from here. Of course I have moments of happiness but underneath everything I just feel like I’m failing at life, letting down the people who had high reverence for me, changing their opinion of who I am, coming to decisions I cannot control and I hope that this low doesn’t cause too much damage. I don’t want to be thought of as being this way, unable to take care of myself, unable to work a steady job, unable to live life properly. It’s sad isn’t it? That because my nervous system works differently than the other 80% of people, I am judged without understanding, every day of my life. Lately I can just feel the judgement coming off of my super wonderful, smart and caring boyfriend. He is certainly not sensitive, and really can’t get into my head. I can see it in his face sometimes that he doubts I really feel the way I do. My easily overwhelmed sensitive self comes off as lazy and I really don’t know how to explain myself any different so that it is understood why I am unable to do what I am unable to do these days.

I guess it also sounds like I’m a little bit depressed, which I read tends to be a problem with HSP’s. We get ourselves into these holes, be it by our minds or the overwhelming circumstances around us, and it seems like we aren’t trying when really we are just trying too hard. I hate it. I want to be positive about being an HSP but at the moment it isn’t really working. I am seeing how much I am going to struggle though life, and realizing that there might not be someone willing to love me unconditionally ‘forever’. I seem like such a perfect catch at first, but after time the complications unravel and at this moment I am hoping that I can roll this ball of yarn up and turn it into some new kind of respect. Respect for myself and for the differences of my partner, I hope that he can gain the same respect.

I just need to keep going, finding the love from within as much as possible.

I'm leaving on a jet plane (I know exactly when I'll be back again)

Well, two days from now I will be on a plane to Canada, my home country! With the last 6 months of Highly Sensitive Person knowledge I have acquired, I am feeling less anxiety than usual about travelling. I know what to expect, I know what I will need and I mostly know how to deal with my overstimulating surroundings. Sounds like I am prepared!

Wish me luck on my travels and I will for sure have some enlightening/intense stories to share when I return!

horrible boss/ self discovery

I haven't written anything for so long for two reasons; one good, and one bad. I would rather end on a more positive note so I will tell of the bad reason first.


I have been having some terrible issues with work that made me feel so much worse about my boss and working there than I ever did before. Health insurance is necessary for me to live as a foreigner in Germany, and to have health insurance I am required to have a job contract which shows I earn over a certain amount of money each month. When I started working at this company I received a job contract that was accurate with everything I needed and the government has a copy of this, and so does my health insurance company. Later, without my knowledge, my boss called the insurance company and told them that I was employed as part time and therefore he does not have to pay for my health insurance. But guess what? No one told me that and also the government did not know about this either. So here I am working away since September and suddenly a get a letter from the health insurance company telling me to call and clear something up. Of course my boyfriend had to call and talk with them because my German isn't fluent enough to deal with over the phone business. After I heard the news that no one had paid for my health insurance for the whole year, I was shocked. Next came the news that my insurance was now cancelled. This is terrible because I can't get sick and I need to apply to extend my visa by September 1st and without health insurance it might not fly. And I instantly need to find a new job somehow by this same time that will cover health insurance. So that leaves me broken down, how could someone do that? what did I do to deserve such horrible trickery?


So I went straight to the landratsamt (translates as the District Office.. the place where I have to get all the legals sorted out) to see what could be done. I was allowed to quit my job without worry until September! YES! So, I waited until I got paid to finally quit, and I receive one final blow, I somehow only got paid half of what I should have gotten paid. WHY?! But I had had enough, it wasn't worth staying anymore to try and fight about this money, it wasn't that much anyway. Over the past few days my boyfriend and his family have helped me figure everything out and I now have no worries about my future here in Germany. So to my horrible boss: thank you for kicking me when I was down. you truly were by far the worst boss I have ever had. karma is for real and we will both get what we deserve soon enough.


Now on to the happier reason I have been absent from my new craft (writing this blog), I have been venturing more into learning about my trait of being a Highly Sensitive Person. Originally my eyes were opened by reading Dr. Barrie Jaeger's book Making Work Work for the Highly Sensitive Person, learning and realizing so many things about myself and my life as I went along. More recently, I have been reading the original book wrote about HSP's written by Dr. Elaine N. Aron simply titled, The Highly Sensitive Person. This book which I am about 2/3 of the way through has been making me see my life in a new way. I am able to evaluate my life and realize the reason things went the way they did. I can take what I am learning about myself and use it in two ways, one to stop feeling guilty when I "can't handle things the way everyone else can", and two I can start accepting what my personal limits and strengths are and work on figuring out more realistic standards and goals for myself.


One of my favourite things about life is learning about myself and personality and why I am the way I am so I can move forward and make a better happier life for myself. I have spent the last six or so years working on different aspects of my inner self and life and it has paid off tremendously. I am excited that this time I have figured out the reason for everything, it makes me really happy to know that this battle just keeps getting easier. The inner self always needs work, I am just happy I am at a place of peace with who I am, it makes it much easier to develop.


Now I am going back to reading and I am sure within the week I will be writing about the insight I have gained on being a Highly Sensitive Person!

the emotional roller coaster that is my life

My whole life I have heard things like "you're so sensitive Lee-Anne" or "you're just too emotional". For a long time I believed that I had a problem with taking things too personal, but now I understand why.

Being a Highly Sensitive Person (or HSP) affects my life in many ways, but for me the emotional part is the hardest to deal with. I have zero control over my original emotions in any situation, with every emotion. Also every emotion that I feel is to the extreme. In many situations this is great, I can have a real excitement for things in my life. But for the most part it is extremely draining and pretty overwhelming.

I know to be truly happy, outside influences like weather and work shouldn't affect someone, but because I am an HSP, I absorb more from these outside situations hence the overwhelming lack of emotional control. It used to bring me down thinking that my emotions control me, and that it makes me unable to handle situations the way others do. It made me feel weak that I can't just will away my emotions.The phrase, "leave your personal life at the door" is next to impossible for me in any scenario. I think sometimes that being an HSP drives me to constantly live in the now, which sounds like a good thing but often I can't get my mind past the current situation and that can be detrimental to calming myself down and moving forward with my daily life.

The good thing is, once I am able to see that my emotions have taken me over, I can try and come back to reality and use my sensibilities to subside my emotions. This gives me the ability to properly analyze and conquer whatever is going on. Now I am seeing the relation to being an HSP, absorbing more from each situation and taking longer to comprehend it all, but in the end I have a better understanding than many others.

Maybe I will never be able to control my initial emotional reaction to things, but I can try to find ways to catch myself when it is clear my emotions are in charge and if I practice that maybe handling my emotions will become more natural.

I run on love

Yesterday while I was at work I was feeling a sense of emptiness that happens when I miss my friends or family and it truly means I don't feel there's enough love in my life. I start over-analyzing everything and well I had some time to write about it and these were my thoughts

I have this thing where I want to always feel loved and needed, and this can be tricky for me. Even in a wonderful relationship, that love is not enough. I want to bring meaning into the lives of those I care about, and it's really hard sometimes to feel that is happening when I live so far away. A problem that stems from this [(wanting to feel loved and needed)] is it's easy to make myself happy with the love of other people. It distracts me from that empty feeling I perceived as loneliness. So in a sense it is good for me to live far away because I'm not giving myself that false sense of happiness that goes away when I am not with people. 

I get scared when I think that my friends will be getting married and it might not matter if I'm not there, it makes me feel like I'm not a big part of anyone's life. I feel like I've failed as a person when no one needs me involved in their life. It's like I have felt with past relationships, I'm not cherished as much as I feel I should be, and I feel like it's a mistake. I may have many insecurities but I know I am a special person that cares extra about the people in my life. I just wish more people showed me that I'm important to them. It;s hard to feel so much love and not have it returned. 

Thinking about this makes me realize I run on love. It's the most important thing in my life and has been for as long as I can remember. But I need to learn to provide my own love. I spend so much time thinking about how much I care for others I should be spending more love on myself. It's so easy to feel unimportant to people when I give myself that attitude. Of course I am cared about and loved by many and of course I am missed I just wish more people expressed themselves as easily as I do.

While writing this post I got an idea for my next post, the constant emotional roller coaster that is being a Highly Sensitive Person. So I think that's what I will write about next time! 

will I always struggle?

I have been neglecting writing lately because I have been pretty mentally and physically exhausted from my job and losing sleep over it. While I was at work the other day and had some spare time I wrote a little bit on what I have been going through.


Lately I've been feeling more anxiety than usual. I recently started working again, only to find that switching from evenings to days means losing sleep because I am so worried that I need it. My job isn't even hard, the only hard part is that it's in a language I am just becoming familiar with. I don't think I'm worried about it but somehow I'm getting more and more worn down. My thinking is (like I've talked about before) it's time to move on, find a new job, something better. This brings even more anxiety because thinking about what kind of job I would like, that is possible for me to get, is really hard. Near impossible. So what does this mean? Will I always have anxiety with everything in my life? Is everything always going to be so draining for me? The frightening answer is probably, yes. Because I am an HSP, I am effected more by everything. The sooner I can accept this the better. Despite my anxiety about not having an income, I am going to quit my job (unless my working visa doesn't allow a gap for job change, in which case I will continue to be worn down until I can attain a new work contract). My heart is heavy and I know life and finding a new job would be much easier if I can just give this up. It doesn't make me weak, it shows my ability to listen to my needs, which I am finding more and more are different than others, and that's totally ok!


I have been uninterested in food, unable to sleep properly, crying almost every day, just down in general. Finally I started to feel a little more calm and was able to eat and sleep, and today my life was way easier and happier. It really shows how much anxiety can affect my life.

stop feeling guilty about setting personal boundaries

I need a boss who understands when I need to take the day off because I can't stop crying. I need a job that lets me set my own boundaries, because I am different. Unfortunately not many business owners are the type of people who would understand that being a Highly Sensitive Person means if I am not on my game, my work will seriously suffer. I do not respond to pressure and criticism but to positive guidance and encouragement. Sometimes life is overwhelming and unfortunately I can't just "leave my personal life at the door" when coming to work. Everything takes longer for me to process and fully understand, I need time to come to peace when something shakes me.

This is discouraged in the work place. I think it is very unfair. I know that some jobs give you personal days, but I have never worked somewhere where I was able to do that. I have never had this opportunity, and actually this is something I really need in my life as an HSP. The ability to say no to life when it gets overwhelming and take time to rejuvenate so I can continue on in peace and with motivation instead of drudging along with resistance. Life is hard and I think everyone should have the ability to take a day off when they are feeling a mental drainage/explosion. Why is it less manageable to get that across in the workplace than having a physical ailment?

I shouldn't have to feel guilty when something is preventing me from working, whether it be mental, physical, personal or not. Normally in Germany, where I live, it is no problem to take a day when you need it, but I don't work at a company that runs with the regular ways so I am out of luck. It is definitely time for a change in my work, which of course brings on more anxiety. I enjoy a lot of things about being an HSP, but sometimes I wish I could just let things go and move on easily, I wish it didn't feel so heavy to jump into something new, especially when it comes to my work. I want to feel purpose in what I am doing, even with the anxiety produced by looking for a new job in a foreign country. I deserve more and I need to learn to not be afraid to go for what I want and need in life. Of course when I say I deserve more, I also mean everyone. Everyone deserves to go for their own version of gold!

stoner queen pt.2

I am never sure about posting what I like to call my raps, because they might not translate as well into poems. But actually they all tell a story and today I will share my most recent rap, and probably the one I am most proud of, about my problems with marijuana

Here we go again, I'm stoned again, feeling at home again,

did you know you're my most loyal friend?
With possibilities that never end, all the rules I can bend, can't wait to tend to my addiction;

it's not fiction, I need to feel the friction in my life, didn't realize the strife it caused,

the fact that I had formed a clause.

Here's to you and me, colour kelly green, have you seen what it brings to me?

The possibility to eat, keep going that sweet beat in my head, get my shit read.

All problems are dead in these moments, trying to own it, condone it, 

the fact that maybe I still can't control it.

it's the opponent, but I thought of us as teammates, we can always relate, when I am in this state,

 I feel fucking great.

Here I see what's going on, when I'm with you I feel calm and strong, time to hit another bong;

this is where I belong writing songs, well, rhymes. No matter how many times I fall, stall,

or hit a wall. I'll turn to you, so true, maybe today I'll make a breakthrough,

move to uncharted territory, as I continue to tell my story.

I have a theory, a query, about why it makes me think so clearly, have more desire,

feel the fire and passion and emotional attachment; give me the will to action,

and without it feel a fraction of the thrill, the pleasure in each day, but am I wasting away?

Giving up on shit before it starts instead of following my heart, there for me from the start

while I'm denying that you're tearing me apart.

And I'd be lying if I said I'd figured this out before now, I'm kind of realizing as I'm writing this down.

Better take off my crown, to being stoner queen,

I'm not trying to be mean but from what I've seen I could smoke most people clean.

Now that's in the past gotta learn fast how to make a vast improvement, in my self development movement. It better not get arrested, but I guess I tend to test it, cuz I'm getting bested,

eyes red, I'll get this yet...

Something I am always working on is trying to set boundries with smoking pot. I find it easier that others sometimes, and I also think pot helps me in terms of being an HSP. I feel it helps ease some of my anxiety throughout the day and can also help me let out my emotions if I have been trying to move past them which for me doesn't seem to work. It can be really challenging for me because I tend to indulge myself with what feels good to me and for me so finding a balance so I can ease my mind but still accomplish what I need to in a day can be tricky. I am doing much better than I used to know that I at least know this can be a problem. There is always room for growth and I definitely keep in mind not to be run by marijuana, but to let it be a sort of therapy in my life.

job hunting at it's worst

It’s that dreaded time, looking for a new job. A stressful and draining task for most people, but for me this task can bring on extreme anxiety very quickly. To add to the fire, I live in Germany and though I have made great improvements in learning the language I can only carry on a simple conversation, and I cannot speak as well as I can understand. I feel even more anxiety because I am not sure if my language skills are high enough for the jobs I might want to do. Being an HSP also heightens my anxiety about work because I am easily overstimulated and feel I can’t handle “normal” working hours. I tend to choose easier jobs like serving or retail but then I am under stimulated and bored and quickly fall into what the book “Making Work Work for the Highly Sensitive Person” calls drudgery. It seems it will be hard for me to find work in my life that makes me happy or keeps me satisfied for more than a short period of time. Many HSP’s find they are happiest being self-employed. I don’t know where I want to go. I have a University degree in Theater Studies, and since graduating I have wanted to stay far away from that world. I hated most of school, it was really hard for me to stay focused on my studies while battling an eating disorder and depression, and I was forced into taking a bunch of Theater courses that I really didn’t like. I did it though! Forcing myself to finish something I didn’t really care about sucked but I did it! Since a couple years have passed I have had time to reflect on the parts of Theater and studying it that I liked. I am seriously considering applying to a couple of Theaters around the area and hope to get in doing some kind of background or set work. Maybe the Theater would be a nice place to work. But there are only 2 or 3 Theaters around here and I am really scared I won’t get a job.  I have no idea of another job I might be able to handle right now, with my personality and also my lacking of language skills. I don’t want another pointless job. I would love to get paid to write on my own time. That would be an ideal job for me. If anyone has any words of encouragement or suggestions I would love to hear them.

stoner queen

thanks to positive feedback left by my question earlier today on Google+ I have decided to share about how drug addiction has entered/left/effected my life. Today I will just share a bit about my addiction and love of Marijuana.

Marijuana (or weed as I like to call it) is by far my favourite drug, inside and out. Now I will also have to tell you that I struggle with needing it at times, I do not want to call myself “addicted”, but there was definitely I time when I was but I didn't know, I didn't realize until I moved to Germany, and because I moved in with a host family, I couldn't sit on the couch with my bong and smoke from when I woke up until when I went to bed. Yes, if I was not working, I would be stoned all day. I didn't see a reason why not. I was getting everything done that I needed to, maybe it took a little longer, but it didn't halt any progress in my life. But I know that I needed it because every time, I would seek it out while I still had some left, I didn't want to be without it, just in case. In case of what? Would I die if I didn't have it? Would one day be slightly more boring? This was a problem for sure. I am not like this now, but I have worked my way back up to several times a day when it is available. Now it is just something to look forward to everyday, before it was my day. Another thing I found when I went from all the time to sometimes was that I wasn't really motivated to do anything unless I got stoned. Even if I didn't feel like doing it in the moment, it would get me excited and make me want to work on something specific later on in the day. This just doesn't seem right to me. Weed gives me more motivation? It also helps me eat. I have so much more desire to eat, and make myself good food, when I get stoned. Recently I realized that I have also been using weed as a crutch in getting over my eating disorder. Food is so much more appealing to me in general when I am getting stoned, like with all people, but for me it is positive and negative. It is good that it makes me want to eat, but it is bad because I still need it in some way. I can go without it now, but I function so much better when weed is a regular part of my life. Recently I have been thinking that this is because I am an HSP and smoking pot really helps calm me down and look at things from a more logical instead of emotional point of view. It dulls my senses a little so I can live a bit easier. Or is this just my normal because I have spent almost 8 years of my life this way? I am not sure, but I am sure that it makes me happy, helps as a sort of therapy, and it keeps me going so why fight it? This is still my reasoning, and I know I am not going to do anything about it. I know that I will continue this lifestyle because it is one addiction I can keep that doesn't take over my life completely, like it and others have in the past.

This is just a little thought process of mine. I have many stories and also have had other drug addictions as well but I thought this was a good place to start. Feel free to ask me any questions!

when worlds collide

I am glad that my post about being an HSP was highly received because that is what I am currently learning about myself and trying to understand. Today I wanted to share something I wrote in  the summer of 2011 that deals with both being an HSP (which I obviously didn't know about at the time) and also with eating disorder recovery. I have many old journal entries I will share over time here but this particular one ties in well with both topics I feel strongly sharing and discussing about and shows how they can effect each other.

I've been feeling like I don't have anyone to talk to, to help me sort my brain rather. It just seems like no one can handle the feelings I'm feeling. The more I improve my eating behaviors the more my anxiety is transferred to other areas of my life. Which in a sense is good because now I can actually start to sort out my life, take responsibility. I'm so afraid of failing at life that it's making me scared of doing anything, of changing anything. But I know my life needs change, I need to find what I really desire out of life so I can get to it! I'm so tired of my emotions controlling my life, I'm sick of feeling like a crazy person. I'm sick of my confidence being so low recently. I'm just having a hard time knowing where to start. I don't want to get used to my body, I want to be skinny again, I don't want to feel chunkiness it makes me so fucking sad. WHY? I've been trying so hard for so long, I've been eating healthy for over a year now and what? Well actually I've made some amazing improvements, but I'm just sooo unhappy in my own skin, and it fucking sucks so much, I don't think I can lose weight in a normal behavior, at least not to my knowledge. I need to go back to counselling, but I can't until September, it blows. I'm a crazy person. Just keep trying Lee-Anne.

It makes me sad to think that I am still uncomfortable in my own skin three years later, and my emotions still take me over on a regular basis. But you know I am constantly growing and gaining knowledge on how to improve my attitude towards myself and dealing with what life brings me, and that makes me so much happier! 

there really is a method behind my madness

I recently discovered that there is a reason I have always thought that I was a little bit different than most people. Though not diagnosed (I live in Germany and at this time I would rather wait until I can engage in a proper examination) I am 90% sure I am a Highly Sensitive Person (or HSP). At first this may just make it seem like I am super emotional (which I am). But when I looked into HSP’s, (I read a book called Making Work Work for the Highly Sensitive Person by Barrie Jaeger, ph.D.)I found that they are 20% of people! I also found out that being an HSP means a little bit of difference in genetic code that allows the senses to absorb more. This means that everything I see, hear, feel, smell, or taste, is more in depth and intense than most people. It also means it takes me longer to fully encounter things because I am taking in more and analyzing everything about it. This also means I am easily overstimulated and need more recharging than others.  

As soon as I read these things my entire life made sense; from having an eating disorder, to falling in and out of depression, drug addiction, having constant anxiety and worry, and continuous extreme highs and lows in my moods. I am different. But now that I know why, I like it. It gives me encouragement to understand why I feel the way I do, and why I feel so much all the time. Now that I know all of this I can take the positive sides of being an HSP (creativity, empathy, passion etc.) and use them to my advantage. I also understand what the negatives can be from this (being overtaken by emotions, afraid of failing or not being loved, being easily overstimulated and rundown) and work on harnessing these into even more positives over time.

I wanted to share an entry I wrote in one of my journals a few months ago just before I realized all of this HSP business because I think it is an honest piece about how hard it can be to feel so much. (It is also the best at times but I don’t usually need to write when I feel happy)

What direction do you want in life? Why don’t you care about doing anything? Why don’t you follow one of your passions? Because I was always told I wouldn’t make it [and to have a back-up plan. I was told] that you can’t make a living that way. So how the fuck do I make a living then? I am not ready to study something in another language. As far as a career goes, I am also not ready to have one in another language, nor do I know what a career even means these days. I don’t have any ambition I’m just learning German because I have to to live here. I wasn’t happy living in Canada and I’m only kind of happy here. When will I stop using my boyfriend as a source for most of my happiness? When will I start to create my own? When will I learn to be positive in most situations? How can I learn to be zen? How can I not let my emotions take me over? Is that what is preventing me from getting to my life? Having no control over how I feel, living my life based on pleasure. It’s not working. The pleasure runs dry and I am left with self-doubt, uncertainty and dissatisfaction. I have no path. I am standing in a field staring at many paths. That’s my problem… I’m just standing there watching these paths get overgrown because I can’t fucking pick one to wonder down. Why am I so scared of living my life? Not doing things is still failing. I need meaning and purpose in my life. My heart doesn’t know what she wants. Or maybe I am just ignoring what she says because I don’t want to know. I need to learn to trust myself and do what I feel is right or needed instead of just continuing on or ignoring things.

A few months later I can say that I feel a lot better about life than I did when I wrote this. Starting a blog where I can share my stories and struggles gives me the ability to do many things I love at once. Maybe this will help me wonder down a path or two, I know living in sunny southern Germany certainly helps motivate me these days!