In this article, I will share with you where the concept of entry/re-entry came from. We will also explore why transitions feel hard for HSPs, and we will discuss how to use privilege of agency to consciously create seamless transitions as a necessary skill of HSP leadership. By understanding the need for intentional transitions, highly sensitives can embrace their highly sensitive nervous system and choose willingness to do things differently.
The Origins of Entry/Re-Entry
Watch the video below and/or read on to learn how I discovered entry/re-entry for myself.
This teaching came primarily from my previous experience with travel, particularly in the earlier days of my business and leading in-person training retreats. The preparation to attend a training retreat as well as the unpacking and re-arrival back home from a training retreat were always massively fraught for me. I was aware that something was not as it best could be as I kind of hovered outside of myself and watched myself take hours to pack with pretty much my entire closet spread out over my entire bed. I really should have probably taken stock in plastic baggies for the number of them that I used to pack up all of the supplements and the powders and the potions and everything else that I really felt I needed with me in order to be able to be okay in the new place that I was going to.
Then I would watch and witness myself as I came home almost like I was a whirling dervish or that little double cartoon. Unpacking like a freak as I also attempted to regain control of my environment that had been left in the hands of my sweetheart husband while I was gone.
So again, I had an awareness that this probably was not in my best service but wasn’t really sure how to work with it.
Understanding The Necessity of Consciously Creating Transitions
Then my sweetheart husband and I went on a trip to Italy for our 10-year anniversary and the trip was delightful in the same way as being at a training retreat in person was delightful.
That trip was like a second honeymoon. From the moment we got on the plane to travel we were sharing our headphones to watch the same movie and supporting each other with being able to sleep on the plane, and then arriving and really enjoying Italy.
It. Was. Amazing.
Then we came home and immediately on the plane, there was a massive shift in energy and my husband was like, I’m just going to watch these movies on my own, and proceeded to do that.
Two, three, I don’t know how many movies he was able to watch on that long flight from Italy to New York.
I remember feeling absolutely affronted and offended and so deeply wounded and hurt. Then I proceeded to manage those feelings by starting to immediately dive back into work. On my phone. Using the plane WiFi. AKA defaulting to my coping mechanism of pushing.
Then, hours later crying by myself in the airplane bathroom. AKA defaulting to a little touch of the coping mechanism of hiding. All to come back into New York in a sense of complete disconnect, complete disassociation and complete overwhelm.
So that really got my attention and I took some time to process along with some sweetheart husband difficult conversations and realized, and came to understand that we were both dealing with separating ourselves from this amazing trip in our own ways, yet it was not being done consciously.
For myself as a highly sensitive, where my husband is not highly sensitive, I recognized that I needed some things that were different than what he needed. So I began to then recognize that there was a necessity to consciously create the transition space for myself going into a significant event like traveling to a training retreat or even traveling for vacation, and that in the same regard, I needed to consciously create also transition space coming back from a large event.
As I began to treat those transition times as an experience on their own, everything started to happen that much more smoothly, that much more effortlessly and with that much more peace and experience.
Transitions for HSPs is Different than for Non-HSPs
Those times of entry and re-entry are an experience to themselves. Travel is an excellent example because someone who’s not highly sensitive isn’t most likely going to really think about that so much. Their nervous system isn’t going to feel the stimulation impact of what it actually means to lift your body up and move it to another location and everything that’s required in order for that to happen.
To this day, my husband and I have conversations about what it is to jump out of bed and get going. Jumping out of bed and getting going is never my first choice ever.
This is me married to a man who through the entire pandemic was up and out and in the park exercising with the same group of people three to four times a week, no matter the weather, at 6:45 AM. What? If there were no other people on earth, I would not get up at 6:45 AM to meet those other people in the park to go through a bootcamp exercise. 100% not going to happen and that’s okay.
Creating Entry/Re-Entry
Once I began to create conscious transition entry and re-entry around travel, I started to see entry and re-entry everywhere.
I started to recognize that in order to be able to operate optimally as a highly sensitive, I need to create entry and re-entry into seasons. What I want to eat, what I want to do for moving my body, my sleep, my work schedule – it all changes with the season.
I started to recognize entry and re-entry between the weekend and the work week, even if that weekend is not the stereotypical socialized Saturday and Sunday.
Why, I imagine, do so many people have the Sunday blues or Sunday anxieties? They need entry and re-entry.
I started to recognize that I needed entry and re-entry every day.
The beginning of my workday, the close of my workday. I started to recognize that I needed entry/re-entry around higher intensity business activities for myself. Podcast interviews, selling conversations. I started to recognize and see entry/re-entry everywhere.
Research Supports Entry/Re-Entry for HSPs
Since then I’ve learned that the research about HSP’s from Psychology Today, including articles written by Dr. Elaine Aron, backs my experience specifically. Some highlights from that research that I want to share with you is that since the highly sensitive person’s brain is wired to inhibit action, there tends to be a struggle with transitions and difficulty with making quick decisions.
Highly sensitives need time to reflect before taking action.
This includes positive transitions such as going on vacation and coming back from vacation, enrolling a new client, getting promoted or starting a new relationship. As with any practice, the more that you engage it, then the more is available to you to go into the nuances of mastery.
So how do you do it? How do you create entry/re-entry?
How to Create Entry/Re-Entry
- First, you access privilege of agency by determining what you need and what you want. My high mentor recommendation is to create an OFTU (Order Form to the Universe) to help you get super clear. (You can find the OFTU in our free HSE Success Guide when you take our HSE Assessment.)
- Second, get clear on “why” through doing self-assessment of previous similar experiences: What worked, what didn’t work, and what do you want to do differently?
- Third, who do you need to talk to? Is there a difficult conversation that needs to happen to ensure your needs are understood and being met?
- Fourth, create a plan with 1-3 next step actions to implement on.
Willingness and the Privilege of Agency to Lead Your Nervous System
I guarantee you that what you need and want will be different than those that you are sharing an experience with.
How can I guarantee that? Because there are only 20% of us in the world who are highly sensitive. So most likely, not everyone that you share your life with is one of those 20%.
As the leader of your nervous system, you have the privilege of agency to take personal responsibility and take action – you get clear on what you want, why you want it, who you need to talk to so that you can have it and how to go about implementing it – setting yourself up to work optimally. So you actually get to save energy, save time, save money, make more impact and income with less effort.
This is also part of the law of process, meaning entry/re-entry, as with any highly sensitive strength or skill, is a step-by-step – one next baby step at a time – and celebrating each step of the way.
Always coming back to what do I want? Who’s in charge of my nervous system? Who’s in charge of my life?
So you can choose consciously or unconsciously the highly sensitive victim, as in “This is all happening to me” as in, “I’m guaranteed to be overwhelmed”, or you can choose HSP empowerment, HSP leadership, and make the conscious choice that you’re in charge of your nervous system and you are in charge of your life.
It takes a level of willingness to put in the work to do things differently, but this is what we always are reminding ourselves here in the highly sensitive leadership training programs, the choice is always yours.
Recommended Resources
Resources mentioned in this article and other helpful materials:
- Going Beyond Coping: From Surviving to Thriving as a Highly Sensitive Entrepreneur – blog post on the three default coping mechanisms and the coping cycle.
- Time and Transitions – article on transitions for HSPs by Dr. Elaine Aron
- Free HSE Assessment & HSE Success Guide – includes assessment that reveals if you’re a somewhat, super, or super-uber Highly Sensitive Entrepreneur® and a success guide with the OFTU tool.
- HSE Training Kit: Survive to Thrive – includes assessment to determine your default coping mechanism and a training with tools on breaking the coping cycle
- Highly Sensitive Leadership Training Program – details about our training program designed specifically for HSP entrepreneurs (HSEs) on HSP leadership.
