207 Understanding HSP Neurodiversity and Executive Functioning

Have you ever wondered, are highly sensitives neurodivergent? As an HSP, you’ve likely questioned this but haven’t arrived at a definitive answer. There is a lot of information out there on the internet, and a lot of it misinformed so it is important for us to address this by looking at the research and re-returning to what it means to be highly sensitive. Both the research on HSPs (lead by Dr. Elaine Aaron) and the neurodiversity social justice movement (lead by Judy Singer) emerged in the mid-1990s, and there are interesting parallels in their development. Human brains are all wired differently, leading to diverse interpretations of the world, and HSPs represent a unique variation within the neurodiverse population. We are uniquely wired to use our strengths in our business and leadership roles to make the world a better place. In this week’s episode, I begin a discussion on whether highly sensitives are neurodivergent or not. I revisit and share the definition of what it is to be highly sensitive, as well as the definitions for neurodiversity, neurodivergent, and executive functioning. All crucial things to keep in mind as we consider this important topic. I examine the research and how it relates to us as highly sensitives in business and leadership. Listen until the end where I share five key points to bring it all together so you can better understand yourself and your HSP neurodiversity. Also, be sure to tune into our next episode where we will take this topic further and discuss enhancing HSP neurodiversity and executive functioning.   “HSPs are a subset of the population, a subset of the population who are high in a personality trait known as sensory processing sensitivity or SPS, sensory processing sensitivity or SPS. Those with high levels of SPS display increased emotional sensitivity, stronger reactivity to both external and internal stimuli – pain, hunger, light noise – and as a result of these personality traits and HSP tends to have a complex inner life.” – Heather Dominick Listen and Learn: 2:16: What does it mean to be a highly sensitive person 4:48: Why is it important to be reminded of what it means to be highly sensitive 5:35: What does it mean to be neurodivergent 6:58: How to define neurodiversity 10:13: What is executive functioning 12:53: How are highly sensitive people built differently   “Differences are not viewed as deficits.” – Heather Dominick   Links and Resources: Get your copy of Heather’s book DIFFERENT: http://www.differentthebook.com/ Get your copy of the HSE Training Kit: Survive to Thrive: http://www.shiftfromsurvivetothrive.com/ Get your copy of the HSE Assessment and Success Guide: http://www.myhsetype.com/ Learn more about the Highly Sensitive Leadership Training Program: https://www.businessmiracles.com/highly-sensitive-leadership-training-program/ Learn more about this episode of Business Miracles at https://www.businessmiracles.com/207

The upcoming months are going to include massive collective transitions that will tempt you into HSP confusion and overwhelm. To support yourself you will want to proactively establish a core-practice of self-reflection. You will want this core-practice to contain 3 key elements: self-love, self-consciousness and self-support. All in order to identify where you are possibly compromising your personal truth, allowing energy leaks and unnecessarily absorbing other people’s emotions. Finally, this will support you with establishing additional core-practices to, again, pro-actively nurture yourself, your relationships, and your social impact from a place of honoring your sensitivity and using your HSP strengths. This will fortify you in being able to continue to create, take action and show up as an HSP in business and leadership regardless of what is happening in the world around you. This week’s episode is a continuation from our last episode. In this part two, I share another special snippet from one of our Intuitive Planning Days within the Highly Sensitive Leadership Training Programs where I guide HSPs in business and leadership to plan the next four months from their heart. You’ll get the rare opportunity to peek into what it is like to use your intuition to guide you into right action and to be the architect of your destiny. Listen in to receive heart guidance on discovering where you need to nurture your relationships with self and others, and be in action in a way that works for you, giving you hope, and helping you to be happier doing your part to nurture social impact in the world.   “You will be tempted into confusion over the next months.” – Heather Dominick Listen and Learn: 3:04: How to use intuitive discernment in relationships that do not align with your interests 3:50: What does it mean to be conscious 5:03: How to use core practice and consistency to stay clear in relationships 6:42: A guided meditation on the power of the heart 13:38 How to discover the social impact you are meant to nurture   “The observation and study of your relationships is the surest way to see where your energy leaks are and where you compromise your personal truth.” – Heather Dominick   Links and Resources: Get your copy of Heather’s book DIFFERENT: http://www.differentthebook.com/ Get your copy of the HSE Training Kit: Survive to Thrive: http://www.shiftfromsurvivetothrive.com/ Get your copy of the HSE Assessment and Success Guide: http://www.myhsetype.com/ Learn more about this episode of Business Miracles at https://www.businessmiracles.com/206

The months ahead carry a massive energy of transition, and as highly sensitives in business and leadership, we are being called to lean into this time of transition from a place of empowerment. To create a productive and purposeful life by leading from our hearts with sensitivity and self-love. Transitions can be challenging, as they often bring a sense of uncertainty, restlessness, and anxiety – especially for HSPs. However, it is essential to accept and embrace change as it allows for the release of old patterns and creates the space for new ideas and inspiration. What will allow this period of transition to be more relaxed, more enjoyable, and help us to trust in right timing, is choosing willingness and trust in the power of the heart to lead. In this episode, I share a very special and rare sneak peek into one of our most powerful elements of the Highly Sensitive Leadership Training Program – our Intuitive Planning Days. I discuss three key areas – work, rest, and play – that we want to check in on as part of this transition phase in order to navigate the months ahead with more ease. Listen in as I lead you to tap into your heart guidance to see what needs to be complete and let go of so that your own transition is going in the direction of the truth in your heart about what matters and who you wish to be in the future. You are the architect of your destiny.   “Resisting this time of transition will cause more difficulty, discord and delay.” – Heather Dominick Listen and Learn: 1:59: What is transition and how does it impact highly sensitive people 3:27:Is there an upside to the tumultuous period of transition 6:20: Questions to ask yourself during a transition period 6:54: How to meditate on transition 9:56: What are tips for intentional rest   “We are still in the process of moving away and out from under old structures and patterns that no longer serve, no longer work while the new ones are in process of being formed. So we want to choose willingness and we want to trust in the power of the heart to lead now more than ever.” – Heather Dominick   Links and Resources: Get your copy of Heather’s book DIFFERENT: http://www.differentthebook.com/ Get your copy of the HSE Training Kit: Survive to Thrive: http://www.shiftfromsurvivetothrive.com/ Get your copy of the HSE Assessment and Success Guide: http://www.myhsetype.com/ Learn more about this episode of Business Miracles at https://www.businessmiracles.com/205

Change as a constant threatens our ability to build resilience as HSPs. The key is to learn how to manage our HSP reactions to change so we can accept it more quickly and from there choose willingness to anchor into and use our HSP strengths to stay the course. This takes courage. It also takes conviction. Now more than ever, our unique HSP strengths as “royal advisorscourage of conviction” is needed in the world. We are being called to use our courage of conviction to navigate the world’s chaos for ourselves and those we serve. And also more than ever, being in aligned community, such as the Highly Sensitive Leadership Programs, is necessary in order to receive the support we each need to consciously become our own anchor. You have the privilege of agency to choose to receive that support and create your best year yet. In this week’s episode, I share two people who have been on my mind lately and who have greatly influenced my own journey of becoming my own anchor to maintain courage of conviction through constant change. I open up about the impact the loss of my mother at an early age had on me, and how my cousin’s loss of his mother two months later impacted him and how different choices led us each in very different directions. I also discuss how challenge and adversity present the unique opportunity to practice managing our reactions to change in order to strengthen self-esteem, self-trust, and self-security and keep us moving forward in heart guided inspired action.   “I decided to consciously become my own anchor.” – Heather Dominick   Listen and Learn: 1:53: How does loss drive HSP coping mechanisms 6:10: Who is Victor Frankl and why does his Logotherapy matter 9:59: How to see yourself as limitless 12:10: Ways to cope with change 15:4: How to ask for help and why   “We are in a time of transition and as part of this transition, we are each being called upon to be the architect of our own destiny; to set your own anchor and embrace courage of conviction.” – Heather Dominick   Links and Resources: Get your copy of Heather’s book DIFFERENT: http://www.differentthebook.com/ Get your copy of the HSE Training Kit: Survive to Thrive: http://www.shiftfromsurvivetothrive.com/ Get your copy of the HSE Assessment and Success Guide: http://www.myhsetype.com/ Learn more about this episode of Business Miracles at https://www.businessmiracles.com/204

As HSPs in business and leadership, shifting from resistance to resilience is a necessary constant and it will be required more than ever in 2025. Accessing hope can support us, as HSPs, with leaning into grace and grit, which are keys to overcoming the challenges we face as HSPs. As highly sensitives it is our shadow default tendency to go into overprotection when faced with challenges, even before a challenge actually occurs. Yet, hope as an act gives us access to resilience which then allows us to come back from challenges stronger giving us the foundation needed to continue to create the change we desire to make in the world. Allowing us to then live, lead and serve from our purpose. Amazing, incredible innovations and changes arise from challenges. In this episode I break down the limiting beliefs about challenges that often keep us in our highly sensitive shadow behavior of overprotection and what to do instead. I share a personal story on resilience that demonstrates the power of accessing grace and grit when in the throws of chaos and challenging times. I discuss how hope is a conviction that as HSPs in business and leadership we can act to make things better by training our nervous system, accessing our HSP strengths and skills, and choosing willingness to take action. All to ensure moving forward to create positive change for ourselves, those around us, and all those we are meant to serve. Listen in – especially until the end – to engage in a powerful reflection that will support you in uncovering the confidence you need to cope with fear and uncertainty as you continue to enter into the year ahead.   “Grace and grit are key parts of shifting from resistance to resilience. This shift is a necessary constant for us as HSPs committed to empowerment, committed to business and leadership success.” – Heather Dominick   Listen and Learn: 2:08: Why are grace and grit key parts of shifting from resistance to resilience 5:37: What drives the tendency to go into overprotection 6:49: How to see challenges as normal and positive 9:59 A personal story 16:26 What does 2025 have in store 17:15: How to define conviction   “This shift from resistance to resilience is going to be required more than ever in 2025.” – Heather Dominick   Links and Resources: Get your copy of Heather’s book DIFFERENT: http://www.differentthebook.com/ Get your copy of the HSE Training Kit: Survive to Thrive: http://www.shiftfromsurvivetothrive.com/ Get your copy of the HSE Assessment and Success Guide: http://www.myhsetype.com/ Learn more about this episode of Business Miracles at https://www.businessmiracles.com/203

As HSPs in business and leadership, when faced with the ongoing challenges of these exceptional times, it can be easy to default to shadow behaviours such as confusion, overthinking, and analysis paralysis. It can be difficult to shift from resistance into resilience in order to take the consistent action needed to create marketing, selling and leadership operations success. However, there is a way through. For us HSPs it’s about accessing our strength of intuition that affords us the ability to take aligned right action resulting in a better future for ourselves and those we serve. Listen in to this podcast episode as I share how you can release the overthinking mind, analysis paralysis and the HSP tendency towards perfectionism. All to allow your HSP strength of intuition to support you with more easily taking action especially in challenging areas such as marketing, selling and leadership operations. I specifically highlight three key aspects of creating selling success as an HSP through the use of your intuition. I also discuss how fear can create confusion around our intuition pushing us into HSP shadow behavior of overprotection and over responsibility. Which tends to lead to sabotaging our efforts and causing us to stop taking action. Yet action is the cure for confusion and overwhelm so it’s important that we re-train our highly sensitive nervous system to respond differently.   “Today’s training is an invitation to release the overthinking mind.” – Heather Dominick Listen and Learn: 2:18: What happens wen we ignore our sense of justice 3:22: How to allow your intuition to lead you to action 5:22: What is dire need and how is it related to money 7:44: How is dire need related to purpose 11:36: Why do highly sensitive people need to use a direct ask 15:39: How to track your progress   “Your intuition will always lead you to expansion. ” – Heather Dominick   Links and Resources: Get your copy of Heather’s book DIFFERENT: http://www.differentthebook.com/ Get your copy of the HSE Training Kit: Survive to Thrive: http://www.shiftfromsurvivetothrive.com/ Get your copy of the HSE Assessment and Success Guide: http://www.myhsetype.com/ Learn more about this episode of Business Miracles at https://www.businessmiracles.com/202

One of the key ways to strengthen our intuition as a highly sensitive in business and leadership is through the core practice of using the energy management tool of autowriting. As an untrained HSP, our early environment training can easily override or influence the sensitivity genes and keep us stuck in unhelpful past patterns. Instead, we can choose to do “”the real work”” of a trained HSP and use energy management tools to create a change in our nervous system response and therefore more deliberately access our highly sensitive strengths such as intuition. This core practice can support us with tapping into higher guidance in order to manage end-of-year chaos, family dynamics or drama, challenges in your business, or any other concern, struggle or worry. When we use energy management as a true sense of self-nurture and with the intention of forward movement, then our intuition can be channelled to powerfully create the real change and impact we are each meant to bring to the world. In today’s episode, I continue the conversation from our last episode – where I celebrated our 200th episode and included a surprise gift for you! – and discussed one of our most important highly sensitive strengths – our intuition. Today we talk about the energy management tool of autowriting which can really support HSPs in business and leadership with strengthening our intuition intentionally so we can receive guidance to take action on what will most support us as we continue to navigate challenges during these exceptional times. I share how the core practice of using energy management tools consistently makes everything easier when it comes to your business or any form of leadership that you’re looking to bring into the world. Whether that is access to easier creative marketing, ability to more easily create a genuine connection in a selling conversation, greater access to aligning the team that’s meant to support you, or whatever it is that you are focusing on right now. Be sure to listen until the end where I guide you through an autowriting experience to support you with receiving guidance on a current struggle, concern, worry or maybe an area of confusion or unknown.   “Using energy management tools is going to create a change in our nervous system response. Especially if you’re using energy management tools as a true sense of nurture with the intention of forward movement.” – Heather Dominick Listen and Learn: 4:38: What is needed to strengthen intuition 7:35: Why use energy management tools like autowriting 12:37: How intuition makes everything easier 14:29: How I use autowriting 19:19: A guided autowriting exercise   “When we’re using energy management tools, like autowriting, proactively and intentionally, the purpose is to make things lighter, to make things easier for ourselves.“ – Heather Dominick   Links and Resources: Listen to Podcast Episode 200: The HSP Superpower of Deliberate Intuition: https://www.businessmiracles.com/podcast-episodes/deliberate-intuition/ Get your copy of Heather’s book DIFFERENT: http://www.differentthebook.com/ Get your copy of the HSE Training Kit: Survive to Thrive: http://www.shiftfromsurvivetothrive.com/ Get your copy of the HSE Assessment and Success Guide: http://www.myhsetype.com/ Learn more about this episode of Business Miracles at https://www.businessmiracles.com/201    

If there is one thing that we can claim as an HSP superpower, it would be our intuition. When deliberately strengthened this is our edge in any business or leadership endeavour we engage in, and it is highly important that we learn to strengthen our intuition as a core practice. It is one of the things that can set you up to truly be able to work less while making more impact and income. However, another aspect of the sensitivity gene, our early environment, also plays a part in how we respond in our everyday living and running of our businesses. Often, what you are calling your intuition is actually coming from your early environment training, and it is crucial for us to learn to decipher between the two to avoid getting stuck in limiting beliefs that do not serve us. This is a major component of the work we do in the Highly Sensitive Leadership Training Programs, so much so that we engage in intentional intuitive planning as a full community several times a year. In this special milestone episode, I shine the spotlight on our keystone superpower of intuition as highly sensitives in business and leadership. I talk about how we can easily confuse true intuition with early environment training, which when not examined can set us up to repeat unhelpful past patterns instead of pulling us forward into creating meaningful impact through our businesses. I share information from a study by Christine Ma-Kellams and Jennifer Lerner that examines whether an intuitive mode of thought or a systematic mode of thought is more accurate. The results might surprise you! Listen in to hear how you can deliberately strengthen your intuition to really work for you as a superpower through these exceptional times, and stay tuned until the end for a special mentor challenge!   “Just because you have the ability to take in stimulation at a much higher degree doesn’t mean that you are set up to automatically be able to take in that stimulation in a way that’s positive.” – Heather Dominick Listen and Learn: 3:38: How to strengthen your intuition as a core practice 6:31: Ways to decipher the difference between sensitivity genes and early environment information 11:29: How to train our intuition to work for us and guide us 14:37: What makes it easier to trust our intuition as highly sensitive leaders   “A major component of that training and the work that we do here in the highly sensitive leadership training programs is to decipher between the sensitivity genes and early environment information.” – Heather Dominick   Links and Resources: Get your copy of Heather’s book DIFFERENT: http://www.differentthebook.com/ Get your copy of the HSE Training Kit: Survive to Thrive: http://www.shiftfromsurvivetothrive.com/ Get your copy of the HSE Assessment and Success Guide: http://www.myhsetype.com/ Learn more about this episode of Business Miracles at https://www.businessmiracles.com/200  

There is just so much that is in motion in the world right now and so much that is unpredictable. Constant change is guaranteed; to try to resist this constant change is only going to make it that much more difficult to navigate. Here’s the good news: managing change as an HSP in business and leadership is a skill that can be learned. When you commit to this process as a core practice, your self esteem strengthens, you’re more easily able to access acceptance and you develop a genuine confidence to manage and master ongoing change as a highly sensitive leader. You can then stop using energy to try to keep change from happening and instead channel that energy into creating the results you want no matter what is transpiring around you. In today’s episode, I share how we are currently experiencing constant change and unpredictability and that the times we are in are not going to be over anytime soon. I discuss the importance of managing our reactions to change as highly sensitive entrepreneurs and leaders and how, now more than ever, we need to commit to the path of mastery in order to grow and succeed through these times in our businesses and our relationships. To better understand this path of mastery, I talk about attachment styles with a focus on shifting from the anxious attachment style to the secure attachment style. I explore the ways that resistance to shifting from anxious to secure shows up, sharing examples I often see with members I mentor in the Highly Sensitive Leadership Training Programs and how by leaning in, joining together, and with the power of aligned community we can truly transcend the ongoing, ever-changing times we are collectively living through.   “There is way too much that’s unpredictable, way too many people behaving unpredictably that to try to resist the constant of change is only going to make it that much more difficult for yourself.” – Heather Dominick Listen and Learn: 5:13: How to strengthen our reactions to change 5:53: What can crisis look like to highly sensitive people 6:59: What are the highly sensitive attachment styles and how do they respond to change 10:04: Ways that highly sensitives engage in the struggle between choice and action 12.11: How does resistance show up in highly sensitive leadership training 15:35: Final takeaways   “As we give deliberate attention to mastering our reactions to change as highly sensitives, our reaction will shift and change. The more we practice over a longer period of time, the more our self esteem will strengthen and more easily we will be able to access acceptance and a new sense of confidence to be able to manage and master change as a highly sensitive leader, and particularly a highly sensitive leader who embraces their essential self.” – Heather Dominick   Links and Resources: Get your copy of Heather’s book DIFFERENT: The Highly Sensitive Leadership Revolution: http://www.differentthebook.com Get your copy of the HSE Training Kit: Survive to Thrive: http://www.shiftfromsurvivetothrive.com Get your copy of the HSE Assessment and Success Guide: http://www.myhsetype.com Learn more about this episode of Business Miracles at https://www.businessmiracles.com/199    

There’s a lot of energy moving right now all around the world, and although your particular flavor of turmoil and chaos may differ depending on where in the world you are, as a highly sensitive your nervous system is feeling it. Whether you’re experiencing political drama, family overcommitments as the holidays approach, challenging business stressors, or even threats to your personal safety all of this can feel especially difficult to manage in the moment. Yet we have the opportunity to practice privilege of agency and take personal responsibility to manage your nervous system reactions to your circumstances. You can make a choice to take action and use energy techniques to ground you and energy management to support you in continuing to take steps to create what it is that you desire and in the way that you desire. In this podcast episode, I share the difference between energy management and energy techniques. I discuss the Bowan Family Dynamics theory and my subjective connection between being highly sensitive and being the absorber of the family. I talk about how this leads us as HSPs to be especially susceptible to nervous system overwhelm as a reaction to what’s happening in the world at this time. If you are an untrained highly sensitive, then you are likely experiencing this energy as stress and are defaulting to fight, flight, freeze, or fawn – or getting triggered into your default coping mechanisms of pushing, hiding, or combo plattering between the two. Yet if you are a trained highly sensitive leader, you can make a choice to take personal responsibility right now and turn to both energy techniques and energy management to ground yourself. Listen in as I share 3 powerful energy techniques to bring calm to your nervous system so you can be of the highest service through business as a highly sensitive leader, especially during times of intensity.   “We do not buy into the highly sensitive shadow pathway that everything is happening to us. Instead, we take measures to activate privilege of agency and locate where there is empowerment within choice.” – Heather Dominick Listen and Learn: 2:25: Why are energy-shifting techniques important 5:14: How does the Bowen Family Dynamic Theory apply to highly sensitive people 9:18: What is the difference between energy management and energy techniques 10:49: Which energy techniques can we use to calm down 18:35: How to use energy management tools   “The absorber of the family is the person in the family who’s designated to hold all of the feelings and specifically anxiety.” – Heather Dominick   Links and Resources: Get your copy of Heather’s book DIFFERENT: http://www.differentthebook.com/ Get your copy of the HSE Training Kit: Survive to Thrive: http://www.shiftfromsurvivetothrive.com/ Get your copy of the HSE Assessment and Success Guide: http://www.myhsetype.com/ Learn more about this episode of Business Miracles at https://www.businessmiracles.com/198