Creative Mind Audio

As various researchers and therapists note, being a highly sensitive person or another form of neurodivergent, with different "neurological wiring," we can experience many positive qualities, such a greater appreciation of beauty and art, a heightened awareness of subtleties, emotional depth, stronger empathy, and more.

All of which can enhance creative expression and performance, as shown by many actors, musicians, writers and other artists.

But we can also be more vulnerable to stress and overwhelm.

Therapist Julie Bjelland, LMFT talks about sensory overload in multiple posts, videos, podcasts, and the image refers to one of her suggestions to relieve unwanted effects:

"Watching news visually can cause a lot more anxiety than reading it for most highly sensitive people. Take breaks from reading or watching the news."

This audio is a short excerpt from one of her classes: Register free for Sensory Overload & Sensitivity.

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In one of her articles, "Managing Sensory Overload: A Guide for Sensitive and Neurodivergent Individuals," she explains more. Here is an excerpt:

“Sensory sensitivity means experiencing heightened awareness of sensory input such as sounds, lights, textures, smells, and more.

For instance:

Sounds: Struggling with the background noise in a cafe.

Textures: Avoiding certain fabrics or cutting clothing tags.

Lights: Feeling overwhelmed by fluorescent lighting.

This happens because neurodivergent brains process sensory input differently.

In many cases, there’s reduced ‘brain pruning,’ meaning connections aren’t trimmed as much, leading to heightened awareness.

While this sensitivity can feel overwhelming, it’s important to recognize it as a natural part of how your brain works—not a flaw.

Prolonged exposure to sensory overload can have significant impacts, including:

Chronic Stress: Elevated cortisol levels, weakened immunity, and digestive issues.

Burnout: Emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion, often mistaken for depression.

Mental Health Risks: Increased anxiety and emotional distress.

Physical Strain: Migraines, hormonal imbalances, heart disease, and autoimmune disorders.

Sensory Joy: The Flip Side of Sensitivity

While sensitivity can be challenging, it also allows you to experience the world’s beauty with incredible depth. Examples of sensory joy include:

The warmth of sunlight on your skin.

The texture of a soft blanket.

Listening to birdsong or the sound of water.

Walking barefoot on grass or sand.

Intentionally cultivating sensory joy can balance the challenges of sensory overload and help you reframe sensitivity as a strength.”

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Julie Bjelland, LMFT 🌈 is a "Highly Sensitive, Autistic, LGBTQ+ Psychotherapist and founder of Sensitive Empowerment with posts, courses, free webinars, podcast episodes, a community program, and more for sensitive & neurodivergent people.

Her online courses include:

* Guide to Navigating Sensory Overload

* Brain Training For the Highly Sensitive & Neurodivergent

* The HSP Toolbox

* Discovering You’re Autistic as an Adult

* Blooming Brilliantly Course

* Your Self-Discovery Journey

* How to Grow a Heart-Centered Online Business

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Thanks for listening and reading. Feel free to comment and share.

Therapist Emma McAdam: "If emotions are getting in the way of you living your life, you can learn how to slow down, think clearly..."

Psychologist Melanie Joy notes "this is an incredibly dysregulating time for everyone, especially those of us who are highly sensitive."

Dr Cathleen King: “That is another form of nervous system dysregulation when you can't shut off your idea switch and just be in the present moment."

Therapist Julie Bjelland: "The brain has a negativity bias..."

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"When you don't know how to process emotions, you might blow up, shut down, or avoid your emotions through things like food, alcohol, TV, or gaming."

Therapist Emma McAdam, LMFT continues about emotional dysregulation:

"If emotions are getting in the way of you living your life, you can learn how to slow down, think clearly, and make choices that make your life better.

"Instead of getting overwhelmed, blowing up, or trying to control or merely cope with your emotions, learn to actually resolve them."

Her comments are from a description for her course How to Process Your Emotions.

(The image above of two hikers is from a video for the course, and indicates how our relationships, and access to joy and pleasure in life, can be improved by using tools to regulate our nervous system.)

» See her course How to Process Your Emotions, plus other courses, articles, videos and membership, at her Therapy in a Nutshell site.

Emma McAdam notes she loves helping people change, and provides many programs to support emotional and mental health. Follow link above to her site.

This Creative Mind Audio includes clips from two of her videos about nervous system regulation.

Here are related videos:

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McAdams comments: "There are at least three reasons why you’re having a hard time regulating your nervous system, despite your best efforts. So let’s explore them and their antidotes.”

"Number Two: You’re not safe. And what I mean by that is that some action needs to be taken.

"Our nervous system is super smart and super good at bypassing the logical part of our brain to alert us to dangers.

“Sometimes anxiety isn’t a disorder; it’s just a message that something needs to change."

She explains, "Emotions aren’t just bad things that happen to us; they’re meant to motivate us to take action. Sometimes they lie and we need to calm ourselves down, just regulate our bodies, but sometimes they’re truthful and we need to take action."

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“That is another form of nervous system dysregulation when you can't shut off your idea switch and just be in the present moment." Cathleen King, DPT

See more in post:

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This topic of dysregulation has many aspects; here are some additional posts and podcasts with therapists:

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Psychologist Melanie Joy notes "this is an incredibly dysregulating time for everyone, especially those of us who are highly sensitive. We're especially affected by violence, chaos, and unpredictability."

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Dr Cathleen King, DPT: "A dysregulated nervous system can turn routine experiences into sources of stress. If you’re feeling persistently anxious, stressed, or physically unwell, it might be more than just a temporary response to life’s challenges—it could be a sign of a dysregulated nervous system."

{See more in the post below, including link to her article "Understanding A Dysregulated Nervous System: The Symptoms and Signs."]

Therapist and author Julie Bjelland, LMFT: "The brain has a negativity bias...stress, nervousness, fear...can actually trigger a response in the brain that alerts your system to think that it needs to set off these alarm bells." And, she notes, "that happens even more so in highly sensitive people."

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» See more videos in playlist: Nervous System Regulation

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Judith Orloff MD is a NY Times bestselling author of multiple books, and is "a psychiatrist, an empath and intuitive healer, and is on the UCLA Psychiatric Clinical Faculty.

"She synthesizes the pearls of traditional medicine with cutting edge knowledge of intuition, energy, and spirituality and passionately believes in the power of integrating this wisdom for total wellness." (From profile on her site.)

Hear rest of interview in Private article Judith Orloff, MD on Emotional Freedom. Note: Private articles with audio interviews are for subscribers to The Creative Mind site at the Supporter Membership level. Learn more in article The Creative Mind Membership.

Register for FREE video event with Judith Orloff, MD: "Discover how you can embrace a difficult emotion from an expanded perspective" - Tuesday, January 11, 2022 - Register to tune in or receive the recording.

Dr. Judith Orloff’s Keys to Being a Healthy Empath - "In this free ongoing event, you’ll: *Learn about your brain’s mirror neurons; *Learn what intuitive healing means for empaths and sensitive people; *and more."

Read more and see videos with Dr. Orloff in (public) articles:

Energy Sensitivity

How to reduce anxiety – Judith Orloff on Emotional Freedom

The Empath’s Survival Guide Course by Judith Orloff

View selected episodes and articles with more resources: The Creative Mind Audio Podcast page on the main site.

Psychologist Melanie Joy notes this is an incredibly dysregulating time for everyone, especially those of us who are highly sensitive.

This is an excerpt from her conversation with Andrea Weber for the Sensitive Empowerment Community.

Dr Joy comments: "We're especially affected by violence, chaos, and unpredictability. And right now, it's just an incredibly dysregulating time, as you pointed out, for everyone.

"So the question really is, how do we find the balance, right? So how do we take in enough information?

"I think this is one of the things that does throw people a little bit off because they don't want to just tune out entirely. We need to be informed enough so that we're not a part of the problem by sticking our heads in the sand.

"But how do we stay informed enough and not get over informed and then manage when we do get over informed?"

She suggests multiple resources, including books, apps and practices, to help emotional regulation and resilience.

This is an excerpt from the HSP podcast episode "Is Dysregulation Impacting Your Life? How to Recognize and Manage our Emotional Response with Dr Melanie Joy."

➡️ Hear the full episode at The Sensitive and Neurodivergent Podcast on the Sensitive Empowerment site of Julie Bjelland, LMFT - where you can find many more of her articles, books, courses, Sensitive Community and other resources.

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Do You Think Your Nervous System Is Dysregulated?

Cathleen King, DPT, is a "doctor of physical therapy who teaches neuroscience principles, and is a mind-body practitioner." She writes:

"If you’re feeling persistently anxious, stressed, or physically unwell, it might be more than just a temporary response to life’s challenges—it could be a sign of a dysregulated nervous system.”

See much more in her article Understanding A Dysregulated Nervous System: The Symptoms and Signs.

Follow the link to her site with more articles, a membership program, and more.

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Related Creative Mind posts and podcast episodes:

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Britt Frank notes "the definition of trauma that I use comes from Dr Peter Levine, who founded Somatic Experiencing, that trauma is anything that's too much, too fast, too soon.

"And my little addition to that is: or not enough. Trauma is anything you got that you didn't need or anything that you didn't get that you did need.”

She adds that "trauma is an internal process. It's a brain indigestion process.

“A trauma response is when our brain either throws up or goes into freeze. So you can eat bad food and not necessarily get sick.

"Same thing with trauma. You can experience a traumatic event and not necessarily have a trauma response.

“But the things that we call panic, anxiety, things like that, are often trauma responses, which is the symptom or the behavior or the manifestation of the trauma that we experienced or witnessed."

Britt Frank, LSCSW, SEP is a licensed neuropsychotherapist and author of book The Science of Stuck.

(This audio is from her video interview from a past edition of the Trauma Super Conference.)

» Register free to hear her presentation at the Attachment, Trauma & Toxic Relationships Super Conference, April 28 - May 4, 2025:

Self Parenting Beyond Narcissism and Codependency

*What emotionally unskilled behaviors feel like in relationships

*How to identify your boundaries and rules of engagement

*What to understand about estrangement

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» Reset Super Conference - ongoing free Conference includes "60+ health and wellness experts" - including:

How to Get Unstuck - Britt Frank

*Why anxiety is not an emotion but a physical signal

*Why coping skills won't work with a dysregulated nervous system

*What grief has to do with becoming an emotional adult

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Related:

Dr Peter Levine is also a presenter at the ongoing Reset Conference, on "Self-regulating for trauma healing."

Peter A. Levine Collection of programs from Sounds True (includes 11 titles).

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Related Creative Mind posts:

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Linda Roggli is one of the speakers at the Let's Talk 2E Conference For Adults, hosted by Julie Skolnick.

Her live presentation was titled Free to Be ADHD (and 2e).

The site for the Conference summarizes:

Linda Roggli is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC), award-winning author and founder of the A-D-Diva Network for ADHD women 40-and-better.

She is an internationally-recognized expert in midlife and senior ADHD. She co-founded the annual ADHD Women’s and ADHD Parents’ Palooza, two weeks of online conversation with 30+ ADHD experts. (adhdpalooza.com)

She also created the popular ADHD Get Organized program which features live organizing sessions.

Linda’s book Confessions of an ADDiva: midlife in the non-linear lane won first prize for women’s issues in the prestigious Next Generation Indy Book Awards competition.

She chairs the webinar committee for ADDA. She lives in Durham, NC with her slightly OCD husband, one OCD cat, four adorable ADHD Shelties and 15 cackling hens.

Owning an ADHD brain has its challenges — time blindness, trouble with initiation and completion, impatience, impulsivity. And they are magnified with the ‘gift’ of 2e at work and home (“If you’re so smart, why can’t you keep a job?”).

With strong heritability, it also impacts parenting (“I’m sorry I forgot to pick you up after school!”).

The paradox of high intelligence coupled with high distractibility is difficult to explain, even to ourselves.

But many ADHD adults, especially those diagnosed in later life, admit they have managed their lives by out-thinking everyone else in the room.

There is a high price for this hyper-vigilance — anxiety, exhaustion and eventual burnout.

Understanding the complex interaction between ADHD, executive function and giftedness is the first step toward creating a life that is authentic and richly rewarding.

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Learn more about speakers and recordings of the Let's Talk 2E Conference For Adults. 

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View selected episodes and articles with more resources: The Creative Mind Audio Podcast page on the main site.

"We don’t pay attention to all events and our corresponding emotional reactions in the same way. One negative event can taint an overall good day."

Anne-Laure Le Cunff, PhD explains more about our brain's Negativity Bias: "It’s the same with interactions: you may have a good relationship with someone who has supported and complimented you many times over, but you will tend to more saliently remember the one time they shared negative feedback."

(Image above is an edited version from her article.) [1]

This episode of the Creative MInd Audio podcast includes excerpts from podcasts by two therapists talking about how negativity bias operates and how much impact it can have on us, cognitively and emotionally.

First is Emma McAdam, LMFT of Therapy in a Nutshell, who comments in her podcast episode [2] and related video:

"Your brain is not designed to make you happy; it's made to keep you alive.

“And in order to do that, it's got some built-in biases, including a negativity bias that literally filters what you see, what you pay attention to, what you notice in your life.

"And this is why you might feel like everything is getting worse all the time. This bias fuels depression and anxiety, and this thinking pattern might make you see the glass as half empty."

One of her resources is a free course:

» Grounding Skills for Anxiety - *How your stress response works *How to turn on the calming part of your nervous system (the parasympathetic response) *Essential skills for managing stress, anxiety, PTSD, and panic attacks.

» Also see list of her Therapy in a Nutshell Courses, Membership, Blog, and more. Topics include *Mental Health Essentials *Depression *Anxiety *OCD *PTSD/Trauma *Relationships.

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Therapist and author Julie Bjelland, LMFT helps highly sensitive people understand our trait and thrive more.

She notes this brain tendency toward negativity "has to do with the evolution of humans in general because we used to be living out on the land and could be attacked by a lion at any moment. You had to be very conscious of threats.

“But the brain can't tell the difference between a real threat and a perceived threat.

"So what happens is that stress, nervousness, fear or different things like that can actually trigger a response in the brain that alerts your system to think that it needs to set off these alarm bells.

"And that happens even more so in highly sensitive people."

One of the strategies she suggests to counteract negativity bias is to keep a positivity journal, and pay attention to the more uplifting, encouraging, beautiful, satisfying parts of our life.

Resources by Julie Bjelland, LMFT:

» Free class Tools For A Chaotic World.

» Free class High Sensitivity and Anxiety.

Her audio comments are from one of her videos. (3]

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Do you relate to this information about Negativity Bias?

I certainly do. Most of my life I have experienced some degree of depression and generalized anxiety, and find it helpful to consider how my nervous system operates, especially having the temperament trait of high sensitivity (sensory processing sensitivity).

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Sources

[1] Negativity bias: how negative experiences cloud our judgement By Anne-Laure Le Cunff, PhD in neuroscience, founder of Ness Labs, author of Tiny Experiments.

[2] Podcast episode: Why Your Brain Defaults to Scarcity: Break the Anxiety Cycle By Emma McAdam, LMFT.

[3] video: Julie Bjelland on negativity bias and HSPs.

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Fairy Tales & Jungian Shadow Work

"Many of us are gifted with the ability to hold the darkness of others but we don't always know how to uncover it within ourselves."

This Creative Mind Audio is an excerpt from much longer video interview with Melissa Kim Corter: The Alchemy of Fairy Tales & Jungian Shadow Work. (Register free to learn about her Shift Network course.)

Corter comments, "Denzel Washington once said that some people will never like you because your spirit will irritate their demons.

"It took me years to understand that this is a gift that my warm and grounded presence can put people at ease to help them feel safe to unburden their hearts - yet others were instantly repelled by my presence."

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She notes she was drawn to engage with Fairy Tales as a child:

"There was something about these stories that allowed me to recognize patterns in my own life. They gave solutions. They had this magical and enchanting sort of quality where the natural world was alive and that really resonated deeply for me."

Corter writes on her Substack site Hauntingly Beautiful Things: "My ideas and words seem to resonate with those who never know their place.

"My psyche guides me as I write about the exiled parts of the mind, human behavior, and shadow. I collect broken pieces, like breadcrumbs, and try to make some sense of them. Putting them together in mythopoetic forms that speak to the soul.

"My writing blends psychology with symbolic forms found in film, fairy tales, and forensics. I have found value in the dark, misunderstood, and macabre dimensions of my personality..."

Perhaps you can relate. I certainly do.

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Related posts/podcasts:

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"Then I created a roadmap to guide me out of the dense fog of my illness and fear. I learned how to self-regulate my nervous system."

Cathleen King, DPT, is a "doctor of physical therapy who teaches neuroscience principles, and is a mind-body practitioner."

This audio is an excerpt from her conversation at the 2025 Trauma Super Conference, titled "Trauma, Emotional Processing, and Physical Health."

A summary of topics:

*Why we should understand the science behind nervous system regulation

*How to separate trauma story from identity

*Self-regulation techniques to help with trauma therapy

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» One of her programs: Primal Trust Membership & Community - "Learn to consciously self-regulate your biology and heal."

From this video: "I had a lot of childhood stuff, and I'd heard like go resolve your trauma.

“Well, I tried to do that. I went raid into like EMDR and parts work, and honestly, it was re-traumatizing to me to go right into those processes because I had no capacity for self-regulation."

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A long journey into healing

📖 How Healing Happens - free guide by Cathleen King, DPT on "brain retraining and nervous system somatic healing...both the science and approach to self-healing for chronic illness and chronic stress."

[See link at bottom of page above to learn about her Membership program.]

* In her guide, Cathleen King writes:

"I’ve personally walked the path of chronic illness (Lyme, mold toxicity, Chronic Fatigue, and more) with many debilitating symptoms, and felt completely overwhelmed with the fear that I might never return to a full and vibrant life.

"Like many of you, I went from doctor to doctor, piling up a staggering number of diagnoses and desperately trying treatments, many of which only made me feel worse."

She explains her experiences led her to become "obsessed with the drive to fix myself, spending endless hours frantically researching and unable to concentrate on anything else in my life.

"I know painfully well the spiral of loneliness, anger, and deep despair that comes with being told there is no chance of fully healing."

But, she adds, "then I created a roadmap to guide me out of the dense fog of my illness and fear.

"I learned how to self-regulate my nervous system and, astoundingly, to experience true joy and calm even while I was still experiencing difficult symptoms and limitations.

"My nervous system started to change. My brain began to rewire. And I began to trust my body could heal."

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Probably all of us don't like certain kinds or levels of emotion, and want to get away from them, sometimes in self-destructive ways.

Psychologist Cheryl Arutt notes "Creative people do tend to be highly sensitive and an exquisite sensitivity is an asset when it comes to creating art...but that same sensitivity can often make the painful experiences that they have even more so."

Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett says "You might believe that your brain is prewired with emotion circuits, that you're born with emotion circuits, but you're not."

Emotions researcher Karla McLaren thinks "It's important for our joints to have a complete range of motion, but it's also important for us to have a complete range of emotion." -

Dr. John Demartini explains "if you meet somebody...and you seek them out and want to be with them, that's motion towards something. Energy put into motion towards something. That's an emotion." -

Pema Chödrön says "A lot of the process of mindfulness is beginning to relax with the present moment and touch the immediacy of our experience, our thoughts and emotions."

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Sources for this podcast episode:

Image at top is from article Artificial Intelligence: Why it Can't Detect the Correlation Between Human Emotion and Facial Expression, Ron Jefferson, The Science Times Aug 24, 2021.

Psychologist Cheryl Arutt from my video Artists are highly sensitive and need skills to use their emotions safely

Lisa Feldman Barrett from TED Talk video in my post Are emotions hardwired and just triggered? No - our brains build them.

Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD is “a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, with positions in psychiatry and radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.” Prof. Barrett is one of the experts at the free ongoing Brain-A-Thon event.

Karla McLaren from her video Do You Have a Full Range of Emotions? in my post How To Gain Better Emotional Health By Working With Feelings.

Dr. John Demartini from his video "How to Manage Emotions" - see it in my post How to upgrade your financial health and life success – NeuroGym programs

Pema Chödrön from video The Noble Journey From Fear to Fearlessness

Related Creative Mind Videos playlists:

Emotional Health - Physicians, authors, psychologists, artists and others on stress relief, anxiety relief, depression, unhealthy self-esteem, low confidence and more.

Trauma Healing - Programs and information from physicians, psychologists and others on understanding and healing from traumatic experiences.

Related posts:

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