Embracing Your Inner Light: A Story for HSP's and Deep Feelers Healing from Intergenerational Trauma

The calling for you now is to seek and listen closely to stories, ones that have meaning and depth, ones that speak to you heart and soul. You will find these tales in books, movies, your daily life, and the fertile grounds of your imagination.

-The Storyteller

I have a deeply personal story that I’d like to tell you about today—a story about the past, healing of old wounds, and the transmutation of darkness into light.

A story about becoming the most authentic, fullest expression of self and leaving the past behind.

A story passed down to me by my ancestors, when they handed me a sunflower and told me that everything was going to be okay.

I started writing this story after receiving a text from my former college mentor, Vilmarie.

Vilmarie was my professor during my first year of college. She taught a class called Be the Change You Wish to See in the World which helped to initiate me as a first-generation college student into the rigorous world of higher education, and into the art of facilitated dialogue and deep inquiry.

Vilmarie taught me to think critically, to reflect deeply, and most of all to know myself. It was through her guidance that I began to understand how personal identity shapes belief and influences the way one shows up in the world.

Most teachers are with you for a semester, maybe two. But from the day I walked through the doors of her classroom, she never stopped walking with me. She became a catalyst in my life; seeing me for my authentic self, nurturing my gifts, writing me letters of reference to support my academic and professional goals, and reminding me along my path—to trust the process.

She is one of those rare individuals you realize, perhaps only with age and maturity, that you were destined to meet, and I love and respect her deeply for the influence she has had on my life.

Many years have passed since Vilmarie and I last spoke, so I was overjoyed when I sent her a text and she replied:

Her message read: ‘Good morning, Sunshine”.

I was floored. Even after all these years, and all the time has passed, she still saw in me qualities that, until recently, I wasn’t even fully aware of in myself.

It was synchronistic and confirming.

In recent years, I’ve started to notice a curious shift in the way others seem to perceive me. From old and new friends, to the designer and copywriter I hired for my business, colleagues at work, and now Vilmarie—people from all walks of life have taken to likening me to the Sun, a Sunflower, Sunshine.

Each time this has happened, I took it as a compliment, while never fully internalizing the meaning behind the words. Yet sitting there, reading what Vilmarie wrote, I felt like something finally clicked.

They see me.

I’m not invisible.

I am, a light.

This is where the story of my journey begins. The slow, gradual, long journey to becoming a person capable of shining their authentic light in the world.

Embracing Who I Truly Am Inside.

It’s taken me many years to heal and reclaim the most authentic, pure version of myself. So it was exciting to realize that these bright parts of myself I’ve worked so hard to reclaim—my happiness, my joy, my authenticity—are not only felt by me, but are also visible to those around me.

This realization was exciting, but also strange.

You see, for most of my life, people never compared me to sunshine. Instead, they called me by my given name, Leah—which in Hebrew means ‘weary’ or ‘tired’.

I’m not sure if my mom intended to impart these qualities on me by choosing the name Leah for me, but since I am told that I was originally to be named Sarah—which means princess, joy, and happiness—one has to wonder what happened.

But, we’ll get to that later.

My name is a biblical name and derives from the story of Leah, who was the first wife of Jacob. Leah’s story is one of enduring deep pain, rejection, and feelings of despair at being overlooked by her younger sister, Rachel, whom Jacob loved more deeply.

The first time I looked up the meaning of my name and read this story, I remember it gave me chills as I perceived a similarity between my life story and that of my biblical namesake. The despair and longing that Leah felt in response to rejection, and her longing for love and recognition, were feelings all too familiar to me.

As the deep feeling, highly-sensitive person growing up in my family, I often felt misunderstood, unseen, and rejected by those around me—as if they didn’t know what to make of or what to do with me.

I felt invisible and lonely for parts of my childhood—often playing alone in my room, reading books aloud to myself, crying over things others seemed unaffected by, taking care of people way older than me, and noticing things in my surroundings that others tried to shush.

As I grew up and went to school, the sense of not fitting in and being seen only grew. I was different in many ways—an early reader, inquisitive, non-conforming, creative. Though I got by alright with the friends I made in chorus and the arts, it took me many years to understand why deep down, I felt so out of place, heavy, and in many ways, divergent from most of my peers and even my friends.

I was holding something, that they were not.

From Seedling to Sunflower

Today, I want to share a story about the grief we sometimes carry as the deep feelers in our lineage; along with the burden of healing that can get passed down through the generations. This may be a sad story, but it has a happy ending.

This is a tale of a girl with a sunflower soul, who went from feeling like a tiny seedling, her roots barely visible in the darkness of the soil, to a blooming flower who’s petals turned to the light for all to see.

Photo by Serrah Galos on Unsplash

As an HSP, you may not relate to this story. Not all sensitive people experience trauma, or come from families who did—though as a group, sensitive people are more likely to experience and internalize trauma due to our empathic, perceptive natures.

That said, you may find this story interesting to read, perhaps even comforting, as it acknowledges the experience of the sensitive person who feels misunderstood, different, and burdened by others problems.

It’s also not just a story of the highly-sensitive person, but of the outcast, the caregiver, the artist, the sage, and the lover.

It tells a courageous tale of resilience and the transformation of a lost, weary soul who uncovered the inner strength to heal and turn pain into purpose—not just for her own sake, but for the whole line.

Once upon a time.