Interview with Kate Champion
Transcript
Signe Myers Hovem:
I always say, if you identify as an empath, you're on a spiritual path. Because it will teach you who you are and it requires you to know who you are. You have to know your baseline. You have to know your story. You have to be able to say, "This is mine, but this isn't." And so I hope in some way I help at least identify highly sensitive versus empathic.
Kate Champion:
That's Signe Hovem. Signe is an author, ordained spiritual counselor, and energy medicine practitioner, who helps people feel loved, safe, and connected. Have you ever felt like a human sponge, getting bombarded with energy wherever you go? Yeah, me too. Then this show is a must listen, especially as we head into the holidays. Today, on Living Big Mindfully, Signe is helping us explore empaths, highly sensitive people, and empathy. She starts out with a bit about her personal journey, living as a HSP, an empath, and a mother of highly sensitive children. And then we dive right in and we talk about highly sensitive people, and what to do if you are one, looking at empaths on a spectrum, and the difference between empathy and empaths. And did you know you can be an empath without empathy? I guess that's the thing.
Signe offers listeners so many tips and strategies. For example, how you can protect yourself if you tend to be an emotional sponge, the power of learning to use I statements, and how to help a sensitive child or grandchild navigate the world. You'll also learn why Signe sees self-love, self-awareness, and connection with the natural world as fundamental to balance, purpose, and joy. Every so often I have a conversation with somebody who really pours out so much love and wisdom, and this is one of those episodes. Although the sound quality is a little bit funky, regardless, from start to finish, this episode is full of heartfelt wisdom and sage advice. So take a breath, slow down, and get ready to soak it all in.
As always, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for listening. I appreciate you. I appreciate your time. I highly recommend Signe's book The Space in Between. And check out her website for tons of helpful resources. As always, the links will be in the show notes. And remember, if you're enjoying the content, comment, review and share the love. Okay, here's Signe.
All right, so hi, Signe. I just have finished listening to your audiobook, which I love, and I will definitely put links into the show notes. And reached out and invited Signe to come on and chat about her life and her work and who she is. So would you mind sharing a little bit about yourself and your story? Would that be okay?
Signe Myers Hovem:
Well, thank you for inviting me to come and talk with you, Kate. I am an American who lives in Norway. I grew up in a small mountain town outside of Denver, Colorado. And I, from a very young age, sensed that I was sensitive. And I was maybe an introvert. And I just sensed that I was a little bit different. And I didn't need so much peer companionship because I was in Colorado, surrounded by nature, which became a sanctuary for me at a very young age. I understood what it offered me, what my own family couldn't offer me.
I grew up, and I went to college, and I got married. And I started to go around the world with my husband in work assignments. So I've had the good fortune to say I've lived on five continents. And have experienced a rich life from learning about other cultures and seeing humanity in different places. And, also, understanding the universalness of being human. That no matter where you are living, we are all encountering the same dynamics or the same indications to look within, and look at ourselves and our way we connect with others, and the way we connect with ourself, and the way we connect to the earth.
And so I was an English lit... Well, I was first a physics major, turned English lit. And then, from there, I became a mother of four, two of which have language disorders and are somewhat on the spectrum. And so my life became really focused about language, and how language really supports someone in knowing who they are and identifying for themselves who they are, and their environment. And when you have children with language disorders or delays, you can see how it really impacts their own journey of being able to be part of a community or be comfortable with themselves. So they were great teachers to me in regards to language.
And from there, I started to become really interested in energy medicine. And I had had some illness myself, which opened the door for me to look outside of conventional medicine for assistance. And it, in a weird way, rocked my world, in that it really was a paradigm shift for me to see the world as not just three-dimensional, but to understand that there's this energetic component that exists before the physical. And so I worked in being certified in that for a while, all the while looking at my own life, and my own story, and my own mind, body, spirit, what it needed to have more in balance. Because the more I worked with energy, I realized you get to this point where you want to be of service. And you're only as good as you have done your own work.
And so that really is what... I never imagined as a young child or a teenager or a young adult saying, "Oh, I'm an empath and I'm going to write a book. And I'm going to hopefully help other people." But you get to a point where you want to share what has helped you, what you've come to understand, and offer it to others.
Kate Champion:
Yes, I can really resonate with your story, especially about serving others. So going through your own healing process and then, in some way, whether it's through counseling or healing or even coaching, then using that to help others grow and heal. I really resonate with that, I really resonate with that. So thank you for sharing, I appreciate that. So help me with a couple of terms. We hear a lot about empaths, empathetic people, and sensitive people. So, to me, that sounds like there's a continuum out there. So tell me a little bit about that, and give us an overview of what's what? Help us out here.
Signe Myers Hovem:
Yeah, this was, I think, the heart of my book was that there were emerging terms that, in another way, were becoming buzzwords. And just tossed around really freely without, I think, a lot of people taking the time to understand what they were identifying or labeling themselves or others. And because language is such a critical part of my development and my consciousness here, I really wanted to help start defining the terms so that people could use them with more confidence and more self-awareness.
And so I would start by saying that the term highly sensitive person came out in about 1989, early '90s. And it was a wonderful marker on this evolution because it gave credibility, it gave advocacy. People who were highly sensitive had an umbrella that they could get under and say, "Okay, this is us. This is our trait. These are maybe what we need to have accommodated or we need to be aware of." And I think they've identified it's a genetic marker. I don't know the genetic marker off the top of my head. But it's about 15% to 20% of the population have this. And so everyone, I felt, crowded under a highly sensitive person's label. But as the years went on, and it was getting more and more credibility and advocacy, and there are therapists, but what was happening for me is... Because I'm highly sensitive, but I'm also empathic. So, for me, the empathic traits that I had were never addressed in this highly sensitive area.
And I distinguish it because if you are an empathic person, and maybe you're unaware you're empathic, and empathic means that you've picked up energetic-y thoughts, feelings, physical, you can pick up a lot of things that actually aren't originating from you. And yet, if you don't have that awareness, you think it does originate from you. And so you misinterpret it and you try to parse something that isn't yours. But in that period of not knowing that this is what's going on, an empathic person will typically question their imagination. They'll say, "Did I imagine that?" And it runs a lot of self-doubt. A highly sensitive person who is having a nervous system irregulation because there's too much noise, or there's a sensitivity to smells, or there's too many people in a room and so there's a little bit of social anxiety, they're not doubting their imagination. Or they're not questioning their imagination.
So, to me, this is a clear distinction of somebody with empathic receptivity falls into these periods and times where they feel something. And there's a little bit of doubt, "Is this mine? Could this be mine? How could I possibly have this feeling?" And so then you start to say, "Is this just my imagination?" Or you have external authority figures always give you that, "Oh, you have an active imagination." Or, "It's just your imagination." So you start to conform a bit because you don't want to be abnormal.
So, for me, then, a highly sensitive person and an empath, they can coexist in the same person. But that requires a lot of self-awareness to know how are you getting the tools and the strategies to work with both types of sensitivity? And I think identifying the source of your sensitivity is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. Because you go off of autopilot and you take control, and then you start to see for yourself who you truly are. Because as a conformist, you really deny yourself knowing the depth of yourself and your sensory self. And it's very difficult to get to authenticity under conforming. And an empathic person, I always say, if you identify as an empath, you're on a spiritual path. Because it will teach you who you are and it requires you to know who you are. You have to know your baseline. You have to know your story. You have to be able to say, "This is mine, but this isn't." And so I hope in some way I help at least identify highly sensitive versus empathic.
Kate Champion:
Yeah, so I'm just taking a moment to just take all that in. So I'm hearing that you are both, but I'm also hearing that they can be different. So you can have a highly sensitive person that's really picking up a lot from the environment. So, for example, you walk into a room and you're maybe picking up this energy. Or over family dinner and also you're picking up this energy. So that would be an example of a maybe highly sensitive person. And then an empath would be, I'm seeing that as another layer, as maybe even a deeper layer, where you're picking up and you're really in tune. But it's coming in more deeply. And you're more likely to question, you're more likely to question this. "Am I really thinking this, feeling this, picking this up? Can that be possible?" So am I on the right track there or not?
Signe Myers Hovem:
Well, let's start with empathy and empathetic. Because people will say empathic instead of empathetic, when I think they really need empathetic. Because you can be an empath and have no empathy. So there's a lot of language that gets warbled together here. But if we look at empathy, empathy is something that is coming from yourself. That you've had a similar experience, you've witness something, or you see something, and it brings up in you compassion before that person. Because, based on your own experience, you know what they're going through and so you can empathize with them. So that is something coming from you. So that is a psychological development. Not everybody has the ability to have empathy because it requires that you can see yourself outside of yourself. You can see a situation outside of yourself that is similar enough to you that it moves you into your heart. So it's a developmental feature that you have internally, emotionally.
But an empath is part of a sensory reception. So it's a physiological component of you and it's part of your intuitive features. So if you think about how passive your senses are, our sight, our smell, our sound, they're all incoming. It's a one way channel in from the outside. And we get this sensory information so we can build a relationship with our environment and to build perception. For empaths, people who are empathically wired, they have this ability to also receive information. It may not be smell, which is molecular, but it can be thoughts and emotions. And it can be physical pain, oddly enough, you can feel other people's pain.
And so this is completely separate from empathy. You can see... It comes into you, but you still have to process it, just like you would've to process smell, or just as you would have to process what you heard. This is why I say if you're an empath, you're on a spiritual path. Because it requires you to process or not process. Or to at least understand for yourself what is your emotion? What is your story that is filled maybe with your own sorts of triggers? And what is not? And so it needs a very interesting, immersive lifestyle to be empathic. And you can completely be passive about it. You can receive this information, and you can have a strategy for yourself. Identify, is it yours? Is it not yours? And then maybe one of your strategies is to say a prayer for that feeling, whoever you're feeling, or whatever the situation is. Or you could become more active.
And I said there's a spectrum between being an unaware empathic person to being an aware empathic person to actually moving full into mastery and becoming an empath. And the realm of the empath is when you step from being passive, and just letting things come to you and you acknowledging you see them, to actually being investigative and interacting with the energy. So to use an example, if you smell someone cooking, you can smell that there's food being cooked, and you're fine with that. Or you're serious, who's cooking? What are they cooking? And then you step into going to find that out. An empath has that ability to be respectful of boundaries, to understand asking questions such as, "Is this mine?" And there's two levels to is this mine? There is this mine as in did it originate from me? But it's also the second question, is this mine to work with, or to witness, or to in some way interact with this impression that you've just picked up?
So that's how I try to help people understand that. When you say the word empath, empathic, you're talking about an intuitive receptivity, which is a sensory. And then if you're empathy and empathetic, it deals with your own level of maturity and ability to see outside of yourself the commonality.
Kate Champion:
That is really helpful, really helpful. As you're talking, I'm putting myself in those situations. So empathy, for sure. When I'm sitting with somebody that's processing some grief and loss, I've had my own grief and loss, and I can really have some... Really from the inside feel a lot of heartfelt empathy for that person. I don't put myself in the empath bucket. However, when I'm sitting with somebody and we're processing their trauma... I don't quite know how to put this in words. I can pick up, sometimes, body sensations, like tension in my shoulders when they're feeling tension in their body. And I'm working with a woman with a mass. And, sometimes, I can almost feel the shadow of that mass in my chest and not... Obviously, she's in a whole nother country so that's over the airways. So it's really helping me sort out what's what, yeah, yeah. So thank you.
Signe Myers Hovem:
You seem to be describing a very empathic... And you can be in a different... Remote energy works because energy is everywhere. It isn't located to a time and place. So you can definitely feel things, if you're tuned into somebody and it's an ethical relationship. It is giving you information. And this is what I try to really emphasize to people who... We hear what we don't know. And I think part of what my issue with the dictionary had been that, if you looked up empath, it would say it was originated in science fiction and fantasy. And by doing such a disservice for people who are trying to understand themselves, and denying themselves language, was one of the reasons I wrote this book. My first chapter is called No Longer Science Fiction. And because there needs to be a shift in transformation in the way that people are allowed to embody and accept their reality, even if it doesn't quite fit mainstream.
What you're talking about, feeling something, is a physical empath. There's different types of empath. And a physical empath will feel things in their body. When I do energy work on people, my body tells me where the person needs energy work because I can feel it myself. It's just information. And that's what I was going to say is, I try to get people who are a bit concerned about what is this energy realm that you're talking about? And is it very woo woo and all that? And it's not. This is very much part of our physical reality. And energy, at its prime, is just information. That is all it is. And so when you feel maybe this mass, or you feel a client's neck tightening because your neck tightens, it's just information. And as a therapist, you are getting more data in which you can support that person and understand what they are going through. So it's a wisdom.
And so other type of empaths are people who pick up on emotions, emotional empath. They'll pick up a lot of emotion that's not theirs. And what I want to also say to, again, highlight that this is not something to be afraid of, is whatever an empathic person picks up, it's typically unprocessed from the person it originates from. And that is why it's actually out there and other people can pick it up because it's not processed. And so you then you can have more compassion for the person that you're picking up an oppression from. Because you realize that they're not aware that they haven't processed it. And I know for myself, I have felt a gamut of things, from rage, and anger, and fear, and envy, and all these things. So when I feel this stuff from somebody else, it's because I, myself, have felt that before. And you treat it with respect because it's part of their path. And maybe they're in denial, maybe they can't face that, maybe... So it's out here from them.
And when it's inside... When you've owned something, when you've owned your story, when you've owned your experiences, you're least likely to be a trigger. You're least likely to let it impact the way you have relationships. Because you own it, it's yours, you've embodied it. But when you haven't, it's a very vulnerable place to own something, but it's also a vulnerable place to be when you haven't accepted yourself either. So I just want you to maybe recognize that there's a part of you that is intuitive, and your body is the tool or the medium in which your intuition is coming into you.
Kate Champion:
So in your book you talk about the word sponges. I think you mentioned Oprah had an article or did a podcast or something, and she used the word human sponges. So if you tend to be on that spectrum, sensitive or intuitive or empathic, and you're really not aware, you don't really know and you're just picking up all these things but you just have no awareness about where it's coming from or how to process it, and people just say, "Oh, you're so sensitive. You're so sensitive." I can't tell you how many people have said that to me. "Oh, you're so sensitive." Or, "You're overly sensitive," before I did my work. How would you help or guide a person when they're getting those messages, and they're feeling like this sponge but they have no idea what to do with it?
Signe Myers Hovem:
Right. Well, one thing about being sensitive, and I can speak for myself because I was somebody who's very sensitive, but I also had a very dysfunctional childhood. And I had moved out of the house when I was 16. And so my sense of safety and security and feeling like I belonged was really on high alert. And so I was always looking and hearing to see where I might be unsafe or I might not be wanted. And so it was the family that I moved in with, the mom took me aside and she said, "You're so sensitive. We can't really even say anything without you going into a, 'Oh my goodness, do I need to leave? What can I do?'" And a lot of that is more of a trauma response. This idea that we have to protect ourselves, that we aren't safe.
And so for people who are really sensitive to what people are saying, there is some beauty to resilience. And that resilience, for me, began when I started to love myself and I started to do the work. And so this sort of work around that sensitivity is not anything to do with being empathic. It's not really anything to do with being highly sensitive. It has to do with the fact that highly sensitive people can read the room really well. And usually because they've had circumstances in which they had to learn to read the room really well, and be ready if something changes, or be able to react quickly. And so I just would invite everyone... Just as much as I'm about identifying what is your sensitivity and knowing then how to help yourself, I think also looking at this type of sensitivity. It's like what has happened in your life that has made you so sensitive to what other people say, or how they say it, or their tone?
And another point I'll point out is that emotional content is your tone. So you can hear someone say something, but the tone they use can put you off. It's not what they said, but it was the tone they used. So this is another way of looking at, okay, there's an emotional thing there, that tone tripped me up. And what is it about that tone? Where have I heard that tone before? Or how am I interpreting that tone? So life is just magical in how it will give you every which way to look at yourself. And where you're maybe hung up or out of balance, or where you need to look within.
Kate Champion:
Yeah, I love that. And you mentioned tone, which is just such a fantastic point. And I would also throw in there the nonverbal, such as body language or facial expression or body posture. Something completely nonverbal that, or the look, some kind of a look, that also might trigger that kind of root. It feels like the root back to that trauma. The not good enough, or the defective or... So yeah, so that's a big one for me too is the nonverbals can be a big one for people.
Signe Myers Hovem:
I do feel like the children who are sensitive... And for myself, I think because my parents, I want to say, they divorced when I was 13, but they never fought in front of us too. I'm sure they thought they were doing us a great service. But what happened for me is that when no one owns the tension in the room, it leaves empathic, people are sensitive people, feeling like it's theirs then. And they have to deal with it.
And so my advice for people who have young children who are highly sensitive is really go back to the language thing. If you own that you're having a bad day and maybe you're a bit moody, or you're a bit short in patience, it helps that child understand, "This isn't me. I'm not moody. I'm not..." If they're picking that up and they have no way to know is it them or is it not, it gives them the freedom to understand, "This is Mom's. This is not mine. And look at Mom who's so mature, she can talk about this without making it my issue." Yeah, because I think a lot of times, grownups, they think kids are oblivious. But, energetically, it's there in the room. And if no one's owning it, and the kid feels that they're going to feel it's theirs.
Kate Champion:
Yeah, that is a wonderful point. I have a grandchild and he's got big feelings. My son's pretty sensitive, and my grandchild, he's got big feelings and I think he's pretty sensitive too. So I love those tips to really just to verbalize it, to say it out loud, to be honest, to really call out what's happening, put language on it. I think that's so powerful, so powerful.
Signe Myers Hovem:
And also even to follow it up with the, "I have a lot on my mind. I think I need to go take a walk. A walk always helps me." It shows the child that you have coping strategies and they don't have to fix you. And they don't have to-
Kate Champion:
Yeah, they don't have to fix you, and it's not their responsibility. And, again, I think there's a lot of power in that. So my mind now is going to that generational trauma, and trying to break some of those cycles that we've had trickle down, that we all have. And there's no blame or shame there. It's just the natural course of things. But that awareness in trying to break some of those communication cycles is probably pretty powerful. Something to think about.
Signe Myers Hovem:
Yeah. One of the most powerful things for me on my path was realizing, again, it's language, that the word to create is to call into being. And, again, we talked about our names, what they mean. But your ability to communicate, it's part of this creation too. How do you speak? And it's interesting too, that, sensory wise, there's a lot of tastes to describe the way somebody talks. They're salty, or they're bitter, or they're sweet, or they're sour. So our language is created by other people in a way.
Kate Champion:
Yeah, yeah, some great points there. Some great points. So what are some practical tips for people that might be on the spectrum somewhere? And what are some practical tips for maybe caring for yourself? Because I would imagine if you're picking up a lot, or you're feeling a lot, we can't store and keep everything. So what are some practical tips for people to care for themselves?
Signe Myers Hovem:
Well, I think, right now, there's just a plethora of Instagrams out there for people to do somatic therapy. We do a lot of body work and nervous system regulation. It's just amazing how much stuff is out there right now. But I really feel if you're in empathic and you may not know where on the spectrum you are, but you do know that you seem to pick up intuitively other people impressions, then clean out your sponge. So let's go back to the sponge thing.
So, energetically, we have seven fields of energy. They represent us physically here on earth on the spectral plane. And an empathic person, it's almost like a bladder, if you want to call it that. But it can extend as it picks up something. So it's a sponge, it absorbs whatever this impression is. And what people don't understand, even though you can feel it as an empath, it isn't part of you. It's outside you. It's holding there. Your energy system is holding it, waiting for you to decide what to do with this. Are you going to acknowledge it? If you're an unaware empath, there's no way you're acknowledging because you don't know it's intercepted. So you end up just absorbing a lot of stuff, to the point that it isolates you because you no longer know even who you are.
So I am really big on I am statements. Because the more you can list out I am statements, it enforces your central core of knowing that you know yourself. And, unfortunately, when you don't know yourself and you're an empathic person, and you feel a wet sponge, a sponge that is wet, not absorbent anymore. It's messy. You're wiping the table and it's just water everywhere. So you have to go squeeze out that sponge to make it functional again, and then you can wipe up the rest.
So once you understand that you have this sponge element to your energy fields, trying to bring more information, you can do very simple things. Especially like if you've gone into maybe a department store, and you just feel like, basically, you walk through or whatever. You can tighten up all your muscles really tight, just clench them, and then blow out. And do this a few times. And this is giving your energy a space. You can also imagine... I call it my chalkboard. I'm like, "Okay, once I've got a message on my sponge..." Or I call it my chalkboard. I acknowledge it and I language it. Because again, if somebody hasn't processed it, they don't know. It comes to you as this undefined feeling. And then you have to use your own registry or glossary of what does this feel like for you? So let's say it feels like grief. And then you can say, "Oh, this is grief." And then you know how you would respond to grief. Do you send it love? Do you send it compassion? Do you send it... Whatever would be your counter to be.
And I didn't wipe my... I imagine I have a chalkboard and I didn't erase it. Other times, if it's a really dense imagery, I imagine being under a waterfall. And I'm terrified. The thing is, the more you do this, you can do this so quickly that it's just no time at all. It isn't like you have to sit down and meditate for 30 minutes just to do one clearing of yourself. It's, again, a muscle. The more you do it, the more you trust yourself, your energy responds. So that's important.
I am very big on journaling. I journal a lot. I used a journal, especially when I was starting out trying to understand what I felt. Because I would get funny... I would get a touch on my nose, I would feel like my nose is being dinged. And then I began to understand what did that relate to. And so I called it my body evictioning. And so when I would feel like... For you, a tight neck with clients. When, in other times, might you feel a tight neck, does it mean the same thing? So it becomes an independent study.
And life becomes a really interesting, engaging experience. Because you're living your life, yes, but you're living your life within an energetic field, a unified field. There's a lot of other things. And it's showing you who you are. It's just not using you. I say be in service, but not to the detriment of yourself. And that's the other thing, when you're overwhelmed, if something's happening in your life, you can intentionally say, "I've just got too much going on. I really want a break from having to process other people's stuff." And, remarkably, it goes away. You might find you've got a lot at one point, or a location has a lot of stuff, and then it's not there for months at a time. So everyone's different. Everyone has their own path. And your teachers will appear.
Kate Champion:
That's for sure. And as you're talking, I'm just resonating with the richness of life, the richness that can bring when you're really using that internal inquiry. And you're asking... I love the question that you asked. "Is this mine? Is this mine?" And this constant checking in, "Is this mine? Is this not? What am I feeling? What am I thinking? Can I put language on this?" I think that's so powerful because, sometimes, it is really difficult to put language on what you're feeling. But if you can take a moment and try and put some words, that can burst the bubble too. That can really be a powerful tool.
Signe Myers Hovem:
Yeah. And when you have mystical experiences, like if you're meditating or you're out and walk and you just are in the presence of your authentic radiance, it is wordless. And that's awesome too because you can appreciate that there are no words. And you can acknowledge it because you're used to language and things. But at certain levels, you're unified in a way that you don't need to express it that way. You can just be with it. The feeling of presence is very powerful. And that is about the most authentic you can be. I have a big thing about authenticity because... And it comes back to the imagination thing. Because I was sitting and contemplating different things about authenticity. And I had this phrase that came into me that authenticity is pure, unimagined. You cannot imagine authenticity because it is a physical level. So for all of us who have vision boards, they're helpful tools and they help with goals and stuff. But the real profound presence comes when you know who you are. And those I am statements are really important for that.
Kate Champion:
Yeah. Somewhere in your book you say something along the lines that we can't search or grasp for authenticity because we're already naturally our authentic being, something along... So help me with that. And it really resonated because, again, on social media, I hear a lot about, "Be your authentic self." Or, "Find your authentic self," or blah, blah, blah. But your message is that we are already that and we... Yeah, so share a little bit more about that if you could?
Signe Myers Hovem:
For me, it's the emerging of your authentic self. It's already there. It's emerging with every time that you lay down conformity. And you examine where you have conformed, and where you've limited yourself, or you've allowed yourself to do less things. And so I used to have a little phrase, "Be emboldened to bloom." Yes, it's going to be vulnerable and you need to be brave. And it might be scary. But the more you come into your heart... And I'm big on the essential four, the neutrality, the neutral channel of your hardship. Because when you're in compassion, it's impossible to judge, really. If you're judging, you're not in compassion.
And for yourself, people talk about that, self-love. And it's almost a cliche. But when you experience the unified love that is balanced, in that, it's equal for you as it's for anyone else, it's really... This is a thing I've struggled to put words with. And I've had this a few times where the idea of self-love, it's not frivolous, it's not cliche, it is an actual experience. And without sounding corny or cheesy, it's just life affirming. And it's authentic. It's not because I deserved it, or if I was worthy, or whatever story I gave myself that allows me to love myself. It was just love and myself and everything else.
Kate Champion:
Yeah. So as you're talking, again, what's coming up with me is now this connection with the natural world, when you're out in the woods or out on the trail. For me, it's generally woods, but it could be mountains, or sometimes the beach, but not as much. That's the time where I can connect with that... Again, it's difficult to put language on. But, for me, it's almost like a universal... You're just with everything. You're just with. You're just with the trees, and the air, and the sky, and the earth. And it just feels right and balanced and natural. And there's a love to that. There's a massive amount of acceptance that comes along with that.
Signe Myers Hovem:
And respect, reverence, sacredness. I say, I define sacred as something that has value to you. What may be you sacred to you might not be sacred to somebody else. But when you have value in something, you feel it, you respect it, you have reverence for it. But, for myself, the reason, I said early on, I usually go out into... Because, here, we're right up against Arapaho National Forest, my home. And so when anything wasn't so great at home, I would just go into the woods. And I felt so safe there. But later in life, I realized that nature is as authentic as you can get. A tree knows. A tree's not trying to be anything other than a tree. A flower is... It is the knowing of its own creation, in a way, that is so profound and deep and humbling. And it definitely leads you all the right ways I wanted to achieve, like balance. There is there's a balance in nature. And yes, it shifts depending on what's happening, but it's a presence of knowing.
And look at energy. Our energy is in entrain with the things that we love. So if a child is upset, you feel for that child. And this is the other thing, empathic people are very easy. They're called chameleons because they can fit into any environment. Because we can entrain our energy with what's going on in the mood, but it also means we can lift it. If we are an aware empathic person, we can lift a room up through intention. And so nature does that for me. If I know I need a boost, I go out and I allow it to help raise my frequency.
Kate Champion:
So we've got some listeners listening that might be resonating with our conversation. What are some tips that maybe, if you're out in the natural world, you're taking a walk in the woods, what might you suggest people start to practice maybe, for want of a better word, to help get them grounded and connecting with some of this?
Signe Myers Hovem:
I would unplug. Because I sometimes will walk listening to a podcast or listening to music. But I make sure that I have a period, 15, 20 minutes, unplugged. And I really notice what's around me. I am very mindful. I am mindful of how the dirt smells, what sounds my feet are making on the path. I notice what's on the side of trail. Are there lots of pine needles? Are they dry? How is the bark on the trees looking? I'm very at kinesthetic, so I love throwing my hands over bark or over the needles. We notice any of the animals, notice what you hear. If you come to water, how long before you see the water can you hear the water? How long it takes you to get to the water and how the water increases in sound.
But, also, with all this paying attention, just be open to seeing, does your eye get drawn to somewhere off the path or ahead? See what naturally your attention goes to. And then question why. "I wonder I'm drawn to that tree?" Or, "This bird seems to be following me." Or just allow it to be playful and respectful. And I am always saying hello to anything I see. I play golf and there's a bunch of dragonflies, and I'm just, in my own head, having a merry conversation with the dragonfly saying, "I see you. Thank you for your beauty." Make it immersive. And this whole idea about a three-dimensional world, there's so many more dimensions. Be dimensional. Understand that you're living right next to all of this nature that is living as well.
Kate Champion:
Yeah. That's lovely and so powerful. So I really encourage people to get out and try some of that. Even if it's a park, you have some green space close to you. I always say, you don't have to have massive woods in your backyard. We can do this walking down a street. We can do this in a neighborhood. We can do this in a little green space when you're walking your dog. It doesn't have to be this big adventure.
Signe Myers Hovem:
It doesn't have be a national forest with a backpack on, yeah. And I wanted to also bring up breathing, because breathing, it's so powerful. I once was asked to present to a hospice in Colorado. And we talked about how a hospice nurse will go into a home. She will tend to a lot of things with the family or the patient, and then leave and then go to the next. And this is serious stuff. The process of dying, being there at a time when someone is struggling, the family is vulnerable. And, sometimes, we can give, and you can give, and particularly in healthcare, people are giving a lot. They have the capacity to listen, the capacity to care. But, sometimes, you can overextend yourself and there's not a lot left to give. And that will start to become detrimental to you in your own energy system.
So my advice to them was, every time you go to your car between clients, sit and breathe as if you are a balloon that you need to blow up and fill up. And breathe down to your feet into the earth. Breathe as if you're pulling your straw from the top of your head, down into the earth. And you are just channeling air to fill yourself up. And it was pretty profound because I used dowsing rods to show people their energy field. And they had volunteered one of the nurses that the staff felt she was a giver. She gave way beyond necessity.
And so, with her permission, I showed her her energy fields. And they were not ideal. And so we did this breathing exercise, the whole group, everyone did it. And then after three minutes of intentional deep breathing, really feeling your breath, following your breath, filling up, you're only thinking about your breath, I measured them again. And they had popped out to actually being perfect. That personal space that we talk about is your first feel. And if all you do is give, you're giving from yourself. And if you're not filling it back up, that's when you get into issues. Your own health starts to... Your mental health, your emotional health, everything starts to goes downward. And your body is the last messenger, really. When we're too busy to notice anything else, when you get sick, when you get ill, that's your body thinking, "Okay, we've gone too long with this."
Kate Champion:
Yeah, yeah. There is so much wisdom and truth in that. So thank you so much for sharing that because you are right. I think if we're having some kind of illness, the train left the station a while ago, we're just catching up. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I love that. Before we jump into the final question, is there anything else that you feel you would like to share or mention today?
Signe Myers Hovem:
Yeah, I think just having respect for yourself, and patience, and also curiosity, and finding a creative outlet. I do feel that one of the things that we need to balance, this is coming from more of the spiritual counseling aspect of my work, is there's the consumer and then there's the creation. Ask yourself during the day, have you been consuming more than you've been creating? Because a life of just consumption is not balanced.
And it leads to... I think, right now, you see a lot of people who are questioning their purpose in life, or what is their purpose. And I think part of it is because we've lived in societies that have really pushed consumerism down our way of life, where you have people who will just binge-watch great shows. I've been there myself. But a life cannot thrive under only one way. And then you can have people who are manic in creating. And there needs to be this ability to appreciate other creations as well. So I put that out there, just because I think, right now, in today's world, where a lot of us are on electronics and uncertain of what's going on in the world, find a creative outlet to help balance out the consumerism.
Kate Champion:
Yeah, I love that. I love that. So the self-reflection question is that, am I consuming, or am I creating, or am I balanced? Is there a balance there? Yeah, yeah.
Signe Myers Hovem:
And that's the thing too, why, in nature, there's this balance we were just talking about. Because there's the creation, the creatives are always going. But there's also a bit of a consumption in the decay and the transitional ecosystem lifecycle. So that is present there as well.
Kate Champion:
Yeah. Yeah, and you're consuming the oxygen. There's a literal exchange with the air that you're breathing. I think that that's, also, that's so powerful too, when you really think about you're breathing in and you're breathing out, there's literally a relationship there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so my final question that I asked everybody, if you had to leave listeners with one piece of sage advice, and not necessarily from what we talked about today, but just in general, what might that be?
Signe Myers Hovem:
Oh, big question. I don't know if it's wisdom, but somebody once asked me... I'm going to turn it around just a little bit, if you don't mind. Somebody once asked me what I thought was selfish. Because we all afford selfishness. It's not a nice trait. And I answered as honestly as I could. And that was, "Someone's inability to be self-aware." And so with that in mind... And they were a bit like, "Well, that's a bit harsh." And I'm like, "Not really." Because we go at our own pace, and everyone has the right to go at their own pace, to integrate and to learn about themselves and about their environment. And because I do see life as a very spiritual experience, and a component to it, self-awareness is a part of that.
But you help everyone else out with your own awareness. It leaves so much left out there for other people who are empathic or sensitive to have to, not look at it, not deal with it, but we do stumble on it, especially in the early time. Because somebody was like, "What would be your utopia?" And if you could imagine if everyone was mature, and self-aware, and willing to accept and do their work, and develop, and evolve, what would it be like where there wasn't all of these projections, or this negativity, or this mindlessness that creates a lot of insensitivity? And I think that's part of the challenge of sensitive people is, how do you live in an insensitive world when you are sensitive? And my public service announcement is that if everyone would just do their part and lean in, go inside and connect with their heart and their true authentic self, and feel the love, that I thank people.
Kate Champion:
Yeah, that is a beautiful note to end on. And what a world we would live in if that were true. Yes, yes. Absolutely, yeah, for sure. So thank you so much. Where can people find you and connect if they have more questions or more curiosity?
Signe Myers Hovem:
Yes. My website is www.smhovem, H-O-V-E-M, .com. My book, I would really... I'm so happy when anyone reads or reviews my book. It's The Space in Between: An Empath's Field Guide. And there is the audiobook. There is a Kindle version. There is a hard copy. But more than that, if you've read it, if you could please leave me a review, because the life of a published author is all these algorithms. And the more reviews you get... Preferably nice reviews, but please be honest with how you review it and how the book speaks to you or not.
And then I have a quiz on my... If people are curious about where they are on the spectrum of being an unaware empath to a highly sensitive person, it's on my website, it's probably at the top of the... It's Take this Empath quiz. And you have to give your email, but then you get a full description of where you are, based on how you answer questions. And some people took issue with some of my questions, but what they didn't get was I was trying to get the person into the feeling of what the question is prompting me. And how would you respond from that. If you're not empathic, it just seems like a weird question. And that will tell you [inaudible 01:05:05].
In my services, I do offer some spiritual counseling. I don't do as much of that now just because I've moved house and I'm taking a small break. But I did a lot of my training in Australia. But I do want to give a plug, if I may for them, that's the Melaney Ryan Institute of Applied Consciousness, or mriac.com.au. They do energy medicine teachings and Mahat meditation, which that's the type of meditation I tend to do. It's an energetic meditation. So it's acknowledging that I'm more than just a physical body that I'm imagery as well. And so I know they're starting the first level in August. And even though they're in Australia, they have a New York branch. And so when they do practicum, they do a lot of video so if you're not in either those locations... So that's my plug for them. And on my website, there's meditation. So if people want to listen to a meditation, different ones, I have one for projections and different things. So anyway, there's a resource there. And you can always reach out to me, like you did, and say hi.
Kate Champion:
Thank you so much. And I will definitely recommend your book. I have listened to it and it's wonderful, highly recommended. So I will put all those links in the show notes so listeners can just jump onto the show notes and check you out and check out all those resources. So thank you so much just for a heartfelt and enlightening conversation. I've certainly learned a lot today. So thank you so much for coming.
Signe Myers Hovem:
Okay, thank you, Kate. Thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed our conversation very much. And I'll maybe see you in the woods sometime.
Kate Champion:
Absolutely, for sure.
Thanks so much for listening. I truly appreciate you and your time. I love to hear from listeners, so connect with me at katechampionauthor.com. Remember to grab your free hiking guide. And please take a quick moment to rate, review, and subscribe to the show. Thanks so much. Take care. Until next time.
Hey, me again. Just a reminder, this podcast should not be considered professional advice. It's also not a substitute for mental, physical, or any other healthcare related treatments. For any questions about your condition and/or concerns, please contact a fully licensed healthcare professional. Thank you.
