This is the highly sensitive person podcast, a weekly podcast for people who experience the world brighter, louder, and more intensely.

Join me on a journey of acceptance of our highly sensitive person traits.

Welcome to episode 42 of the highly sensitive person podcast. I'm your host, Kelly. Thanks for

tuning in today. If this is your first time listening, this podcast consists of my personal

stories and advice and thoughts on being a highly sensitive introvert. Highly sensitive people

are people who experience emotions, stimulation, lights, sounds, etc., very intensely.

And if you haven't checked out my book that came out in April, go to highly sensitiveperson.net slash book.

It's a collection of my best blog posts about what it's like to be in HSP, and it's called A Highly Sensitive Person's Life.

Today is a very special episode.

I went for a walk the other day and man, there's just something about crisp, cool air that makes me feel so amazing. I feel inspired and peaceful and happy and this walk, I thought about some stuff that I

want to share with you today. And yes, the title Kelly gets profound is kind of tongue and cheek.

I want to talk about how awesome it would be if we could allow ourselves to fully enjoy things

to our full capacity, our full emotional capacity,

to fully feel all the emotions we have, to let them go to their crescendo without trying to hold them

back, stifle them, ignore them, push them down. What if we could let them flourish? Take, for example, art. When I was younger,

I would think, well, a painting is just a painting. I would appreciate the time and talent that it

took someone to paint something that was accurate and realistic looking, but I had no interest

or appreciation for modern art. I never even let myself try to appreciate modern art or art

that wasn't very realistic looking. And I remember many years ago, my husband Jim, who was my

boyfriend at the time, took me to MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art in New York. I remember him saying

that he liked modern art more than realistic-looking art.

I thought that was weird, because I thought modern art was kind of silly because it didn't

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