Hello, dear soul, and welcome to the Light Bears Library. My name is Kate Harmony. In today's journal entry, I want to talk a little bit about my life currently and an update, but I'll tie it into how we find sanctuary in our external world, in our internal world, and as a community of people looking for community. So the last week, as you may know, has been a bit of a roller coaster here at the Light Bears Library because it's been a wonder wonderful celebration of lots of people finding Light Bears Library. There's been over 1,300 people come and subscribe to the Light Bears Library, say, I want to hear more about this. Um, so welcome and thank you. And that, you know, has really brought to my attention that, you know, so many are looking for a place to belong for others that feel some of the same things that they're feeling, who are also dealing with existential isolation. Like, we're having this experience internally that is that other people aren't. And it's it feels like isolating and you know, potentially potentially existential alienation or depression. So I've been blown away by the need for some kind of non-judgmental space for highly sensitive people to, you know, go deep, to share their hearts and their minds and their souls, and and searching for a way forward that searching for a vision of like the the light, the light bearers, and and the hope that we can build something and and make our own lives a little bit better and the lives of those around us a little bit better, and then that's how we make the world a bit better. Um But we're looking for a place to cheer each other on and inspire each other to to spiral upwards. And so I'm I'm reading your comments and um sitting with all the like when it comes to creating a space, uh looking for thinking about my feelings and my intuitions about where where this is heading and where we want to go with it. So in the last video about, you know, come find find your people, that was my INFP way. It's like um extroverted intuition way. If if those mean nothing to you, it doesn't matter. It's it's about all the ideas. Um but at some point I'm going to have to narrow it down to to sort of, yeah, I think I want it to be to kind of see a clear vision of what I want the library space to to look like and how it will work. And I don't want to rush it because I want it to be intentional and focused. Um, so on that note, on that note, of time, I wanted to take my time with that. But that's exactly what I don't have right now because my husband and I um have to find a place to live by the end of this month, April. Um, and I'm trying not to know how many days that is, but I think it's like 11. And we don't have a place to live. So um that's because our landlord sold the house, so th the new people are moving in at the end of the month. And um that's um uh yeah. Anyway, um, so I'm trying to breathe through that and tell myself that I can handle all of it. Um but with everything going on, I've just been feeling a bit out of control, a bit of, you know, as a highly sensitive person, you will understand that, you know, we get easily overstimulated by things that are too intense or too complicated or complex or chaotic or novel, even, you know, like even even this wonderful celebration influx of, you know, I think over 1,300 people in the last week um to our beautiful community here, it's it's um it's overwhelming as a highly sensitive person. So I've just been trying to breathe, breathe through that. And um, so with all that in mind, of like when we're overstimulated and over overwhelmed by things, is like we have different kinds of sanctuaries that we can go to to kind of calm down from that. So I'd like to talk to you today about the three different kinds of sanctuaries that I'm seeing that we need as highly sensitive souls. Um, and that will hopefully calm me down and be helpful. So we have the external, like where we live or or what kind of place we live in, and then we have our internal sanctuary, and then we have our communal sanctuary. And so as HSPs, we have what is called uh differential susceptibility. So because we observe and reflect more uh about our environment around us, you know, in terms of smells, sounds, tastes, light, and even beauty or ugliness, you know, we we we're affected more by those things than others are. And we're susceptible to both the good and the bad influences of both of those things. So if you think about noise, you know, loud noises or or noise just in that, you know, everyday other like other most other people, because highly sensitive people are about 20 to 30 percent of the population. So, you know, 80 to 70 percent of the population would hear the noise and just be like, oh, it's just whatever, it's not that noisy. But for us, it's it's overstimulating, it's overwhelming. Um and but so that's a sort of the negative side of things. But but when we hear beautiful music, it also impacts us way more than than sort of most people, right? It it takes us to that high of of listening to a beautiful, you know, Bach's cello suites or you know, Palestrina's beautiful music, or I love listening to Hildegard's chants. Um so yeah, there's so when we're looking for places to live, uh you know, we're talking about our external sanctuary, we need to be quite picky about our surroundings. And picky is maybe not the right word. Um, we need to allow ourselves to be picky, you know, other people may call us picky, and fine, fine, like, you know, like accepting that is like, yeah, yeah, I do. I need to be, because everything affects us more than it does most people. So when we're we've been like we've been looking for places for weeks and months now, because we knew the house was up for sale. So we've been looking. Um and you know, so we're looking for places with good lighting. Daylight is so important for us as humans, and we look at these places, especially like we're looking at basement suites. Our budget isn't like super much, but even if you had a bigger budget, the places just are bigger and still shit. So anyway, um, but we're looking at basement suites because that's what's mostly kind of available, and they're like prisons, okay, because they have like in a lot a lot of them are new, but even the older ones, they have just those tiny little windows, and and sometimes there's only one window. It makes me feel claustrophobic and like screaming. And I have lived in a basement suite like that before. However, it was in Victoria on the West Coast, and we could get outside all year round, and we went for runs every day all year round. So it's not like living in Alberta where we kind of tend to live inside for most of the eight months or so of winter. Um just because we're high he's hot. My husband's very highly sensitive, you know, African blood in there, and and like he's just lived in temperate climates his whole life, and this has been a very shocking thing. The cold and the snow. Anyway, uh quiet, right? Thinking about noise, like who lives upstairs, and that's something that we tend to just it is what it is. Um, but it's it's draining. It's been very draining living here with just the the noise of the family upstairs and the dog. And but, you know, it's something to think about and um some kind of character or soul to a place is like these ticky-tacky basement suites that all look exactly the same. It's just like I want, I like it, it, it it feels harmful to my to my soul. But you know, we're at some point you gotta pick something. And um anyway, and then when we contact the landlord or whoever's renting the place, it's like, are those people responsive? Are they humans on the other end? Because so often you just get one-liners back or whatever. It's just like these people aren't even human on the other end. Or do they give off like bad, bad vibes, bad intuition, right? We've gone with we've gone with places because we've moved on average more than once a year for the last 10 years. There you go. So we know, we know, we know how to look for places because we've learned from experience that going with landlords where we had a bad intuition or just bad energy, it ended up being bad. So um, anyway, so that's kind of the external, our external sanctuary. Um, my thoughts about that right now. Yeah. Anyway. Um, so it when it comes to our internal sanctuary, that's really, really important because that's how we can manage when the outside world is crazy. Um, like it is for me right now. It's just kind of like, okay, okay. I need to. I've just been so with everything going on, I've just been trying to breathe deeply and and I guess have some kind of little mantra. I don't even know what it is. Like just saying, like, I'm okay, I can do this, I've got this. It's like, okay. Because when we're saturated with overstimulation or chaos, it's we need to find ways to be at peace inside and to settle ourselves. So I find that closing my eyes, right? We want to lower the stimulation. So I find that closing my eyes is a must. Putting my hand on my heart, breathing just slowly in and out in a calm way that calms our nervous systems. And um, I find listening to rain sounds to be very, to be very calming. So perhaps there's nature sounds that I've talked about this before, but perhaps there's nature sounds that you can listen to on Spotify or YouTube or whatever. And for me, rain or the sound of birds in the forest with wind is calming. Like, okay, I might not be able to get to sort of a natural space right now, but because that would would would help, but um to read something beautiful or something that validates our experience. And for me, I've been feeling um that this book has been um really, really calming for me. It's called Living with Intensity, and the subtitle is Understanding the Sensitivity, excitability, and emotional development of gifted children, adolescents, and adults. And I wouldn't necessarily consider myself gifted, but reading this, um I I relate to most of it. So I'm like, okay, you know, I think it's a this is spectrum, and my husband's definitely far along on that, on that spectrum. But um, it's helping me to understand my own experience of my whole life and why I've felt so different from people. So this was edited by Susan Daniels and Michael Pechowski, if you'd like to look it up. Um, but it's been helping me to go, okay, like I'm not crazy, I'm not crazy. It's okay that I'm feeling this way. Because I know there's others that would feel this way in my situation. So um that's that's helpful. So reading something, whether it's poetry or or a novel, that or rereading a novel, or perhaps re-watching a TV show. But sometimes those things aren't possible when we're in the midst of things and we just need a calm place to be inside for a moment. And then the third place is like our community sanctuary. So we all need somewhere to feel like we're not alone in all our sensitivities and our quirks and our overexcitabilities and just all the stuff that that make us feel like we're we're too much, somewhere where others can see us and hear us and say, You're not too much. Like I totally get that. And that's my experience too. Or, you know, you're not alone in that. I've had similar, similar experiences. And we've already created that little space on the internet, here at the library's library in the comments. You like everyone's been so generous with their stories and their comments of too bad back and forth to others as well, seeing them and hearing them. That's just been so beautiful to witness. And um, so if if you see someone who shared something that's similar to your own experience, please do, please do connect with them and say, hey, you're not alone, like I've had this experience. It's like we're building a community of humans here who see one another and communicate with one another. And I know YouTube comments can feel um can feel a bit unsafe because, you know, you never know if there's gonna be a troll reply to you and whatever. And there's been there's been a number of people out there, you know, and I I delete the trolls, right? Nobody, that's that's zero tolerance. Um but connecting with others, there's been a lot of people doing that, and I I really, I really love that because yeah, I want to connect with others as well in that way. And so, um and also, yeah, thinking about the trolls, it's like we have such a community of of people sharing sharing light, and I believe that light overcomes the darkness. I don't know about you, but I just have to have that that that faith and that hope that if we just keep spiraling upwards towards light and we keep, you know, keeping our flame and our little light inside glowing and thriving, then that's all we can do, right? That's kind of where I'm at. So anyway. Um so over the next couple of weeks, I just wanted to say that while we're trying to find a place and while we're moving and uh, you know, getting settled in our new place, that hopefully we'll just be an external sanctuary. Uh please, please pray, pray for that or wish good vibes or energy on that for me and my husband. That would be helpful. Um but uh so the the journal entries here on the library will be a little bit uh um more uh sporadic, I guess, than they have been. But I I do this for me as much as anyone else, and it always will be. It's my place to not feel crazy inside my head and to to to extrovert all the stuff that sits in there. And whenever I do this and sit here, I feel calmer, I feel better. So having said that, I I need to find that balance of doing this while also packing. And I just I don't like packing. And I don't I don't like moving. And I don't know why we do it all the time, but probably because we're highly sensitive. And every place we move into, it's just like there's things that we can't stand, but instead well, in this case we have to move. Um, so but we couldn't stand the noise from upstairs. So anyway, it's it's it's hard. It's hard to find places to live as a highly sensitive person. So anyway, that was a tangent. Um, so journal entries will be fewer, yeah. Um, so while I'm doing my best to connect with you individually in the comments, which is impossible at this point because there's just so many just beautiful, beautiful comments from all of you. I I wish that I could reply to each and every one of you. So keep showing up in the comments. And, you know, that helps me to kind of be like, oh yeah, you know, that guy, he shared that that beautiful story, or that that lady, she was like, Yeah, I remember her. So just keep keep showing up. And um, but I like I like I always say here, we need to make sure we're looking after ourselves. So I need to look after my health and make sure I get some sleep and calm my nervous system down and not get to a place of panic. Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to cause you any panic. Anyway. Um, so my question to you is what is one thing that makes a space feel like a sanctuary to you? So this could be one thing in your external, external um space that you need that helps you to feel feel like it's your sanctuary, or an internal thing, like you listen to a certain song when you're feeling overstimulated, or you know, community-wise, it's like you go and connect with this person in your life that helps you to feel not so alone, or whatever it is. I would love to hear what it is for you that helps you to feel a sense of peace, calm, connectedness, whatever that is. Anyway, I wish you so many blessings. Signing off for today, XOXO Kate.