April Snow is a therapist who loves working with “Highly Sensitive Introverts who are ambitious and have big dreams for themselves but feel too overwhelmed to follow through or too worried to step outside the norm to live life on their own terms.” (That’s how she described it in our Conversations with Clinicians interview with her a while back.)
In fact, she has developed a strong niche in helping Highly Sensitive Persons set boundaries, stop feeling guilty about living life at a slower pace, listen to themselves and establish their priorities. She offers a variety of terrific resources including a new workbook titled, “Find your Strength: A Workbook for the Highly Sensitive Person.” In this interview, she shares more about that workbook and her work with us.
Meet April Snow
As she describes on her website, April Snow is
“a psychotherapist, author, speaker, and consultant in California who is on a mission to help Highly Sensitive Introverts and Therapists (HSTs) embrace their Sensitive Strengths and calm the storm of overwhelm, self-doubt, and perfectionism that stops us from living our best life.”
What Is a Highly Sensitive Person?
As she explains, a Highly Sensitive Person is an innate trait “that allows the nervous system and brain to process subtleties and details that most miss.” Like any trait, it has pros and cons, but unfortunately our society’s structure often leads to dismissing the strengths of the HSP. April Snow helps us to better understand why we might feel the way that we do, how to identify the strengths within this traits, and how to use mindfulness, self-compassion, and other practices to thrive.
Interview with Therapist and Author April Snow
April Snow has authored several books and courses. We are thrilled today to share more about her newest workbook from this interview.
In one sentence, how would you describe this new workbook?
Find Your Strength: A Workbook for the Highly Sensitive Person is an easily digestible and visually soothing workbook that will help you feel less overwhelmed, prioritize your unique needs, and discover your sensitive strengths.
Who is this book for? How would I know it might be for me?
This book is for folks who consider themselves to be highly sensitive or empaths. You know this book is for you if you’ve ever been called “too sensitive,” you’re highly empathetic and often put the needs of others before your own, you would consider yourself an emotional being, or you get easily overwhelmed or often feel anxious. Essentially, if you are someone who feels and thinks deeply, this workbook is for you!
What inspired you to create this workbook?
What inspired me most is the heartfelt interactions I am blessed to have every week with my highly sensitive clients, fellow therapists, and broader HSP community. Hearing so many stories from sensitive people who are having very similar experiences but feeling alone/misunderstood/weird/
You have another workbook, as well … can you explain the differences between the two for us?
My other workbook, Mindfulness Workbook for Stress Relief, goes in depth into the benefits, science, and practices of mindfulness. Find Your Strength is specifically written to help highly sensitive folks truly understand and embrace their sensitivity in order to access the gifts – intuition, empathy, creativity, etc.
What do you most hope people will get out of using this workbook?
My biggest wish is for folks to see themselves in the pages of this workbook and say, “I’m not alone and there’s nothing wrong with me.” As you go through the stories, research, journaling reflections, and exercises, I hope the puzzle pieces will start to fit together and you feel deeply understood. From that place of knowing yourself, you can then begin to honor your needs more and have more access to the good parts of being highly sensitive.
You also offer Sensitive School. Can you share more about what that is and how the workbook might fit in for people interested in those courses?
My Sensitive School is a collection of self-paced online courses and live monthly workshops for both Highly Sensitive People (HSP) and Highly Sensitive Therapists (HST). The courses help bring some of the content of the book off the page for folks who benefit from more interactive or audiovisual learning.
If you found the book helpful, you may also enjoy my monthly Self-Care Sessions where we dive into a specific HSP topic each month. These sessions can be attended live with the benefit of connecting online with other HSPs or you can watch the recordings at your own pace.
If you could say just one thing to someone who thinks that they might be an HSP, what would you say?
Your sensitivity is an important gift, even if you don’t quite understand how to embrace it yet!
Find out more about the workbook here: www.sensitivestrengths.com/
Learn more about April’s own journey from her podcast episode on Lauren Selfridge’s “This Is Not What I Ordered.”
