Start Here ~ I Don't Accept Your Apology (And You Shouldn't Either)

Our world is forgetting how to feel and HSPs are keeping the pilot light of humanity burning.

The MindfulSense Mentor🧚 is now
H.U.S.H. ~ Highly Unapologetic Sensitive Humans

Whispering Truth so confidently that everyone shuts up to listen.

“I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I’m crying.”

The zoom room went silent as she took off her glasses and wiped her eyes, while sniffling. We were four months into The Creator Retreat Cohort 10-month Program.

The empathy in the virtual room was dense.

No one spoke.
Several compassionate hearts fluttered up the screen and filled up the chat.

Her apology was sincere, but something about it felt wrong. I’ve apologized for my tears and my sensitivity my entire life.

• 6yo, crying at my desk because Mrs. Monahan crossed out my name in the “Book About Me” and called me “over-sensitive.”

• 29yo, I apologized for crying at my own wedding.

• 40yo, I apologized for crying to my best friend about my divorce.

Something in me snapped.
I couldn’t watch her feel bad for her tears.

“I DON’T ACCEPT YOUR APOLOGY!”
I couldn’t hold back my throat. My thoughts erupted.
“I’m serious! Don’t apologize for being the most honest person in this room right now!”

In that moment, I was consumed with rage. . . not at my crying cohort member, or at anyone else in the zoom room. I was angry at the entire invisible infrastructure that taught us to apologize for feeling our feelz and expressing them in big ways. I was irate about the invisible expectations that convinced us that tears are an awkward inconvenience.

Nothing is wrong with being sensitive.

Everything is wrong with a world that taught us to shrink our bigness, muzzle our knowing, and apologize for feeling deeply!

The world is drowning in numbness right now.

In June 2025, right here in my own backyard of Minneapolis-St. Paul, a man disguised as a police officer assassinated Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman, her husband, and their dog in their Brooklyn Park home. Two months later, an eight-year-old and a ten-year-old were killed while sitting in church pews at Annunciation Catholic School during morning Mass—the first week of school—shot through stained glass windows while they were praying.

These horrors happened in MY city. In MY neighborhood. To MY people.

The world is LOUD. And the volume on traumatic events just keeps turning up.

And somehow (especially since COVID) we sensitive souls keep getting more sensitive. We wish the world would just hushhhhhh.

As sensitive souls, it’s our job to teach the world how to hush.

• We feel everything at maximum volume. We walk into a room and immediately sense the tension no one’s talking about.

• We cry at commercials. Our tear ducts are directly connected to our hearts, and our nervous systems don’t distinguish between “fake” trauma and real trauma. It all registers as pain.

• We need time alone to decompress after social events. After absorbing everyone else’s emotions, we need to wring ourselves out.

• We have weird side effects to medications, and chemicals, and “fake” foods. Because our bodies reject things that are not natural or honest.

• We know things without being told. We pick up on the unsaid, the unspoken, the energy beneath the words.

• We get overwhelmed by loud noises, bright lights, scratchy fabrics, or strong smells. Our systems are dialed to eleven.

• We feel other people’s pain as our own. Empathy is a full-body experience.

For too long, we’ve been called overly-dramatic, too-much, and too-sensitive, all while being told to toughen up, get a thicker skin, stop being so emotional. We’ve been pathologized, medicated, and marginalized for having the audacity to feel fully alive in a world that’s chosen numbness as a coping strategy.

We’re not “too sensitive for this world.”
We’re exactly sensitive enough to remind everyone else what it means to be human.

HUSH is for those of us who are done shrinking, apologizing, and pretending our sensitivity is a liability when it’s actually our most potent gift.

We’re reclaiming sensitivity as the superpower it’s always been.

When dissociation is happening at a collective scale, we sensitive souls are the defibrillators for the human heart.

So go ahead and cry.
Especially when it hurts like hell.
And don’t apologize for it!
Feel those feelz.
Remind the world what it means to be HUMAN!

Welcome to HUSH

Where we stop apologizing and start owning our sensitivity as superpowers! The world needs your tears, your rage, your joy, and your unapologetic heart.

I’m TeriLeigh (one name smooshed together)
I believe your sensitivity is spiritual intelligence, not something to fix.

I live at the intersection of Grounded Avenue and WooWoo Way. With over 30 years of experience, I’ve taught 200,000+ students and worked 1-1 with 2,000+ clients as a spiritual mentor, yoga teacher, chakra expert, and initiated shaman elder.

I am a highly sensitive soul with hyperacusis (hyper-sensitive hearing) and synesthesia (blending of senses). I’ve turned these sensitivities into a super-power of reading chakras and auras and translating the complex energetics I sense into practical tools for nervous system regulation and emotional healing.

I’ve been through bankruptcy and found abundance. I’ve endured divorce and embraced deep love. I’ve survived unemployment and built a thriving business.

I write with vulnerable authority about the messy, beautiful journey of spiritual awakening in midlife. I live in Minnesota with my husband “Hobbit” and our wonder corgi, Tosha, turning everyday moments into mindful magick.

HUSH 2025-2026 Topics

• November 2025 - S.A.D. Seasonal Affective Disorder Sensitive souls feel seasonal shifts intensely—light changes, barometric pressure, and darker days amplify everything. Learn to honor your body’s need to slow down instead of fighting winter’s natural withdrawal.

• December 2025 - Holiday Hustle The holidays demand what sensitive souls can’t give: forced cheerfulness, overstimulation, and relentless socializing. Get permission to create boundaries, skip events, and protect your nervous system during the “most wonderful” time of year.

• January 2026 - Creator Craze Sensitive souls have deep gifts to share, but hustle culture’s “post daily” advice destroys us. Build a sustainable creative practice that honors your need for depth, processing time, and nervous system regulation.

• February 2026 - Perimenopause Hormonal shifts amplify every sensitivity—sounds feel louder, emotions hit harder, sleep disappears. Understand why your nervous system is more reactive and learn to work with these changes instead of against them.

• March 2026 - Money Mindset Financial stress lives differently in sensitive bodies—scarcity triggers our nervous systems into chronic fight-or-flight. Heal your relationship with money so abundance can flow without constant overwhelm.

• April 2026 - Chakras, Auras & Energetic Boundaries Sensitive souls aren’t just feeling emotions—we’re picking up energetic information others miss. Learn to understand your energetic anatomy so you can tell what’s yours and what you’re absorbing from the world.

• May 2026 - Medical & Pharmaceutical Care “Normal” doses hit us like overdoses, side effects are severe, and doctors rarely believe us. Navigate Western medicine when you’re allergic to everything and learn to advocate for your hypersensitive system.

• June 2026 - Fawning & People Pleasing Sensitive souls learned early that our survival depends on managing others’ emotions. Unlearn the fawn response, reclaim your “no,” and stop sacrificing yourself to keep everyone else comfortable.

• July 2026 - Food Sensitivities Your gut-brain connection is hyperactive—foods that don’t bother others leave you bloated, anxious, or brain-fogged for days. Understand your digestive sensitivities and eat in a way that supports your nervous system, not destroys it.

• August 2026 - Love, Romance, & Relationships Sensitive souls love deeply, feel intensely, and need connection—but intimacy can overwhelm our nervous systems. Learn to stay open-hearted without losing yourself, and find partners who honor your sensitivity instead of trying to fix it.

Subscribe to HUSH

Subscribe to HUSH

Weekly permission slips for Highly (Unapologetic) Sensitive Humans who refuse to dim their light.

• Real talk from someone who gets it – my messy, vulnerable stories about navigating this loud world with a finely-tuned nervous system

• Case studies from my client files – how other sensitive souls are breaking free from hustle culture and reclaiming their power

• Guest wisdom from kindred spirits – conversations with practitioners, creators, and rebels who actually understand what it means to feel everything

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Join the inner circle of sensitive souls who are done apologizing.

• Monthly live community chats with other HUSHs dealing with perimenopause, seasonal depression, food sensitivities, people-pleasing, medical gaslighting, etc.

• Private community chat ask questions, share struggles, and connect with others who speak your language (office hours + ongoing support)

• Full workshop archive – every past training, mini-course, practice, and protocol at your fingertips

• Complete access forever – all posts unlock for you permanently (free posts get paywalled after 8 weeks, but paid subscribers never lose access)

Translation: You get the deep-dive support, the practical tools, and the community of people who won’t tell you you’re “too sensitive.”

In a world that’s forgetting how to feel,
we’re the ones keeping the pilot light of humanity burning.

I also run two cohort programs for sensitive souls here on Substack.

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And I write two more publications just for funzies…