I am Maria Hill, I live in Maryland and am a highly sensitive person. Like other HSP's, I did not understand why I was so different which, when I was young. At that time being an HSP seemed like a liability, now I think it is an asset - or can be. Being different made me very curious about the world and how it works and why it works the way it does.
Essentially, I am a synthesist, which means that I investigate many ideas and information and seek understanding and insight. My favorite question is "why?" and I like best, the deepest and truest answer I can find. That probably explains why I have so many books and am always trying to learn more.
Education
I have three degrees: a BA in languages from Tufts University, an MBA from Babson College and a BFA in Painting and Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University. I started my adult life working in the health care field, and then, after my MBA, transitioned to the computer industry where I worked for IBM for almost 10 years. Since then I have become a painter, printmaker, and a reiki master/teacher My art website is: Infinite Shape.
WorkAfter I graduated from Tufts, I spent nearly 10 years in the health care industry mostly at Children's Hospital in Boston in various supervisory, administrative and recruiting positions. I started my MBA while I was there and when finished transitioned to the telecom and computer industries where I worked in sales and marketing. I spent another decade in those industries including some great years at SBS and IBM.
Learning about HealthI started investigating health while I was still at IBM, because I had a recurring problem with blood clots. I learned that I have a genetic predisposition to phlebitis which I have had numerous times, several of them almost fatally. Getting healthy, therefore, was a must because I could either work with the needs of my system or remain ill. However, I found that getting healthy was not such an easy challenge because the wealth of information is not only overwhelming but also often contradictory. Too often it seemed that there were more experts than answers.
I started my journey to health with juicing and vitamins, and when I heard Deepak Chopra speak on a PBS program I knew he was teaching about something special and starting investigating Ayurveda. My first step into Ayurveda was learning Transcendental Meditation which is a wonder and which I love. Because it works so well, I decided that if Ayurveda got meditation right they are probably getting other things right as well. They do.
Once you become familiar with Ayurveda - and there is a lot to learn - and start to integrate it into your life you can feel so much better. I certainly did. Practicing Ayurveda requires a daily routine which makes a huge difference in my ability to cope with stress. There is something in following the system that causes a wonderful safe and happy feeling that is hard to describe, but it does feel like bliss. Eating the right foods for my body's system and the right foods for the season help create a natural feeling of wellbeing which makes it easier to sustain myself throughout the day. I have found that Ayurveda is worth the investment and I do not feel my best without it.
Along the way I have experimented with the Sedona Method, and EFT, visualization and Holosync. These are all good tools, but I have settled on Ayurveda because it is so comprehensive not only in handling mental stress but also in basic health habits. I have tried yoga which I love as well, and I like combining yoga with Nia, a newer interdisciplinary integrative exercise methodology whose simple movements pack a lot of fitness punch. I love how Nia works all the joints and all the muscles in a simple workout that builds a strong core and strong major and minor muscles. On the basis of my experience, Nia is a great tool for ensuring that you age well without aches and pains. Nia's capacity to increase total body strength help me to feel greater resilience, something I think all HSP's need.
To help my husband when he was ill, I learned reiki and I am now a reiki master/teacher. My husband relies on it to help him heal his legs from some strokes he had and always feels better after receiving his reiki.
I did not have any expectations of reiki when I started learning it, so I was a very pleasantly surprised at how effective it is at creating wellbeing. I call it meditation on steroids. My teachers were John Harvey Gray and Lourdes Gray of The John Harvey Gray Center for Reiki Healing in New Hampshire for Reiki I, Reiki II and Reiki II Advanced, and Libby Barnett, of Reiki Healing Connection for Reiki Master/Teacher Training. I am fortunate to have such wonderful teachers, who cherish reiki and their ability to bring reiki to others. They are among the many reiki pioneers in the United States who have had to be very dedicated to bring this healing method to us.
I created the website, HSP Health and its blog, HSP Health Blog, to help highly sensitive people, who like me struggle with stress and health issues. As many as one out of five people is highly sensitive. However, because high sensitivity can manifest in so many different ways very few people realized that an autistic person and a person with Tourette's were both highly sensitive people.
I hope I can bring insight and understanding into the subject of high sensitivity, and help HSP's find help and relief for their stresses and concerns. I hope I can also help those who are non-HSP's come to a greater appreciate of the gifts that highly sensitive people offer.