The First Step Away — When High Sensitivity and High Sensation Seeking Both Ask You to Change
The moment where both truths meet — the part that longs to stay, and the part urging you to grow.
There are moments in a woman’s life when something inside her shifts so profoundly that she can no longer pretend she hasn’t felt it. Something old begins to loosen, not because it was wrong, but because it has completed its work.
I’m standing in one of those moments now.
After 31 years on the land I grew up on — the place stitched into my bones, the place that held both my deepest joys and heartbreaks — my husband and I are preparing to leave. The gardens we built, the orchard we nurtured, the creek I played in as a child… all of it will belong to someone else.
And what’s extraordinary is not the move itself, but what the move is revealing about me, as a dual-wired woman, both highly sensitive and high sensation seeking.
Because this transition is showing me the internal push and pull that so many women like us live with every single day, a battle I was unaware of until only a few years ago.
This process is showing me something else, something I didn’t realise until I learned how to see myself through this dual-wired lens:
The tug-of-war inside us is not a flaw. It is a doorway.
The Grief and the Thrill — Two Truths at Once
For a few months, I’ve felt the ache of letting go. The heaviness in my chest, and the quiet grief hidden in the small daily tasks — sweeping the deck, picking veggies, walking the familiar paths and trails.
This land is my tūrangawaewae.
My place to stand.
My family’s history, my ancestors, live in this soil.
The highly sensitive part of me didn’t want to release any of it. She clings to memory. To meaning. To roots.
And at the very same time, another part of me — the high sensation seeker — is already leaning toward what comes next:
A smaller home.
A simpler life.
Beach walks and cafés.
More space for A Balanced Life.
More weekends away, creativity, rest.
Grief and excitement.
Longing and possibility.
Tears and adrenaline.
Two truths, both loud.
Two truths, both valid.
This is the lived experience of dual wiring — a body and heart pulled in two directions, yet ultimately longing to walk in one.
When You Feel “Stuck,” It’s Usually the Wiring — Not the Circumstance
What I didn’t understand right away was this: My deepest fear wasn’t the move. It was the fear of staying stuck.
Stuck carrying the physical labour the land demands.
Stuck under financial strain.
Stuck far from community.
Stuck in a home holding old grief.
Stuck without the energy to grow the work I love.
That “stuckness” wasn’t circumstantial — it was the tension between my sensitivity (hold on) and my sensation seeking (break free).
For most of my life, I didn’t know this. I thought the chaos meant something was wrong with me. I didn’t realise it was simply my wiring asking for a new direction.
When these two parts misunderstand each other, it feels like:
Paralysis
Overwhelm
Indecision
Exhaustion
Longing for clarity but drowning in emotion
But when you learn the pattern, the tension becomes a compass. Sensitivity protects meaning, and sensation seeking fosters expansion.
Together, they point to the truth of what needs to change, both compass and map through unfamiliar territory.
And Then Something Shifted
We met a sensitive real estate agent, a woman we instantly trusted. I felt her empathy and immediately connected as two kindred sensitive women can.
She walked slowly.
Listened deeply.
Understood the story of the land.
Saw its beauty without trying to polish or diminish it.
She held the belonging and the becoming, and something in me unclenched.
The grief didn’t vanish; it moved. The excitement didn’t overwhelm; it grounded.
I was able to exhale, and my sensitivity relaxed as my sensation-seeking stepped forward with a bright, energetic flame of excitement.
For the first time, they began walking in the same direction. And I realised: This is the perfect story to open the new A Balanced Life website, because this is what it feels like to be a dual-wired woman in transition.
This is what it feels like inside your heart.
Why This Story Matters for You
If you’re a midlife woman with high sensitivity and high sensation seeking, you know this landscape:
You feel deeply.
You crave beauty, connection, and meaning.
And you also crave change, novelty, possibility.
For most of your life, these traits have collided rather than cooperating.
Push, retreat.
Hope, exhaustion.
Expansion, collapse.
Not because you’re broken, but because nobody ever explained your wiring.
This move — this letting go of a dream that didn’t unfold the way I hoped, and stepping into a future both softer and exhilarating — is dual wiring in motion.
It’s the path A Balanced Life is built upon: You do not need to silence one part of you; you need to understand how to let both parts speak.
The Practices That Helped Me Through the Shift
Transitions like this one are not just logistical; they are somatic, emotional, cellular. Here are the practices that are helping me stay steady while everything inside shifts:
1. Talking to someone I trust
Letting myself speak the grief aloud softens it. Hearing it reflected gives shape to what feels overwhelming.
2. Journalling without editing
I write the raw, messy truth — fear, hope, resentment, excitement, all of it — and uncover what’s actually beneath the surface.
3. Allowing myself to grieve
Not trying to “be positive.” Not rushing the letting go. I’m honouring my grief by letting it flow whenever I need.
4. Hand-on-heart grounding
A simple palm to my chest.
A slow exhale.
A reminder: I am here. It’s safe to feel this.
5. Self-soothing instead of self-silencing
Warmth, gentleness, small comforts, softening the nervous system instead of pushing through it. I’m giving myself the time and space to feel, release, and process.
6. A somatic release ritual
Feet grounded.
Arms lifted overhead with a conscious inhale.
Folding forward, letting my arms dangle toward the earth on a slow exhale.
Rising again like a wave.
Repeating until something inside quietly unclenched.
These practices don’t erase the emotions — they make room for all of them, and allow the energy of them to flow through me.
A New Season for A Balanced Life
This move marks more than a physical transition — it marks the next evolution of this community.
A new website.
A new home base.
A clearer understanding of the women I’m here to serve.
A deeper commitment to guiding you through your own life shifts with steadiness and compassion.
Because my journey off this land mirrors the inner work so many of you are doing:
Letting go.
Discovering.
Grounding.
Honouring sensitivity.
Respecting sensation seeking.
Building a rhythm that fits who you’re becoming.
The Lesson I’m Carrying Forward (and Offering to You)
You are not meant to silence one part of yourself to satisfy the other. You are meant to listen to both.
When you honour what your sensitivity protects… and what your sensation seeking desires… You arrive at the threshold of your next chapter.
For me, that chapter begins with packing boxes, decluttering and letting go of the life we made here, in this place, clearing the cobwebs to make space for a new chapter — a new path.
For you, it might begin with a conversation, a breath, a tiny act of courage. It might begin with stopping long enough to listen to your sensitivity, and let your sensation seeking rest for just a moment.
Either way: Your wiring is not your enemy. It is your guide.
And this new season of A Balanced Life is here to walk beside you.
Closing Practice: A Breath for Transitions
Place a hand on your heart.
Feel your feet on the ground.
Take one slow inhale, and whisper internally: “I can hold both truths.”
Exhale fully.
This is how change begins.
A quiet moment on the land I’ve called home for most of my life, sharing what big change feels like inside a dual-wired nervous system (high sensitivity + high sensation seeking).
If you’ve ever felt pulled in two directions at once — overwhelmed and energised — you’re not alone. This is what transition looks like in real time.
