1 min read

Sandpaper in the soul

The sensitive places in you transforming to become calm and creativity
“There was sandpaper grating on my soul.”

~ Irina, a coaching client

Some of the most articulate people on the planet, it seems, come to me for coaching!

I get blown away by the evocative images clients share.

I owe the title of this post to Irina’s voice note:

[It feels like] I have sandpaper inside. At the slightest critical or negative vibe, a sidelong glance, it scratches. I get irritable, as if my insides are kept inflamed by its scraping; the tiniest thing seems to touch a raw nerve.

Bit by bit, our coaching work is dissolving this sandpaper in my soul. That familiar scratchiness is getting replaced by calm and creativity.

I’ve been looking for help to find my core, get rooted in myself, so that external events don't affect me as much. I am grateful that you know how to find those scratchy places inside me, deftly and tenderly, and how skilfully you help me apply the healing balm and dissolve the triggers.

Irina’s image of internal sandpaper speaks to my own experience. For decades, I felt that I was ‘over-sensitive’, ‘thin-skinned’ or ‘too easily wounded’.

It seemed just the way I was.

As I found ways to dissolve my own ‘sandpaper’, I began to feel more robust.

These days, I would question whether ‘sensitive’ is a way to describe a person. It might serve better as a description of a state: something on the inside is grating.


You probably already know some of the places where the smallest disturbance tends to leave you unsettled.

Let’s dream together: What would your life be like if that ‘sandpaper’ dissolved?
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