About HSPconnect
Our Community
HSPconnect is a private, international membership community and growing movement for Highly Sensitive People who want deeper connection, mutual support and real belonging.
We bring together HSPs across countries to find each other, support each other and create communities where sensitivity is understood, valued and well resourced.
Story of HSPconnect
HSPconnect was created from a simple truth: HSPs need each other.
Many sensitive people have spent years feeling different, isolated or over relied upon. HSPconnect offers a steady, supportive place to belong, where members can meet online, gather locally, form friendships and learn to practise more mutual, emotionally mature ways of relating.
What began as a private online community is growing into a movement of HSPs supporting HSPs, one connection at a time. Through small group gatherings, shared practices, member Spaces, in person events and support to start local HSP Cafés or small groups, members can help create the kind of connection many of us have longed for.
Values / ethos
- Prioritising meaningful, thoughtful connection rather than fast, surface-level interaction.
- Creating an environment where people don’t just join—but actively experience being seen, heard, and accepted.
- Encouraging conscious, compassionate ways of relating to build trust and lasting relationships.
- Offering a regular rhythm of connection through ongoing gatherings, not one-off events.
- Holding identity-aware spaces where all members—especially those from marginalised backgrounds—feel welcome and supported.
- Empowering members to host, share, and contribute—moving away from hierarchy toward collective care and participation.
- Supporting self-understanding and personal development through connection with others who share similar traits.
- Viewing sensitivity not as something to fix, but as something valuable that can shape how we relate, support, and live.
- Growing an international community where HSPs can find each other across countries, cultures and life stages.
- Supporting members to create local connection, including HSP Cafés, small groups and in person gatherings, with encouragement and guidance from HSPconnect.
Meet the people behind HSPconnect
Between us, we bring many years of professional experience, lived understanding and care to HSPconnect.
We created HSPconnect because Highly Sensitive People need more than information about the trait. We need places to find each other, support each other and create real belonging.
HSPconnect has grown from our shared commitment to depth, emotional safety, mutual care and genuine community.
Cindy’s journey
Cindy Gale founded HSPconnect because, after many years of working with Highly Sensitive People, she kept seeing the same quiet ache: sensitive people who understood the trait, but still felt alone.
As an HSP herself, and a UKCP registered psychotherapist practising since 2002, Cindy has spent the last 15 years specialising in therapeutic work with Highly Sensitive People. She has trained with Elaine Aron, Jacquelyn Strickland and Barbara Allen, and has taught, facilitated and held groups for sensitive people for many years.
Again and again, Cindy saw that information about the HSP trait could bring relief, but it was not enough. What many HSPs were missing was real connection with others who understood sensitivity from the inside. Not another course. Not another self improvement project. A place to belong.
HSPconnect grew from that understanding. Cindy has been gathering HSPs in community since 2011, through regular meetings, circles, retreats and shared practices. HSPconnect now takes that work further, creating a private international community and growing movement of HSPs supporting HSPs, one connection at a time.
Cindy’s work is also shaped by a deep love of nature, spirituality and the emotional realities of living in a time of ecological and social upheaval. She trained as a Work That Reconnects facilitator with Joanna Macy in 2009 and was mentored for many years by Malidoma Patrice Somé. She also coordinates therapeutic support for the Climate Psychology Alliance, supporting people living with eco distress and the emotional weight of these times.
At the heart of Cindy’s work is a simple conviction: sensitive people need each other. HSPconnect exists so that HSPs can find each other, support each other and create belonging.
Cindy’s therapy practice is at cindygalehsp.com
Priyal’s journey
For Priyal Shah, sensitivity has always been connected with conscience, courage and care for life.
Raised in a Jain family, Priyal grew up with a deep respect for non violence, interdependence and the sacredness of all beings. Those early roots shaped the way he understands sensitivity: as a capacity for awareness, compassion and responsibility in a world that often moves too fast and asks too little of the heart.
As a Yoga Ācārya and facilitator of The Work That Reconnects, Priyal brings an embodied and spiritually grounded approach to HSPconnect. His work helps sensitive people come back to the body, steady the nervous system, reconnect with meaning, and remember that we are held by something larger than our individual struggles.
Priyal joined HSPconnect because he believes HSPs need more than self understanding. We need each other. We need places where sensitivity is respected, where spiritual depth is welcome, and where people can lean into community rather than carrying everything alone.
At HSPconnect, Priyal is helping to create a movement of sensitive people who support one another, lift one another and create belonging. His invitation is simple: find each other, support each other, and remember that sensitivity can become a source of strength when it is rooted in community.
Connect with Priyal at HSPGURU on Instagram
Be part of the HSP movement
HSPconnect is a growing international movement of HSPs supporting HSPs, one connection at a time.
Find other Highly Sensitive People online and in person. Build friendships, create collaborations, join gatherings, and get support to start something local, such as an HSP Café or small group.
Find each other. Support each other. Create belonging.
