← Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People (HSP): Inner Work and Strategies for Coping with Stress, Overwhelm, and Negative Emotions
Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People (HSP): Inner Work and Strategies for Coping with Stress, Overwhelm, and Negative Emotions
#275 | How to Better Understand the HSP in Your Life (And Make the Relationship Easier for You Both)
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Are You Accidentally Stressing Out the Highly Sensitive Person in Your Life? If someone you love often seems overwhelmed or withdrawn, you might be missing crucial insights into what it really means to be highly sensitive—and how your everyday...
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By the end of this episode, you'll finally get what's really going on for the sensitive person in your life and learn how small changes can make your connection easier, calmer and more fulfilling. Welcome to Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People, a podcast helping HSPs avoid overwhelm, eliminate stress, and find true inner freedom. Todd I'm your host, Todd Smith, a facilitator of the work of Byron Katie. A way to question and reduce stressful thoughts. And you guessed it, I'm a highly sensitive person myself. In this episode you'll discover what most people misunderstand about high sensitivity and why it's not just being emotional. The Hidden Stress, HSP's experience in everyday interactions and how you might be triggering it without knowing. And simple ways to show up with care and clarity, even if you don't always relate to their experience. This is a special episode for people who have HSPs in their life, who love HSPs but may have trouble understanding how to relate to them or or what to do to improve relationships and make less stress in the connection. What most people misunderstand about high sensitivity is that it's not just being emotional, it's not just about this kind of over stimulation experience. A lot of people tend to see sensitivity when it shows up as stress, but they're really two separate, different things. And one of the ways to distinguish this is to understand that sensitivity. High sensitivity is a temperament trait. It's part of how some of us are born. And it's about 20%, 15 to 20% of the population has this trait. And it's marked by deeper processing, by more emotional and sensory awareness and a lower kind of threshold for stimulation. So that means that given the same environment, a highly sensitive person will become overstimulated quicker than a regular normal person that is not highly sensitive. And so that's the only thing, it's just more sensitivity. It doesn't mean that HSPs are too sensitive or are being dramatic or are overreacting. It's that they have a different threshold. And so understanding this makes a huge difference in finding compassion for the HSPs in your life. If you want to read more about it, you can read Dr. Elaine Aaron's research on sensory processing sensitivity. She's written a number of books that can go into a lot of detail about the trait that that HSPs have. And once you understand that that it's biological, it's not a personality flaw, it's not due to something they need to work on. Then you can start to understand them and start to hold them in a different space. So here are some things that can trigger HSPS that may show up in day to day activities and you may be doing this without even knowing it. So this can kind of give you a few tips of how to be around a highly sensitive person. Sometimes small little actions can make a big difference because we're tuned in as HSPs. So just interrupting, of course most people don't like being interrupted that much, but highly sensitive people may be more prone to getting overwhelmed by that. Remember that HSPs love to go deep. And so interruption is something that interrupts that flow and it can cause the normal kinds of reactions that happen when, when you don't get what you want. Rushing is another area where HSPs are sensitive. They like to take their time, they like to do things methodically, they like to do things really well. And so if there's a time pressure of any kind that you're putting on the HSP in your life, it can cause reactivity to show up quicker. Also, if you talk over an hsp, of course talking over anyone is not, not that welcome. But for hsps it's much, a much bigger deal. You know, like some people just talk over each other all the time and it's just not a big deal at all. For them it seems normal, finish each other's sentences and continue, you know, interrupting each other. But for an hsp, this can feel like it makes them want to shut down or makes them want to distance themselves. They can start reading meaning into that. And some of that of course, is something that you can, the HSP can work on. But some of it is just the natural tendency of being an hsp. They're more sensitive to this, they're more sensitive to having their feelings dismissed. So pay attention. Are you dismissing somebody's feelings? Are you doing something that is mildly unkind or slightly controlling? HSPs are going to pick up on these things and it's a great opportunity for you, interacting with the HSP to clean up your own, your own game. Like, can you be as in, have as much integrity as possible, be as kind as possible, be as just available and understanding of another person as possible. The more you can do that, the more it's going to support an HSP, but also support everyone in your life. Also, HSPs tend to internalize tension and they tend to take on responsibility for the emotional energy in the room. Now some of this of course is their work and they can question some of These thoughts that cause them stress, but just know that they're going to default into internalizing this. And sometimes we even feel as HSPs that we are a failure if tension kind of conflict broke out in the room or if there's something we didn't prevent that because we're really good at preventing that. We're really good at keeping harmony. And so just be aware that if you're constantly breaking the harmony, constantly shaking things up, it's not that it's a terrible thing to do, it's just that hsps may take that personally and it may be what's causing some of the reaction. Also, if you're kind of getting in their business a little bit, making quick decisions quickly, making them subjected to loud, cluttered environments, or making little jokes that come off as a criticism, or even saying little things like just relax or things like this, these are things that can tend to trigger an hsp. If you can be more accommodating, more open, more asking what's going on for them, then it can often lead to a feeling of safety rather than shutdown. We as HSPs often feel overstimulated by excess excess input, excess conversation, excess of everything. And we tend to react when people try to fix us or analyze us or try to calm us, or try to make it try to minimize our experience instead. What you can do with an HSP in your life is say, would it help to talk about it or would you rather have a little quiet time right now? This gives a lot of options and it gives a feeling of real safety. And that makes the HSP feel like, oh, I can take care of myself if I want to, but they're also available and you never know what they will choose. But that is a very gracious way of supporting an hsp. Also, one thing that's important is that when someone is highly sensitive and their reactions to seem to be intense because they have become overwhelmed, just know that that's their world, those feelings are their responsibility, they're not yours. And I use a great little process called the work of Byron Katie for questioning your thoughts. And one of the places this leads is seeing the difference between my business and their business. If you can understand this difference and navigate that, your business is what you think and what you feel, what you do. Their business is what they think, what they feel and they do. And so there's no need for you to fix them or suppress them or manage their emotions in order for you to feel okay yourself. And so I encourage you to do the work of Byron Katie on the HSP in your life and question your own stressful thoughts and then come back to your own business where you do have control and you can be peaceful even if they're feeling stressed. And then finally, here are a few just tips that you can use little ways you can show up with care for an HSP in your life Slow the pace of the conversation when needed. Ask before changing plans or introducing new topics. HSPs need time to process things. Give them space after an intense social event or even a long, deep conversation. Give them time to process and avoid teasing them about their reactions because this can reinforce a feeling of shame, which is very common for us as HSPs. And you can also think of it as like, we're in this together. There's a partnership here. Your calm is going to help their calm, and if you're open to them as a person, they're going to be more relaxed and naturally more open to you as well. So the feeling I'm left with today is that HSPs are not a mystery, they just reach overwhelm quicker than others. In this episode we looked at what most people misunderstand about high sensitivity, and most people tend to think that it means just being emotional, that they're too much. And that's not actually the case. We just have a lower threshold for reaching the point of overwhelm than most people. We also looked at the hidden stress that HSP may experience in everyday interactions and how you may be triggering that without knowing, for example, interrupting or rushing or talking over someone, or dismissing someone's feelings. And finally, we looked at simple ways to show up with care and clarity, even if you don't always relate to an HSP's experience. And that can mean just slowing the pace of conversation when needed, or asking before changing plans, or introducing new topics, or giving them space after an intense social event or other kind of stimulating experience, or just avoiding teasing them about their reactions, which can reinforce a feeling of shame. So thanks for listening. It's fun to explore this with you. This podcast comes out three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Join me next time for Strategy Fridays, where we think about specific things you can do to help manage stress as a highly sensitive person. So the feeling I'm left with today is that HSPs are not a mystery, they just reach overwhelm quicker than others. In this episode we looked at what most people misunderstand about high sensitivity, and most people tend to think that it means just being emotional, that they're too much, and that's not actually the case. We just have a lower threshold for reaching the point of overwhelm than most people. We also looked at the hidden stress that HSP may experience in everyday interactions and how you may be triggering that without knowing, for example, interrupting or rushing or talking over someone, or dismissing someone's feelings. And finally, we looked at simple ways to show up with care and clarity, even if you don't always relate to an HSP's experience. And that can mean just slowing the pace of conversation when needed, or asking before changing plans, or introducing new topics, or giving them space after an intense social event or other kind of stimulating experience, or just avoiding teasing them about their reactions, which can reinforce a feeling of shame. So thanks for listening. It's fun to explore this with you. This podcast comes out three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Join me next time for Strategy Fridays, where we think about specific things you can do to help manage stress as a highly sensitive person. Tired of feeling overwhelmed by everything all at once? Take the HSP stress test@truinnerfreedom.com you'll also find a link in the show notes. The test will reveal your unique sensitivity profile, including how your nervous system naturally responds to stimulation, circulation, emotions, social energy, and more. You'll also gain a clearer picture of how stress might be amplifying that sensitivity. Take the HSP Stress Test now. It's a powerful first step on your journey to true inner freedom.