← 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
#280 | How Saying No Can Be the Start of True Inner Independence—The Real Solution to Emotional Overwhelm
00:15:52
Do you find yourself constantly saying “yes” to others—only to feel emotionally drained and overwhelmed afterward? As a highly sensitive person, your deep empathy can become a double-edged sword—especially when it keeps you from saying "no"...
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By the end of this episode, you'll discover how to say no and finally break through the need for approval. Welcome to Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People, a podcast helping HSPs avoid overwhelm, eliminate stress, and find true inner freedom. 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 why not being able to say no is one of the primary causes of emotional overwhelm. Two powerful obstacles that can stop you from saying no, and how to do the inner work necessary to move beyond the fear of saying no and gain a new level of confidence in yourself. This is an edition of Breakthrough Mondays, where I share success stories and helpful insights for highly sensitive people on the path towards inner freedom. There are different kinds of overwhelm. Sometimes we think about physical overwhelm. You know, when you've just used your body to the max and it just can't go any further. There's a kind of physical overwhelm there, or maybe mental overwhelm, where you've used your mind to its max and it is starting to shut down, break down, it's unable to keep going. And then there's emotional overwhelm, which is where an emotional charge comes up and it is overwhelming. And these may all be related. You can have one with the other and they're not completely separate. But I want to talk for a minute about emotional overwhelm especially. And what I'd like to think about is what causes that, what causes this kind of feeling of overwhelm, this emotional overwhelm that can just really take over. When I think about it, I think it has to do with not being able to fulfill a need. When I have a need and I'm not able to fulfill it, my stress reaction starts to come up. And not just physical or mental stress, but emotional stress. Imagine for a second that you had to go to the bathroom and someone comes up and asks you to help them outside, right? Then if you can't say no to that person, then you're going to feel super overwhelmed because there's a need inside of you. There's a need, just a biological need. And you are. If you're not able to say no, you're not able to take care of that need. And that's going to cause alarm bells to go off inside. So I think of emotions as the kind of amplification process of alarm. Like, okay, we've Got a problem, We've got a need. And then now it looks like I'm really not going to be able to fulfill that need. Then emotions go on overdrive to try to even override our mind or our belief system or anything. Just a last ditch effort to get our needs met. And so when emotional emotions become overwhelming like that, it means that there's probably a need there, may have been there for a while that is not getting met. And when I can't say no to others and put myself first, then I'm ignoring that need. And it may be a strong need. And so I end up feeling overwhelmed. I like to say not having a, an ability to say no is like having an accelerator pedal in your car, but no brake. You can just keep going faster and faster, but you can't slow down unless by chance. It means that if you can't say no, then you're unable to do some of the most important tasks that we have to do. And I'd say probably the most important task that we all have to do as human beings is to grow up. You know, some people call it individuation, some people call it being yourself or finding your unique place in the world if you don't know how to say no. And it's a challenge for all of us as highly sensitive people because we're so empathetic. If we can't say no, then no one ever gets to meet the real you. No one actually gets to see where you are, who you are, what you like, what you're interested in. And you don't get to live that either because you have to fit in with everyone else. So know is a powerful word. It represents putting ourselves as important in this world as we put other people. It's not that we have to put ourselves only first. And we're the only ones that would be imbalanced in the other direction. For most highly sensitive people, we tend to be imbalanced in not giving enough time for ourselves or not being able to say no to the demands and wants of others. So let's look at two obstacles that can stop you from saying no. The first one is getting stuck in some kind of a ranking system of some kind. Like usually it's someone else's. And it can mean that you are putting someone else above you, you're seeing someone as above you. And this can be done in a negative way. Like somebody is controlling and powerful and they're abusing their power or just using it and they're keeping you in this kind of lower down position. But it can also be in a positive sense where you admire someone so much and looking up to someone so much that you may not be able to say no to them as well. So when you see someone as greater than you, what happens just naturally is that you may see yourself a little less on the scale, like you're a little lower down. I almost see it visually myself. I tend to be a visual person, so I find myself looking up, literally towards someone or looking down on someone. That's a different thing, but it's a feeling of inequality and very subtle. But I bet you if you went around looking at different relationships in your life or different moments in those relationships, you'll find yourself looking, you know, looking up, either wanting their approval or looking for something from them. And is something that can prevent you from saying no. Because if you're going to say no, it means that you're, you're going to be looking at yourself. And if they're above you, it's not possible to look at yourself because you're constantly checking with them. And you may feel like you have to get permission from them in order to do what you want. So that's one obstacle. Another is needing people to like you or to approve of you. Now, we are social animals and it's natural for us to. To want that and to be a part of a community where there's a mutual give and take of liking and all of that. However, this can become a sticking point if we get too attached to needing other people to like us or to approve of us. What this does is it instantly puts you in a position of dependence. And so even if you want to say no, you're instantly blocked because you don't want to risk losing their love or their approval. So you put that need for their approval above your own needs, maybe even biological needs or needs for rest or needs for something. And you put that above your own needs. So this is a little trap because the mind does want people to like us. But when it gets caught in that, it can be like, you know, like a drug where you're like, yeah, I want a drug, I want the drug. And I'm not even able to take care of myself anymore because I'll put getting that drug ahead of anything else that I may need. So how can we do the inner work necessary to move beyond the fear of saying no and start gaining confidence in ourselves? Learning to say no is not just a matter of technique or strategy. There have been books written on it. There are many techniques, there are many Things, and they are useful. And don't get me wrong, it's helpful to learn the words to say. It's helpful to know the approach to take. These tactics or strategies are helpful, but they're not enough. The core challenge is to loosen the beliefs that keep you unable to say no. Because even with all the tactics in the world, if you're still believing that somebody is above you, then saying no is just not an option. Or if you're believing that you need someone, someone to like you, saying no may not be an option. So how do you work with these deeper beliefs, these things that are driving us almost beyond our conscious knowledge? And how do we work with those, transform those in some way? What do we do? For me, this points directly to doing some kind of inner work. And what that means is we need to work with the emotional part itself, the part that's believing. I need them to like me, I need them to approve of me. The part that says they are more powerful than me or they deserve more than I do. This kind of comparison and ranking. So there's a part of us that buys into this and not all of us. A big part of us may be like, no way. No, I'm independent. I'm just as equal as they are, and I really don't need their love. You know, like, that may be true too. That's a certain level of clarity that may be there. However, if you're unable to say no consistently, it means there's a part inside of you that also is still buying into this need for approval or this belief that I'm less than and that someone else is in a more like a. More of a position of power. So how do you work with those parts? You first have to identify it, you first have to listen to it. And this requires being a little bit quiet and letting your emotion show you what it's actually believing. And to do this, to make this actually affect you, impact you on a real felt level. It's very helpful to go into specific situations with specific people, find a specific moment where you were unable to say no, and look inside of that specific moment and find out what you were thinking. Were you thinking that you needed their approval? Were you thinking that they were in position above you, that you didn't have a right to say something? These are the kinds of thoughts that you want to identify that are connected to that emotional feeling that is blocking you from saying no. So if you can identify those thoughts, then you can work with those thoughts. I use the work of Byron, Katie. It's a great way to question your stressful thoughts and that process. And it doesn't have to be that process. There can be many ways to do this. But what's important is that you hold the emotion as central. You hold that stuck part of you that is saying no. But I really do need them to like me. Like I want to hold that part and ask the questions to that part so that it can find its realizations. And if it discovers on its own terms that it really doesn't need someone's love or someone's approval, like that's a realization, that's something that affects the emotions, that affects the. The deeper feeling, not just an intellectual version of the same kind of work. So when you're doing inner work, it has to be connected to something real. That's why I use a real situation and that's why I always refer to the inner part of me that is emotional itself and allow it to be the one who is actually doing the work. So the feeling I'm left with today is that saying no involves turning back to myself and asking myself for my deeper truths instead of referring constantly to others. In this episode, we looked at why not being able to say no is one of the primary causes of emotional overwhelm. Two powerful obstacles that you can run into when you're trying to say no, and that can stop you. And one of those we saw was putting others above you, seeing others as being above you. And the other is needing or wanting someone's love or approval or getting attached to that. And we also looked at how to do the inner work necessary to move beyond the fear of saying no and gain a new level of confidence in yourself. This is not something you can just talk about. This is something you have to do. Inner work is a is a journey. It's something you have to walk through. And because it's experiential, you know, when we talk about something, we gain intellectual understanding of it. When we go through an experience, something changes in us and that's what's going to make all the difference. So thanks for listening. It's always great to explore this with you. And this program comes out three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Join me next time for Self Compassion Wednesdays, where we dive deeper into understanding ourselves as highly sensitive people by exploring the unique traits that shape our experience. Tired of feeling overwhelmed by everything all at once? Take the HSP stress test at 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, 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.