← 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
#281 | Why HSP Overwhelm Provides a Hidden Advantage for Those of Us Who Want to Tackle Stress Management at Its Root
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Why Are Highly Sensitive People Actually More Resilient Than Others? Have you ever felt like your sensitivity was a weakness—especially when it comes to stress? What if it’s actually your greatest asset? In this episode of Stress Management for...
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By the end of this episode, you'll discover why your chances for true resilience are actually higher as a highly sensitive person.
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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.
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In this episode, you'll discover the difference between having a protective buffer and being truly resilient. Why being highly sensitive is not the disadvantage it seems when it comes to stress and what stress is actually inviting us to as highly sensitive people. Welcome to this edition of Self Compassion Wednesdays, where we dive deeper into understanding ourselves as highly sensitive people by exploring the unique traits that shape our experience. I like to say, as a highly sensitive person, that we don't have much of a buffer. This may or may not be true. I'm not talking scientifically here, but the experience I have is that everything gets to me. There's no intermediary, there's nothing that's buffering me from all the different experiences that I have. That's why everything affects us. And so I like that analogy of a buffer because it gives me more understanding of what it's like to be a highly sensitive person in different environments. If you compare that to other people who don't have the highly sensitive trait, then they by comparison have more of a buffer. It means that they're not picking up on so many details, they're not processing so many details as we do. And highly sensitive people are also aware of so many connections to the details that we do pick up. That's part of the processing that we constantly do. And so when someone is not a highly sensitive person, they're not using all that, they're not making all those connections, they're not looking at all of these details in the way that HSPs do. So the result is they have a kind of stability that may make us, as highly sensitive people, feel a little envious. They can walk into a situation and just kind of like on a cushion, not be affected so much by the small things or not so small things around them. But this comes at a cost. The cost is that there's less awareness. And so there are advantages to having less awareness, but there are advantages to having more awareness. And the advantage for us as highly sensitive people is that we pick up on nuance and we're able to go deep with those and we're able to actually make connections that others cannot. And it's a gift. It's truly a gift. The downside is there's a little less buffer. It means that we are affected more quickly. But compare that again to someone who doesn't have the HSP nervous system. It also can mean that stress can pile up for a long time, imbalance can go unnoticed for a long time, and then it can strike in a big way because it was piling up all that time and no one was paying attention. So this is what I mean by there is an advantage to being highly sensitive because we pick up on the imbalances right from the get go. And potentially that can mean that we can deal with those imbalances when they're still early, when they're able to be taken care of. And this provides a major advantage. A lot of times I think every human being gets caught in this. But it may be the case even more when you're not highly sensitive, that you can get content with just treating symptoms instead of looking at the root causes, because it just seems like, oh, it's not that big a deal, you know, I'll just take an aspirin. But that's not really looking at what's causing the headache or what's causing the pain and the imbalance itself. And we as highly sensitive people tend to be interested in those root causes. So being sensitive is not a disadvantage when it comes to stress. It seems strange because we're more prone to stress. We're more seem to experience stress more, we notice it more, it bothers us more. But we actually have an advantage because of this little tolerance that we have. We have very little tolerance for stress. And that is actually a good thing. When you're not super tolerant of stress, you are motivated to do something about it. That is not a bad thing at all. We feel it right away, and we want to look at what's going on, we want to get to the root of it, and we don't want to do something else that's going to also create even more imbalance in trying to solve the initial imbalance. So this means that we are looking deeply at what could be actually causing our stress in the first place. And this means that we have the potential for actually finding that cause and addressing it. If you compare that to the extreme opposite of sensitivity, there's something noted every once in a while, and you know, science has discovered every once in a while, there are people born with no pain receptors whatsoever. They don't feel any pain, none the problem is they don't live very long. They might live a few years, maybe 10, 12 years max. They don't live long because they end up hurting themselves. And not knowing that they've hurt themselves. Put their hand on the stove and it just keeps burning. Or they cut themselves and they keep bleeding. And they don't notice that there's something wrong. Pain lets us know there's something wrong, and stress lets us know there's something wrong. One is physical, One is more emotional or mental. So it's not a bad thing to be sensitive. It has its disadvantages. It means there is a little more pain here and there. We're noticing these things. But it's not a bad thing, because being aware of it means that you can do something about it. On the other hand, being sensitive without taking care of ourselves. Or without doing the inner work that is needed to balance ourselves on a subtle level, that is miserable. That's like, oh, my gosh, no, I don't want to be sensitive and not be taking care of myself. I don't want to be sensitive and not doing inner work. Because then it is going to go from bad to worse. It is going to accumulate. And of course, that is something that we don't want. But if you combine being sensitive with the tools and the understanding the knowledge of how to take care of yourself and how to get to the root of stress, emotional stress, then you can become extremely resilient. This is a winning combination. Being sensitive and having the tools to deal with stress. That means you're going to become better and better and better at dealing with stress as it arises. And taking care of it at the very root. So that it doesn't grow into something that becomes harder to deal with. There's a great analogy from the physical sciences. It's called. It's an actual physical thing that happens with some metals. And there's some metals like iron or chromium, that display what they call as a passivation curve. And what that means is that the impure or rough metal, in its early stage, not been refined, Is surprisingly resistant to corrosion. Due to the randomness of the impurities. And, you know, like, just the way that it's set up inside of the metal. And. And so it's actually. It's very resistant in its impure state. But then when the metal becomes refined in the sort of intermediate state, it becomes more vulnerable to corrosion. Because there's something about the way the molecules line up. It's more uniform, and the corrosion can kind of propagate more easily across it. And so it becomes susceptible. But then if you keep going and you purify the metal even further, it becomes resistant again. And this is what's so interesting. It's like there is this stable kind of self repairing oxide layer on the metal that protects it from further breakdown. It's like stainless steel has this kind of protection. So when you think about us as highly sensitive people, at first we may, as you look at the scale of sensitivity, not just us as highly sensitive people, when you think about the scale of sensitivity, when there's a lot of insensitivity, then you can kind of get away with things. You're resistant if you're sort of becoming sensitive. If you're, if you're highly sensitive, you're going to be more bothered by things. And so it's going to be more of an issue, stress and it's going to be more of an issue. But if you go further with it as a highly sensitive person and you really do your work and you really take care of yourself, you can become more resilient. You can come to a place where even the things that would have bothered you before don't bother you. And that is an amazing proposition. And it comes from the idea that we have an advantage as highly sensitive people in our ability to deal with stress. Now this doesn't mean that we're going to stop being sensitive. It doesn't mean that we're not going to have to take care of ourselves or protect ourselves in certain ways. But resilience can grow as you deal with your stress. This also points to a kind of higher calling around stress management. The call of stress is really about going further, going towards something deeper. And that we could say is spiritual development, or you could even say enlightenment or inner freedom or true resilience. Like that is the possibility that is there for everyone. And for those who are interested and motivated in dealing with their stress, they can answer that call and start moving in that direction. So stress management is not just about taking an aspirin. It's not just about covering up symptoms or dealing with symptoms. It's about addressing the root causes of our suffering. And the root causes are often very, very subtle. So as HSPs, we're suited to doing this kind of work. We love to go deep. We notice the subtle, we feel the stress and we're motivated to do something about it. And we're capable of getting to the root of things. And not to mention, we're also very conscientious about doing our work. When you Combine all these things. The chances of making true progress towards a state of resilience are very high for highly sensitive people. So the feeling I'm left with today is that sensitivity brings a major advantage when it comes to stress management. It actually offers the possibility of getting the job done, of really addressing stress and becoming resilient in a very real way. In this episode, we looked at the difference between having a protective buffer and being truly resilient. And yes, it is good to build buffers around ourselves and to use buffering, but that's like the outer work. That's the surface level, and that is important, but it's not the whole thing. Becoming truly resilient means diving deep and dealing with the actual issues that are causing the roots of the stress. So we also looked at why highly sensitive people don't have a disadvantage when it comes to stress, but actually have an advantage. And that is we're more aware of stress when it comes, we're motivated to do something about it, and we're able to focus and are interested in going down into the subtle parts of ourselves that may be holding up this stress at its root. And finally, we looked at what stress is actually inviting us to as highly sensitive people. And it's inviting us to a state of actual resilience and a state where we can be ourselves, aware of our sensitivity, protecting our sensitivity, but able to sidestep the triggers, able to sidestep the actual impact of stress because of being so wide awake. So thank you for listening. It's great to explore this concept with you today. This program 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.
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Tired of feeling overwhelmed by everything all at once? Take the HSP stress test at truinnerfreedom.com youm'll also find a link in the show notes.
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The test will reveal your unique sensitivity.
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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.