#293 | Do I Care Too Much? Why You Doubt Your Sensitivity & Compassion as an HSP and How to Finally Embrace It

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Episode Overview

Podcast: Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People (HSP)
Host: Todd Smith
Episode: #293 | Do I Care Too Much? Why You Doubt Your Sensitivity & Compassion as an HSP and How to Finally Embrace It
Date: October 8, 2025

In this Self-Compassion Wednesday edition, Todd Smith dives deep into the recurring question many highly sensitive people (HSPs) face: "Do I care too much?" He explores why HSPs struggle with self-doubt around their empathy and compassion, the toll this takes if left unchecked, and practical ways to nurture self-acceptance. The goal is to help HSPs confidently embrace their nature, rather than see it as a flaw.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Universal Doubt: "Do I Care Too Much?"

• Common Experience: Todd shares how being told—or feeling—that you "care too much" is nearly universal for HSPs.
  • Personal example: Todd recounts family caregiving, and how doubts about "caring too much" creep in both from external comments and internal reflection.

    “Have you ever had someone say you care too much or imply that in some way? I know I've had that thought and I think people have told me as well.” (02:13)

• Origins of Doubt: HSPs often absorb societal judgments, feeling “something is wrong” because they are in the minority (15–20% of the population).

2. The Codependence Label and Internalized Shame

• Misuse of Labels: Terms like “codependent,” originally from addiction support contexts, are often unfairly applied to HSPs’ natural caring.
• Negative Self-Judgment: HSPs can internalize shame, thinking they need to fix or change themselves—and this erodes self-confidence.

  “If there's one thing that we tend to absorb as highly sensitive people, it's this idea that there is something wrong with us.” (04:44)

3. The High Cost of Doubt: Emotional and Physical Toll

• Paralysis and Conflict: When doubt is unchallenged, HSPs feel conflicted about caring, leading to guilt and loss of confidence.
  • Metaphor: “One foot is on the accelerator, the other foot is on the brake. And guess what happens when you do that? You burn a lot of rubber and you burn up the motor and it becomes very difficult…” (07:15)
• Withdrawal and Burnout: Self-imposed limits to ‘avoid caring too much’ result in emotional withdrawal and even physical stress.
• Cycle of Self-Improvement: A constant drive to “improve” oneself can become another layer of unnecessary stress.

4. Finding Self-Acceptance as an HSP

• Check In with Yourself:

  • Main Strategy: There’s no universal standard for “too much caring”—you must assess your feelings and body’s inner signals.

    “The only way to find out if you’re caring too much is to check in with yourself. And I don’t mean check in with your thoughts and beliefs about what you’re doing. What I mean is check in with your feeling, check in with your heart,” (09:20)

  • Red Flags: If caregiving feels stressful or off, it may be “too much.” If it feels like natural duty or brings joy, it’s likely in alignment.
    • Example: Caring for grandmother felt joyful and right; caring for in-laws felt like a natural, non-burdensome duty.

• Motivation Matters: Reflect on your motivations—are you acting from guilt, fear, or genuine desire? If driven by compulsion or self-judgment, re-evaluate.

  “Maybe like you're trying to prove yourself, or maybe you're trying to avoid criticism and you're trying to do something with some other motive going on, and it feels off...” (11:19)

• No Universal Measure: Each person's (and each situation's) “right amount” is unique—especially for HSPs, whose baseline differs from the majority.

• Know the HSP Trait: Understanding your own trait helps foster self-acceptance. HSPs’ brains are wired for heightened empathy; studies back this up.

5. The “Whose Business Am I In?” Question

• Self-Reflection Tool: Regularly ask yourself, “Whose business am I in?” Only control what’s within your power.

  “If I’m trying to control someone else and it’s not something I can control, then it is going to be stressful. Then maybe I am caring too much and maybe I’ve gone too far into that.” (13:21)

• Clarity on Boundaries: Caring can appear excessive to outsiders, but only you know the alignment of your own heart and motives.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Societal Judgments:

  “We are a minority, we’re only 15 to 20 percent of the population… when you hear their judgments, you may start to buy into the idea that there really is something wrong with you.” (04:17)

• On the Internal Conflict:

  “One foot is on the accelerator, the other foot is on the brake… it becomes very difficult and it can be hard on your health, both mentally and emotionally and physically.” (07:16)

• On Self-Assessment:

  “Your stress will let you know. Your good feelings will let you know.” (11:42)

• On Research and Self-Acceptance:

  “They’ve done studies on mirror neurons and different parts of the brain… we have more emotional response to stimuli than other people. This is our nature.” (12:57)

• On the “Whose Business?” Tool:

  “My business is what I can control. It’s my desire to help, it’s my ability to help… If I can feel clearly that I’m just solidly in my own business, then it may look like I’m in someone else’s business to someone else. But I know for myself that I’m in my own business.” (13:45)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Topic | |------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00–02:13 | Introduction and realization of the “I care too much” doubt | | 02:14–05:00 | Origins of the codependence label; feeling like an outsider as an HSP | | 05:01–07:50 | The impact of internalizing “too much caring”—erosion of confidence, shame cycle | | 07:51–09:54 | The conflict of wanting to care but judging oneself; metaphor of car accelerator | | 09:55–12:24 | How to discern the “right amount” of caring—checking in with body and heart | | 12:25–13:44 | The role of science—mirror neurons, empathy, & the HSP trait | | 13:45–15:34 | Using “Whose business am I in?” for boundary clarity | | 15:35–16:12 | Episode wrap-up: self-assessment and self-acceptance, upcoming episode tease |

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Conclusion

Todd Smith's compassionate exploration of the “Do I care too much?” doubt offers practical wisdom for HSPs:

• Recognize how societal judgments plant self-doubt.
• Understand that only you can discern your “right amount” of empathy.
• Use self-inquiry—“How does this feel in my heart?” and “Whose business am I in?”—to navigate your boundaries.
• Cultivate self-acceptance by recognizing the science and normalcy of your sensitivity.

Final message: Continuously check in with your heart rather than rely on others’ measures of caring. Embracing your innate compassion is not just okay—it’s essential for inner freedom.

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Transcript

[A]

By the end of this episode, you'll discover how to become a fairer critic of yourself around your caring nature so you can find confidence again.

[B]

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.

[A]

In this episode, you'll discover why it's a common self doubt for highly sensitive people to think they care too much. What happens if you allow this doubt to run unchecked, and how to find more self acceptance around your caring so you can feel confident again. 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. Have you ever had someone say you care too much or imply that in some way? I know I've had that thought and I think people have told me as well. When I think about the way some of the life choices I've made, for example, caring for my grandmother the last couple years that she lived, coming and being a part of the caregiving team for my father in law and then again for my mother in law over years I sometimes think, well, what would people think? Like, are you just caring too much? Like giving up too much of your life in care of other people? So this is a doubt that can come in and can make you feel uneasy about doing something that seems otherwise to be the natural thing to do. So if you buy into the idea that this is too much, then your mind will start to explore that and start to find reasons to justify that. And pretty soon you go down into a rabbit hole. One of the things that can, you can end up on is one of these concepts that originally came out of the like addictions area where we talk about codependence. And this came out of like Al Anon and places where someone would be enabling an alcoholic to continue that habit. And so codependence originally started, as far as I understand, started coming out of that idea. But it's become very popular and for whatever reasons it can stick. And we can start judging ourselves as being codependent and we may or may not be codependent. But it's interesting to see how we can use that concept, maybe fairly, maybe unfairly, to bolster this doubt. Like, oh, I'm caring too much, there's something wrong with me. And if there's one Thing that we tend to absorb as highly sensitive people is this idea that there is something wrong with us. We are a minority, we're only 15 to 20% of the population. And so compared to everyone else, we do care more. And we are more sensitive in all the ways that you may understand already when you compare to other people and when you hear their judgments, you may start to buy into the idea that there really is something wrong with you or that there's something you need to change. There's something unhealthy, you know, like we're codependent, we're hypochondriac, we are cowards, we can't say no. And the list goes on and on. So this is a very well worn path for many of us as highly sensitive people. And it just erodes our self confidence. When you look at caring, caring about things, caring about people, and you start putting this overlay of judgment about this being something wrong with you, then you're going to start feeling bad about what you may naturally be doing. Now there is a fine line between caring too much and not caring enough. And we'll get into that, or I should say between caring too much and just carrying just the right amount, you know, and we can get into that a little bit later in this. But it's interesting to see how quickly we can adopt this idea that there's something wrong with us. And then what happens is we tend to think that we need to change because of this assumption. And we internalize a kind of shame. So now even when we're doing something, maybe following our heart, doing something that feels right, we can be judging ourselves and feeling shame for that. And that very quickly erodes confidence. What happens if we allow this to go unchecked, this doubt that you know, that I care too much? What can happen is you feel guilty whenever you care. And so even though you're doing it, even though it seems like the, you know, the impulse is coming from inside, there's this judgment happening in the mind at the same time, which causes a conflict. So one foot is on the accelerator, the other foot is on the brake. And guess what happens when you do that? You burn a lot of rubber and you burn up the motor and it becomes very difficult and it can be hard on your health, both mentally and emotionally and physically. The other thing that happens if you allow this doubt to keep going that you care too much, is you'll try to stop yourself. You may just start putting limits on yourself, holding yourself back, holding your heart back. And that's the Tragedy is that when I hold my heart back, then my heart is built to love, it's built to expand, it's built to go to the edges of the universe and beyond. And so when I hold my love back or my heart back, it hurts. And it causes all kinds of stresses on the inside we've already looked at. Another thing that can happen is that you start thinking something wrong with you and you start feeling bad about yourself. You think you have to fix yourself. You may start going into self improvement and trying to read and study and do all kinds of things to try to improve yourself, when in reality it may not need improving. And in the end only you can tell that. So if this doubt runs and runs and runs, if it runs your life, then you become more isolated, you get out of touch with your heart, you feel guilty and you think something's wrong with you and you try to change yourself. And in the end you start losing confidence in a big way. So how can we find more self acceptance around caring so that we can feel confident again? There's really only one way to find out if you're caring too much. And it sounds simple, but it is actually profound. The only way to find out if you're caring too much is to check in with yourself. And I don't mean check in with your thoughts and beliefs about what you're doing. What I mean is check in with your feeling, check in with your heart, check in with you, the deeper aspects of you. Does it feel stressful when I'm carrying, you know, this will be in a particular situation. Does it feel stressful? Does it feel like, and I don't mean like that, it's just hard to do. But does it feel stressful like there's something off, you know, like there's something doesn't feel quite right? Pay attention to that. That may be actually giving you a clue that it is too much or there's something off there or does it come from a place of feeling good, feeling naturally drawn to do that? Like I, I didn't have a choice. So my grandmother, she got scammed and lost a bunch of money and, and someone needed to be with her and she was in her 90s and I, it felt like a joy to move there and be with her and you know, mow the grass. She had like this huge farm and I was like every day mowing on the grass, working in the garden with her, doing these, like just being with her, listening to her stories, it felt like joy, it felt like, it felt like a good thing. So does it feel good inside? Is there. Does it feel like a natural sense of duty? Maybe it's not joy. Maybe you don't feel like, oh, this is just wonderful. I happen to have a good relationship with my grandmother, so that made it easy. But, for example, with my partner's mother and father, taking care of them feels right. It feels like a natural sense of duty for me. Not. Not like a heavy duty duty, but just feels right. And so I follow that. I trust that. I feel that in my heart. So notice this. Notice how you feel. Your stress will let you know. Your good feelings will let you know. For example, is there a feeling of, like, stressful compulsion connected maybe with the ego here? Maybe like you're trying to prove yourself, or maybe you're trying to avoid criticism and you're trying to do something with some other motive going on, and it feels off, like now you're giving more than you actually want to because you're trying to get something, and that doesn't feel right. And then you could say, honestly, maybe I am giving too much. Maybe I am caring too much. But it's not always the case. So you have to check it out on a case by case basis and find out for you. No one else can tell if you're caring too much. They may be able to see some things that you don't see, but they don't have access to the feeling in your heart. Only you do. So there's no objective measure of what too much caring is. And then when you bring in the fact that being a highly sensitive person means we have a different baseline than other people caring too much for someone else. Like, what we're doing may look like caring too much from another point of view, from someone else's point of view. But for us, it might be just in the sweet spot. Perfect. We're giving exactly the right amount. We're doing it in a way that feels connected to ourselves, and it's wonderful. But from someone who's not highly sensitive, this may look like, oh, my gosh, you're really giving way more than you should. And all kinds of judgments can come in. So keep this in mind. There's no objective measure, only your own experience. Another thing that helps is to study the HSP trait, learn about it, learn about how we are wired. We're just naturally more empathetic than others. We have, you know, they've done studies on mirror neurons and different parts of the brain that light up when we see pictures. And it shows that we, we care more, we get more involved we, we actually have more emotional response to stimuli than other people. This is our nature. So the more you understand what it means to be a highly sensitive person, what this trait actually is, the more self acceptance you will also find for yourself. Finally, one thing that can really help is to ask yourself a simple question. Whose business am I in? And this seems like a simple question, but it actually is a very subtle question. And there's all kinds of gray area between my business and your business. And sometimes it looks like I'm in their business, which might look like it would be off, but I'm actually in my business. So my business is what I can control. It's my desire to help, it's my ability to help. It's my, my just my natural tendency. Someone else's business is what they can control. If I'm trying to control someone else and it's not something I can control, then it is going to be stressful. Then maybe I am caring too much and maybe I've gone too far into that. But if I can feel clearly that I'm just solidly in my own business, then it may look like I'm in someone else's business to someone else. But I know for myself that I'm in my own business. So the feeling I'm left with today is that you have to be more precise when evaluating yourself. Only you can know if you're caring too much. Only you can tell. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't your feeling of stress or your feeling of alignment. You're feeling that it feels right. We'll let you know. In this episode we looked at why it's a common self doubt for HSPs to think they care too much. And basically it comes down to the fact that we take in these judgments from other people and from ourselves that there's something wrong with us. And so we even start to doubt the things that may actually be working fine. We also looked at what happens if you allow this doubt to run unchecked. And it can erode your confidence and it can make you feel like you should change yourself in some way. And finally we looked at how to find more self confidence around your caring so that you can feel confident again. And this comes from checking in with yourself. There's just no substitute for that. There's no rules, there's no absolutes. It's a case by case situation. And you have to get in the habit of checking in with your heart, with your emotions, with the deeper parts of yourself to see if that feels good for you. The right amount too much. When you listen, you will find these answers. So thanks again for listening. It's always great to explore with you. 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.

[B]

Tired of feeling overwhelmed by everything all at once? Take the HSP stress [e-mail] you'll also find a link in the show notes.

[A]

The test will reveal your unique sensitivity.

[B]

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.