← 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
#313 | How Do You Avoid Overwhelm as an HSP When There's More That Needs to Be Done Every Day Than You Can Accomplish?
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By the end of this episode, you'll discover how to skillfully manage the seemingly infinite number of pulls on your time and attention as a highly sensitive person. 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 multiple demands drain highly sensitive people so quickly, what happens when you ignore the stress and why it builds, and how to handle life's demands with more balance and clarity as a highly sensitive person. 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. Look at your life for a second. Look at all the demands on your time, all the things that you're required to do for your work, for your family, the infinite projects that keep getting put onto your plate, the number of emails you have to keep up with, the number of clients you have to talk to, the number of people you need to report to in your life. There's a lot of pressure from a lot of different sides. And then add in all the things that you want to do, the things that light you up, that you want to get better at. You know, maybe they're hobbies, maybe they're sports, maybe they're learning activities or artistic activities. Now try putting all of that into a normal day, a 24 hour day, or a seven day week, or a 365 day year, and you will experience, as I know you already have, overwhelm. This is way too much. It's not possible to fit all that stuff in there, and yet we still try to do it. So let's look at it from the point of view of highly sensitive people. Why is it so hard for us? Why do we get overwhelmed even more quickly than other people in this crazy modern world that we live in? The first reason is that we process things more slowly and more completely than other people. And so when you throw 5, 6, 7, 10, 20 different things that we're now responsible for or that we have to respond to, or that we have to organize and create. When we throw all of those at us at once, even someone who's not highly sensitive is going to get overwhelmed. But even more quickly, as highly sensitive people, we are going to get overwhelmed. We process things more slowly, we take our time with things. We're good when we go slow. We're built for depth. And that means that if you're trying to do too many things deeply, then it's an impossibility and you can end up feeling very stressed very quickly. We also tend to look at the connections and implications of everything that we do. There's this saying that HSPs look before they leap and they, I sometimes say it's like we do our trial and error in thinking before we actually take action. And so that means that we're looking at the outcomes, we're looking at the implications of what we're doing. We're wanting to leave things in a good place. When it's all said and done, we want to do a really good job. And this ability to think things through thoroughly is what allows us to do a really good job. But unfortunately we can't do this in multiple arenas at once. It's just not possible. You know, if you're trying to be a full time working full time on one project and then full time on another project, it's mutually exclusive and it is, it's extremely difficult for anyone. But when you look at how deeply we go into our problem solving, how deeply we work through our projects, it's even harder for us as highly sensitive people. And it goes without saying that as HSPs, we reach overwhelm more quickly than other people. And so we also need more downtime. And as a result, if our downtime is filled with other competing needs because another project is our second full time job or our third full time job, then it's not sustainable and we burn out. So what happens if you ignore this stress? Why does it build up? If you ignore this, you're going to first feel frustrated because you're falling behind. You're trying to do things you want to do well and you're not able to and it feels very frustrating. It can make you feel anxious as well because you want to get that project done and you want to do a good job. There's also a lack of satisfaction that comes in to anything that you're working on or anything that you need to be doing. Because we are satisfied with depth and with completeness and we know what that looks like and we're aiming for that even subconsciously. So if we are ignoring the stress of having too many different things coming at us, we can end up feeling very dissatisfied with everything that we're doing. Our need for balance also is not fulfilled. So we stop resting. We don't rest as deeply, we don't take as much time off we don't sleep as much. We don't nourish ourselves. We don't allow time for recuperation, which is an essential. It's an essential part of being a highly sensitive person. We have to take time to recuperate after we have made an effort. And if we don't, it just accumulates. This fatigue accumulates, and it wears down our ability to do things and wears down. It makes us more stressed, and we start to lose heart in what we're doing. We can have a sense of loss of meaning, even. Even in we're doing things that we know we used to love. But because there's so much of it, and because it's unfulfilling, because we're not able to actually accomplish it, then there's this sense of loss of connection to the meaning that drew us into that work in the first place. It feels like we're skimming, just going in lots of directions at once. And this can be very uncomfortable for anyone, but especially for highly sensitive people who value depth and connection to our own internal integrity as much as we do. Then if this keeps going, we can start making mistakes. We may skip things. We may start working longer hours and become less coherent. And then we just start flubbing, or we just don't have the heart. You know, we sit down to do a project, we even have the time and just can't do it because it's just too much. It's. It's a sense of overwhelm. And we can end up feeling alone because of this. Because we may have this sense that everyone expects us to keep producing amazing work because we know we're capable of it and other people do as well. And we end up not being seen as a human being. And we stop allowing ourselves to be seen that way. We keep covering it up and trying to keep up the appearance that we're still doing, managing everything well. And then you can. The feeling is that you're alone in this. And it can be very disheartening and very stressful. This can lead to burnout. It can lead to depression, can lead to outbursts of anger. It can even in extreme cases, lead to a loss of job or loss of friends or ultimately a loss of connection with ourselves. So this is not a small thing. The world in which we live is bombarding us with tons and tons of things to do, tons of things to buy, tons of things to think about and learn. And it's infinite. It's absolutely impossible. So unless we learn how to grapple with this, how to Manage this, then we're just a sitting duck and we're going to just end up getting more and more stressed as a result. So how do we handle life's demands with more balance and clarity? As a highly sensitive person, there are many aspects to this. The one I want to focus on today is on the level of planning. And what I mean by this is planning on the highest strategic level and on the tactical level as well, sort of in the nitty gritty. On the strategic level, which I think is the most important, it is essential for us to get clear on what is our main purpose, what are we trying to do here and what are we not trying to do. So what I suggest is list out, put on paper all the projects that you're working on, all, all the things that you're responsible for, whether they're at work or at home, and get them all out there, including things that you want to do for yourself, and put them all out there and start to order them in terms of importance. Put the most important at the top, put the less important down, and then the least important at the bottom. You may be surprised to see how many different things you're being expected to do at any given time. And so seeing them on paper is a very helpful thing. You can almost make it like a brain dump where you're just, oh, yeah, there's another thing that I'm supposed to do and another thing, and this is what I have to do, and this is what I want to do, and on and on. So organize these, get them out, look at them strategically and find out what's more important and what's less important. Ultimately, I believe that only one thing can be your top priority. This is the one thing that you want to make more the center of your activity. It's your main purpose for now. And if you're serious about your sanity, I suggest that you pick just one thing. So out of this whole list, it can feel very strange to just pick one thing and your mind will be going, yeah, but I have to do all of these things. I don't have a choice. There's so many things on my plate, and people keep putting more things on my plate. But I'm inviting you, if you want to get more stress free, if you want to be more effective in what you do, if you want to get more satisfaction out of what you do and lead a life that will actually be contributing something to the world, I invite you to look and see if you can find the one thing that will be your top priority for now doesn't mean that that has to stay the top priority for the rest of your life. It won't. But one thing at a time. So pick one. What is the one thing that's going to be the center of your focus for the next month while. And so circle that. Now there may be several others on the list that you're still very interested in and things that you may have to do. You don't have the choice of only doing one thing that would be unrealistic. But there are things that you have to do on a regular basis that are secondary. Your job with these is not to do them very, very well. Like your top priority, not to make them the center focus of your life. Your job with these is to just get by with them. Do the least you can to do a passing version of that and to like maybe they will take longer. Maybe that's like the long term project. You know what, I'm really only giving this 15 minutes a day or I'm only going to work on this one hour a week or I really, I love this. But it's going to have to be kind of an average job. Like I'm going to do like decent job on this, but I'm not going to try to polish it, give you the outline, to give you the basics, that kind of thing. There are all of these projects in the middle range here. They need to be dumbed down a little bit because we're being as highly sensitive people naturally more like over responsible. We're being super responsible because that's our nature. So this is a, this is a challenge to us because we like to do everything well. But I want you to play with this challenge and see if you can dumb it down a little bit and accept a. Like that your goal, like what doing Redefine what your goal is. If your goal is to do it perfectly, then it's going to be a problem. If your goal is to do an average job of it, then you're going to have a chance of finding a little more balance. And then there are going to be others on your list. These projects and interests and goals where you doing them is going to be something you want to actually avoid doing. Literally your job is to fail at doing those things. To say no even when they're tempting. You know, like I was opening YouTube the other day and I got this ad in French because I study French and I enjoy that of how you could learn the piano. And there's this guy is talking to you in French and he's saying here's how you can learn the piano. It's like a really cool idea. And I'm like, oh, that would be so much fun. Oh, my God. This is something I need to say absolute no to, because that is. That is going to take a lot of time. It is not my main priority for me, and I have a lot of other things that I'm already wanting to do that are more important. So obviously, if that suddenly became more and more and more and more important, then I could move it onto the deck and start moving it up and maybe even it'll end up in first position someday. I don't think so, but it's possible. My point is, saying no is to ourselves is sometimes the hardest thing to do. And it's essential here if you want to stay sane. So the purpose here is to simplify your life. And this is something that you have control over, but you have to be strategic. You literally can't do it all, and pretending that you can is a recipe for disaster. Now, just for a second, I'll talk on the tactical level. When you're dealing with a project, you're dealing with the pressure of demands coming from all sides. You have to get good at ignoring. And that means turning off notifications, isolating yourself a little bit, and focusing on just one next step in a project. There can be hundreds of things to do in one project. What's your one next step? Focus on that and leave that as your main thing that you're working on. Then it's like you pull the blinds, you turn off everything, and you ignore all the other things that you could or should be doing. And that way you can actually make progress in a meaningful way and it will be satisfying. And then another tactical thing is just to end your day at a reasonable time and spend time off every day in order to stay balanced and rested and creative. So the feeling I'm left with today is that the problem is not the situation, but our expectation that we should be able to do it all. This is a deep underlying belief that can make your life a living hell. So accepting the fact that this is not possible is a way towards inner freedom. It requires humility. It requires accepting our limitations. But if you can follow this simple invitation, it can give great satisfaction. Because then when you focus on just one main thing, you finally start to focus on something that you're consciously interested in doing, and you start actually being able to do it well. And that is what gives us, as highly sensitive people, satisfaction. In this episode, we looked at why multiple demands drain highly sensitive people so quickly. What happens when you ignore this stress and why it builds how to handle life's demands with more balance and clarity as an hsp. So thank you 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 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@TrueInnerfreedom.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.