← 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
#314 | Why Highly Sensitive People Hide Their Gifts—And How to Start Living Authentically Anyway
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By the end of this episode, you'll see why so many HSPs hide their gifts and how to stop dimming your light just to fit in. 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 five subtle ways highly sensitive people dim their gifts without even realizing it. The hidden fears and beliefs that keep us from showing up fully, and a new path to living authentically without losing your relationships or your grounding. 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. When I was young, my mom sometimes asked me, todd, why do you hide your light under a bushel basket? And I didn't have an answer for that. But I knew she was onto something. And I think it could be a comparison between introvert and extrovert. She was more extrovert. It could be something to do with being a highly sensitive person, could be due to whatever thoughts I was believing. But in any case, was a hesitancy to be seen or to be to put myself out there. If you have had a similar experience, if you feel this fear, a little bit of putting yourself out there as a highly sensitive person, you're not alone. There are a lot of us that tend to do this. It's not, I don't believe, necessarily a part of being a highly sensitive person, but it's certainly a tendency that we can fall into quite easily. I also want to say that sometimes putting yourself out there is overrated. And there's a lot of emphasis in our society to do that, to be out there when maybe being in there is as important as being out there. That said, let's look at five subtle ways that highly sensitive people end up dimming their gifts, sometimes without realizing it. So these again, are not part of the trait of being highly sensitive, but due to beliefs that we have or fears that we have, stresses that overlay our sensitivity and can end up keeping us from sharing what we do have to offer. So one of these ways that we tend to dim our gifts is by toning down our insights to avoid being too much. As HSPs, we often pick up on nuance, we pick up on emotion and subtle patterns. But instead of sharing these insights, we often Hesitate to do so for fear of being seen as overthinking or trying to be too deep or intense. And so we end up saying less than we really know. You know, a version of that when I was young, was in school. I always tried to do well in my tests for my teachers, but I always kind of hid my grades around my classmates. It's like, I don't want to be too smart, don't want to be too deep, don't want to be too anything. So as HSPs we sometimes have maybe not sometimes. I'd say pretty consistently we have learned to see our sensitivity as some kind of a flaw. You know, others don't have it. So we start to think there's something wrong with us and we try to toughen up or, or play it cool or act unaffected. And we don't speak up when something feels off. So this is something that hides our natural gifts, which are emotional intelligence and intuition and discernment and depth and creativity. When we try to pass as less sensitive to fit in, then we lose access to these gifts and we become out of alignment with, with our true nature, which often leads to this feeling of tension and anxiety and exhaustion and self doubt. So that's one of the ways that we tend to hide ourselves. Another is by avoiding leadership or visibility roles. And this is a good one for us because we're, we're so. We see things so deeply and we like to think strategically. We have a lot of intelligence, but we may tend to shy away from roles that would put us in the spotlight. Spotlight not because we lack ability, but because we fear criticism or conflict or just energy overwhelm. You know, I was, my partner and I were the president and vice president of our pickleball club a few years ago. And I took a back seat and it worked because I could talk to my partner and get ideas to him. But I could have taken, I could have been the president and actually been the head of the organization. I would have been capable of that. But I pulled back a little bit, you know, don't want to be criticized. I need to do a really good job. I need to make sure that everybody's happy. These kinds of fears can avoid us taking leadership when actually we would probably do a really good job. Another thing which I just touched on, which is also important, is we tend to avoid conflict. And we're, we can get overwhelmed by conflict. And that's natural. That is part of our sensitivity. But sometimes our desire to keep the peace may make us bite our tongues and withdraw and we may fear being misunderstood, or we may fear that others will, will have some kind of issue. And so we avoid letting our real voices be heard. We don't say the hard truth sometimes, and therefore our insights can be lost. We can be, they can be locked inside. And we never get a chance to say what would actually make a big difference for people in the world around us. So again, it's fear that holds us back. Another place where we sometimes hold ourselves back is when we think that others may not get it. And we naturally, as highly sensitive people, will notice things that others miss. A lot of subtle patterns or emotional undercurrents or even just intuitive hunches. But because these perceptions are hard to explain or sometimes get dismissed by other people as being overthinking, then we may have learned or trained ourselves to stay quiet. And so we end up censoring our insights. We downplay our gut feelings sometimes and we wait to be asked, asked, and we often aren't asked. And so really helpful insights and directions get missed because we are afraid to speak up or to share the insight that we're actually having. And then the fifth way is by overcompensating with perfectionism or people pleasing. We hide ourselves because we think we're not quite there yet. It's not quite, you know, our idea hasn't been fully fleshed out and confirmed. And this is a kind of a form of perfectionism. And it shows that there's a little bit of fear there of some possible criticism. Because if I haven't fully worked it out and fully tested it ahead of time, there's a chance that I might be wrong in some space or I might not be fully thought through in some way. And so we end up holding back what would be actually a really good seed idea that others could build on and that could become something helpful in, in a group, for example. So instead you can end up being agreeable or just polished and put together instead of sharing your natural creativity and vulnerability. And we end up hiding the raw insights that could be sparks to create an amazing flame. So let's look for a second at what are some of the fears and beliefs that keep us from showing up fully. So in terms of toning down our insights from afraid, being afraid of being too much, it can be thoughts like if I say what I really think, I'll overwhelm people or no one wants to hear this much depth and so I'll just stay superficial, or they'll think I'm over analyzing or trying to be superior. That's a good one. Or my truth will make others uncomfortable and then they'll pull away. Or it's safer to stay vague, agreeable and quiet. These are question thoughts that you can question because they are what stop you from sharing your gifts. Similarly, with visibility or leadership, thoughts can be something like I'm not strong enough or thick skinned enough to handle criticism. This is a great one to question. I used to think I was terrible at handling criticism and I've gotten so much better through inner work. Being seen means being judged. If I'm visible, I'll burn out or get energetically overwhelmed. People will expect me to have all the answers and then I'll disappoint them. I'm not enough as I am, I have to be someone else to lead. These are the kinds of beliefs that can get in the way of you sharing your gifts. And if there's a fear of conflict, then it'll be thoughts like if I speak up, it will create tension and I won't be able to handle it. Or they'll think I'm too sensitive, dramatic or irrational. Or if I share what I feel, I'll hurt the relationship or be rejected. Or my truth doesn't matter. As much as keeping the peace or disagreeing means disconnecting. We believe these thoughts many times and it's good to stop and question some of these beliefs and see if they're really true in specific situations. Another set of beliefs, if you're holding back because others may not get it, can be something like if I say this out loud, they'll dismiss me and think I'm weird. Or no one else sees what I see, so maybe I'm wrong. Or my intuition isn't valid unless it can be explained logically. That's a really good one. Or it's not worth the effort trying to explain something subtle. Or they'll misunderstand me and that's worse than staying silent. So these kinds of thoughts just put the brakes on us sharing anything of value. And then when it comes to perfectionism, thoughts like if I'm not perfect, I'll be rejected or criticized. My real self is too messy, too emotional, too much. I have to earn my worth through doing, helping and performing. If I say no or set limits, I'll disappoint people and lose connection. Or I can't relax or be vulnerable until everything's under control. So all of these thoughts, you know, a few of them may resonate with you and some of them may come up in specific situations. All of these thoughts can be questioned Just because you fear something doesn't mean that it's actually true. And, you know, I use the work of Byron Katie as a way of questioning stressful thoughts and beliefs and fears. And it's a powerful way of identifying what's bothering you, what you're believing, going through some simple questions and then exploring opposites in a way that is completely respectful of that inner part of me that's stuck and confused. So my invitation to you is to stretch out of your comfort zone, like question your beliefs and then test it in real life. Try putting a toe in the water. Try just stepping into the ring a little bit more. I find, and it's scary for me too, I find that the more I do this, the greater energy I find comes up from inside. Because there's a kind of alignment between the inner and outer. This makes a beautiful kind of bridge between my inner world and the world of everyone that I run in contact, come in contact with. And so this starts to make that risk worthwhile. But it's something you have to play with, something you have to test. And I think the first step is questioning the thoughts that stop you from sharing what is truly a gift to share. So the feeling I'm left with today is that as HSPs, we have a lot to give in this world. It's only our beliefs and fears that stop us from sharing our gifts. So our path forward in terms of peace, in terms of our own peace, is to focus on simply serving with our gifts. How can our gifts actually serve the needs around us rather than focusing on how others will receive or judge our service? Because when I'm really in touch with how my what I'm doing could be of service, it becomes less important if other people don't understand it. In this episode, we looked at five subtle ways that highly sensitive people dim their gifts without even realizing it. The hidden fears and beliefs that keep us from showing up fully. And a new path of how we can live authentically, but without losing any of our relationships or our grounding. Because we're actually grounding into ourselves, checking back with our own experience and then testing it in our own real life experience, rather than just basing our life on fears that may or may not actually be true. So thanks for listening. It's fun 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. Tired of feeling overwhelmed by everything all at once. Take the HSP stress test@truinnerfreedom.com youm'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. Sa.