← 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
#325 | The Secret Tool for Stress Relief Hidden in Sensitivity Itself — for Highly Sensitive People
00:15:42
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By the end of this episode, you'll see how your sensitivity, the very thing that makes stress feel harder, is also the key to healing it more deeply. 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 the real reason stress builds faster for highly sensitive people. The built in healing intelligence of sensitivity that most HSPs overlook, and how to start using this inner intelligence to prevent stress from building up in the first place. 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. Today, I want to share a very simple principle that lies at the heart of stress management for for highly sensitive people. Before we do, let's look at why stress builds faster for highly sensitive people. The reason for this is manyfold, and one of those is that we tend to reach the threshold for overstimulation quicker than other people. The famous analogy is the bucket. So we reach reach the limit of our bucket faster than other people. Maybe you could say we have a smaller bucket and so the same amount of water poured into that bucket is going to overflow much more quickly because this bucket is a little smaller than other people that maybe have a large bucket and can just keep on taking it and taking it before they reach that point of overstimulation. And there's reasons for this. It's not that we're handicapped, it's that we are aware of many more things than the average person. This is what being sensitive means. We are aware of the subtleties in any interaction with other human beings. We notice subtle changes in our environment. We're sensitive to all kinds of things that other people may be aware of, may not be aware of, and as a result, our buckets get filled faster. So maybe a fairer analogy would be that we have a similar size bucket as other people, but we have more water being poured in all the time. So either way you want to think about it, we reach that point of overstimulation where the water's overflowing quicker than other people. The other thing that contributes to this is that we process things deeply. And this means that even though there's a lot of stimulation coming in, we don't stop there. We keep on processing that information and we start making New connections within that. We are often creative with that information. And so the result is a huge amount of information coming out of a. An already large amount of information coming in from outside. It's kind of akin to having an app on your computer that is a very powerful app that uses a lot of processing power. You know, something like with graphics and something that just takes up a lot of memory to use. So we process things like that. We're not just a simple word processing program. We're more like a, you know, like a movie processing program that takes a lot of energy and memory to function. So when you combine these two things, more stimulation coming in from the environment because of our sensitivity, we notice more with more processing of that information. You've now got the setup for reaching overwhelm. And in a much quicker way. Then we add one more layer to it, which is our stronger emotional responsiveness. In other words, we feel things deeply. And so there's an emotional component to all of this. We're sitting with this information, we're feeling where it lands and it's bringing up other stuff from deep inside. And we're connecting with that and experiencing that and processing that as well. So there's like layers of processing going on inside of us. And then if you add one more thing, it makes it so. Makes us so prone to getting stressed as highly sensitive people. And that is if we have some kind of self silencing going on or some kind of inner conflict or self judgment going on on top of it, which is fairly common for us. And if that is there, then the same like the. The stuff that we're experiencing is trying to be contained because we think it's too much or we think we're too sensitive or we think we're too much in some way. And in that regard, we're now using energy to hold that in or to keep our emotions under control or trying to keep it down in some way. So if you put all that together, there is a formula there for getting stressed. And that's why stress can affect us quickly and can overwhelm us quickly and how we can get stuck in chronic stress as well. But today what I want to talk about is the built in healing intelligence of sensitivity that we normally don't pay attention to. Sensitivity is not a problem. Sensitivity itself is not something that causes stress. It's just how you use your sensitivity. So notice that all of this starts. All of this overwhelm starts with things, with. With the mind and the senses focusing outward. We're noticing other people, we're noticing things we should be doing. We're having reactions about things that we believe we should or want to do or need. And we're self silencing because we don't want others to think badly about us. The reference point in all of this is outward. Other people, other things around us that we're trying to stay in line with or trying to please or trying to be not causing upset around us. So because of this, our sensitivity is focused in this outward direction. Then whatever comes down the pipeline, we're just sitting ducks and we just get bowled over by it. Because we're focused in that direction. We're, we're taking that seriously. We're doing that as we're trying to manage that as well as we can. But the point that I want to bring up is that we can just as easily turn that whole sensory machinery that is pointed outwards and just point it inwards instead. The same sensitivity that allows us to see things clearly, to notice subtlety, to be empathetic, to be analytic, to be intelligent, and to be great caregivers. If we point that same machinery, that same sensitivity and intelligence towards ourselves, then the opposite of overwhelm starts to happen. We start to get in touch with ourselves. We start to notice what we want and what we don't want. We start to be there for ourselves when we're stressed. And when we're there for ourselves, we're the best caregivers in the world because we really pay attention. We're so empathetic and compassionate. If you're literally giving the same kind of care to yourself that you would give to a loved one, you are going to be nourished, you're going to be healed. You're going to find your way out of stress and into a place where you can be yourself and you can be heard and be seen and show up for yourself and for others as well. So how do you start using this inner intelligence, using this idea of turning your sensitivity towards yourself? How can you start doing that so that you can prevent some of the stress that comes as a result of being outward? I think the first way is to just start noticing. Sensitivity in its essence is noticing being aware, being aware of things. So notice how you feel. Notice when you're tired and then give yourself a break. Notice when you just have a leaning to go in this direction. Listen to that. That is huge. That is essential information. So when you notice these subtle little whispers and feelings and emotions and needs inside, then you will start having inner direction and your, your world, your ability to organize and do things can start to revolve around these, these little quiet things inside of you. And it becomes less and less about the other people and their needs and everything around them, around us. Doesn't mean we're not aware of that. It doesn't mean that can't be a part of how we show up. But if we are pointing our sensitivity towards ourselves, we're also going to have a chance for our needs to be met, for our feelings to lead us, and for us to become clearer about what it is that we're interested in or how we want to proceed in any particular situation. Notice how you like what you want. Maybe there's just a something that excites you, something that interests you, something you're curious about. Follow that. That can be something that can be the centerpiece of how you serve others. Maybe you love working with children, for example, and you get excited about that, you enjoy that, and so you want to do more of that. And so that can be something that becomes a bridge out into the outer world. But it starts by listening to what it is that you want or what is it that you need. Maybe there's just a need for some more rest, or maybe there's a need for. To figure out a problem. And if you turn your sensitivity towards that need, you will begin to use all of the information that you gather about that to problem solve that and to create a solution for yourself. Just like you would create a solution for your boss at work or for a friend in need. You are the friend in need in this case. And all it takes is turning your attention towards yourself and letting that whole great ability that comes with being a highly sensitive person serve you in that way. So the feeling I'm left with today is that sensitivity is not the problem. It's too much outward facing. And this is not a problem that is unique to highly sensitive people. All human beings tend to face outward too much. We're trained that way, we're brought into the world that way. We have to learn to fit into the world. We have parents to guide us. We're trained to look outward. But the problem is when we start doing that too much, we forget to look inward. So if we can turn our attention inwards, suddenly all the things that we are good at on the outside can be brought. All those tools for serving in the outward direction can be brought to serve us in the inward direction. And this is balance. It's not that we want to go completely inside and forget the outside world. That would be also imbalanced but we tend to be too outward. So let's bring in a little inward to find that balance point. In this episode, we looked at the real reason stress builds faster for highly sensitive people and that is because we have more information coming in. We're processing it deeper and just is a lot. We also looked at the built in healing intelligence of sensitivity that most HSPs overlook. And that is the ability to be there for ourselves as much as the ability to be there for others. And finally, we looked at how to start using this inner intelligence to prevent stress from building up in the first place. And we do that by listening, by by noticing, by paying attention to our own needs, our own wants, our own fine feelings. Those can be guiding for us when we pay attention. 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 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.