← 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
#333 | How Narcissists Can Become Unexpected Teachers for Highly Sensitive People
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By the end of this episode, you'll discover how encounters with narcissistic people, as painful as they can be, can actually help you stop outsourcing your safety and start leading from your inner clarity. Welcome to Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People, a podcast helping HSPs avoid overwhelm, eliminate stress, and find true inner freedom. Todd 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 what it feels like when someone doesn't play by the emotional rules you depend on, the deeper reason HSPs feel so shaken in relationships that lack mutual respect, and the unexpected kind of power that emerges when you stop relying on others to get it. This is an edition of Strategy Fridays, where we think about specific things you can do to help manage stress as a highly sensitive person. Most highly sensitive people move through the world with a strong inner code. Be kind, be thoughtful, consider other people's feelings, respect boundaries, and don't harm anyone if you can help it. These aren't just preferences for us, they're safety structures, rules that create order, rules that help us feel protected, rules that make the world predictable enough for our sensitive systems. But then a narcissistic person enters the picture and suddenly the rules don't work anymore. Because narcissists don't follow the rules that we depend on. They don't care about rules. HSPs are guided by empathy and mutual respect, but narcissists operate by what they want in the moment. That's all they care about. They don't respect any kind of your rules are any kind of unspoken agreements. Like, you know, if I'm considerate of you, you'll be considerate of me. Or if I stay aware of your needs, you'll stay aware of mine. Or if something hurts me, you'll care. For an hsp, this can feel like watching your castle walls fall down as the enemy is battering them and crashing into your space. It can feel deeply unsafe, can feel deeply confusing. Because the rules we use to navigate the world, the rules that usually protect us, suddenly don't apply. It feels like the floor drops out from under you. Maybe you're in a conversation trying to be thoughtful. You know, you're being careful about your words, as you always do. You're tuned in to the other person's tone, body language, emotions. You're playing by the rules. Kindness, fairness, mutual respect. And then they Say something sharp or something dismissive or something cold, and you flinch. Not just emotionally, but even physically. You try to explain, hoping they'll soften or realize or even apologize, but they don't. In fact, narcissists will often twist your words. They may roll their eyes. They may act like you're the problem. And suddenly you're not just hurt, but you're confused and you're disoriented. You feel like you're speaking a different language. And no matter how carefully you try to navigate, they keep flipping the board on you. Your nervous system can go into overdrive, and you may start scanning, like, what did I miss? What did I do wrong? How do I fix this? But no amount of trying works, because you're up against a narcissist. So you're left feeling exposed and small and unsafe in a way that's even hard to name. It's like standing in a storm with no shelter, like realizing the social contract you live by doesn't apply to them. And now you have no map. That's the part that cuts the deepest. I believe. Not just that they hurt you, but that the rules you've counted on to keep you safe just evaporated. So let's look at the deeper reason why HSPs feel so shaken in relationships that lack mutual respect. First of all, HSPs build safety on mutual understandings. Many HSPs develop an internal social code from a young age. If I'm kind, respectful, aware of others, they'll be the same with me. And it works. Like, most of the time, it's not just about manners, it's about. It's a kind of survival system. And so mutual respect equals safety for us in many cases. And when someone breaks that, it feels like the floor drops out. We also tend to assume that reciprocity is the norm. HSPs often believe that relationships operate on unspoken rules of empathy. Like, if I adjust for you, you'll adjust for me. If I listen closely, you'll care about how I feel. But when someone, especially a narcissist, doesn't play by those rules, it's extremely disorienting. And it's not just disappointing, it feels personally threatening. Another point is that we experience emotional chaos more deeply. As highly sensitive people. We have more active mirror neurons in our brains, and we have deeper processing. So for that reason, any kind of conflict feels more jarring, and any kind of inconsistency feels more unsafe for us. And so something like gaslighting or emotional invalidation can feel like a Psychological freefall for us, the nervous system interprets this as danger, not just discomfort. We're also conditioned to manage others emotions. This is something that we fall into. It's not part of being an hsp, but it can be something we fall into, have been trained into, or have found to be a coping mechanism for ourselves. We may have been praised for being easygoing, and we have may have learned to keep the peace early on. And so when someone disrespects or disregards us, we don't just react, we start to question who we are, like, oh, I'm a nice guy, did I cause this? Am I overreacting? Should I have handled it better? And so the disrespect can become very quickly an internalized shame as we HSPs tend to take it on ourselves, thinking that we did something wrong, even though we may know intellectually that we didn't. Emotionally we buy into that story. And it also violates a deeper assumption that if I'm good, then I'll be safe. Many HSPs live by the idea that being good equals being safe. And when someone is unkind, despite your career, it breaks this illusion. You realize that no amount of goodness guarantees that someone will treat you well. And that realization, while painful, can also be freeing. Let's be clear. You don't need a narcissist in your life. You don't need their chaos, their manipulation, or their disregard for your well being. But if a narcissistic person crosses your path, something important can happen internally, a kind of shift or a wake up call. They can force you against your will, even to see something you may not have known about yourself, that you've been using rules as a shield instead of speaking your truth directly, HSPs often rely on external rules. We love the rules of kindness and fairness and reciprocity to keep the world manageable. And we're willing to follow them. And we expect others to follow them. This is a rule. But when someone refuses to play by those rules, something surprising becomes necessary. We have to stop hiding behind how things should be and start saying what we actually want. So let's look at how to do this. The first thing is to notice when a rule of yours gets broken. You'll feel it. It'll feel like stress, It'll feel like maybe panic. When a narcissist, narcissistic person does something that shocks or hurt you, ask yourself, what rule did they break that I was relying on for safety? Maybe it was people should care about others or people should Listen when I say no. Or people should treat others the way they want to be treated. Noticing the rule reveals the place where you've been using expectations instead of boundaries. The next step is to turn toward what you actually want. When the rule falls away and is no longer reliable and you can't count on it anymore, the real question appears, what do I actually want here? Not what's fair, not what's kind, not what should happen, but what do you want as a human being with needs, preferences and limits? This is often the skill that HSPs struggle with the most. And narcissists unintentionally train us to build this skill. So the next step is to speak from yourself instead of mentioning or speaking about the rule. Instead of saying, you shouldn't talk to me that way, or you should think about how this affects others as if they should be aware of a rule that you're very aware of. Try this instead. I'm not available for conversations like this. I'm leaving the room now. That doesn't work for me. I'm not comfortable continuing this. Rules look outward, they look to where, where things should be. The ideals, boundaries, on the other hand, they come from within. They come from being in touch with what I actually want. And this is how a narcissist plays. They are in touch with what they want. But we're so focused on others and on our outward caring that we often don't have much experience noticing what it is that we want, or much less speaking out what it is that we want. So this is a muscle that may be weak and is one that can become stronger with use. Sometimes this is the first time when a narcissist enters into a situation, it can be the first time that you've ever used that muscle. So the last step here is to come out of hiding. For many HSPs, the real challenge isn't the narcissist per se. It's the vulnerability of being seen. When we rely on rules, we can avoid revealing ourselves, we can avoid revealing our wants, revealing our limits, revealing our preferences or our truth. And there's a reason why we don't want to share those things, because they may be different than what other people want. They may show us as not as put together as we like to think we are. And so when we're trying to hide in that way and not be seen, we're trying to protect ourselves. But ironically, this is what makes us vulnerable. When someone else refuses to follow the rules, then we can no longer avoid ourselves. We have no choice. We have to step out of the shadows and show who we. Who we really are. If we don't, the bully will walk all over us every single time. The only way is if I step out and actually say what I want. I want you to leave or I want to go here, not where you are pushing me to go. So this is deep work. This is growth. But this is also the gift. And this is the part that makes you stronger and clearer and less afraid. So the bottom line is you never have to stay in a harmful dynamic. Of course not. You never need to tolerate disrespect. But if a narcissistic person crosses your path and there are plenty of them around, so they will. They can become an unexpected mirror showing you where you've been hiding behind what should be. Instead of living from what's true for you, they push you unwillingly into your own power. So the feeling I'm left with today is that as much as I hate to admit it, narcissists are not the real root of the problem. They just expose where I have outsourced my safety to my rules, and I can't truly be free until I can stand with myself even without my rules. In this episode, we looked at what it feels like when someone doesn't play by the emotional rules you depend on. And we saw that it feels like the castle walls are being stormed. It feels very unsafe. We also look at the deeper reason that HSPs feel so shaken in relationships that lack mutual respect. And it's the fact that we assume that reciprocity is the norm when it may be the norm for, you know, 99% of the people, but it's not the norm for everyone. And we also looked at the unexpected kind of power that emerges when you stop relying on others to get it. Basically, we discovered that you too can function without the rules. That's where I'm inviting you to look, see if it's possible. Can you stand on your own? If so, what happens is the rules become internal. They become you instead of something out there to protect you. And then you yourself can start to protect you. You can actually say what you really think or what you want. So thank you for listening. It's always good to explore with you. This program comes out three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Join me next time for Breakthrough Mondays, where I share success stories and helpful insights for highly sensitive people on the path towards inner freedom. 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.