← 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
#347 | Why Love Feels So Big for Highly Sensitive People & How to Honor That Without Feeling Too Much
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By the end of this episode, you'll discover why work follows you home as a highly sensitive person and how to finally feel off duty, not just in your schedule, but in your body. 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 work doesn't end when the day does, and how your nervous system might be on duty long after you've logged off. The invisible ways HSPs carry responsibility in their bodies, especially when there's no clear boundary around when the work is done. And a gentler way to close your work week so your body can finally exhale without needing more discipline or better habits. This is an addition of Breakthrough Mondays, where I share success stories and helpful insights for highly sensitive people on the path towards inner freedom. So why doesn't work seem to end when the day does, especially for highly sensitive people? Thing is, work doesn't just live on the calendar, it lives in the body. For highly sensitive people, off duty isn't just about external hours, it's about internal permission. So even when your laptop is shut and your calendar says done, your body may still be in task mode. You could feel tension in your shoulders. You could be doing some mental rehearsal for tomorrow's to do list. You could have some emotional residue from a tough conversation, and you may have some subtle bracing in case something was missed. Why? Because hsps feel responsibility more deeply. We don't just manage tasks, we tend to carry them. And also, since we were young, we have this deep training of doing our homework. And so homework was done at home. You went to school for me, that was where I showed off what I had done at home. And so the real work was after hours and squeezed in around everything else. That's deep training and it's really hard to override at first. And also as HSPs, I know for myself, I tend to like working outside of workplace pressure. And so having using my personal life as a buffer is a very common strategy that I've used throughout my entire life. Problem is, it means that there's no real downtime as a result. So one of the shifts that I've been making recently has, and I brought this up a number of episodes ago, where I started ending at the end of the day, like really saying Five o', clock, that's it. Not one more email, not one more thing. It was like a hard clean edge to my day. And the same thing on Friday, that's going to be until next Monday. So the, the problem was that even though I was doing that and I did notice some, some significant changes just holding that edge, what surprised me was that my body didn't completely relax. And that's when I realized how much responsibility I was actually carrying internally, not just on my calendar. So I ended the workday, but my mind was already preparing for the next week and I was already starting to think of things I wanted to do or say in my off time. That was really not allowing me to really be off duty. It's like some part of me had to keep tracking these loose ends even if I wasn't actively working. And so this is a kind of low level readiness that makes it hard to actually be off duty. So why does this happen for highly sensitive people? The thing is, we don't just manage tasks like everyone does. We also process impact. And the difference is this. Managing a task looks like sending an email, making a decision, having a meeting, completing a project. You check your box and then move on. But processing impact looks more like this. And you'll recognize this as an hsp. It's like replaying the email and wondering how it landed, or worrying whether you disappointed somebody, or sensing tension in a meeting and carrying it home, or feeling emotionally disoriented after a complex decision. As HSPs we carry the emotional residue of conversations and the uncertainty of what was left undone and the anticipation of what is coming. So without clear closure or a trusted container to hold it for you, your nervous system will keep holding it for you. And there goes your time off. Oh, well. So what is helping me is that over time I'm starting to trust the structure that I'm setting up. And I'm continually refining my structure, but it's basically a container. And my calendar holds a big part of that for me. So I'm starting to trust it more. And it means that my nervous system is slowly acting like it has to stay on call less and less and less. I'm starting to trust that whatever I didn't get finished today, I'll pick up tomorrow and, and work on that. Whatever I didn't get finished this week, we'll look at it next week and we'll see where it goes. This has been gradual. This is not like just a miracle thing because there's a lot involved here. But what I'm noticing is very significant changes in how I feel on the inside as a result of this kind of approach. Basically, the body, in order to feel it in the body, the body needs more than just rules. It needs a kind of reassurance that we're done. You know, we're done for now. Like the day is done and there's a plan for that tomorrow. And all this can rest until then. When I really step into that, then it's like my off time starts to feel like, oh, what would I like to do with my off time? Maybe I'll read a book, Maybe I'll work on a jigsaw puzzle. Maybe I will go do something fun. Maybe I'll just hang out with my partner. This is what starts to open up and it's a sign that you've actually taken that responsibility off of your shoulders during the break time. So what are some of the ways that HSPs carry responsibility in their bodies? And you may not notice it at first, but here's what it can look like. Mental rehearsal loops so you've stopped working, but your mind is still reviewing conversations, emails or decisions. And you run through what you should have said or what you what might go wrong in what's coming up tomorrow. And this can show up as having a tight jaw or having racing thoughts, or having an inability to rest. Another place where this responsibility can show up is anticipating other people's needs. And you may think about what someone else might need from you even outside of work hours. And you may feel pressure to be ready, to respond quickly or to prevent some kind of disappointment. And this can show up as tension in your shoulders, in your chest, and a feeling of being on alert. You can also end up absorbing emotional residue. So if you had a charged reaction and it's still living in your nervous system, even if nothing bad happened, the emotional tone can be sticking with you and it can show up in the body. There can be heaviness or some shallow breathing or some lingering unease, or you may be managing how you're perceived. You're still emotionally holding up kind of an image of being competent or responsive or helpful. You're holding up an identity and you may not actively be doing anything, but internally, it's almost like you're still performing in a way. And so this can show up in the body as kind of a bracing posture or stomach tension or feeling tight and not knowing why. And then finally, if there's no clear emotional handoff, then you may close your laptop, but there's no internal sense of completion Without a container or a ritual to mark the end of the day, the energy just lingers and it shows up in your body and you may feel restless and you may have more fragmented focus during your off time and you may not enjoy your off time that much. So what's a gentler way to close your work week so that the body can finally exhale? The thing that works for me really well and I've been doing this for a number of months now and it is, it is night and day. It's very, very helpful and that is giving the week a clear ending that isn't internal, isn't dependent on accomplishing anything, is completely time based. So that means that I don't have to wait until this sense of being finished or feeling accomplished happens before I rest. Because that rarely ever happens. So instead what I do is I let something external mark the end of my day. For me it's a scheduled shutdown time, so 5:00', clock, so 5:01. That's not, I'm not appropriate to be continuing working at that point. So this is like I hold this as a, as a hard edge and what it does is it makes my mind work with that boundary and as a result I've gotten better and better at planning around it and being able to build up to it so that I'm ready to quit right at five. And it feels like a conscious decision, a conscious attitude that this is complete enough for today. I've done a lot of good work, I've put in good time and this is a continual process. So I will pick up tomorrow anything that I wasn't able to do today. This is a signal to your body that responsibility has moved out of your domain and is now resting in, in a way in times domain. It's just sitting there until the next time arrives which will be tomorrow morning or Monday morning. And that gives me this sense of well in the meantime, since I'm not responsible for anything during this time, I can relax and so it isn't being held by me anymore. And that's the shift that has been happening in me and the result has been like back tension is releasing in me, sleep is deepening, there's less rushing in my life. My I don't feel a conflict between time with my partner, which I enjoy, or time doing my homework, which I want to pull away on the weekend and make sure that I get caught up and ready for Monday. I'm not doing that. I'm like literally off. So that means I can read all day if I want to. Or I can just fool around, do anything, like I'm free. And this is a very different experience of off time. So this is what I'm inviting you to play with is like give yourself permission and set up a system outside of yourself. I don't know what it'll be for you. Time works really well for me, but in some way have a system that says, okay, this is going to be carrying this from now on. It's like passing the baton or hitting the pause button or however you want to think about it. But I'm actually not on duty when I'm off. This is radical. You know, this goes against our whole world's way of doing things. And it is the antithesis of let's be more and more productive until we burn out. This is more about sustainability and being able to create something that lasts, that is. That is something you can live with. A work environment that will support you as much as you supporting it. And that means something that you can do over a long period of time. So the feeling I'm left with today is that you will never feel off duty if you're always being responsible. It's not possible to be always responsible and have a feeling of free time. The key for me is to shift responsibility to someone or something else completely. When you're on a break, that means just handing it over, like handing it over to time, handing it over to a team member, handing it over so that you are clearly unbreak. And this is an internal thing, it's also an external thing. But these have to align, otherwise you're just going to keep doing the same thing. In this episode, we looked at why work doesn't end when the day does, and how your nervous system might still be on duty long after you've logged off. And that's because of our tendency to be super responsible and our tendency to carry the impact and be aware of what the impact of anything is that we do and to continue processing that long after the action itself. We also looked at the invisible ways that HSPs carry responsibilities in their bodies. And this can show up in the jaw and the back and tension overall in the stomach. It can show up all over the place because there's no clear boundary around when the work is done. And so the body is still carrying that. And then finally, we looked at a gentler way to close your work week so that your body can finally exhale without needing more discipline or better habits. And this is simply creating a boundary and then giving yourself permission to actually inhabit that time. Off as a free person, not as in the role of the person who is doing work or being responsible. So thanks 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. Sam.