← 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
#380 | The Two Things Highly Sensitive People Need to Reduce Stress and Feel More at Ease
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By the end of this episode, you'll discover the two most powerful things that reduce stress as a highly sensitive person and why most approaches only address one of them. In this episode, you'll discover how to support yourself through self care in a way that actually restores your energy. How attachment sits at the unseen root of emotional stress, and how letting go begins when you create the right conditions. 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. There's something I see often with highly sensitive people. They're trying to feel better and they're often resting more and they're setting boundaries and they're doing things that are supposed to help. And sometimes those things do help, but not all the way. There's still a kind of background stress that tends to linger or it goes away for a while and then comes back. And that can be confusing because it starts to feel like, what else am I supposed to do? I'm doing all these things. Isn't that enough? And what I've seen over time is that stress tends to come from two different places, and if we only address one of them, it can feel like we're doing a lot without actually getting the relief that we're really looking for. One source of stress is your nervous system. This is where self care really matters. As a highly sensitive person, your nervous system processes more just naturally. It processes more input, it processes more emotion, it processes more subtlety. This is really the definition of what it means to be a highly sensitive person. You have 10 depth of processing, so your nervous system naturally needs more recovery, not just once in a while, but built into your life. This can look like having a rhythm to your day or to your week that includes real downtime, time that isn't productive, time where you're not engaging, where with other people, time where your nervous system can settle and you can get that more calm experience. It also can include physical support, like movement that regulates your nervous system rather than stimulating it. Things like yoga or Tai chi or walking in nature or swimming. Just being in the body can often be very regulating for everyone and especially for highly sensitive people. And sometimes taking care of yourself means exploring systems that focus on balance, that focus on prevention, not just when crisis comes, but looking at imbalances that form long before any kind of real disease begins or any kind of real imbalance begins. And for that, I love the more traditional systems of healthcare, like Ayurveda from India or traditional Chinese medicine. There's also A part of self care that's often overlooked and that is taking care of your ego. We say self care. Well, this is an interesting piece of it. Not in the sense of feeding your ego endlessly, we know where that leads. But allowing it to have some of what it wants. Letting yourself experience progress, letting yourself experience accomplishment, letting yourself enjoy what you like to enjoy. Because constantly trying to override yourself, trying to override your ego or get rid of your ego can actually create more tension and more stress. And then there's connection. Connection is a big part of self care as well. And when I say connection, I mean meaningful connection. Not just being around people, but feeling like you can be yourself with other people. All of this is self care and it matters. But even when this is in place, there can still be stress. Which brings us to the second source of stress. The second source of stress is emotional. And this is where attachment comes in. Attachment can be to absolutely anything. Attachment to outcomes, attachment to how something turns out, attachment to what something means, or attachment to getting something you want or something that you feel like you need. Or attachment to how you're perceived or how you want to be seen. As a highly sensitive person, you don't just notice these things, you feel them and you feel them deeply. So when attachment is present, it doesn't stay abstract. It becomes something you experience in your body. And this is in the experience of emotions. You might notice this in moments where something starts to matter a lot to you and you really want something to go a certain way. Maybe it's a conversation, or maybe it's a decision, or maybe it's something you've been working toward and you can feel how important it is. And it starts to feel like your sense of ease depends on it. Like you'll only be okay once it happens. This is what I mean by attachment. The idea that until then, until it happens, I'm not okay. And there's a kind of pressure in your system, a kind of tension, a subtle kind of holding on, a sort of inability to fully relax. You can't quite breathe. Like your whole life is on hold until this thing is, until it happens. And that intensity is coming from the attachment itself. This is why stress can feel so strong. Even in situations that seem small on the surface. Always mind boggling. Why is this tiny thing making me so stressed? Because what's happening underneath the surface is making a huge difference. And when that attachment is there, your system stays engaged. Even if you're resting, even if you're doing all the right things externally, you're eating good food, you're getting good movement, you're socializing, you're taking care of yourself. But if there's an attachment there underneath the surface, it becomes impossible to rest. What keeps this kind of stress going is that we try to resolve it on the level of thinking. We try to convince ourselves to let go. We tell ourselves, oh, it's not a big deal. Oh, I shouldn't feel this way. I just need to relax. Why is this such a big deal? But letting go doesn't happen that way. You cannot force letting go. It's not something you can actually control, because the part of you that's attached has a reason for being attached. It's actually trying to protect something or to hold on to something that feels important. So if we push it away, it tends not to go away because it's got its reason. Or it goes away for a little bit and then it comes back. And this is where the loop forms. The attachment creates stress. The stress makes us want relief. Then if we try to force relief, then the attachment still stays solidly in place and around and around we go. But it's possible to approach this differently. Instead of trying to force yourself to let go or trying to let go intellectually, you can start by creating the conditions where letting go can actually happen. And this begins with awareness. Gently noticing what's happening inside you. What are you attached to, what feels like it has to go a certain way. What are you needing in this moment? When that's seen clearly, something begins to soften because the part of you that's holding on starts to recognize the cost of holding on. This is where approaches like the work of Byron Katie can be so helpful because they don't push the mind. They don't try to override the attachment. They create space for it to be seen. And when it's seen, it often begins to release on its own. Letting go is actually effortless when it happens naturally. But the conditions matter. And those conditions include both awareness and support. Support for your nervous system and space for your inner. So when it comes to reducing stress, as a highly sensitive person, there are two things that really matter. Self care and letting go. Self care supports your system. It gives your body and mind what they need to function well. Letting go addresses the emotional layer, the part that holds on, the part that creates pressure from the inside. And when both are in place, something begins to gradually change. There's more space, more ease, and less of that background tension. And from there, life starts to feel lighter and lighter and more deeply relaxing. So the feeling I'm left with today is that self care and letting go are the two essential approaches to stress management. Self care helps you to find balance in an overwhelming world as nhsp and letting go is your ticket to freedom because it doesn't depend on even a perfectly balanced health or money or relationships or anything at all. In this episode, we looked at how to support yourself through self care in a way that actually restores your energy. And this includes everything from routines that have regular rest built into them, that have alone time and socialization built in, to balanced health and good healthy movement, and even caring for your ego and allowing it to have its wins as well. We also looked at how attachment sits at the unseen root of emotional stress. Underneath every stressful emotion is an attachment and it usually sounds like I want or I need or I am or I'm not or and there may be many other variations, but that attachment, the way you hold what you want either loosely or tightly, makes all the difference. And we also looked at how letting go begins when you create the right conditions. And this is done by paying attention to the emotion that is stressful and asking what it is saying and getting it to notice the cost of carrying and believing its story and then playing with what it would be like without that and exploring the opposite of what you actually are, concluding in that moment. 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 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 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.