[SPEAKER_00]: If you've spent most of your life being told you're too sensitive, too emotional, too intense that you need to toughen up, let things go, stop taking everything so personally.
[SPEAKER_00]: This episode is for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, I'm going to walk you through what the research actually says about being a highly sensitive person or HSP.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll look at what's happening in your brain, why the world feels so intense for you, how to recognize this trait in yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And most importantly, what you can actually do with this information so your sensitivity stops ruining or running your life and starts working for you instead because it really can.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as always, I'm going to give you five practical tools so you can start feeling more at ease with who you are right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: So stay tuned.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Relationships Made Easy Podcast, where I give you the exact steps to create connection, joy and ease, and all your relationships, whether it's with your partner, your family, your friends, or most importantly yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Dr. Abby Medkath, psychologist, bestselling author, TEDx speaker, and the bossy Jewish mom you didn't know you needed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Each week you'll get no nonsense, research back strategies, serve with humor and love, so you can stop second-guessing yourself and start having the relationships you deserve.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll always leave knowing exactly what to say and do to shift your relationships for the better.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's get to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to the podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: This has been something a couple of people in my online one-love collective on Substack.
[SPEAKER_00]: A couple of people in there, a couple of members have been asking me for for a while, and I'm finally getting to it, and I'm really happy I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: I spent a lot of time researching for this one.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to do it justice for from my people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know that it comes up with my own clients and everything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll talk about it, but I have a great free download today to help you assess if you're an HSP or not and all the things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So stay tuned.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if any of what I said in the beginning is ringing true for you, then listen to the episode, see if maybe you fit in this category.
[SPEAKER_00]: It might explain a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's what I want you to know, up front, there's nothing wrong with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to say it again.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing wrong with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not blowing sunshine up your booty.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean what I'm saying.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not doing this to make you feel better.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not how I operate as you know if you've been with me a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: What you've been experiencing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a character flaw.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a or a weakness or a sign that something went sideways in your development.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a neurological trait called sensory processing sensitivity, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's been studied scientifically really since the early 90s and it has a name, it has a biological basis.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we think it affects somewhere between 15 and 30% of the population.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a big number, and overall, okay, so I'm not going to talk about different countries in this episode, the research in different countries.
[SPEAKER_00]: It got too crazy, so just listen and see wherever you're from if this fits for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you're not too much, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You're wired differently.
[SPEAKER_00]: And once you understand how and why,
[SPEAKER_00]: I think everything changes, and I know it has for my clients.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's talk about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is a highly sensitive person?
[SPEAKER_00]: And that term, HSP, highly sensitive person, was coined by a psychologist named Dr. Elaine Erin in the mid-90s.
[SPEAKER_00]: The scientific term for the underlying trait is sensory processing sensitivity or SPS, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: And Erin and her husband, Arthur Erin, formally identified it in 97 through a series of seven kind of famous studies.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they established it as a distinct, measurable kind of personality trait, not a disorder, not a diagnosis,
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to be clear, okay, but really something that's in the personality from a biological basis.
[SPEAKER_00]: The scientific definition that was described a little later by a voter burg and colleagues is an increased sensitivity of the central nervous system.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how they define it, and a deeper, cognitive processing of physical, social, and emotional stimuli.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what does that
[SPEAKER_00]: Your nervous system picks up more processes it more thoroughly and reacts more strongly to everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: So sounds, light, textures, other people's moods, the undercurrent, you know, of tension in the room, right, the beauty of a piece of music, all of it, all of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, Aaron estimated that about 15 to 20% of the population has this trait.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, okay, so either way, so it's 20 or 30, 15, 30, 20% whatever, that's hundreds of millions of people worldwide, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really what we're talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: The trait has also been observed in over a hundred other species.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get that from fruit flies to primates, crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Biologists consider it an evolutionary survival strategy.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, to pause before acting, to observe before committing, to detect what other people miss.
[SPEAKER_00]: So being an HSP isn't new.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's really not rare.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's rare is that we're actually starting to understand it in the last 40 years, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and by the way, when up for my new people, whenever I mention the research or any like the free downloads for today or anything else, everything can be found if you're watching on YouTube, it can be found under the video, or you can go to my website, just go to this episode, I write a full blog, so if you're trying to take notes furiously, you don't have to.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've already written the blog, you can copy and paste it later, that's how much I love you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a blog, not a transcript, so it's like a nice, nicely laid-out blog, and all the free downloads are there, all the links to the research, everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, you don't have to trust me, if you do, or if you want to read for yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I find the research, I do, because I pay for the journals and stuff, and it's expensive, and you can't always get access, but I do try to find the PDFs for things, if I can find them,
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, something that you could look at.
[SPEAKER_00]: I try to use the National Institute of Health things like that where you could actually read the articles.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not paid for the journal.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how much I love you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really do think about all the levels.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's talk about what's called the the Do's Framework.
[SPEAKER_00]: DOES.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's
[SPEAKER_00]: basically these are the four things that are probably true about you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Dr. Erin developed this framework that the, the, the, the, the, the woman, I mean, it's hard because there's the two errands, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And they worked together, but it's really, I think of her.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she developed this framework called DOES to really capture the core characteristics of sensory processing sensitivity and all for need to be present to fit the full HSP profile.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so if you're listening and noting along.
[SPEAKER_00]: this is likely a framework that describes you, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's get into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So D O E S, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The D is for depth of processing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is really the foundation of everything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: HSPs don't just take information in.
[SPEAKER_00]: They process it more deeply, more elaborately, really at higher levels of organization.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's one research I was reading and I'm
[SPEAKER_00]: Jake Gillowitz, again, I'll link to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that research sure found that HSPs use more of the brain regions of so-called associated with deeper processing, especially on tasks that involve noticing subtle
[SPEAKER_00]: how cool is that?
[SPEAKER_00]: So in everyday life, this shows up as thinking carefully before making decisions reflecting on conversations long after they're over connecting dots, other people don't connect, finding meaning and things other people probably walk right past.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what looks like
[SPEAKER_00]: In many ways is actually your brain doing more work.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to me, that's not a bug, that's a feature, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really great.
[SPEAKER_00]: And whenever I'm working with organizations around hiring people, you can see how good it is to have an HSP on your team or in a group, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that I'd only want HSPs, but I,
[SPEAKER_00]: wouldn't only want people who who are really quick and jumping to decisions either, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, when you're putting together a really healthy work team or dare I say relationship, it's very helpful to have an HSP on board.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so the O is for over stimulation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so because you're processing more deeply, you reach your limit faster than most, you know, loud environments,
[SPEAKER_00]: too many tasks at once.
[SPEAKER_00]: These aren't just annoying for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're physiologically draining in a way that they're just not for non-HSPs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm telling you, it's different.
[SPEAKER_00]: of a nervous system that's working harder than average all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really what that's the best way to say that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem is not that I don't know your weak or broken somehow.
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem is that you've been living in a world that's, of course, largely designed for people whose brains work differently than yours.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, the E is for emotional reactivity and empathy.
[SPEAKER_00]: HSPs feel things more intensely, both their own emotion and other peoples, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, in other research, there's again, bin research and that same person, it's like J-A-G-I-E-L-L-O-W-I-C-Z.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not, I think I am spelling that correctly.
[SPEAKER_00]: The last name is crazy, anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to go with found that HSPs react more strongly than non HSPs to emotionally evocative images, especially positive ones, how do you like that?
[SPEAKER_00]: There was another study, there was a FMRI functional MRI study by Bianca Acevedo, Acevedo, and her colleagues.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were the first to actually scan the brains of HSP's while they responded to other people's emotions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they found that HSP's showed significantly greater activation in the areas of the brain get this associated with awareness, empathy, and
[SPEAKER_00]: self kind of other processing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and that includes the the insulin, the mirror neuron system, all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your mirror neurons are lighting up harder.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess is what would be the result of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not imagining that you feel what other people feel like you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: The imaging data shows it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and the S is for sensitivity to subtleties, HSPs notice things other people mess as I mentioned before.
[SPEAKER_00]: So like a slight change in someone's tone and almost like an imperceptible tension in the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: the detail and a painting that most people walk past the the off-note in an otherwise great meal that kind of thing and again and those study those brain studies I just mentioned when HSP's were shown images with subtle differences they consistently noticed them and responded more accurately than non HSP's so
[SPEAKER_00]: When differences were obvious, HSP and non-HSP brains look the same, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's, you know, it's the subtleties where your brain does something genuinely different.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really, I think, really, really cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, let's talk about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's actually happening in your brain, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course I found it really fascinating.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of the reasons it took me so long to put together that this I got to tell you this episode could be seven hours as far as it's not don't worry yet you know it's it's much quicker than that, but I there's so much fascinating information I really had a hard time kind of calling it down, but but I want to take a moment on it because.
[SPEAKER_00]: understanding this to me, that tends to be the turning point for my clients when I talk to my clients about this stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you know what's actually happening neurologically, it's harder to keep telling yourself that something's wrong with you or that you should be more, you know, you're supposed to be defending yourself or some bullshit like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
[SPEAKER_00]: So like I said, Elaine Aaron began researching high sensitivity in 1991 at SUNY Stony Brook, SUNY State University of New York, shout out to many workers at Stony Brook.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the body of neuroscience that is built up since, I have to tell you, is sub-stantial.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's what it shows, here's some of what it shows.
[SPEAKER_00]: the highly sensitive person's brain, HSP brain processes information at a higher level of organization.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just wanna say that overall.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was one brain imaging study showing that like highly sensitive participants should more activation in the areas associated with higher order perception.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they weren't just seeing more, I want to say this really well, some of the stuff I know gets heavy, but stay with me, so what that means is they weren't just seeing more, they were doing more with what they saw.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you like, can you get how cool that is?
[SPEAKER_00]: So at in another study, I read another study when sensitive and non-sensitive participants were given perceptual tasks that are sort of typically harder depending on the, you know, culture you might be from the non-sensitive people showed the usual kind of cultural difficulty, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: But the HSP brains worked around it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, their brains were finding it like natural, easy to look beyond the cultural expectation to how things actually are, but really cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: Assovito, who I mentioned before that her FMRI research found
[SPEAKER_00]: particularly high activation in the insula which is sometimes called like your seed of consciousness because the insula integrates your moment to moment thoughts, your feelings, your bodily sensations and your perception of the outside world and it brings them into like a unified experience and for HSPs, that seed of consciousness, that insula, it's more active, it's more lit up and it's more engaged
[SPEAKER_00]: I know, it's so cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there were some really recent testing that Assovito has done, some brain research where they found that even after an emotionally evocative experience, so even after that, you know, some really emotionally evocative experience, HSP brains showed activity
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, which suggested that they had continue, they kept processing.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had a continued depth of processing during rest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like afterwards, consolidating the memory, making meaning of it, integrating the experience, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're an HSP with that means is you don't get to turn it off because it's not a choice you're making.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's what your brain does.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope I'm making this really great.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the trait, you know, this HSP trait also has genetic roots.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's, again, research has associated specific gene variants with SPS, with sensory processing sensitivity.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's been variants related to serotonin, to dopamine processing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you were largely born this way is what that means.
[SPEAKER_00]: Early childhood environments, of course, can amplify or soften
[SPEAKER_00]: The traits expression, we know the genes get expressed with environment, but the underlying wiring, that's yours.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully that wasn't too much or hopefully it was enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but again, I think it's so important for you to really understand, it's so easy to write.
[SPEAKER_00]: When people just sort of say something to you, like, oh, you're not broken, it's great, you know, but when you hear, I think when you, at least for my clients, when you hear the research, it's harder to dismiss because your whole life you've been told one thing about it, where it's actually kind of a liability, and to me, it doesn't need to be at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, so what does it actually look like in your life, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, in the science is great.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's one thing, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: But recognizing it in your own life is another.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's what...
[SPEAKER_00]: uh, sensory processing sensitivity tends to look like in practice.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want you to notice how many of these you might identify with.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you feel deeply moved, usually by, you know, music, art, uh, natural beauty in a way that maybe can even, sometimes catch you off guard.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, maybe you cry at the commercials.
[SPEAKER_00]: You notice the sunset when no one else does things like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: you pick up on other people's moves often before they've said a word.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, you know, you're that person who can feel the tension in a room, the moment you walk in.
[SPEAKER_00]: People probably describe you as intuitive or perceptive.
[SPEAKER_00]: They might even get a little unnerved by how much you notice about them.
[SPEAKER_00]: That might be there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, another characteristic is you need a loan time to recover after social events, even ones you generally enjoy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, I want to separate this from introversion and extroversion because that's, that does not have to be the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think a lot of times, um, HSPs are more can be more introverted in a way, but I think that's only because society,
[SPEAKER_00]: They're tied to being judged, so they end up kind of pulling back a little and for you, the recovery isn't optional.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not your nervous system needs it to come back into balance and think about when you think about relationships and work and romance and your family, how important that is and how much you probably were beat up about it growing up.
[SPEAKER_00]: You think carefully.
[SPEAKER_00]: and granted, sometimes too carefully before you make decisions, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: You consider, you know, you're that person and considers multiple angles, you imagine multiple outcomes, and you can get probably stuck in your own head because the processing doesn't stop, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It goes on and on and you can see how this can link to anxiety, especially in a world where there's so many choices now, where there's so much going on, you know, our brains, it's hard to catch up and your brain, especially it's hard to catch up.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're also generally deeply affected by violence, by cruelty and justice.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that could be the movies, the news.
[SPEAKER_00]: I usually suggest to my clients that they avoid certain content entirely because the impact on you isn't worth it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, you're highly attuned to physical sensations.
[SPEAKER_00]: So things like, you know, scratchy fabric bright lights, strong smells, caffeine, your hunger, your thirst, your, your body is as sensitive as your emotional world.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really what it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: We if you think of it that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: and connected to that, you have a really rich inner life, usually.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your inner world, it's vivid, it's complex, and it matters deeply to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even when the people around you don't fully understand it, it matters deeply to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, if you're still not sure about all this, the free download for today is a self-assessment and it's based on Dr. Lainairin's research.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm calling it, you know, are you a highly sensitive person?
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can get that for free, again, everywhere I mentioned.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do have a great therapy to go bundle.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you wanted to do some deeper work, I'll tell you about all that at the end, but there you go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so now,
[SPEAKER_00]: So before we go further, I want to address the three things HSP gets most confused with, because I think clarity is really important here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I already mentioned the one.
[SPEAKER_00]: HSP is not the same as introversion, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: The research established this really clearly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Roughly,
[SPEAKER_00]: 30% of HSPs are actually extroverted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Interversion is about where you get your energy, you know, preferring quiet and solitude.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sensory processing sensitivity is about how deeply your nervous system processes all stimuli, all social sensory, emotional everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the two obviously often overlap, but they're really distinct.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to say that first.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number two, HSP is not the same as anxiety.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this one, this is the heart of once.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really more nuanced.
[SPEAKER_00]: HSPs do experience higher rates of anxiety.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we'll talk about wine a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: But anxiety isn't the trade itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a possible consequence of the trait being unmanaged or unsupported.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I have found.
[SPEAKER_00]: So many HSPs who understand and work with their sensitivity, they don't struggle with clinical anxiety at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then number three is that HSP, it's not a disorder.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is not in the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, the DSM that is our Bible for diagnosing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a clinical diagnosing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Aaron and her colleagues have consistently and explicitly stated that sensory processing sensitivity, it's a personality trait, not a pathology, do not pathologize this.
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem isn't your sensitivity.
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem is that the world you've been living in wasn't built with your nervous system in mind, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: which brings me to why is this been so hard?
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is something I think is really important to understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Being an HSP is an unsupport in an unsupportive environment is hard in a specific measurable way, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: There's there's research on this,
[SPEAKER_00]: building on what they call the differential susceptibility model with anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: They found that HSPs are more effective by their environments, both negative and positive than non HSPs.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is sometimes called, you might have heard it, the orchid hypothesis.
[SPEAKER_00]: So non-sensitive people are like dandelions, they grow just about anywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: HSPs are more like arc orchids, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: With the right conditions, they flourish in ways that are truly extraordinary, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: Extraordinary.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the wrong conditions, they struggle more than most.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so, and the research shows that HSPs who grew up in,
[SPEAKER_00]: what I'll call difficult or unsupportive environments show higher rates of anxiety and depression.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where we see that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's the flip side.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the part that often gets left out.
[SPEAKER_00]: HSPs who had good enough, good enough, childhoods and who live in supportive conditions are actually less prone to depression than average.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you think of that?
[SPEAKER_00]: And they disproportionately benefit from positive experiences and interventions amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those same researchers, Pluas and Belskie called this vantage sensitivity.
[SPEAKER_00]: The HSP nervous system's particular responsiveness to what's good, not just what's hard, really cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: Really cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Elaine Aaron had her own observations.
[SPEAKER_00]: She talked about it a lot in cultures where sensitivity is valued, HSPs tend to have high self-esteem and thrive.
[SPEAKER_00]: In cultures where it isn't and Western culture for the most part doesn't value it, HSPs are told to toughen up.
[SPEAKER_00]: and they internalize the message that they're broken, you know, something's wrong with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And often spend decades managing something that was never a problem in the first place.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a little mic drop there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to drop my mic.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very expensive.
[SPEAKER_00]: The difficulty isn't your wiring.
[SPEAKER_00]: The difficulty is that you've been trying to run your particularly particular wiring on an incompatible operating system.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I got to tell you, sweetie, nobody gave you the manual.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the problem, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: 40 years have been doing this.
[SPEAKER_00]: 40 years, and I can tell you that one of the most powerful moments in any therapeutic relationship is when someone finally has a name for what they've been experiencing.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the story changes from something's wrong with me, you know, I'm unlovable on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm too this, I'm too that.
[SPEAKER_00]: to when you change that story to I have a nervous system that processes this world more deeply than most people and I need to learn how to work with that I know it's I know just words to you maybe but that shift in narrative it ain't small it's it really can be genuinely life changing that's what I have found so okay let me have a sip of water
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you with me?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are we doing this?
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really cool, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I find this all fascinating.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about, you know me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so great Abby.
[SPEAKER_00]: You told us all this now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to give you five tools for working with your sensitivity instead of against it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: practical ways to actually live with it, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Especially on the hard days.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know, especially on the hard days.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so here are five tools that I have found in my practice that work.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, I take everything from the research.
[SPEAKER_00]: The research says it works.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what happens in the world for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I read all the stuff, I talked to other, I was at a networking lunch in this weekend.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I talked to other therapists, I want to know what people are doing, I want to know what's working and what's not.
[SPEAKER_00]: I look at the research, I try things with my own clients and I can tell over time what works and what doesn't, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what I generally bring to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that's when I do a podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's because I've had generally a lot of experience in a
[SPEAKER_00]: They're very beautiful my earrings, but the person who does my audio is going to be like, I can't believe she's wearing those earrings.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, so I take those tools and I know that they work across the board.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it doesn't mean every one of the tools I'm about to give you is going to work for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: It means this is the best place to start because at least they're evidence-based in some way, from the research, from my own practice, from other people's practice,
[SPEAKER_00]: is to learn your over stimulation threshold.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before you hit it, I do this with people more than almost anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: most highly sensitive people don't recognize that they're headed toward overwhelmed until they're already there, until they're already irritable, flooded, shut down, interiors, and there's no obvious trigger at that point, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The work is to move that awareness earlier, pay attention to what your pre-overwhelmed signals are, you've got to know your pre-overwhelmed signals, you've got to start paying attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, it's body, you're tightening in the chest, tightening in the shoulders, jaw, uh, you might notice a sudden need to like urge to leave the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: a cognitive fog is another one.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're suddenly, it feels like you can't think through something.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your body is giving you data before the system crashes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you need to learn to read it earlier.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say, with love, you know, I love you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love you.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you gotta read this earlier.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because once you know your signals, you can intervene before you hit the wall.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have to start paying attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's number one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tool number two is you need to build recovery time into your life, not just your emergencies.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know you build it into your emergencies.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to build it into your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: HSPs tend to treat alone time in quiet as a reward for surviving a hard week.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I see.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're you're laughing right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see you.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a word.
[SPEAKER_00]: It needs to be infrastructure, not a reward.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your nervous system requires, not it's a nice idea, not all poor little so and so needs a little downtime, and that's bullshit.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your nervous system requires regular, regular downtime to process.
[SPEAKER_00]: what it's been taking in, remember all the research you've been taking in more than the rest of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, that's not a luxury or a personality preference.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a biological requirement.
[SPEAKER_00]: That, and so look at your damn calendar and ask yourself where the actual recovery is built in.
[SPEAKER_00]: If the answer is after I finish everything, I say would love my baby.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is time to restructure.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not gonna work, and so many of you, I know, because I work with you, you don't put it in, you run from meeting to meeting to meeting, there's no break all day, there's not a minute, I have some people I work with who literally haven't peed all day, so be like, oh, I've never even peed to that, like, what, what?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's a problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I'm not just talking about, like, yeah, go to the bathroom, that's a start, but when you go to the bathroom, you need to take, do a double inhale, take a mindful break, go outside,
[SPEAKER_00]: I often call these smoke breaks, you know, pretend if you smoked, you would go outside to smoke because you can't smoke in the building usually you would go outside to cigarette and that used to be very acceptable for people I remember when I quit smoking I remember I remember this I told my because then I would sit at my desk all day I was like this is this sucks.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I remember telling my bot, I didn't tell my boss that I quit smoking.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still went out, I would say, I got to grab cigarette.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't even smoking just to go outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know what it was then.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not an HSP by the way, but but I would need a break.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm human and I would go outside and then yeah, I'd feel a little better.
[SPEAKER_00]: So take a smoke break and don't smoke.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tool number three is get strategic about your sensory input.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, you have a lower threshold for sensory overload than most of the people around you and that means you have to be intentional about your environment and ways others don't need to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't being difficult, it's being smart that how your nervous system works.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that might mean
[SPEAKER_00]: uh, sitting with your back to the wall and a restaurant so you're not overwhelmed by movement.
[SPEAKER_00]: It might mean a stepping outside at parties for 10 minutes every hour.
[SPEAKER_00]: It might mean keeping your office quieter than a colleagues.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't, you know, it's, it's not about drawing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not dramatic.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just management.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you did a manage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about managing.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tool number four.
[SPEAKER_00]: Separate the signal from the noise.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I call this one.
[SPEAKER_00]: So because HSPs pick up on subtleties that I'm missing, the other people are missing, you're also more likely to absorb and process input, that's not relevant to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you feel the tension maybe between, let's say like two coworkers, and you spend the afternoon trying to figure out if you caused it, I see you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You read something into a friend's slightly short reply,
[SPEAKER_00]: and spend the evening worried about the relationship, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: The sensitivity that makes you perceptive also makes you a collector of other people's emotional weather, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what does.
[SPEAKER_00]: So one of the most useful practices for HSPs and what I tell them to do is learning to ask is this mine?
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to ask is this mine all freaking day long?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I want you to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: you would pause and ask whether it actually belongs to you, whether it's about your life, your relationship, your decision.
[SPEAKER_00]: If the honest answer is no, you really need to set it down.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're allowed to set it down.
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to set it down.
[SPEAKER_00]: And tool number five.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, you know what it is because I haven't mentioned it yet today.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I mentioned it every damn episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: use mindfulness as a regulation tool, not just a stress reducer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mindfulness again, Abby.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you kidding me?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, not sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a specific reason mindfulness matters for HSP, HSP's, mindfulness builds the capacity to observe your experience without immediately being swept into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We call this metacognition.
[SPEAKER_00]: For a nervous system, that processes everything so deeply and react so strongly, that observer capacity that metacognition is ever-rething.
[SPEAKER_00]: It creates
[SPEAKER_00]: a small but really vital gap between the stimulus, you know, whatever's happening out there and your response.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's exactly the gap you need to choose how you engage rather than just react, right, to act not react.
[SPEAKER_00]: So super duper important.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let's wrap it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's wrap this up, Abby.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to leave you with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: The goal isn't to become less sensitive.
[SPEAKER_00]: The research is pretty clear that the trait itself is largely fixed.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a neurological reality, not a habit to be broken.
[SPEAKER_00]: The goal is to understand your sensitivity well enough that it stops running you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we're looking for.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you know you're an HSP, you can stop apologizing for needing recovery time and start scheduling it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can stop wondering why you feel so much and start working with what your nervous system is actually doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can stop treating every moment of overwhelm as evidence that you're failing.
[SPEAKER_00]: and start treating it as data about what your particular, particular wiring needs, you know, your sensitivity is also, by the way, connected to the things that probably make you exceptional.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I love you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know, because I know so many of you, your empathy, your perceptiveness, your ability to be deeply moved by beauty, your attunement to the people you love, your capacity
[SPEAKER_00]: The research on the advantages of sensory processing sensitivity is long.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I cut it down so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, greater empathy, more creativity, conscientiousness, stronger responses to positive experiences, a richer inner life than the rest of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You were not built wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: You were built to process this world more deeply than most of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now you gotta learn how, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what it's about.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as I mentioned before, if you wanna get clearer on whether you're an HSP and where the trade shows up most strongly in your life, I have a free HSP self assessment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, it's built from the, I spent a lot of time on this one.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's built from the validated research and, you know, reframe it in a way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope that's useful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not, it's not just a checklist.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a, it's a, I tried to make it a tool for understanding yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you want to go deeper, if you're like, oh my god, this is so me, Abby, I've been naughty my head the whole time.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I always have a therapy to go bundled their $10.
[SPEAKER_00]: I make them real inexpensive.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the bundle for this episode, it takes you through your sensitivity across every major area of your life, your relationship with yourself, with you, if you have a partner, with your family at work, the whole, the whole Shabang.
[SPEAKER_00]: So again, you can get that $10.
[SPEAKER_00]: It includes the free download I just mentioned.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the other items in there are where does your sensitivity show up?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an HSP pattern inventory across your whole life.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next thing is my sensitivity and my relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a worksheet for working through a specific dynamic, like a very specific situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I always have journaling prompts for the highly sensitive person
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, help you explore who you are, what you believe, where it all came from, all the goodies.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a nervous system first aid for HSPs, you know, it's what to say and do when you're already overwhelmed.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all of that for 10 bucks is
[SPEAKER_00]: is in the therapy to go bundle, which you can get below the video if you're watching on YouTube or over on my website, just go to this episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything is there and again, that includes the free download if you don't want it, you don't have to download things twice.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you want to get the free download and just see what you think, and then you can always go back and get the bundle of the download really speaks to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything is here for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to help try to make more things available, but I gave you as always tons of great tools and tips here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course there's always my free mindfulness starter kit if you need to start with mindfulness.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know I yelled at you a few times today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just, I love you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love my HSPs that are in my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love you in my one love collective group on Substack.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love you in my friendships.
[SPEAKER_00]: I value value value.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know in my 20s and 30s, I was always impatient with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in my 40s, 50s and 60s, I've learned, oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_00]: how incredibly valuable you are on my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm grateful grateful and in the world in our world you give so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm a cry, you know, you know me, I start crying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for being you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please don't change.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please find ways to incorporate everything I've said today and be proud of who you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: step into it with great love, because I love you.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, not having a wonderful week, and I'll talk to you real soon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for spending time with me today.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're loving what you're learning here, come join my one love collective.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's my private community.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll be take these conversations even deeper.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll get a ton of bonus content.
[SPEAKER_00]: Live Q&A's with me, guided visualizations, journaling prompts,
[SPEAKER_00]: and an incredible community of like-minded people ready to support you as you create more ease and joy in all your relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all waiting for you at AppieMedCraft.com or right on Substack.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll see you next week.