Self Care Tools for Highly Sensitive People
I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Lauren LaSalle on her podcast The Highly Sensitive Podcast. Lauren, Gina, and I talked about honoring our boundaries, protecting our energy with self care tools for Highly Sensitive People, and our experiences as HSP.
Listen to the podcast or scroll down for the transcript ⬇️
Self Care Tools for Highly Sensitive People
Lauren: Welcome to The Highly Sensitive Podcast. I'm Lauren LaSalle, and I'm a former therapist, I'm a highly sensitive person, and a self care and empowerment coach for highly sensitive people. My goal for this podcast is to create a feeling of community, to be a supportive place for HSPs, and to normalize our experiences as highly sensitive people.
Because I'm pretty sure we've all spent way too much time feeling like we're weird or don't fit in. Well, guess what? Here, you fit in perfectly. This podcast will give you tools to better understand yourself, to help you learn how to care for yourself as an HSP, and to start viewing your sensitivity as a strength.
Thank you so much for joining me and let's begin. Hello everybody! Today I'm very excited to share with you the recording of the Reclaim app launch party. And if I sound out of breath, it's because I am. It's really hot here today. I was just at a playground with my daughter. So, whew, not a great time to record, but here we go.
So, uh, Like I was saying, uh, the Reclaim app is the app that I created that I am constantly adding things to that is all about self care and boundary setting for HSPs. I will put the links to download it and access it because you can just access it through the internet if you don't want to download it.
Um, I will put those links in the episode description to check it out. It is free to download. So I would love to see you there. We have a community on there. If you'd like to join the HSP community where we chat, we meet once a month on Zoom, which is super fun too. You don't have to take part in the community if you don't want to, but it would be super cool to talk to you there.
So, for the Reclaim app launch party, we had a couple speakers, one was myself, I spoke about why setting boundaries is so important for highly sensitive people, and I shared a few ways to get started. We also had Joanne Kim speak, who you might recognize from Episode 22, Three Ways to Calm Your Nervous System as an HSP, and Episode 53, How Do Feelings Work.
And Joanne shared about the three emotional habits of highly sensitive persons that affect the realms of personal growth, relationships, and professional development. And we also had Gina House as a speaker, who you might recognize from episode 33, What is an Empath? And Gina explored non traditional self care practices, such as incorporating tarot cards and crystals in everyday life.
She believes that both practices bring a bit of light, fun, and creativity to a highly sensitive person's toolkit. And at the end of our presentations, we answered a couple questions. Participant questions, which I think you will find really helpful as well. We gave a lot of great tips. I think it was cool to have three different people answer the questions because we all added a little something different.
So that was, that was really fun. So without further ado, let's just get into it. Here is the reclaim app launch party audio. So, yay! Here we are. Thank you for coming. The whole point of this party is to celebrate the Reclaim app, which I'm very excited about, which is all about self care and boundary setting for HSPs.
So, I figured we'd have a little party, a little get together, and learn about self care and a little bit about boundary setting. So, I will turn it over to Joanne, who is speaking first.
Joanne: So I am a therapist turned feelings translator. So the bulk of the work that I do, whether it's in my like therapy coaching sessions or through my online courses, it's a lot of it actually is what a lot of highly sensitive persons tend to seek me out for.
Breaking Free from the Emotional Vortex
Joanne: So I tend to work with people who are very used to focusing on other people's needs, other people's feelings to the point where they get burnt out and resentful and they just. Can't take it anymore. So usually that's when they have their crisis moment is when they pick up the phone, they call me. And so I'm happy to be here and to be able to share about the three common habits that I see a lot of highly sensitive persons struggling with one each in the personal realm, our relationships and in the professional realm.
So the main takeaway, because I've been known to talk a lot. So I know that like people's eyes can glaze over, but the short of it. The one thing to take away is about going out, going out, squeezing out and launching oneself into whatever endeavors we have. The three main habits that HSPs tend to have are around what is known as navel gazing, so that's where we go internal.
We. You know, focus on our internal experiences, our internal world, our thoughts and feelings, our dreams, whatever, to the point where we get disconnected from things that are happening outside of us. Sometimes it's because things outside are very overwhelming and scary. Things inside seem a lot more alluring.
But how we get ourselves stuck is that we might end up recycling our own perceptions of life or our own feelings to the point where they end up like bubbling up. So I like calling that the emotional vortex. It's when one feeling sets off a chain reaction where eventually we don't even know what the first thing was.
It's like, you know, somebody gets chewed out at work, they come home and they kick the dog, that kind of reaction. So, because highly sensitive persons tend to be stuck on the inside, it's really important for us to come out, come out of ourselves, even literally in our body postures. A lot of HSPs are kind of like, shoulders are curled in, they're looking down because they're afraid to have eye contact, and it's a lot of curling inward, but the idea of coming out is straightening the spine, opening the chest cavity, looking directly ahead, maybe up, And engaging life outside of ourselves, instead of staying stuck inside.
That's emotional habit. Number one is navel gazing. Second one is that we tend to go about in our relationships, whether people we know, or people even at Starbucks, and we're more likely to take on other people's feelings, other people's vibes or energies, maybe other people's responsibility, It's like if someone comes over into our place, knocks over our lamp, and then we feel bad because we shouldn't have had our lamp there.
We should have just known to be conscientious of other people. So, absorbing a lot of that responsibility to the point where we don't even remember what our own needs are. So the second skill is for us to sift what's our stuff and what's not our stuff, take back what rightfully belongs to us, including our own sense of power, our voice, our way of taking care of ourselves, and then squeezing out anything that doesn't belong to us.
That's kind of where saying no is really important. It's like, no, I'm not going to take care of another person, even though I know that they're struggling. It's okay for other people to be having their big feelings. And for me to not get involved. So squeezing that out like a sponge. And then the last one is that, especially in the professional realm, a lot of HSPs tend to think and think and think and think, plan, analyze, flip things upside down in our heads or in our thoughts and hypothesize situations.
All the meanwhile, not taking any action about it. So now this is paralysis, procrastination, perfectionism, imposter syndrome, like all of those are things that we struggle with because we don't do the one thing that's necessary, which is to take action to actually go out. So, so I call it aiming to the point where we don't end up firing.
And so super important for us to keep the big picture in mind, like with our projects or with even like a career or life direction, keeping the big picture in mind so that we don't get stuck in the weeds. So all of these things, all of these emotional habits tend to go hand in hand with each other.
They're not usually in isolation. And so either case, whether it's because we're inside ourselves with navel gazing or in our relationships, we're taking on other people's feelings or responsibilities or in our professions where. overanalyzing things to death and never taking action. All these things involve us going outside of our habits.
So this is the main thing that I work with work. I help my clients in therapy coaching sessions. And the big way to do it concretely is by tapping into their fiery anger. That's been so deeply buried. They're like, I don't want to touch that with like a hundred foot pole, but anger is the. The very engine that we need to do these three things that I mentioned.
And so a lot of people have think of anger as like a big, scary, like dangerous or messy, mean thing. But anger is something that we actually have the ability to tap into. If any of y'all have had seen experiences where someone's picking on someone you care about, and you get like all mama bear on them.
Harnessing Anger as Your Secret Weapon for Overcoming Inaction
Joanne: That's an example of tapping into anger. It's just that the recipient of that protective energy is someone you care about. So my hope is that people will be able to wield that same fieryness, but just on their own behalf. So when we are able to do that and integrate anger as part of our super important toolkit, life becomes a lot simpler and less complicated.
So we're less likely to be reactive or take things personally, or get all tripped up if we actually have anger as a useful engine. So that's a bit about what I do. And yeah, I have a. Uh, pdf guide called the Big Feelers First Aid Kit. So if that's something that would be help to you, then I'll have Lauren drop the link.
Lauren: Awesome. Thank you, Joanne. You always have so much good information. I just love listening to you. Does anybody have any questions for Joanne about what she was talking about or anything related? All right. So, Gina, you are up.
Gina: Hi, everybody. I'm Gina House. I'm a mom and a wife and a communications director. And also, I have lots of hobbies, creative artist hobbies, among which are crystals and tarot and sketchbooks and all sorts of things. Hula hooping and archery type things, but I feel like tarot and art and handcrafts like knitting and crocheting and tarot cards are, have been really the most helpful in helping me with my being a highly sensitive person and I'm not a professional in any way, but I am an HSP and an empath and I've recently discovered this.
So what I like to do is to find practical things that can help me deal with situations every day that come up or feelings that are really hard for me and how to make it more, be able to clear my mind and to ground and to kind of get myself back. To where I'm supposed to be. And so two of the self care tools for Highly Sensitive People that really helped me are, which are kind of new agey, are crystals and tarot cards.
So to me, they're tools that really help in a practical way. And it doesn't have to be an expensive thing or anything. You have to, you know, put a lot of energy into, but if you are able to find a crystal or some kind of stone that means a lot to you or it just seems really attractive to you or its energy makes you feel peaceful.
I think either wearing it as jewelry or having it as like a bracelet or a necklace or a ring or just holding it while you're meditating or taking some deep breaths. And even going about your day, a really silly thing. If you're a woman is to put a crystal in your bra and then it's close to your heart.
And I really feel like being close to something that's from the earth that does really help with grounding, at least for me. And I've created a little PDF that has like some healing crystals that would help both in like energetically and also like physically. Um, but. I think like the main thing with crystals is that if you are able to go to a store or even online and a crystal really, the look of it or the feel of it really speaks to you, then I say grab that.
But there also are a list of crystals that definitely have certain properties that really help with certain things like black tourmaline is really good for grounding and for clearing your energy or keeping off negativity. And if you're a person who doesn't feel a lot of self love, a rose quartz is a really nice crystal to have and helps to helps you to feel more love towards yourself and to other people.
And I think like clear, clear crystals, like clear quartz, if you see one, they're pretty much everywhere. They're pretty all purpose crystal. That's a really good one. That's inexpensive. If you ever wanted to try just having a crystal on you or around you, and you can pretty much get those anywhere. So that's what I would say for starting with like a crystal practice.
It doesn't have to be anything crazy, or you don't have to read a lot of books about it if you don't want, but I feel like once you start holding a crystal or working with it with meditation and deep breathing, it kind of gets you excited to learn more. So that's my first, that's my first tool. And then my second tool is the tarot cards.
Now, I mean, I also made a little PDF about this and it's not something if you, if you've never had any experience with tarot cards, you don't have to go out and read books right away or know how to do a tarot reading, but if you're like me and the feeling of holding something in your hand really helps to calm you and ground you.
I really recommend cards. At the very least, if you just hold your tarot cards and shuffle them, to me, that's a really peaceful way to calm yourself if you're in a situation that's really difficult and you don't know what to do with your brain or your hands. It really gives you a good sense of, okay, what let me have some, a few minutes to myself, just to think and to figure out what is happening and just laying out the cards like you would maybe even solitaire.
But for me, if you have a tarot card deck, you can do so much more with them because they have imagery on them. And so I, if you just grab a tarot deck that the art. On the cards really speaks to you again like crystals that will also help because one of the cool things to do is to just pick a card every day and in the morning kind of just say to yourself what do I need to know today?
And to me, that kind of gives you a sense of not control, but I don't know. I don't know what it gives, but it really helps to me to kind of focus my day. And you can also just choose a card that you really love from the deck. You love the imagery and it will help to like, give you again, focus or optimism for the day.
And you can just bring the card with you or hold it up, put in a special place that you can see every day. And that's a really good way to either begin or end your day. And there's like so many, so many different exercises that you can do with cards that you don't really need any tarot reading experience.
And I think that also it helps to give. It'll help you to figure out more about yourself, because if you look at a card and it brings up a lot of feelings, you might say to yourself, this is something I need to work on. It reminds me of this sort of situation that's happened to me in the past, or I'm worried about happening in the future.
And that's something you can work with on your own, or talk to your therapist about it or anything like that. But I think the cards are practical in a sense that you can have them in your hand and have something to do to give yourself some time if you're upset or feeling overwhelmed. But then also at the same time, they can really help you to do some like inner work and reflection.
So yeah, so crystals and tarot are really helpful to me as an HSP and empath. And I hope that giving those a try might help you too.
Lauren: Awesome. Thank you. I actually, I'm so glad you talked about this because I have a tarot deck that somebody gave me and I've looked through it a couple times and I was like, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with this.
So those are really great suggestions for people that are just like, want to get into it or, or have a deck and, you know, Just aren't sure what they're supposed to do.
I just put them on before we came on here. So they're under the download section. So anybody can download those if, if they would like to with the app.
I'm Lauren, I'm a self care and empowerment coach for HSPs. I have a almost two year old daughter and I have two cats and a million chickens.
The Importance of Honoring Boundaries
So that sort of sums up my life right now. So I am going to talk a little bit about setting boundaries, because this is something that I've found so many HSPs struggle with. And I know Joanne brought it up a little bit in her talk too about saying no and those kinds of things. So something that is very much needed for HSPs, I have found in my own life and when working with clients too.
So essentially boundaries let other people know, or sometimes help ourselves know, what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. Because we don't only set boundaries with other people, we can set them with ourselves as well. So boundaries are a way of honoring what you need and what you want. And they can change over time.
So maybe you're in a place where you feel like you really need to set a lot of firm boundaries with people in your life. You need more time to yourself. Maybe you are in a, having a healing process and you just need, you know, time. So. Maybe your boundaries are firmer than, and as time goes on, you can let them up and it can go the opposite way too.
You can, you can start with looser boundaries and, and increase them as you need to. So that's the cool thing about boundaries. They can change over time as you need them. So. I have had a lot of clients have need to set boundaries in different ways. So you can set boundaries at work. Like I had to, when I was working for a mental health agency, I had to say, look, I, this is too much.
I'm I'm exhausted. I need to work fewer hours. And luckily they were okay with that. I had a client who was given too many projects at work. So she needed to set boundaries with them and say, this is, this is too much. I, I really need to not be taking on so much right now. Setting boundaries with friends. I think a lot of HSPs give and give so much of our time and our energy being there for people, because that's so important for us.
Since we're very in tune with other people, we can sense how they're feeling and we feel like we need to be there for them. And that can be really draining and take up a lot of our time. And we can even neglect what we need because we are there for other people so much. And like I was saying, you can set boundaries with yourself.
Like I had a client who was checking her work email as soon as she got up in the morning. And so she really wanted to set boundaries with herself around. The time that she worked. So saying I am, I am not going to check my email until this time. And then I am done work at this time. And that is it for the day.
No more work. So that's the way that you can set boundaries as well. Setting boundaries with family because HSPs need time to ourselves every day, ideally to recharge and process everything that we've been through been through during the day. So being able to tell our family or whoever we live with, this is time that I need to have to myself.
And when I, when I'm done, I will come out and I will be more ready to interact with you because I think a lot of the time, if we neglect, especially that part, the downtime, because we feel like we need to be there for other people. We. Just get burnt out. We feel irritable. We feel upset, angry, as Joanne was talking about.
Protecting Your Energy
So being able to really attend to our own needs allows us to be there better for other people as well. So why is it especially important for HSPs to set boundaries? Because we are wired differently than other people. We become overstimulated pretty easily. We, like I was saying, we need downtime to ourselves to process and recharge.
We need to make sure that we are protecting our energy since we often so freely give it out, we need to make sure that we're really protecting it. There are a lot of things that can get in the way of setting boundaries, and I'm sure each of you have, like, could have a pretty big list of things that, either in the past or currently, get in the way of setting boundaries.
I know I have a long list. So we can sense how other people are feeling, so if we think that somebody, or, sometimes we make things up in our heads too, right? Like we think, what if they're disappointed? What if they're upset? And that can really get in the way of setting boundaries because we don't want to have to deal with that situation.
Maybe we don't want to have to deal with the potential of, of conflict. We don't want to feel like a burden to other people by telling them what we need. It's important to know our values and that can be a good first step in setting boundaries. Because that helps us know what areas we need to work on.
So, for example, if you really value family, maybe you want to, and if you tend to overwork, say, you want to cut back on work. Working overtime because you want to spend time with your family if that's financially, you know reasonable for you. Maybe if you really value your mental health if you are struggling You can make sure you set up your life in ways that you are able to do whatever you need to protect your mental health, protect your overall well being.
If you really value time to yourself or doing creative things or having time to do hobbies, then setting up your life in that way where you can maybe put a, put a limit on engaging with other people so that you're able to do those things that you want to do. So a little bit about how to start setting boundaries.
So setting boundaries with yourself, you can prioritize self care such as sleep is really important for us. So maybe saying, I'm not going to watch the next three episodes of this show that I really love. I instead, I'm going to say, this is the last episode. Done. I'm going to bed after this. You can make sure you get enough down time.
So before, like I was saying, telling your family, this is my time, I will come out when I am done. Thank you for understanding. Making sure that you get some movement in your life, whatever that may be. Walking, dancing, doing a sport, running. Making sure that you have some sort of creative outlet in your life.
Making sure that you listen to your body. So, When your body is telling you that you need a break saying, okay, I, I'm sensing that I need a break and I'm going to take this break and having healthy habits. So making sure you are eating well, you are again, doing some movements, taking care of yourself. So you can set those boundaries with yourself.
It sort of helps you build trust with yourself too, which can just help your, your overall wellbeing. And then the way that I like to have people start setting boundaries with other people is to find people that are. what I call safe people in your life. So you know that they either already are accepting of your boundaries or they are definitely going to say yes to you.
So you can start accumulating those positive experiences because I feel like a lot of the time what stops us from setting boundaries with others is that we have been shut down a lot in the past or walked all over or we just don't have those good experiences to back up our You know, are starting to set boundaries again.
So finding someone that is going to say, Oh, I understand where you're coming from. Yes, that sounds good. And starting small and not trying to push yourself to, to set big boundaries, unless you're feeling ready for it, because accumulating those positive experiences is really important in building your self confidence when it comes to setting boundaries.
And it's also important to be kind to yourself when you're starting this process too because it is really difficult work. It's hard to work on yourself and to get out of your comfort zone. So celebrating even what you see as the smallest victories is really important too. So, does anybody have any questions?
Sort of like boundaries in a super small nutshell.
Gina: I love all of your ideas. Thank you. Yeah, no, those are, those are really helpful, because I, I do feel like, I love the one you said when you were talking about finding people who are like safe people. I, I feel like that's a really good way to, like you said, practice, maybe practice some things that are difficult because you know that they either know that you're sensitive or they love you anyway, like they love you for who you are and you might have a more positive experience. Trying to set new boundaries, because that's definitely a challenge for me.
Guest: I have a quick question. I wondered when my experience has been when I started setting boundaries, I almost went through a period of time where I almost felt like, like, am I becoming a worse person like you feel sometimes mean or not that you're delivering the message.
Unkindly, but you sort of have that like you're always used to saying yes and always used to being there for other people that when you finally set that boundary, even though that's appropriate and correct and what you're supposed to be doing. At first there was like this difficult period of like, almost like a personal crisis. Like, am I becoming a bad person? Like, am I, do people think I'm not a good person anymore? And I didn't know if you had any, I know we can't control what other people think and feel, and we can only control ourselves, but I didn't know if you had any thoughts or feedback on how to move through that.
Lauren: I definitely have also found that myself too, um, I think what's coming to mind right now is I think we just need to keep reminding ourselves of why we are doing it and that it is okay to put ourselves first and, and what good can come out of it. So for example, like taking time to yourself every day.
If you don't do that, you will probably, like I was saying before, be more irritable, not able to engage as well with your family or friends or whoever you're seeing. Um, so focusing on the benefit of setting that boundary, what good will come of it, and then also thinking about what might happen if you don't set it. Does that make sense? Yes. No, that's fantastic. That's really helpful. Yeah. Okay, good. Yeah. Because especially when you're used to being there for everyone, you do feel like, am I being selfish? Am I being rude? Am I being mean? But I think a lot of people don't see it that way. Um, because I know I don't, if people appropriately like and respectfully communicate a boundary to me, I just think, okay, that's what they need.So I think we put a lot more pressure on ourselves than other people probably do.
Guest: I have one more question. It's a, it's a little more about, well, I guess it's sort of an internal boundary and a energy question. Um, If you find yourself around somebody like I sometimes find my find myself around somebody who has very intense energy, and I find that after like, even just spending like 10 minutes with that person.
Grounding in a Storm
It's, it's. It's hard to, I feel like I feel nervous. I feel, um, just my energy shifts. I don't feel calm. And it's someone that I just run into. It's not, it's not like a close friend or a family member, but sort of like an acquaintance. And I didn't know, um, if you guys had any thoughts on how to sort of ground yourself either, either during interactions with people or after when you sort of have that empath energy and how to sort of set that internal boundary with yourself.
Lauren: That's a great question. I guess I'll, I'll share what's on my mind. And then if Joanne and Gina, if you want to share anything, I feel like this is so cliche every time I say it, but deep breathing really helps me. And it helps me sort of just calm everything. My thoughts, my body, everything and doing. Any kind of like if you already have a sort of grounding exercise that you find helpful sort of like what Gina was sharing about to do that afterward, and I don't know if that's helpful but that's just immediately what came to my mind.Yes, that is. Thank you.
Gina: Yeah, I have, I have a couple things that help me. One is like preventative and one is like after the fact. So preventative is I always have like a black tourmaline crystal that I wear when I know I'm going to be out in public. And for me, I mean, it doesn't have to be that for you, but whatever, even a talisman or something like that, that you can have with you that you always bring and maybe situations where you're going, you might, you know, Meet someone of this kind of like energy because I know exactly what you mean and I feel like having that on me Gives me like a little bit more confidence, even if it doesn't really do anything energetically.
It makes me feel confident that I could handle it because i've got like that thing with me and then Also, like Lauren said, deep breathing. I tend to always hold my breath in situations like that. And then I don't realize I've done it until I feel like I'm going to faint. And it's like, Oh, just breathe.
But afterward, I find that washing my hands is really helpful. Like washing my hands in cold water and putting the water up to my elbows on both. Arms and then kind of like shaking my hands off. I feel like that helps kind of cleanse you of that energy and like physically and emotionally and just like shaking off their excess energy, because I feel like, like you said, Kelly, sometimes someone else's energy can really like permeate you so much that you feel like, oh my God, I don't want this, you know, and I feel like washing your hands and really shaking them has really helped me in the past and eating something that's grounding, like this is weird, but a potato, like a piece of potato or something that is a food from the ground really helps too.
That's weird, but yeah. That's great. Thank you so much to both of you.
Joanne: I think on my end, I do a lot of visualization with people where, I mean, cause a lot of HSPs also have to happen to have like great imaginations. I'm like work it to your advantage. And so sometimes like it helps to visualize some kind of force field. You can pick whatever material it's made out of and like whatever size, shape, how thick it is.
Like some people prefer to have like a one way mirror where they get to look out, but nobody gets to look in type of thing. And so if you know that you're going to be interacting with someone who especially has a very expansive energy, then doing that kind of visualization exercise is very important because the cool thing about our brains is that.
It doesn't know how to tell the difference between fantasy and reality. And this is why anxiety can be like so nerve wracking because we think whatever we imagine, our body senses that as if it's already happening. So you're using that same mechanism to go in the opposite direction.
If you were to imagine yourself being in a bubble or some kind of force field of your own making that you get to toggle with like a switch, you can, you get to intensify it.
You could also dim it, especially if you're around someone else. Who also has pretty good boundaries. We don't need strong boundaries around people who also have them, but we need extra boundaries around people who tend to not have that. So that, uh, visualization, I like thinking about stuff for me. Um, I think about it, like there's waterfalls on all sides where anything that I take in has to go through that, like very powerful torrent.
Anything like from above that I feel like are in my highest and best interest, I'm able to take it in, but anything from like on a more lateral level, let's say among like other people have to go through that filter of my own choosing. And I, and I mentioned about sifting. Before, right? Like I need to vet out which ones I take in and which ones I keep out.
And so in that sense, like irritation type of anger, emotion can help us sense something that's not supposed to be within our field. And so. Yeah. If we're around someone who tends to be more boundary blurring or boundary breaching, then we need to have that extra thick boundary. You can use your imagination if you need to.
On the worse end, you can also minimize how often you expose yourself to them or for how long you expose yourself or around certain topics that are completely off the table. People are welcome to excuse themselves to go to the restroom. Cause like, who's going to argue against that? Like if they do, then it's clear that they're the asshole type of thing.
But there's one more thing. Another piece of energy is you think about yourself as. a cup or a bowl and you're trying really hard to not have someone else spill their stuff into your bowl. Well, one preventative way of doing that is if you put into your bowl, a lot of stuff that you do want, then whatever stuff that comes in from there and will naturally be washed out.
Balancing Energies
So sometimes if, you know, a lot of HSPs tend to be more internal and we take on other people's stuff, partially because we're not emitting our energy out, we're taking other people's stuff in. And so I think it's part of attunement or a good part of relationships where we know our audience and who we're talking to, and we calibrate what kind of energy we emit to match them where they're at.
So for with someone who has also kind of a more internal lower energy that we can dim down ours. To what's probably our comfort zone. But if we're interacting with someone who is high, active, expressive energy, then it might be a good option for us to practice dialing up our own expressiveness to take up just as much space as they do.
The other person might not even register that as like something offensive. If they do find offense in that, then that's their issue. But sometimes some people actually find it as a sign of intimacy. Or the other person to match their energy level. So that kind of depends on the specific person that you're thinking of.
If you observe the kinds of relationships that they're in with other people, who they tend to get along well with and who they tend to have a harder time with. And then you try to see if you can take up more space yourself, speaking at a higher volume or speaking more quantity, even. And then see how that goes with that person.
Gina: I love your waterfall imagery. I'm going to totally do that. I'm going to try that one. That sounds great.
Joanne: I didn't come up with these. These actually came from my own Enneagram teachers. So yeah, feel free to pass them along.
Guest: How long have you all known that you're highly sensitive people? Is that something that you came to later in life? Or was there just something just was happening that made you realize that you were highly sensitive?
Lauren: So I, I think it was probably about 10 years ago now. I, I, as, as almost all my guests on the podcast, I felt like I was weird and I didn't quite fit in for, for all of my life. So I, pretty sure I just like randomly saw an article that somebody had posted about it on Facebook.
I just was intrigued and so I read it and then I was like somebody wrote this article about me And so then I looked into it a little more and I was like this is so I can't believe there's a word for all of these things that Like make up who I am. This is really bizarre. And then I sort of didn't do much with it.
And then as a therapist, several years later, I sort of brought it back because I had a coworker who was highly sensitive. And so that kind of brought it back into my mind and yeah, it's, it's, it's. And then it just, you know, here we are now. But I think we all really try to figure out who we are and why we are the way that we are, because we've all felt not quite like we didn't quite fit in, but I just sort of stumbled upon it.
I didn't meet, I mean, I'm so glad I did find it, but I didn't, it's not like I was, Really researching into it to find it. So that was just, it just happened, which is cool.
Gina: Yeah. Mine was also about not quite 10 years ago, but the biggest thing was like, I was always feeling overwhelmed and crying. And I was always like, why isn't everyone else actually like this or feeling overwhelmed like I am.
And so many people would say to me, you need a thicker skin, like over and over. So many people said that. And I'm like, I don't understand why. Everyone else can handle these things and I can't. Um, and, uh, speaking to my therapist, she's like, you should read this book, The Highly Sensitive Person. And then when I read that, I'm like, oh my God, like, this is, this is me.
Like, I don't need to have a thicker skin. I just need to like, Change the way that I am seeing myself at, like, according to everyone else in the world and kind of, and be a lot nicer to myself and telling instead of telling myself that I needed to, like, change and be someone different. And I think knowing that, knowing that I'm a highly sensitive person and empath has really helped to like myself more.
And I think that is like the hugest thing. And I wish I'd known that so long ago.
Joanne: My experience has been pretty similar. I think it's probably also around 10 years ago. So I'm like, I don't know if there's something about that time, you know, but for me, It was coming across, I mean, I think I was probably in my therapy program back then. And so a lot of it was like learning a lot about how different people operate, different people's psyches and whatnot.
And I came across the highly sensitive person book, which had a questionnaire, a 27 question questionnaire. And then I was like going down the list. I was like, dang, I think I hit like 23, 24 and I was like, Hmm, I think I'm on to something. So I read the book. I was like, That tracks. And so going back, looking back at my early life, I'm like, oh, that makes a lot more sense because I don't internalize all this like guilt and shame and stuff like that.
As if something was wrong with me, I just happened to have a coping strategy that made me very functional by numbing out. But I think I numbed out so much precisely because I felt so many feelings. And so I think if it weren't for that kind of resource, I probably would have flowed under the radar for a long time.
Or a lot longer while thinking that there's something wrong with me And so now it's more of like it is what it is 20 percent of the population that's quite a lot of people and so maybe I love the Metaphor that the author uses in the book talking about the priestly Scholar class and then the warrior king class.
It's like well, we need both of them in society Maybe it's just that you know You The culture tends to value things more in the Warrior King direction might is right like, you know Whoever is loudest is best or whatever, but I think it was that and me visiting Japan for the first time same person. I haven't changed much you take the same person You drop it off at another part of the world That is more HSP oriented and they have a very different experience.
So I think that also kind of helped validate that like, yeah, it's a thing. And it's just that there might be a match or mismatch depending on our environment, either our family environment or like our neighborhood, country, et cetera. So that's why I like thinking about things beyond the individual person.
Like what's the context, the social context that we're in that also influences how we feel about ourselves.
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Joanne Kim, Feelings Translator
Hi! I’m a therapist-turned feelings coach who helps Highly Sensitive Persons, Empaths, Enneagram 2s & 4s, etc. turn their BIGGEST feelings into their GREATEST superpower!
They are often the first (or only) person in their family to intuitively process and express feelings; consequently, they are often judged or criticized so that they learn to people please, placate, or perform until they hit a wall.
They’re super familiar with anxiety, guilt, and shame, partly because of an allergic reaction to anger (theirs and others').
Often the super responsible, empathic, and ethical person in their environments, they reach out to me after they're already burned out, resentful in their relationships, or sucked into their shame spiral.
The most common feedback I get from people when I share about how feelings work is,
"Why didn't anyone teach me this in school??"
Hence, I am building a school helping people work WITH their feelings so their feelings work FOR them.