252: Being Highly Sensitive Is a Superpower -- Embrace and Leverage It

What we see in the research time and time and time again is that if you give sensitive people the same kind of supportive environment that would put anybody ahead, it rockets them way farther ahead than anyone else. So, for example, in sensitive children, you give them a nurturing, loving. We can't just give that to them in a lab. But if the ones who happen to have a nurturing, loving home life in their family, that helps any kid do better at school. But sensitive kids will become the top achievers in their class.

Hello, everyone. This is Kathy Caprino, and welcome to my podcast, Finding Brave. I've created this show for everyone who longs to create something bold and brave in their life, to rise up, speak up, and stand up for who they are and to reach their highest and biggest visions. Each week, I'll be speaking with inspiring guests from all walks of business, leadership, entertainment, the creative arts, and the entrepreneurial world. And they'll be sharing their intimate stories of finding Grave and offer their best strategies for building your most rewarding, joyful, and meaningful life, business and career. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Finding Great. So happy that you're here. And I have a feeling that at least one third of you, because I think that's the statistics we're going to share, are going to resonate with this in a way that I think your. Your head's going to explode. But in a good way.

You.

You're going to see yourself in this, and I think it's going to help you tremendously to accept and appreciate who you really are, even though sometimes we feel we have to hide it with that teaser. I am so excited to have Andre Solo here. Thank you, Andre, for taking the time.

Kathy, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

So excited. All right, we are talking about what's. What's our wonderful title here? How being Highly sensitive is a superpower and how to leverage it. That's what this podcast is about. But let me tell you about Andre, who is an expert in this. So let me share. Andre Solo is the force behind Sensitive Refuge. Oh, that just hits me right here. The world's largest website for sensitive people and the co author with Jen Graniman. Yeah. Of Sensitive. The hidden power of the Highly Sensitive person in a loud, fast, too much world. Kind of. Who can't resonate with that, right? An author, researcher, and speaker, Andre serves as editor in chief of Sensitive Refuge and chief Make It Happen officer of Introvert. Dear. A highly sensitive person himself. For much of his life, he thought he had to hide it before coming to understand it's one of humanity's most powerful and most overlooked traits. Now, Andrew is a recognized expert and passionate advocate for sensitive people and writes about sensitivity on Forbes and Psychology Today and has spoken at Amazon and internationally and been featured in a lot of other top media. So here we are. And you. Are you both in New Orleans and St. Paul?

Yes, although less New Orleans these days, but, yeah, I bounce between both. Yeah.

Wonderful. All right, let us dig in. I got so many questions. It's going to be very hard to get this done in 30 minutes. But. But let's start. First of all, do we define and describe highly sensitive people? Let's start there.

Favorite question, Kathy. So when we hear the word sensitive, I think a lot of us think fragile, weak, or maybe someone who overreacts. And that is just not what sensitive means as a personality trait. Being sensitive means that you take in more information from the environment around you and you do more with it. Right. So sensitive people are actually wired at a brain level to process all information more deeply. And that allows us to notice things that others miss and to make connections and find kind of new ideas that others might not make interestingly. So the information that the brain takes in, that includes sensory information. Right. A sensitive person can notice the texture of a fabric or those subtle hints of apricot and a nice white wine. But information is also emotional, and that's oftentimes the most important information we have in our environment. So sensitive people are also better at noticing that little hint of a smile that flashed across someone's face just before they managed to hide it. Which it can be a really powerful thing to have that kind of radar. So tend to be both more physically and more emotionally sensitive. And those two things are so closely related that in studies we found that if you take a Tylenol to numb your physical pain, you'll actually score lower on an empathy test. Until that Tylenol wears off, everyone will.

Or highly sensitive.

Yeah, yeah. One in the same system. Right.

All right, I'm going to bombard you with questions if that's okay. Strap in. All right, you said, and I've read your material, too, you said that highly sensitive people will take in the information in a deeper way. Can you explain that? And I think there's a neuro scientist science explanation, but how does that come out in the world if we're taking it in in a deeper way?

Right. So you're right that in sort of neuroscientific studies, we do see greater brain activation in certain key areas. And so One wonderful study from 2010 used FMRIS to kind of peek inside the brains of highly sensitive people and less sensitive people. And they did it while these subjects were looking at images. And they would change the image with just tiny, a few tiny details missing. Kind of like those, like spot the difference things you might have done online or whatever.

Right, right.

So they would, they would have the subjects do that while monitoring their brains. And what they noticed first of all is that sensitive people actually spent more time scrutinizing the difference between the images and like looking for every little thing. But also in terms of the brain activity, they didn't just have more activity in the areas related to visual processing, which would make sense, but also in areas related to evaluating complexity in general and looking for details rather than just superficial traits. In a very literal sense, the sensitive mind does go deeper. That's what we're wired to do. Just across the board. If you're a sensitive person, this isn't something you turn on or turn off. You're taking in more detail and your brain's putting a little more effort, a little more time into it. Spending more resources on it would be a good way to say it. No matter whether it's, you know, what you're watching on Netflix, it's a meeting you're having with your boss, it's playing with your kid, or it's just when you're trying to do your morning commute, that brain is always doing that extra processing. And that's a double edged sword. It leads to some of our greatest strengths.

Right.

So sensitive people tend to be good at. We tend to be highly creative and a lot of great creatives are highly sensitive people. We tend to be extremely attuned to our environment, so noticing tiny little differences that others might not notice. There's something we call my co author, Jen Graniman and I call sensory intelligence, which is that ability to just be aware and attuned to your surroundings and that can make a life or death difference. That's something that in the military they call it situational awareness. And they try to train people to be situationally aware, which sensitive people just are out of the gate. And we've spoken to highly sensitive service members who credited that their sensitivity as being one of their most important traits as a military service member. So it's a very kind of flexible and valuable trait. But of course, the one that people often think of is empathy. And highly sensitive people do score higher for empathy as well. So you have this trait by the numbers. It is linked to giftedness. And it comes with these many strengths, both physical and emotional and in terms of creativity and intelligence. And at the same time, your brain is putting all this extra work in. So there's a cost to those gifts, and that cost is overstimulation. You can get overstimulated easily in a chaotic or busy or rushed environment, or when there's just too much going on around you. Whether that's, you know, too many noises and bright lights, too many people, or whether it's just an intense emotional situation can be overstimulating as well, because your brain is going to keep going deep no matter how much stuff is being thrown at it.

So fascinating. Andre. So I'm listening to you, and I'm trying to split my brain in half about what does the listener want? Ouch. What is. See, I'm an hsp. I mean, I'm going deep all over the place. I want to know what. I want to know, because I think I am this, and I think I might have misinterpreted some things. And I want to ask you. So. And I think I mentioned a third of you will get something out of this. And hopefully everyone else who lives and works and loves and collaborates with, I can call them hsp. Right? Highly sensitive people that. Okay.

Highly sensitive people. Hsp. Or we sometimes just say sensitive people.

Sensitive people. Okay. And I think you said the data shows a third of us are.

Yeah, it's roughly and sensitive. To me, it's a. It's a continuum like any other trait. So most people are average. They're kind of in the middle. Some people are at the low end. It's a little less common. And then about 30% of people are at the high end. And that's true for both men and women.

All right, I want to ask this. It's a list. So I'm an extrovert, but I have ambivert tendencies. You know, I get overwhelmed after talking to 100 people. I have two days off. But I think I'm an extrovert. So first of all, do you see a correlation between introversion and sensitivity in this way?

Right. So they're two very different traits, and they kind of. You can sort of think of them as measuring two different things. Right. So when we talk about whether someone's an introvert or an extrovert, that's a social orientation. Right. So what we really mean is that introverts tend to get their energy from having alone time, and extroverts tend to get their energy from being around people. So there's this social difference in which one energizes them with sensitivity. This is really about an orientation to your environment. And so whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, if you're highly sensitive, you're going to do better in common environments and you're going to struggle sometimes in really stimulating or crowded or loud environments. And so you have these interesting cases of like, you know, lots of highly sensitive people are extroverts, and they love people and they get their energy from people. But are they going to do the same things as a less sensitive extrovert? Probably not. The, you know, the huge networking event with 200 people in a huge crowded hotel conference center is probably going to be hard for even an extroverted hsp. But they might want to book almost every night of the week seeing, you know, two or three or four friends at a quiet restaurant rather than a crowded club.

Okay, so what I'm taking from that is there are ways that the sensitivity emerges, and that's different. You can't lump. Yep. If you're an extrovert, you're blah, blah. All right.

Right. Secondly, some overlap. I will say that's about 30% of sensitive people are, are extroverts and 70 are introverts. So it does lean more toward introvert. But I will also think, I mean, personally, I would say that there's probably been some confusion in the research over previous decades between those two traits, because the science of sensitivity has been unfolding since really, the 80s. It's a more recent science that we've started to understand this and we've definitely sussed out in very complicated personality inventories that these two things measure different things about a person. But I think a lot of the earlier research probably conflated them a bit.

I see part of it now. Can I ask you this? When I'm reading over your materials, I saw you can get overwhelmed with too much, you know, stimuli. You also mentioned boundaries. And I, I did want to ask this again. This is all about me, but here we go. Maybe all of you will find this interesting. You know, when I was studying to be a therapist, I was a therapist for some time, and I also studied energy healing. Okay. Some people are going to say, so, woo, woo. But I would put my hands over people and honest to God, Andre, I would see videos of things from the past. I didn't know what they were. And I would say to the person, I don't know what this is, but I saw a video, blah, blah, blah, and they would start crying, you know, like that was them 40 years ago. The point is, I really felt like my boundaries were not and are not sufficient to do the hands on work because I would just get it right in. One time I was working on a patient with cancer and I, I couldn't breathe and I looked at my instructor and I went. And she came over and is it, is it a correlation that. Oh, the other thing I wanted to ask you as part of this is I'm very sensitive to. I could walk into a room, a boardroom or a meeting room and I could tell what everyone was feeling. He's angry, she's jealous. And if you're not well boundaried, you're going to be a mess. It's going to, it's going to. And I've gotten better at it. But I also can feel when there's negativity in a person and that can be very hard. Are these HSP traits or do you think it's something else as well?

Absolutely. You're checking a lot of boxes there for high sensitivity. And you know, I'm just going to mention as an aside too that what you said about walking into a boardroom, this is why sensitive people make tremendous leaders. It's not the only reason why, but it's a part of it. I think it's easy for us to think, oh well, sure, artists. I could see a person being a great artist because they're sensitive. They're also great CEOs. Right. We sensitive people are kind of meant for this kind of thing. And when you hear somebody like maybe an experienced salesperson saying, you know, how they can just read someone and they just know what the person really wants or what they're really after, what to say to them, that person, that salesperson might not think of themselves as sensitive. They very well might be. That's where that comes from. And the same thing for. We spoke to the director of a very large corporate foundation attached to one of the country's biggest fast food chains. And I am not allowed to say their name, but you'd recognize them.

Sure.

And you know, she spoke about how as the director of this foundation, one of her most valuable abilities was she would get these potential donors who'd have to meet with which are very high level people. These are VPs of Fortune 500 companies. And you know that maybe there's been a pitch that it would really, you know, help your image if you promote, if you donated to our foundation. And this will be good for this and this and this. And the person's coming in Resistant and just, like, prove to me why I should donate. Why is this worth my time? And, you know, at the beginning of the conversation, they're basically just an iron wall, just, like, ready to say no. And 20 minutes later, she's got them just, like, excited and passionate about the mission. Right. And then they're signing these huge donations. So it's because of that ability to read people. So I'm so glad you said that, because it's one of our biggest things.

Okay. Yay. I'm gonna be a good leader. All right, now, I, I, I think we're hitting on the skills and talents that sensitive people have that perhaps are unsung and unrecognized. Right. But I also know in reading your material, there are downsides. I think I just had the downside of it in a meeting the other day where I'm sensing so much. And I, I would ask you this to finish that sentence. I'm responding at a level where it's a little unfiltered because I was getting angry, and so I said things that. Interesting how I just let that rip. My, my point here is I think probably if you don't have great mastery over your emotions and your communication, I'm guessing that the sensitivity can hijack you a little bit. Am I making sense?

You're. Yes, you're making sense, and you're 100% right. I think that's like every other trait. Right. Any other personality trait you might have, it's going to come with its strengths, and it will come with its drawbacks. That's certainly true for sensitivity as well. We, as a group, like sensitive people, we do have stronger emotions, and we have stronger emotional reactions. Now, that's great for a lot of reasons. Right. That's where passion comes from. That passion is infectious, and it's part of how we can inspire people and connect with people and make things happen on a big level. But big emotions could also be big, difficult emotions, right?

Yeah, they can, they can overwhelm other people, particularly who are not sensitive people. So here you come with your big foosh.

Yeah, absolutely. And the thing is, our sensitive people very. How would I put this? Are sensitive people more emotionally intelligent on average? I'm not going to say they are.

I hear you.

However, I would say that being sensitive is like being tall. And learning emotional intelligence is like playing basketball. You have an advantage in it if you're going to start working on your emotional intelligence. And because of that, because you're tall, so to speak, sometimes you just get good at emotional Intelligence just because you've been doing it long enough. But I think it's a very powerful thing for a highly sensitive person to start reading up on and putting into practice the things that help you develop emotional intelligence as a skill. Because there is some research to suggest that although we have very strong emotions, we sensitive people don't always do that good of a job of regulating them specifically in one way. And that is, my goodness, when you're having negative emotions, are you able to see them as something that is temporary and that's going to pass with time?

That negative emotion or that. That stimuli that.

Yeah, the negative emotion itself. And it's very easy when, you know, anybody who is sad, they kind of get wired in sadness or. Same thing with anger, same thing with stress. Right. Same thing with despair. But it's very easy when you have these much stronger levels. Like, if I'm feeling sad, I feel really sad. Right. That's just me. It's so easy to lose sight of, well, this is how I feel now, but this is going to change. And it might change because I fixed the problem, but I might not be able to fix the problem. And either way, I won't feel like this forever. And just that simple acknowledgment, that simple ability to see that end, helps you start to treat your emotions differently. And that has been found to be something that is a real growth point for highly sensitive people.

I love the nuances that you're. It's complex. Just because we're highly sensitive people doesn't mean we're this, this, and this and this in every situation.

Wow.

Yeah.

You want to mind? Yeah, I'll just. I'll say something too, that there's going to be some people who are listening to this who are thinking, well, I thought I was sensitive from some of the stuff you said earlier, but I don't know that I have that strong of emotions or I don't sense other people's emotions. And that's okay. Right. Because we do know that there's sort of different, I don't want to say different types of sensitive people. It's not like different personality types, but there are sort of different ways in which sensitivity comes across. And there's like three specific ones that get captured in the data all the time. One of them is aesthetic sensitivity. So you're very attuned to beauty and how things in your environment make you and other people feel. And you have this eye for, wow, if we just put this vase over here, if we just use just the right color Here. And you're going to notice what makes a gourmet meal gourmet, or why this particular song is so stirring. That's important to aesthetically sensitive people. And then there's people who are very physically sensitive, very sensorily sensitive. And that's where you're noticing that tiny hum of the fan, that roughness of this fabric that doesn't bother anybody else, those little tiny minute details. And then you have the high empathy, the high emotional type of sensitivity. And most sensitive people are a blend of all three of these. You can be primarily one, you can be primarily two. You could be all three. It varies from person to person. All of those three have the same underlying trait of this deep processing and a lot of the shared qualities, but it can come out differently. And I think, especially for male sensitive people, we. Even if we have strong emotions, we might not think of it that way. I never thought of myself for most of my life as being a highly emotional person. I knew that I could be very energetic in a debate. I knew that I would have my really low periods. I knew that I could be the life of the party. And my, you know, if I've got the good mood going on, like, I saw all those things. But I didn't think of that as well. I actually have very strong emotions. And it wasn't until a former partner pointed out to me, you're a very emotional guy. And I was like, we were right.

Wow. Wow. Oh, my. Oh, so interesting to me. All right, focus, Kathy. I have questions based on what you said, but let me ask you this. I'll bring up my daughter, Julia. She. She is so artistic and everything she does, she's floral design, garden design. She's an amazing cook. She, you know, draws and paints and makes jewelry. But even about food, like, frankly, I could eat a boiled egg, and I'm happy I'm not, you know, and with my daughter Julia, food is very important. Is that part of this as well?

Yeah, it can be. Absolutely. I mean, I think that that my personal take. Right. Is that that could mean that you're. Although you're a highly sensitive person, as you said earlier, you might not be that high on aesthetic sensitivity. And it sounds like your daughter might. That's it.

That's it.

Her room is magic with that. But for me, that's true. I'm very aesthetically oriented. And I'm like, oh, let me make this Mac and cheese for my son by starting by shredding a block of Parmesan. And why? What would you do that he doesn't care. He's two. Right.

Bravo, Papa. He doesn't know. But you, that's okay. You've. You've helped me so much now. I mean, I mean, listen to how this will help us learn to see others differently. So we're very different. You know, I might say, I have nothing in the kitchen. Julia comes in and says, and whips up, you know, but look at those as gifts and, and yes, we're different. And maybe we value or appreciate different things, but it's so important what you're bringing to light. Now, I do want to say this. Just throw it out there. Earlier we were talking about burden bearer versus highly sensitive people, which is a term I think you hadn't heard of much, and I hadn't either, but I read about it. Would you venture to say that being spiritually attuned is anything that's come out in the research?

Oh, that's fascinating. So I think, I think a lot of researchers are allergic to addressing.

That sounds religious. It sounds, right? No, but I'm not talking about that, am I? I'm talking about your, your spirit.

Yeah.

Underneath your emotions. Right. So there, there's no research on that, probably.

Oh, you know, it's, it's fun. There's. Maybe I shouldn't say research, but I think that I, I can't. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a single therapist who specializes in HSPS or a single HSP or. Sorry, I should say sensitivity researcher who wouldn't say. Yeah, I think on average, highly sensitive people are more drawn to spirituality and it plays a more maybe major or personal role in their life if they are drawn to it. And I would go a step farther. I would say this. I personally think it has something to do with what my co author, Jen Graniman and I term the sensitive boost effect.

How is that?

This is probably the single greatest advantage you have as a sensitive person. Right. So the boost effect basically means, you know, think of the things that, that help anybody. Right. Like. Or that hurt anybody. Right. So if you think about. Let's start with the word vulnerable. Right? Vulnerable basically means that if, if you experience something that might make anyone suffer, you suffer more. That's being vulnerable, Right. What's the opposite of that? What is the word for you experience something that would help anybody, give anybody a little boost, but you get more of a boost from it. Well, the word is sensitivity. What we see in the research time and time and time again is that if you give sensitive people the same kind of supportive environment that would Put anybody ahead, it rockets them way farther ahead than anyone else. So for example, insensitive children, you give them a nurturing, loving. We can't just give that to them in a lab. But if the ones who happen to have a nurturing, loving home life in their family, that helps any kid do better at school. But sensitive kids will become the top achievers in their class. Let's look at teenagers with depression. If you get therapy for your depression, on average, that'll help anybody. But in the sensitive teenagers in studies, they overcome their depression on average, more, more, more fully. And then they, they keep themselves depression free longer term after the therapy's over because they took more from it. Right.

It's like a sponge, isn't it? That's. I'm trying to come up with a very simple analogy. A non porous sponge is, you know, you'll put an agent, a chemical agent, and it's, you know, it's a boundary that is impervious. Right. But the poorest sponge, off it goes, right?

Oh, exactly, exactly. And I think that's one of the reasons we've evolved sensitivity, not just ourselves, but hundreds upon hundreds of species is because of this advantage. You know, a lot of people think that in order to survive in the real world, you have to grow a thicker skin, put on some armor that can help in a tough situation. But you know what else can't get through the thick skin is supportive.

Anything else.

Anything. Wisdom. Right. So what we find is if you translate that to adults, sensitive people have the same thing as adults. And what's great is as a kid you can't control your home environment, but as an adult, you can control your environment. So think about getting extra career training, getting some kind of coaching, having a mentor, having a really supportive group of friends who encourage and believe in you. Right. Having a mastermind group, going to networking events, the things that are going to be great sources of support for any adult. And you're a sensitive person, you get more out of it. We've even seen that sensitive people in. There was this wonderful study that took hundreds of couples on the brink of divorce and gave them all the same kind of couples therapy program that's designed to train them how to improve their communication and save their relationship. This program has been proven to work. It helps on average more often than not. And it did. And then when they tested those people, gave them a personality test at the end, they found something surprising. The sensitive people were the ones who were in the couples that went on to save their marriages.

Only one did it have to be only one partner, like, or did both the partners have to.

But even just one, you know, so you're you. If you're a sensitive person, as long as you can curate a supportive environment for yourself, you're walking around with a rocket strapped to your back and you just have to light it, right? And that's what the supportive environment does. And suddenly you're going to be a top achiever. Or, you know, achievement might not be important to you, but achieve other goals in your life, right? You're gonna, you're gonna develop a happy home life. You're gonna start following your purpose or your passion. You're gonna start to meet goals that you care about. That's where that comes from. So how this gets stacked to spirituality, I think a lot of people aren't sure where to get that kind of support. How do I find a mentor? How do I, you know what? Or you don't even consciously realize. I need more support in my life to activate that. But spirituality is something that's accessible to everyone. So I think that just as highly sensitive people get more out of therapy, I think they probably also get more out of spiritual practice. And I can say for myself personally that meditating is life changing and transformative. And it's something that I take seriously. Do I do it every day? No, I'm not perfect, but I do it as, as close to every day as I can, as I can manage. And it's, it's a game changer.

There is so much you are sharing here. And I'm thinking, you know, I'm a singer. And I think you even mentioned things like music can elevate a highly sensitive person in ways that another might not even understand. Like sometimes when I'm singing, I get so moved and, you know, I'm choking up all over the place. But now I'm singing as a way of contributing to a church nearby. And I get so much out of it in that way that you're discussing. I didn't even know that I missed spirituality.

Yeah, right.

But this particular pastor, in this particular music director and this particular music is. I'm seeing so much now. Two questions that I want to make sure we, we touch on. And I know you, you have a. You have to go soon. I would like you to talk about, let me say them so we'll remember. One, gender and highly sensitive people. Number two. I read a fascinating thing about empathy versus compassion. You know, I found, for instance, it's difficult for me to watch certain kind of violent movies that I can watch them if they're fantasy. But I can't really watch people going through. It's too hard for me. I have nightmares. And you talked about empathy versus empathy.

By the way. What's that very common HSP trait.

I think I would rank, you know, at the top level here of hsp and I want to make sure you give us some tips for how to leverage the sensitivity, how to mitigate the potential. And a few of them like what we need to do as a parent. And I do want to say I was a former marriage and family therapist. I would love to see a study of. And I'm divorced. But thankfully amicably. Very amicably. Thank gosh. I would love to see how many couples divorced unbeknownst to them. But one was highly sensitive and one was not. And the bridging of the gap did not happen. Interesting. All right, so let's start with gender.

Yeah, absolutely.

I, I feel we were talking about Mark Green. Everybody. Please check that out, man box culture that, you know, five year old boys know what it is to be a boy. And it's heartbreaking what they say it is to be a boy. Don't be vulnerable. Don't have girls who are friends. Don't be a pussy. The word, you know, don't show your weak. Never cry. Well, I've got to imagine that this sends highly sensitive people underground if they're men or identify as male. Would you tell me what you think?

100 that's I think really well said. So I think all sensitive people face a level of stigma. And I think most sensitive people spend a lot of their life being told don't be so sensitive. Why are you so sensitive? You got to grow a thicker skin. Toughen up, toughen up, toughen up. And that includes women as well as men. I think the messaging is different. I think for women the messaging is don't be so sensitive. Like it's okay to be a little sense, but don't be so sensitive. Right.

And what people usually mean is why are you getting emotional about that? Why are you telling me that I'm being rough on you or that's what they mean. Stop being you. I'm fine. You're the problem. Okay. Yeah.

And I think, I think the phrase too sensitive is one that could just be retired at this point. We just don't need that phrase.

That's a quote. That's a tweetable. Don't ever say those words again, please.

Yeah, right. Like if you really are using the word sensitive to mean what it does mean, right. In science. I mean, how can you be too. Too innovative? How can you be too compassionate? Right. There's no such thing as being too.

Sensitive, but unless it grinds you to a halt and you no longer can function, I mean, if I were in therapy with someone, I would say that's impacting your functioning. Let's see what we can do to, you know, help you navigate the challenges of the world in it in a different way. Right. Okay.

So for. For men and for boys, the message is basically just don't be sensitive at all and that you will be mocked and denigrated if you either express or show any kind of sensitivity. And that's harmful and it's often unintentional harm. Right.

It's often, I think, to try to protect them.

Yeah.

Right. Well, meaning people, I think, yeah, absolutely.

And I think for a highly sensitive boy. So speaking for myself growing up, I had very loving parents. They're very encouraging. They also, you know, they are who they are. Right. They grew up with a different set of values. And this was not. The idea of being sensitive was not on anyone's radar. Right. And I definitely felt growing up, no one ever said to me, don't. You can't be so sensitive. And I didn't realize I was a sensitive person at the time. But I definitely felt like I had to hide this part of myself. And that held me back for a very long time. Right.

And I could have to hide it more with boys.

Yes. Yeah. And I. For a lot of my, you know, for a lot of my childhood and early adulthood, I would have more female friends than male friends. And I didn't know why. I was like, well, well, you can actually be yourself more around the female friends. Right. But I think there's this fascinating difference in how boys versus girls and the messages we get about emotions. And neither gets, like, really good messages on average. But for boys, the research suggests that it. Generally speaking, the issue is that they are taught just not to express any emotion at all. And that if they do, the one acceptable emotion that they've seen modeled around them is anger. Because both mothers and fathers, right, parents of any gender tend to not talk about emotions as much with their male sons. They don't talk them through emotions. They don't ask, how are you feeling? They don't kind of model that sort of thing, including mothers, just because we don't think of it as being this important thing for boys. And when, as a result, boys just don't have any kind of, like, instruction, so to speak. About emotions, except the one time they see emotions come out because people don't. Parents don't show a lot of emotions around boys on average, but the emotions come out when someone's angry. So the one emotion we see modeled that even our dads can let out is anger. Right? And so then you have this issue where I don't know how to say I'm sad, I don't know how to say I'm stressed, I don't know how to say I'm afraid. And I'll just bottle it up, box it up, and eventually when it becomes too much, I'll yell about it. And of course we have this whole issue with this. Girls get a different message. Girls get a different kind of emotional modeling. Parents will show more emotions around girls in general. And it's okay for girls to show emotions, but only certain emotions, Right? And you maybe you've experienced this, right? But like, if you are angry as a little girl, that's not going to go over well. But if you express sadness, aw, that's okay. And so little girls get this message of like, I need to show this, this set of emotions are fine. And so even if I'm feeling angry, even if the right thing to do would be to speak up and say that was not fair, that's not okay, and draw a boundary. I won't because that won't look good. I'm not supposed to be angry or loud or whatever. So instead I'll be sad, I'll pout about it. Right? And so you get this. Both boys and girls getting this kind of broken set of messages about how to use their emotions. Not good for anybody. Especially not good obviously for sensitive people because emotions are our first language.

That's what we're communicating when we're crying as infants. I'm hungry, I hurt. Well, there you go. And you said, let's go there because it's a great tie in as parents for both boys and girls. What do we need to do that we're not doing?

Yeah, that's the million dollar question. So if you have a sensitive child, the biggest thing you can do is to accept and encourage them. Here's some phrases I want you to memorize when you're talking to the teacher. Right? You're going in for parent teacher conference. Drop this puppy in there. You know, my son, you know, my son is a pretty sensitive kid and that's something we're trying to encourage.

Oh, I got a big chill.

Right? See the reaction you get from that because some teachers will go, oh, great. And maybe they're even familiar, and they might even say, oh, is he highly sensitive?

And.

And other teachers will either have no idea, like, oh, oh, okay, or I.

Noticed he cries a lot. No, we don't mean that. Let me explain what we mean.

That inroad to talk about what being sensitive means and this personality trait that a lot of teachers do know about and a lot of teachers don't, and it just kind of creates a little more awareness and also makes sure that your child's not being unintentionally, kind of penalized for this part of their personality that's, frankly, heavily genetic. And it's not going to change. You know, a lot of. I remember speaking to the Prince. He's retired, but a former principal of an elementary school, and we talked about this book and. And sensitive kids, and he kind of understood, but he kind of said, well, yeah, you know, I think that's important, but I think it's really important for them to just learn to just toughen up, and you got to just learn to be less sensitive. And putting aside whether that's true, I don't think that's helpful. But you won't. You won't become less sensitive. You'll either be sensitive and open and proud about it, or sensitive and hiding it and cutting off your own strengths that come from it. So that encouragement's big.

Can I just say something? Looking at your book, I think every teacher in the world. But let's start with America, needs this book. I think if I knew someone at the, you know, what is the big teacher association? Right.

Yeah.

I think people look at the book that you're seeing there, and we'll have a link. Give it to your teachers for. For your children's teachers.

Right? Yeah.

Because what this. What this person really means is if. If you're gonna be so upset about everything, you're gonna have a hard time with life, well, say it differently.

Right.

That's not sensitivity problems. That's negotiating and navigating through how to process my sensitivity and my emotions in a way that's gonna be effective. They're not the same thing. Yeah, right.

And sometimes a different approach is all that's needed. I mean, I think we talk these days a lot about gentle parenting, and that is the best form of parenting for sensitive children. It's important to understand that sensitive people, by the numbers, are, on average, more conscientious. We score high for conscientiousness, and that includes children. Right. So your sensitive child is probably someone who really just sincerely wants to Be good and please the teacher and please mommy and daddy. So when they've done something wrong, they're already internally punishing themselves for it. And if they didn't realize it was wrong, just the word from you is enough. Where they're like, oh, I didn't want to, I didn't mean to. Okay, I won't do that again. So some children, maybe. I personally don't believe in yelling at any child, right? I don't raise my voice with kids, but maybe some children, I could see a gym teacher making an argument like, this is the only way I get through to that guy. That's not your sensitive kid. Your sensitive kid telling them that there was a problem, explaining it to them. Of course, if they're young enough to have a tantrum, you'll have to deal with that. But if they're a little, you know, older than that, that's all it takes. So gentle parenting helps. So does this. When there are behavior problems with sensitive children, it's often because of overstimulation. And anybody who gets overstimulated, we've all been hangry at work, right? Like you get irritated, you start to get stressed out, you start to snap at people. Well, kids don't like snap at people in a, in a semi polite way. Kids just like lose it, right? So if you're seeing a lot of behavior problems, it could be because of overstimulation. And some things that really help are before you go to the friend's birthday party, just say, hey, when we get there, it's at this big thing, there's going to be pizza, there's going to be all these games going on. When we walk in, it's okay if we just hang by the entrance for a little bit and you can just watch, you know, before you run in and start joining. And also tell them, you know, assuming you're going to be there the whole time, right? It's like, hey, if you need to leave early, let me know. And it's okay if we leave early. If you're just getting tired or worn out, just let me know, we'll go. Or if that's not possible, like, tell them, like, look, I won't be able to come back and get you until X time. You know, here's what you can do. If you're feeling worn out, like, go, go sit down for a little bit with the adults and just relax a little bit. You'll feel better. And you could probably go back to playing after 10 minutes. So give them those tools and what's Great Is that doesn't just fix the behavior problem, which is like mommy or daddy's problem. That's going to be a. They're learning self care and boundaries. They're learning that it's okay to say wow, you know, my friends invited me out to this thing, but it's going to go really late and be really loud and I have work the next day and I'm just going to say no or I'm just going to come for the first hour. And that's the skill a lot of us don't have as adults is to say no to things when it's unhealthy to say yes. You're teaching your kid that it's okay.

Yeah. You're teaching your kid you're perfect the way you are. And let's do some things that help you be your best.

Yeah.

As opposed to what? Many parents are kind of stressed out. Mess. That's not a very kind way to say it. But, you know, they're overwhelmed and sometimes they just want their kid to be like other kids that you like the party and you stay for three hours. But really, parenting is loving and appreciating what you have in front of you. Your beautiful, precious child. I love it. All right, one more thing that I know you have to go. Do you have that time? One more. Two minutes? Absolutely.

Yeah. I've got like 10 more minutes.

Okay, great. Empathy versus compassion in your. Oh, you. You make it very clear there's a difference. And you give a tip about how we can. If we're. Like, for me, there's. There's an instinctual. I can't help it. There's an empathy, which for me is not how it's normally described. It's that I literally am in your shoes. Shoes. Not that I can imagine being in your shoes, but if you tell me something traumatic that happened, I literally feel that I'm feeling it.

Yeah, right.

And you talk about the difference. Can you give that one last tip? When we feel flooded by what you're saying that you have experienced. Yeah.

Oh, this is one of my favorite things. So for a lot of highly sensitive people, because we do score high for empathy that comes across as sensing or absorbing the emotions of other people, which can mean you feel it yourself. You know, you're feeling what they are feeling. And that can be the person who you're talking with who's obviously expressing their emotions to you with the expectation of some empathy. It can also just be. It's like having. It's like there's no Safety switch on this. Right. You're just out at a cafe and someone four tables over is, you know, in a foul mood and kind of fuming and nobody else would notice it, or it's just out of the corner of your eye, but you suddenly find yourself just feeling, like really uncomfortable and upset and you don't know why.

Right.

That's absorbing emotions.

I think it's also. Can I just add this as I was sharing to you, when I'm typically when I'm sitting one on one in coaching or previously in therapy, it's knowing things that you weren't told.

Yes.

That. How do you want to call that? I mean, people say that psychic. We don't talk. I don't use those words that, you know, things that are feeding into what they feel that they haven't even told you. What would you call that?

You know, it depends. I think if you wanted like kind of a research based, like not. Not a psychic Y answer, then I think there's an element to it of your. You're extrapolating. Right. Because the mirror neurons that actually power this ability to absorb emotions, they don't just allow us to mirror emotions of other people. They're actually motor cells. These are the cells that allow you to. If I raise my arm, you can raise your arm the same way and copy me. Right. They just kind of got specialized as like, oh, yeah. Some of the motor things we see people do like this, like a big smile or frown. Like, those have a lot of meaning behind them. So when we see somebody make that expression, we should simulate not just the expression, but what must be going on inside their head. Right. So we start to extrapolate. It's not 100% accurate. There's lots of interesting studies where they would do things to sort of like, test the accuracy of, like, are you picking up the same thing, the other person's feeling? And it's not always accurate, but it is generally pretty accurate. It's. It's a pretty good radar.

Wow.

So you kind of extrapolate all this stuff. So that's. That's what we mean by absorbing emotions. And not everyone would say that's the same thing as empathy. But researchers increasingly use the word empathy to mean that ability to pick up or absorb or feel the same thing as other people are feeling. Mirroring the emotions of others. There's actually a wonderful term, emotional contagion. You're getting infected with the emotions of others, which can be a good thing. It's why we get in a good mood when we go to a party, right? This is like you're getting infected with the good emotions, but it can also be hard when it's sad emotions. So everyone has this. Nearly everyone has this. Highly sensitive people have it to a higher degree, and it can be very useful, but it also can be overwhelming because if you're picking up the stress, the sadness, the anger of all the people around you, especially if you're feeling it very vividly yourself, that is exhausting, uncomfortable, distracting, and it sometimes feels impossible to turn off. Like, there's just. I just. I just pick them up. There's nothing I can do about it. It turns out there are some things we can do about it, and none of these are oriented at turning off that ability to pick up emotions. That ability is one of the greatest human strengths because you're able to bring people together from different perspectives. You're able to relate to other people. You're able to start to act in a caring way because you understand what the person needs. Those are all powered by empathy. Even innovation comes from empathy. When we bring together different expertises or different backgrounds, and we are able to make them work together, and suddenly those perspectives fuse. Empathy helps with that, right?

And diversity and equity and inclusion and innovation and creativity and bridging gaps that don't exist. It's. It's a leadership power. It's a. Yeah, all right.

We want to keep it right. We want to keep the empathy, keep the absorbing or at least picking up on emotions. But it turns out that there's a very different thing that happens when people are practicing compassion or acting in a way that we would consider compassionate. I never thought of these two words, empathy and compassion, as being particularly different until we did this research. But researchers are increasingly using them in two very different ways. So with empathy, it's about feeling what the other person's feeling and sort of being in their shoes. Compassion is about identifying what the person needs and how they might be able to get it. Now, if that doesn't sound very emotional, it's not always right. That's. It can be a cerebral process. It can also be an emotional process. But we have a wonderful story in our book about this. He's actually a Buddhist monk who agreed to be tested by brain scientists, basically neuroscientists, and they wanted to specifically study empathy. And so they were asking him to look at all these images of people, sometimes in positive states, other times in very negative. People who looked like they were in pain or just crying their eyes out, grieving, and asking him to look at the Pictures and try to empathize with them while they looked at his brain. Now, this is an accomplished Buddhist monk, right?

Isn't he considered the happiest man in the world?

Or wasn't that this egg line? He didn't come up with that. He don't think he'd ever say that himself.

No, I read about him. Yeah.

Or whatever. Yeah. Might be spent on Earth. And that's the thing, you know, it's like when you meet the Dalai Lama. This person just seems always, you know, unflappably warm and caring and positive. You wouldn't think of them as suddenly suffering from empathy. But this monk began to struggle, and he eventually asked the researchers, can we stop? I don't think I can keep looking at these images. This is just too painful. Would it be okay if I switched to compassion practice instead?

He knew the difference.

He knew the difference. And the research was like, sure, I guess.

Sure. Whatever.

You think brain activity changed. His mood changed. He became calm again. And he was still. That parts of the brain related to empathy still lighting up. He's still sensing what those people are feeling, but he was looking at them now as, what does this person need? And. And how can we help? Right. Or what.

Even though it's a picture of someone who.

Yeah, right. That's the power. Right. And we see that with these two different kind of styles or two, different approaches to this emotional experience have different outcomes. Right. So when you feel empathy for another person, especially if it's a bad experience, we'll tend to notice an elevated heart rate. Right. If you're feeling someone else's grief, your heart rate increases. We tend to notice that a lot of times people will want to pull away. That's one of the downsides of empathy.

If.

If I feel bad just being around you because you're feeling bad, I might make an excuse not to be around you. Right. Things like that. Whereas with compassion, we see heart rate and breathing rate become calm and slower and steadier, and you're not as you're not. It's not that you don't care, but you're not being personally traumatized by this thing someone else is going through. Instead, you start to move closer to them. You want to get more invested. You care about them more. You see what you can do for them.

Can I ask you this, Andre? To me, that means when you are feeling what they feel, you're helpless and hopeless. When you're feeling compassion, you feel you can make a difference.

Yes. That is 100%. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, you Know, we all have our limits. You can't always solve the problem for them, and it's not always your responsibility to do that. But compassion also includes things like being able to say, look, I can't do this for you that you're asking for, but here's what I can do. Compassion also includes things like being able to talk them through it. Just be a sounding board, right? It includes things like giving advice and wisdom if that's what they need and that's what they're looking for. But the key to it is you're focused not on how you're feeling from the exchange. You're focused on what's underneath their feelings. You are inviting closer connection with them by saying, what did that feel like?

And it's more selfless, isn't it?

It's more so. Exactly. It's more selfless.

It's not about me. Oh, my gosh.

Fashion researcher. I love the way she put it. She said, you know it. If you hear a baby crying and you start crying, it doesn't help anyone.

That's a great example. Oh, I love it. All right.

So the question is, how do you do the compassion? It's. It's. It's partly. It's going to be putting the focus on the other person, and you can start to ask questions about how they're feeling, about what they need from you, about what would help, about, you know, how did that feel? What were you thinking when that, you know, when that happened to you, what were you afraid of? This. You can ask them questions, and they begin to open up about their experience. There's that coming closer together, and then you're gaining understanding of what's happening and how they really feel. And it's no longer just an emotional thing. It's not just that I feel this way because they feel that way. It becomes this thing where your mind is doing exactly what cognitive behavioral therapists would say you should do and start to, like, you know, work on the actual issue. You're starting to kind of like your emotions are still there. You accept them, but you're starting to talk through the issues. It becomes a little bit more cognitive. And that has this effect of sort of de. Escalating your own response, putting the focus where it needs to be on fixing the situation. And if that sounds too complicated, you can just do a compassion practice, a meditation. It's short. There's a secular version, there's a Buddhist version, many Buddhist versions. And we do recommend an app that you can use to do that and places to get instructions for that in our book. So there's. You can also just Google it.

Where do we. Oh, I have. So come back again, please, as soon as possible. But I'm going to let you go. But where do we get all this information? Where? Where, Where? Where do we get the app? Where? Where do we get your book? Where do we join your absolute sensitive refuge?

So the book itself is Sensitive. Highly Sensitive Person in a Loud Fast Too Much World by Jen Graniman and myself that is available for pre order now anywhere books are sold. And we also have the website sensitive refuge sensitiverefuge.com on that site you'll find a test you can take to determine if you're a highly sensitive person. All kinds of wonderful resources and articles written by hundreds of sensitive people and experts alike. So check it out.

What a beautiful book. It is. So needed. Thank you so much for being here. I learned so much. I hope everyone thank you for your time.

This is a really fun podcast, Kathy. What's that? This is a really fun podcast. I love being here. Oh God, I'm so glad.

So I'll see you next week. Move in please. I need some. I need more help. Minnesota, here I come. All right, everyone, my goodness, we want to hear from you again. Over and over I say, I. I don't want us just to be talking heads. We want this to make a difference. So ask your questions. Wait a minute. What? I mean, if I had a million. I'm sure you have a million, but certainly go check out the book. Check all the links below and I hope you found this as helpful as I did personally. All right everyone. Thank you again, Andre and we will see you all. Have a brave, brave two weeks and we'll see you soon. Bye. Hi everyone. Kathy here. Do you run a coaching business that focuses on supporting women? If so, I've got some news. Right now we're opening the enrollment of my coach training program called the Amazing Career Coach Certification, which is a 17 week hands on training program that certifies female coaches in my proprietary 16 step career growth model which is perfect for coaches who want a deeper dive into powerful proven coaching frameworks, concepts and skills that will help you become far more effective in working with women. And through the program you'll get access to a powerful small business acceleration program called the Rapid Growth Academy, delivered by my friend and colleague, award winning business growth expert, Matthew Pollard. Through Matthew's program, you'll be taught essential business and sales growth information that will help you grow your business success in the quickest way possible. In my view, there's nothing on the market like this for coaches because it targets the two critical aspects of success how you support your clients to thrive, and just as importantly, how to grow your own business to the next level. For more information, visit certification.amazingcareerproject.com and check out the details. Thanks so much for joining us today. And please don't forget to check out findingbrave.org for more programs, resources and tips. And tune in next time for your weekly dose of finding brave.