Highly-Sensitive People (HSPs) And Relationships

Are you a highly-sensitive person who struggles with relationships? Do you feel that the relationships in your life mostly drain you? It doesn't have to be this way. Listen to this episode to learn how to set boundaries & create healthy relationships which nourish & uplift.

Transcript

The reason I want to talk to you about your relationships as HSPs is because I have found through personal professional experience of many years that as HSPs we have a lot to give and that we often attract people who have a lot to take.

I hear story after story as a therapist I've heard so many over the years about how an HSP has gotten embroiled in one sort of relationship or another where they were too emotionally drained from being in a relationship with a certain person.

This isn't the first time I've spoken to this concept.

In the video dealing with people who emotionally drain you I talk about emotional vampires and these are people that literally come to suck the life force out of us.

I also talked about gainers versus drainers.

Gainers are people that give you energy,

That you feel good around,

That make you feel wonderful about yourself,

Heard,

Cared for.

They hold a space for you and your reality and you just feel good being around them.

Drainers are the people who just suck the life force out of you.

They often are victims and they complain a lot and they want you to save them or they just tell really boring long stories.

They're very loquacious and you feel like slithering down the wall.

You know what I'm talking about.

The fact of the matter is there are people in our lives who we have to deal with that we didn't choose.

Then there are the people in life that we choose to be in relationship with.

These are our friends and our partners and the people that we really want to hold close to us and in those relationships we can be very discerning.

When it comes to the relationships that we did not choose with family members,

For example,

We're just stuck with these people.

In-laws are another one.

We may choose a wonderful partner,

The person of our dreams,

But the package that comes with that person,

I.

E.

Their family origin,

Has much to be desired.

The thing that I see happening with so many HSPs is that we throw ourselves under the bus in order to get along with other people and that we don't put ourselves first in relationships.

I have learned the hard way as well as many of my clients have.

It's that whole idea of putting your own oxygen mask on before assisting others.

We really need to practice self-care.

Our mental,

Physical,

And spiritual health has to come first.

We can't really show up in relationships in a healthy way if we aren't showing up for ourselves.

Setting boundaries is a very clear example of us not throwing ourselves under the bus,

Of putting ourselves first,

Asking for what we want,

Asking for what we need,

And being clear with other people about what those wants and needs are.

Now,

Reminder,

Other people don't like boundaries,

Especially those people who have a lot to take from us and don't like doing their own personal work.

What I mean by that,

As a therapist,

Is that we have to do our own personal work.

We each have what I call a karmic journey in this lifetime and it comes with all kinds of experiences and situations,

A lot of obstacles that we have to overcome.

We,

As individuals,

Are responsible for what we do with those obstacles and the things that are really difficult to deal with.

We owe it to ourselves to take care of ourselves and to heal and to reach out.

That's why I think therapy is so wonderful because you can have an empathetic witness who is not going to judge you,

Is just showing up for you with full attention and can help you heal those unhealed places within yourself.

We all carry trauma inside and HSPs,

I find,

Have an inordinate amount of trauma,

Usually based on the fact that just being a highly sensitive person in this world can be traumatic.

One thing that HSPs often forget is that we have superpowers.

We have these spidey senses and we can use them to really tune in to people and get a sense of who they are,

What they're all about,

What they have to give or what they have to take.

I sometimes acknowledge for myself that being a highly sensitive person is a blessing as well as a curse.

The upside is that we have these incredible superpowers and a very keen intuition about people.

I just remind my clients all the time to check in with their body.

It's very simple.

If you,

For example,

Are looking for a romantic partner or friends and you're checking people out when you're with that person,

What do you notice in your body?

So we want the three levels.

The top is the mind.

What are your thoughts and cognitions?

The middle part is your feelings and emotions.

So what do you feel when you're around this person?

And the bottom tier is the sensations in your body.

The physical body gives us so many signs and intuitions that we often disregard.

But as HSPs,

We can use our spidey senses as superpowers and we can put them to great use when we are looking for close relationships,

Whether it be with a partner or a friend.

I always say to HSPs,

We don't need that many people.

We do really well with one person.

Maybe we have a partner and two to three good friends and some HSPs don't even have a partner.

They don't want a partner.

And then maybe we have a group or two that we really like.

For example,

Going to yoga class regularly.

You can do very well with a few of those.

The difference between HSPs and non-HSPs is that we need less people.

We don't need so many people in our lives.

So when we choose to have people in our inner circle that aren't family or in-laws,

We need to be very discerning in who we choose to spend our time with.

And it takes time to really know whether this person is for you or not.

I see a lot of the calamities that happen to highly sensitive people in relationships,

Especially when it comes to dating.

They rush too fast into the relationship and they end up doing things and being in situations that they don't want to do or be in because they felt rushed.

And when I ask an HSP who was doing the rushing,

It was usually the person they were getting to know.

As HSPs,

Our set point is to go slowly.

We can be emotionally dysregulated very easily by being around other people,

You know,

Whether it's positive or negative,

Because our nervous systems are always fired up and we have these spidey senses and the antennae are up and out.

We're highly affected by the people in our lives.

And one of the greatest tools that I have ever found,

Which comes from Buddhism,

Is going slowly,

Taking pauses,

Being mindful,

And not jumping in too soon with both feet.

So if you are checking someone out as a potential partner or friend and you feel that they're pushing too hard,

They're trying too hard,

They're going at this frenetic pace,

That's a sign to run away.

If someone wants to rush into being sexual with you and it feels too fast and too soon,

Trust yourself on that.

It is too fast and too soon.

The thing that I find especially with women is that we get emotionally attached when we have sex with somebody.

For an HSP,

If that relationship doesn't end up working out,

The suffering is so much greater if they have been physically intimate with that person.

If someone can't wait one to three months to have sex with you,

Then they're probably not your person.

I base that on the concept of being best friends with your partner,

The person you choose to spend a long time with.

And I put this into practice myself when I was dating in my mid-20s and I decided that the next person I was going to date,

I took five years off of dating anybody and got two degrees in the meantime and did tons of therapy and inner work.

I decided that the next person that I was going to be with would be my long-term partner.

At 27,

After exactly five years of working on myself,

There he was.

I custom-ordered him.

So when my husband showed up in my life and he ticked every box.

Literally,

I had a checklist and in my book I have the methodology for how you can come up with one for yourself.

He literally ticked every box and we've been married just over 24 years and together 26 years and you can probably tell by my smile that that has been a wonderful relationship and continues to be.

I am so very blessed.

If you're interested in learning more about myself and my husband Nathaniel,

I have dragged him into a couple of videos for the HSP playlist.

One of them is the two of us discussing what it's like to be two HSPs in a long-term relationship.

It's funny and enlightening and there might be some stuff there you find helpful.

There's a wonderful book out there by Anna Goldfarb called Modern Friendship,

How to Nurture Our Most Valued Connections.

In it she talks about different tiers with a theme of water systems.

So the first tier is the bathtub.

The bathtub usually consists of one person,

Me,

And another person,

My significant other,

And maybe a best friend.

Those are the people you want to keep really close.

The second tier she calls jacuzzi friends.

About three to five people.

They're your support group.

They're really good friends that you can count on.

The lower tier she calls the swimming pool.

10 to 15 people.

Neighbors,

People that you dog sit for,

That kind of thing.

These are people that you're close to but that you have regularly in your life.

When I work with HSPs,

When we're talking about relationships,

I like to use these analogies.

The bathtub,

The jacuzzi friends,

And the swimming pool people.

What I often find with my clients is that they have people in the wrong tub,

In the wrong water vessel.

For example,

They'll be dating someone who should be in the swimming pool or even farther away in the big wide open ocean.

They're not the person that should be close to them in a tiny little bathtub.

And every HSP knows what I'm talking about when I say jacuzzi friends.

They're the people that we can lean on for support.

And you need to choose two sets of friends very carefully.

The bathtub people and the jacuzzi friends.