21: Detaching from Obligation and Guilt as a Sensitive Person
With Melissa Guttman, MT-BC, LCAT
Are you overgiving in your relationships? In this episode, I talk with Melissa Guttman, MT-BC, LCAT about setting boundaries with emotionally immature people and:
• Why highly sensitive people often struggle with boundaries and codependency in their relationships
• Reframing guilt as a marker of taking better care of yourself instead of thinking that you’ve done something wrong
• Letting go of overfunctioning and over-empathizing to honor the other ways you bring value as a sensitive person
• Recognizing anger and intuition as signs it’s time to set a boundary
• The cost of enabling and rescuing the people in your life
• Knowing when to distance yourself from the emotionally immature people in your life
Melissa is a licensed IFS therapist in private practice based in New York City, helping highly sensitive adult children of narcissists recover from gaslighting and trust their intuition, to make decisions from a place of personal sovereignty and wisdom. Melissa also runs the Witches Protection Program, a self-defense training for highly sensitive people to learn how to protect themselves from narcissists.
Keep in touch with Melissa:
• Website: https://www.ifswitch.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ifs_witch
• Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ifs_witch
Resources Mentioned:
• Melissa’s Witches Protection Program: https://www.ifswitch.com/witchesprotectionprogram
• Discovering the Inner Mother: A Guide to Healing the Mother Wound by Bethany Webster: https://bookshop.org/a/63892/9780062884442
• You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For by Richard Schwartz: https://bookshop.org/a/63892/9781683643623
Thanks for listening!
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This episode is for educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for treatment with a mental health or medical professional. Some links are affiliate links. You are under no obligation to purchase any book, product or service. I am not responsible for the quality or satisfaction of any purchase.
Episode Transcript
Melissa Guttman: 0:00
So it's actually an empowering thing, it's a gift to somebody to say I won't let you lean on me fully Lean on me. Lean on me from a place of knowing that I'm one of many people in the world that can support you, listen to you, help guide you, but I can't become your everything.
April Snow: 0:27
Welcome to Sensitive Stories, the podcast for the people who live with hearts and eyes wide open. I'm your host, psychotherapist and author, april Snow. I invite you to join me as I deep dive into rich conversations with fellow highly sensitive people that will inspire you to live a more fulfilling life as an HSP without all the overwhelm. In this episode, I talk with Melissa Gutman about codependency and overgiving in relationships, how to know it's time to set a boundary and letting go of the guilt and obligation that often gets in the way of taking care of your sensitive needs. Melissa is a licensed IFS therapist in private practice based in New York City, helping highly sensitive adult children of narcissists recover from gaslighting and trust their intuition to make decisions from a place of personal sovereignty and wisdom. Melissa also runs the Witches Protection Program, a self-defense training for highly sensitive people to learn how to protect themselves from narcissists.
April Snow: 1:35
For more HSP resources and to see behind-the-scenes video from the podcast, join me on Instagram, tiktok or YouTube at Sensitive Strengths or sign up for my email list. Links are in the show notes and at sensitivestoriescom. And just a reminder that this episode is for educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for treatment with a mental health or medical professional. Let's dive in. Melissa, can you start off by telling me your HSP discovery story, how and when you discovered that you're highly sensitive?
Melissa Guttman: 2:29
I've always known, and I'm one of the fortunate few that probably was raised with the knowledge that I'm highly sensitive. So there's a lot of people in my family who have the same qualities and are like of course your tummy's upset and of course you need a lot of time to yourself and of course you can't take that medication. So I just grew up knowing it was okay to have my own unique lifestyle choices and that it's okay if I react to things a little bit more strongly than other people.
April Snow: 2:57
I absolutely love that. You're the first person I've talked to that's given that answer. Yeah, I think we all a lot of us, or all of us have had the sense of I'm different, but to know that you have that sensitivity, it sounds like it was embraced, or at least there's people in your life that embrace it.
Melissa Guttman: 3:15
Absolutely.
April Snow: 3:16
Yes.
Melissa Guttman: 3:16
And it's through my maternal line pretty much, and so we all just would commiserate over things. Like my family, we don't like strong chemical smells or perfumes. We would just have these adverse reactions to things that were in the environment and we'd all agree on it, and so I didn't feel like I was strange for being overwhelmed.
April Snow: 3:35
Amazing. So you had this acceptance from the beginning. I'm curious how that has formed your relationships, your sensitivity starting off so strong. Has it shifted over the years at all, or is it stayed pretty steady?
Melissa Guttman: 3:47
Feeling comfortable with it or accepting it yeah.
Melissa Guttman: 3:50
Yeah, yeah. I think what really helped actually was after grad school, finding your community, because you talked a lot about how to take care of yourself as a therapist and I knew I couldn't do a regular agency job. I knew that I wouldn't be able to do the however many hours work week, plus the commute, plus the toxic environment, plus the really intense high-risk cases, I just knew I'd burn out. No doubt in my mind I actually burned out just doing a part-time job, which is hilarious, but I didn't judge myself because I knew I was in HSP, so I was like 21 hours a week in the wrong place, that's burnout, right.
April Snow: 4:23
Exactly Having that lens to see it through. It makes so much sense, doesn't it? It's like, of course, I'm going to burn out in a part-time job if it's not the right fit, if it's too much for my nervous system yeah, a thousand percent. Have there been ways outside of burnout? That sensitivity has been a bit of a struggle that you've had to work with.
Melissa Guttman: 4:45
Yeah, like in every relationship I've ever had which is why I think I'm passionate about being a therapist because there's something about the extra empathy, the mirror neurons that we have and then also the depth of processing it just takes a long time to process like how do I feel in this relationship? How am I affected by this relationship? What do I need to communicate? Do I need boundaries? I think I'm by this relationship. What do I need to communicate? Do I need boundaries? I think I'm at a delay. It feels like a delayed processing, right Because of the depth of processing, and so I often am just in relationships like I don't actually know how I feel until a week later and it might be weird to bring it up then, but that's when I'm ready to bring it up, and so I've noticed that I've had to be extra gentle with myself, that in the moment I'm not always clear how I feel.
April Snow: 5:27
And.
Melissa Guttman: 5:27
I try to normalize that for my clients as well.
April Snow: 5:30
It's true, a lot of HSPs struggle in relationships, whether it's communicating your needs, bringing up a conflict, ending a relationship even. Oh yeah, because there is that pause, that delay, that questioning. We're moving at a different timeline than other folks and it can be hard to bring up your needs after the fact. But, yeah, a lot of times you do need to go away, sit with it, make sense of it for yourself. Can we get into boundaries? You mentioned boundaries. I know this is an area you're really passionate about. Can we talk about why HSP struggles so much with boundaries in relationships?
Melissa Guttman: 6:04
I think it's because we are so empathic and so we can sense what other people are feeling.
Melissa Guttman: 6:09
Okay, and I think that if you grew up in a family where that access to empathy gave you the family role of being a confidant or a healer, the family therapist, helper, you might have more hesitancy to set a boundary because you're going to feel like that's going against your identity and your family role and what's expected of you. And so I think a lot of HSPs identify as a really caring, helping person and they don't know that setting a boundary doesn't mean that they're not caring or helping. They're just taking care of themselves as well as other people. And I think that's often the missing piece. I say to people how you know when you're in more of a codependent pattern is if you can't feel empathy for them and yourself at the same time. So it's like you lose yourself to care for them and it's like a total you have to check back in and be like how was that for me? And often that you're feeling numb, you're feeling drained, you're feeling anxious, but you're not really registering it because your priority is on pleasing the other person.
April Snow: 7:06
You completely lose yourself. Yes, I had a moment of insight when you said you can feel empathy for the other person and for yourself at the same time. That sounds really important.
Melissa Guttman: 7:19
Yeah, because we often don't. That's why I think we need space, especially if you're dealing with an emotionally immature person. You might feel hijacked Lindsay Gibson calls it an emotional contagion, right so you're like, oh, I'm in their whirlpool of feeling and it might seem like an emergency, or they're just really panicked and loving them feels like I have to pay attention and put out that fire right now, and so there might be self-abandonment in that, not intentionally and that's why I think it's so important, when you have people like that in your life that can have these higher needs and require a lot of attention, just create space and time for yourself to process how that impacted you and what you need to do about it.
April Snow: 7:59
Yeah, I've lived that experience, coming from a family that had a lot of well, codependency, addiction, crisis. Yes, I remember my nervous system would get in this frenzy of I've got to do something right now. I've got to save this person. I've got to fix this situation. You talked about being the family therapist. That was me before I actually became a therapist.
Melissa Guttman: 8:19
I think it's a lot of therapists who don't know why they're therapists. Yes, yep.
April Snow: 8:22
It's true, a lot of us were therapists before we were therapists. Yeah, there's this deep or this very visceral sense of urgency. That happens, yep. How can we get out of that storm when our empathy, our mirror neurons are pinging so much? We want to help this person because we're suffering as well when they're suffering. But yeah, is there a way to pull?
Melissa Guttman: 8:45
yourself out of the storm. Yeah, I think one of the ways is to be prepared for the fact that there will be a storm. Dr Ramani talks about radical acceptance. Once you know who you're dealing with, it would be denial to say, oh, next time there won't be drama. No, there will probably be more drama. So, thinking ahead, while you still have your prefrontal cortex and you're not in a panic about how you want to handle it next time, the parameters of like when is it really my responsibility versus not, and also checking in with yourself.
Melissa Guttman: 9:16
There's a saying your urgency is not my emergency, right? So is it a real crisis? And if so, is it mine to solve? Will you be okay or is your arm falling off? What's the extent of this emergency? And if it's just that they're having panic around something not going their way, which can often happen for an emotionally immature person, it could be very basic, like I'm going to be late or you know this event won't get pulled off the way I want it to. Then you actually realize like I don't have to intervene. This is just the consequences of being a person living a life and them tolerating their own discomfort is their healing journey. It's not my responsibility, that's right.
April Snow: 9:59
I love that. Those checking questions Is it actually an emergency? Yes, and is it my job to fix it? Yes, because you're right. Let's say you have someone who's emotionally mature. They're going to be more dysregulated, they're not going to be able to manage their own emotions, so it's easy to think I need to come in and solve this for them. Yep, but at what cost to myself?
Melissa Guttman: 10:20
Right and it's not your fault that they don't know how to emotionally regulate. That's something they can learn in therapy or support groups which are available. So I always like to say too are they taking advantage of those opportunities to heal and grow? And if not, does that automatically become your burden and why I want them to be okay.
April Snow: 10:41
At least this is a voice that comes up for me, of course, because I can argue myself out of a boundary so easily. Oh yeah, me too. Yeah, what can we do with the care that's there? How do we disconnect from it enough to set a boundary?
Melissa Guttman: 10:55
So some of this work is about boundaries with yourself around, like if I feel sad that someone's going through something difficult, then I take on the role of fixing it, and just because you're sad doesn't mean you owe it to them to fix it, right. So sometimes it's about like a grieving process of that's their journey and For whatever reason, they haven't wanted to quit the addiction or go to a therapist or self-reflect and figure out what they're doing. That's no longer working. But they do seem to love the attention and the caregiving of me, so in a way I am enabling them by continuing to bail them out of their own self-created crisis, right, and if you want to think about what's in the highest evolution for them, to let yourself feel off the hook and not as guilty, it's giving them the consequences of their own actions so they can actually evolve.
April Snow: 11:49
Right, you think you're helping someone, but you're actually not when you're rescuing them Right or doing their work for them. Yes, it's just like a child. If you run in and you solve something for a child, they never actually learn. Like a child. If you run in and you solve something for a child, they never actually learn. Same with an adult who's maybe emotionally mature or is a narcissist or whatever we're dealing with here. We need to let them do their own work.
Melissa Guttman: 12:12
And again, if we think about putting the focus back on ourselves, how that impacts us. Having compassion for ourselves can also help let that go, because it's okay, I'm taking on their emotions. I'm more drained, I'm more stressed. I don't have as much time for the things I'm passionate about, so sometimes that's connected to low self-worth. That can be worked through in therapy.
April Snow: 12:30
It's like the assumption that they're the priority and more important right, because if it's time to set a boundary, or maybe even more than that, go no contact.
Melissa Guttman: 12:57
Anger is very undervalued. Anger is awesome. It's my favorite emotion these days because it just tells you that a boundary has been crossed or that a need isn't being met. It doesn't mean that you're an aggressive, inappropriate person, that you are registering an angry feeling inside of you, and sometimes empathetic HSPs think if I'm feeling angry then I'm harming somebody, but it's no. Behaviors and feelings are totally different. Angry that I'm harming somebody, but it's no, behaviors and feelings are totally different.
Melissa Guttman: 13:28
So you can feel the anger, register it and say this isn't working in some way because I'm building a resentment. What is the resentment? And it could be like oh, they just think they can stop by my house anytime they want to and it's like but what is my part? My part is I let them. So it's like okay, so if I don't want to be angry at them and myself, maybe it's worth taking a look at what's not working for me. Do I think anger is great and also your gut knowing right? So I like to talk about developing intuition. We all have it. So it's not so much that we're developing it, we're tapping back into it, but our gut knowing is registering a yes or a no inside our body. Have you ever been on a job interview and been like hell?
Melissa Guttman: 14:04
no, or been around a person and you just have this deep aversion to being in their presence. And when we ignore that repulsion, contraction, withdrawal inside of us that wants to happen, we are dishonoring a truth that wants to come through. And so often the question is what should I do? And when it's more, have you been listening already and why have you been disconnecting from that? And often it's because it's stuff we don't want to hear or know. Right, we get a bad feeling about someone we care about. What does that mean? And it doesn't always mean the extent of no contact.
Melissa Guttman: 14:39
I think no contact is a very personal decision and it often comes after a lot of harm done without accountability or repair and the lack of feeling like there's any workability or reward in having a relationship like that. But often when you're dealing with a really toxic person, it will mean a degree of lower contact, even if it's that I'm not as vulnerable with them. I don't trust them as much, I don't see them as much, and it doesn't have to be extreme, but that's still like a heartbreak that we have to grieve that it's time. So I think a lot of times avoidance of grief and anger can really block us from our intuition.
April Snow: 15:14
It's true we're disconnecting from ourselves to maintain this relationship. That's not actually serving us, and I appreciate that. You said you know there's a spectrum, really of boundaries At least that's how I'm thinking of it in my mind. There's the everyday boundaries, but then there's limiting contact, and then the other end of the extreme is I'm going completely no contact, which, you're right, it's usually that no contact is a big decision. For me at least, it was definitely a lack of repair from the other person over years. It didn't just happen overnight, but it's important to realize that we have options along the way. You don't have to go right to the extreme, yeah, I always say experiment.
Melissa Guttman: 15:53
Experiment with your boundaries. Whatever you're ready to do now, do that, even if it's just saying no to a thing that you would normally say yes to, and just see how they respond and how you feel to their response. Because part of the reason why people can pull back is because they realize that every time they do have needs or boundaries and express them, that it's not taken very well and that's a lot of energy management for an HSP to be like.
Melissa Guttman: 16:16
Oh, there's a blowback every time or oh, I'm feeling guilty every time, or oh, I'm feeling guilty every time, and so we can work on ourselves with the guilt. But the reaction always has to be managed from the other side and we can't control that. So sometimes we scale back on contact, just simply because it's a lot to try to restore some sort of safety and peace after an interaction where there's blowback.
April Snow: 16:40
Yeah, that is a lot to manage, so that may be one reason to pull away is you're constantly managing this emotional storm from the other person. Exactly, that feels really anxiety producing as I'm thinking about it Just this concept being on pins and needles how are they going to react? What are they going to say? Because that's very it's very dysregulating to our sensitive nervous systems to constantly be on edge like that.
Melissa Guttman: 17:05
Yeah, and I just finished my last family estrangement support group with these amazing people I was with for about nine months and all three of them, without being prompted, used the word feeling more peace. At the end I'm like, yeah, sadly, no contact can sometimes be like this restoration of inner peace. And I say sadly because nobody wants to have to do that to get to that place, but we all deserve inner peace, right? So sometimes the price of inner peace is less contact with people that are perpetually committed to chaos, committed to chaos.
April Snow: 17:40
Yes, exactly, and that's why I went. No contact was unhooking from the chaos. I had enough and I thought to myself I can't do this anymore. I'm constantly needing to reset my foundation over and over again. I'm not getting anywhere. I'm just getting back to square one over and over again. And at some point, yeah, you do have to pull back to protect yourself, and that doesn't have to be fully in contact.
April Snow: 18:08
Preserving that peace might look like not sharing as much, not being in contact with someone as much, or, in certain ways, like maybe you don't see someone in person but maybe you're willing to have a phone call. Yeah, 100%. There's so many different variations of that. Before we get too far down, you mentioned a few different ways to identify if a boundary is needed. Well, one lack of inner peace, right that constantly on edge, feeling angry, or having a visceral, like a somatic response, an intuitive hit. How can we? Because not everyone is in touch with their intuition or as much, sometimes it can be difficult. How can we, because not everyone is in touch with their intuition or as much, sometimes it can be difficult, yeah, how can we reconnect with our intuition to help us in our boundary setting?
Melissa Guttman: 18:49
Yeah, so that's actually. We're going to talk about my program coming up in a little bit. But the tools that I like to connect people to are mindfulness and internal family systems and energy healing and internal family systems and energy healing. So this is all about getting back in our body, because what trauma does is disconnect us from our body and actually abusive relationships want you disconnected from your body. That's how you're more easily controlled. So if we're living in our head, hypervigilant, what is dad going to do next? What's mom going to do next? What do I have to do? What fire do I have to put out?
Melissa Guttman: 19:22
There isn't this sense of oh, I can just drop in and feel and know and enjoy the pleasure of being in a body. Hopefully, you know, if you don't have chronic pain, there can be some pleasure in some place in your body that you can relish in and like rest, and that pleasure gets stolen by hypervigilance and disconnection. So I like to work with people and like how to drop in. Sometimes it's just doing a body scan, checking to see what sensations you're feeling in your body and then learning how to connect those to emotion. So maybe you're feeling like like a twisting, a turning in your stomach and you feel a little nauseous and you're like wanting to vomit. I've made that face a few times today and that could be like, oh, there's something about this that makes me queasy. But unless you drop down to that level, you might not sense that feeling. But I think it's also scary to do this unless you're in a safe environment, and so it's important to try to carve out privacy for yourself and time for yourself, because it takes time to decelerate and get in touch with the deepest layer of how you feel.
Melissa Guttman: 20:28
And so I always say space and time is my number one boundary with everything. So before you even go low, contact, no contact. Take space and time. Take space and time and then you're going to feel more about what you want to do, and that's like almost a pre-boundary thing to do, and that'll regulate your nervous system more, which just means feeling more calm and grounded and safe and sane, and your intuition comes through on that channel.
Melissa Guttman: 20:52
It weirdly does not come through during panic. Intuition is like not the voice of over-analysis and anxiety, it's the voice of the calm knowing, and I think we've all had it, and I say, if you don't know what it is, think about times you've not listened to it. There have been times we've stayed in relationships too long. This isn't the one. And then you like, years later we're like I knew it wasn't the one and I didn't listen. So there probably are things that you have sensed throughout time and then you just maybe pushed it off and then snooze, alarm. It comes back like that's not the right relationship. So you get more of those hits when you have space to hear them.
April Snow: 21:32
Yeah, when you actually get quiet enough to listen, 100%. Yeah. So reconnecting with intuition, it sounds like building a relationship with yourself and your internal experience. Exactly, and we often in this modern way of living that we're all in, that's not built in. We really have to intentionally take that time, make that time. There's so much noise that gets in the way. Can you speak a little bit more to that mindfulness? Once we're in that quiet space and time, what does that look like when we're sitting with ourselves?
Melissa Guttman: 22:07
Yeah, so that's where I sometimes bring in internal family systems, which is just inner child work. People talk about it Parts work is another term for it but it's checking into like what am I feeling on a sensation level, and then allowing yourself to go on a journey with that experience a little bit to deepen your awareness of what it means personally to you, Because somebody could feel a buzzing in their shoulder. It means something totally different. I'm so excited for lunch and someone else's buzzing could be like I'm really stressed out and I'm feeling like a tension, and so you want to just tune in and then you can ask it I know this sounds weird. You can ask your body what do you need? And see if an answer emerges without forcing it, and I might say I need rest or something where you're registering. Oh, okay, there's a need there that I hadn't actually known about, and you can ask it questions like what are you concerned about? That's another great question in IFS. Oh, I'm concerned that if I keep going at this job I'm going to burn out. Oh, that's good information for me. And so, through this inner dialogue of tapping into the sensation, sometimes people see visuals too, so you might notice, you might see a cartoon character or a blob, or hear a song in your head, and that's all a part of your intuition.
Melissa Guttman: 23:27
Honestly, anything that emerges from your body as a truth, as a cue, is a part of becoming more intuitive. And you might just start to have a feeling, sense of like a when I'm connected to the sensation, I feel about five years old. And then you can ask like when did you start protecting me? Some of these parts, if you feel like they're on the defense, you can ask like how are you helping me, protecting me? And it'll say, once we had to start being really busy. We had to start being really busy to avoid what was going on in the home. Oh, you're protecting me through keeping me busy. I understand. So we're at this job where you're feeling burned out, but you feel like we have no choice. Wow, in five minutes you can get a whole world of what's happening that you wouldn't have gotten from your head yeah, just that question what do you need?
April Snow: 24:14
and not just asking it broadly, but connecting it to a feeling, a sensation. And there's something I just felt very soothed as you were talking. It feels really healing to even just have the question asked. Just thinking back to the kinds of relationships we've been talking about where you're giving so much, it's very one-sided. The other person is in their own storm and can't even see you Giving that care to ourselves, slowing down enough to ask what do you need? Oh, I'm noticing you. Something is going on here, I see you. We can give that to ourselves and listen. Okay, what's happening inside, what needs to happen and what needs to happen next, because the information is there.
Melissa Guttman: 24:58
And that's what brings self-esteem and self-love to us, because I think the absence of that is coming from the emotional neglect of being raised by people who don't care about your inner experience as much as their own, and so we don't know that we even have an inside. Sometimes Some of you might be watching this and thinking oh, I don't even know that communication I could be having with my own experience.
April Snow: 25:23
I know this sounds a little trippy, but you are in there.
Melissa Guttman: 25:26
There's an in there, and when you're an HSP you might be more in touch with it just on an emotional level, sometimes more connection to art or music or just something about your internal world that you're more plugged into. But it also can apply to your inner wisdom and truth about situations too.
April Snow: 25:44
Yeah, If you would have said this to me 25 years ago, I'd be like I don't know what you're talking about, because I was someone living from the neck up.
Melissa Guttman: 25:53
Oh me too.
April Snow: 25:54
Yeah, yeah. And I remember meeting someone who was talking about oh, I'm having this sensation in my liver and I was like I have no idea what you're talking about. How is that even possible? Yeah, and over the years I've started Now I'm hyper aware of the sensation. I get a lot of visual and intuitive messages, but it's a process. If you have needed to disconnect and shut down.
Melissa Guttman: 26:17
Yeah, and that's why I always say it's also important to go slow and be gentle with yourself, right? Because sometimes this is really emotional, to be like, oh, this whole time I've been hating my job and I didn't even know. But it's like also. I always say to people we grow up in an environment of emergency and urgency. If we grow up around emotionally immature people, you do not have to respond to your own experience like an emergency unless you're literally in danger. So sometimes people are in abusive relationships where this is wisdom, the panic, dysregulation means get out now, protect yourself. But other times it's like, whew, I'm feeling panic because I've realized I'm at the wrong job and I say, yes, but is it an emergency? No, then breathe, be kind to yourself, enjoy your weekend and you can plan it out after you've taken a rest, because there's really no crisis here. It's just information that you get to honor now in your own time.
April Snow: 27:14
Yeah, really needing to redefine what an emergency is, yes, and for me it's stepping out of that storm. Like you said, get that time away to yourself, get some perspective. What's really happening here and what do I need in this? And as I'm saying that, I am knowing me of 20 years ago would have had a really difficult time letting that be okay. I did feel a big sense of obligation and urgency to my family, did feel a big sense of obligation and urgency to my family. It didn't feel possible to take space away, to not respond immediately, and I know a lot of HSP struggle with guilt. Because we do have so much empathy. How can we work with that guilt, that obligation to even take time away or to listen to our intuition, if we can hear it?
Melissa Guttman: 28:03
Yeah, so there is a quote by Bethany Webster, who was the person who originated the term mother wound. Actually she doesn't always get the credit for it, but she says guilt is an artifact of control, and I love that. So it's like we have been socialized. First of all, if you're femme, you might be socialized to feel more guilty because you're expected to be in a caregiving role or be submissive. But also guilt is a part of manipulation. So if you have a narcissistic or emotionally immature family member, there's a term called fog, fear, obligation, guilt, and you can get lost in it. It can get confusing right, and the idea is that someone who's truly, unconditionally loving you will want what's best for you as well. And so if you're just operating from the sense of obligation but you realize that it's not healthy for you, it's important to see I'm actually giving from an empty cup and I'm not actually giving from a place of integrity and intuition for myself. And even though it's really painful, my old therapist used to say if you're feeling guilty, you're probably taking care of yourself.
Melissa Guttman: 29:11
Guilt is not a sign that you're a bad person. I think that's the most important thing to say. Guilt is a weapon of manipulation and even if someone's not manipulating you, it's a socialized way of feeling that you are obligated to everyone else besides yourself, and that needs to be unlearned. Just because it feels familiar doesn't mean it's actually true and it's hijacking you.
April Snow: 29:33
I love this because I often will say to folks oh, you know, having guilt is a sign of being highly empathetic. And I love this second piece, which is well, if you're feeling guilty, you're actually taking care of yourself, that is that's a big win.
Melissa Guttman: 29:47
I was like thanks, Permission slipped granted. I love that one Exactly.
April Snow: 29:51
I love it so much Because I think we think oh, if I'm feeling guilty, it's a sign that I'm doing something wrong, I'm bad. It doesn't go as deep as shame, but it's on that cusp.
Melissa Guttman: 30:02
It doesn't go as deep as shame, but it's on that cusp. When you grow up with people who do not value your inner world, when you express a need or a boundary, they might tell you that you're selfish or crazy, or insinuate that with their response oh, you're too sensitive, which is the thing all HSPs hear. So, even though I was raised with acceptance of the fact I'm HSP, not so much when it comes to fighting back against things that were happening in my family, right. So it's like you could be HSP, but toe the line obviously only to a point. So I think that's a piece there too, of realizing that just because you are feeling sensitive and this is affecting you doesn't mean you're too sensitive. It just means you're perceptive enough to register that it's affecting you. Yeah, exactly, and you're too sensitive. It just means you're perceptive enough to register that it's affecting you.
April Snow: 30:45
Yeah, exactly and you're having a different experience. That's okay. So we're welcoming in guilt. Yes, welcome it in Relish it. Relish the guilt? Yeah, and over time for me at least guilt has faded quite a bit.
Melissa Guttman: 31:02
Oh, me too. I don't care anymore. It was the worst thing.
April Snow: 31:06
At first it was exactly. And just to say at first, guilt is the sign that you're on the right track. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, Can we talk a little bit more about obligation as well? I'm just thinking about that for myself, how I was able to unhook from that. I did get to a point where it just wasn't working anymore. You start suffering at some point. Right, you can only sacrifice so much for so long. Yeah, how have you worked with obligation? Or how do you work with it with your clients?
Melissa Guttman: 31:36
The way that I work with obligation is to realize that I don't have to be the resource. I can give people resources. That was very liberating. So I used to just be the therapist for people. And now I'm like do you know how to find a therapist? Do you know about this great book? Do you know about this great podcast? And I make suggestions and then I release myself of it because I know that I've already told them once. So sometimes what happens is people are like on a repeat, like did you call the therapist, did you follow up and it's like they'd ate on you.
Melissa Guttman: 32:07
You actually told them what you know, but you don't actually have to be the source. What helped also for me was becoming a therapist and getting paid to be a therapist, because then I was like, wow, I don't do this for free anymore. That's exhausting, it's an energy exchange, if you think about it right. And so it's nice to have the reciprocity of I give and grant time to somebody and then they pay me for the fact that I'm giving in a position and even with therapy clients, right, we teach them. We don't save you. We teach you how to tap into your own internal resources and external resources to save yourself, but it's not healthy to create a dependency on a therapist. So that's probably what it was.
Melissa Guttman: 32:55
Learning like the boundaries of healthy therapy taught me how to be a better person to everyone around me, and additionally, I used to do a support group where they talked a lot about detachment, which means like we do not do for others what they can do for themselves, and detachment with love. So it doesn't mean that we have to be harsh about it. I didn't know you could love someone and still set a boundary with them, and I learned now that you can, and actually compassion can come with boundaries. Brene Brown says the most compassionate people are the most boundaried people, and it's because we're not resenting. Think about it. Is it really super kind if you help someone and you feel obligated to them and then later you hate their guts and you're gossiping behind their back which, by the way, I've done I'm not perfect Just for example, if we're like oh, but this is the good person thing to do I like, oh, but this is the good person thing to do, I'm like.
Melissa Guttman: 33:41
but how do you maintain feeling altruistic afterwards, do you? And if not, it might've been coming from the codependent place. So just remembering that people with all their faculties, where you're not literally in a caregiving position, have the capacity to heal and learn and grow and they don't have to lean on you like a tripod.
April Snow: 34:01
Yes, they don't have to lean on you like a tripod. It's true. It goes back to that empowering people, trusting them to take care of themselves, or at least knowing you can't do it for them. And detachment is so important. It's okay to detach. It's actually very loving. I remember first learning about interdependence and I was like oh, what's that? What is that? Because, coming from a very codependent family, it was like oh, what's that? What is that? Because, coming from a very codependent family, it was like oh, it's okay to have some space for yourself. We haven't defined what codependence is, and I was talking to my wife before this conversation what is codependency? For anyone else who's not quite sure what that is, could we elaborate a bit?
Melissa Guttman: 34:42
Sure. So codependency is self-sacrificing your own needs to take care of somebody else, so it's a one-sided dynamic. Interdependence is we both can take care of ourselves and we also can choose to take care of each other. In Dick Schwartz's book you Are the One You've Been Waiting For, which is a good relationship book incorporating IFS, he talks about the fact that we are our own primary caregiver as adults, but our romantic partners can be our secondary caregiver.
Melissa Guttman: 35:09
So that only works if we know how to be a parent to our inner children first right. So if I need something from you that I can't give to myself, this creates dependency. And then if I'm changing who I am to please you and ensure that you're going to stick around, that becomes codependency.
April Snow: 35:27
It doesn't sound very sustainable.
Melissa Guttman: 35:30
But so many people do it and it's like every love song, right, I always joke the Celine Dion song you are my eyes when I couldn't see, you are my arms when I couldn't reach. Right, it's a codependency theme song. Unless you literally need arms and arms, Well sure.
Melissa Guttman: 35:46
Right, so I always say, caregiving is different than codependency. We're talking about people who have everything they need, but just don't know it yet and haven't figured out how to tap into it or haven't gotten the help to find it, and they're seeking to complete a gap in their functioning with another whole human being.
April Snow: 36:07
Yes, yeah, very important distinction with when someone physically actually needs your support, versus you're trying to fill the gaps in for them when they could actually do it themselves, and they need to be able to do it themselves.
Melissa Guttman: 36:22
Yeah, cause if you die, how are they going to be doing Not well. So it's actually an empowering thing. It's a gift to somebody to say I won't let you lean on me fully Lean on me. Lean on me from a place of knowing that I'm one of many people in the world that can support you, listen to you, help, guide you, but I can't become your everything.
April Snow: 36:46
Yeah, yeah Can't be your everything. And realizing just how prone HSPs are to codependency, to obviously to self-sacrifice, to getting pulled into these imbalanced relationships, we're a sponge for people that need that kind of emotional caregiving, whether you're a therapist or not. Since we have so much empathy and tend to lean towards guilt and obligation, it's really not the caring thing to do.
Melissa Guttman: 37:14
As a takeaway, I think we find our value in it because, again, if no one's seeing you, acknowledging you, caring about your inner world, how do you feel important in a family like that? Through making yourself invaluable? What's invaluable? Your innate gifts. So everyone has a different role in the family system. Not everyone becomes like the emotional confidant, but if that's what you're good at and it's what makes people appreciate you and dote on you and love you and lavish you with gifts or compliments and security, you might think that if I stop doing this, my relationships will fall apart, and the truth is that could happen in certain cases. Most likely there will at least be like a significant shift in your relationships. But what I'm saying is you deserve to be loved for who you are. It is a game changer to be loved when you're not over-functioning. It is such a gift to experience what that is. That's what unconditional love is, and you deserve that, not the transactional love that you are getting through this arrangement.
April Snow: 38:15
Yes, you don't have to over-function to have value. Yes, A light bulb moment went off for me right there, which is okay. So let's say I'm a sensitive person which I am growing up in a family that doesn't value that Yep, but I have this empathy, I have this insight, this perception, and I get praise for it. Okay, this might be autobiographical and I get praise for it. So of course, I'm going to keep giving that because I need that esteem. Right, I need some part of me to be loved and fully accepted and cherished Yep, but of course, as a lot of things happen, then that starts to tarnish and then that leads me to get burnt out, resentful, sick, depleted, all of it. To being really careful how we use our gifts as sensitive people.
Melissa Guttman: 39:10
Yes, and another layer that just came to me is we see people's souls. That's what makes us good healers, that's what makes us empathetic. We're seeing the potential. The unactualized is key, though the unactualized potential of someone who's not working on their stuff, who's dominated by defensive parts or attention-seeking parts or manipulative parts. We are going to feel this compulsion to rescue them, show them the light, guide them, lead them, inspire them, and I've played that role. What's so cool is I get to use the same tools with people who are willing and in therapy, and they want those tools. So I have 10,000 hours collecting these tools for you, but unless you really want them, what they really want, more than the solution, is the attention.
Melissa Guttman: 40:00
I recently was reading something I think it's Craig Malkin, who's another specialist in this topic. He said, yeah, if you solve their problem, then their problems aren't the most significant ones in the world. So in order for them to receive, they'd have to diminish some of their superiority, grandiosity, and so you're just sucked in the whirlpool of. I need to keep accommodating and validating this person, and I realize it's an unsolvable problem. So once you realize that the game is rigged, it can also help you detach from the guilt, because it's not like you're actually completing a cycle for them, it's just going to repeat itself.
April Snow: 40:31
It's a facade. It's a facade Right. You think that you're going to get them to this healed place where the potential that you see inside of them gets to be expressed, but it's not possible. This was the insight that helped me the most, which was realizing I cannot rescue people. Yes, they may have all this potential inside of them, but I can't lead them to actualize it. Yep, when you can unhook from that, it's so much gets to be released. Melissa, I'm wondering, as we start to wrap up, for listeners out there who are struggling with having a sense of boundaries, connection to self balancing, caregiving with caretaking is there a message that you can leave them with?
Melissa Guttman: 41:24
Just that you are not alone. This is a really common experience and there's nothing wrong with you, right. Whatever we do, that doesn't work in our lives. We develop the idea at a young age when we thought this was the best way to survive and function, and so if this was the way you needed to be in your family, to feel valuable, to feel safe and heard and connected, then it's an amazing gift and it got you this far. And be kind to yourself. And just because you're recognizing oh, I might have some work to do in this area doesn't mean you're dysfunctional. It just means this pattern is and that you're going to be able to shift it over time. And just be really patient with yourself, because it's hard to break up with your way that you think love works right. It's like you're changing the way love makes sense to you now, and that takes time.
April Snow: 42:15
Yeah, give yourself time for this to shift and all that noticing you've done for other people, you can turn that back inward and do it for yourself.
April Snow: 42:25
Yeah, well, someone. Thank you so much for this really exciting conversation. I feel like I had a lot of insights and was connecting dots myself, so I really appreciate that. I know other folks are going to take a lot away from it, so I'll make sure I share your website, your social media links, your other resources in the show notes. But before we go, I'm curious if you could tell folks you alluded to it, but tell more of them about your Witches Protection Program.
Melissa Guttman: 42:51
That's coming up, the Witches Protection Program. It's six weeks long and it helps you reconnect to your intuition, protect yourself against narcissistic abuse. So I bring in nervous system regulation tools, like we spoke about checking in with your body sensations, having inner conversations, that's, internal family systems, and energy healing. So locating where other people's energy is in your body, energy cords, and releasing that, and so it's a mental, emotional and energetic purifying process Sounds amazing. Yeah, it's really fun. I already led one in the spring, and so this is the next round.
April Snow: 43:26
And how do folks meet? Is it on Zoom? Yeah, zoom virtual.
Melissa Guttman: 43:29
Are you getting to connect with people virtual? Yeah, Thursday nights 6.30 to 8 pm, Beautiful.
April Snow: 43:35
Eastern, yeah, eastern. So having a sense of community to do this work that we talked about, because a lot of healing does happen in relationship.
Melissa Guttman: 43:47
Oh, that was the most important part. I was thinking, oh, I have all these fancy tools I'm going to teach you. And really the biggest breakthrough was people hearing that they weren't alone and they were able to better understand their own narcissistic abuse pattern through hearing other people's relationships and being like, oh shit, this is real, this did happen to me.
April Snow: 44:02
Exactly Knowing. I didn't make it up because you can think that, right, when you've been gaslit for so long, you can think it's me, I'm the problem. But then, yeah, once you have a different perspective and experience, then you can realize and you can start to make a shift. Yeah, I'm excited for folks to experience that. Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you so much. Thanks so much for joining me and Melissa for today's conversation. What I'm taking away is that you don't have to earn your worth as a sensitive person.
April Snow: 44:38
You are valuable even when you're not giving and sacrificing yourself for others. Feeling guilty about setting boundaries. It's actually a good sign. It means you're a caring, empathetic person and that you're actually taking care of yourself. And I want you to know setting boundaries, prioritizing your needs. It gets easier over time with practice, for more support and learning to set boundaries, protect your energy from the draining people in your life and reconnect with your intuition to know what your needs actually are. Sign up for Melissa's Witches Protection Program. You'll find a link in the show notes or you can go to ifswitchcom. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the Sensitive Stories podcast so you don't miss our upcoming conversations. Reviews and ratings are also helpful and appreciated For behind-the-scenes content and more HSB resources. You can sign up for my email list or follow Sensitive Strengths on Instagram, tiktok and YouTube. Check out the show notes or sensitivestoriescom for all the resources from today's episode. Thanks for listening.
