24: Honoring Your Energetic + Emotional Ebbs and Flows
With April Snow, LMFT
Do you worry you’re moving too slowly or not keeping up? In this solo episode I answer two listener questions:
• Any suggestions on how to cope when my deep processing translates to working much slower than everyone else?
• How do we find balance and a sustainable routine when feeling deeply and overwhelmed by the daily hustle?
April Snow, LMFT is a licensed psychotherapist and author in California. She specializes in working with highly sensitive people to help calm the storm of overwhelm, anxiety, and self-doubt to allow their innate sensitive strengths to shine through. Deeply committed to changing the narrative of what it means to be highly sensitive, April has created and led HSP workshops all over the country as well as online through her Sensitive School. In addition to Find Your Strength: A Workbook for the Highly Sensitive Person, she has written Mindfulness Workbook for Stress Relief and The Empowered Highly Sensitive Person's Self-Care Journal.
Submit a Question: https://www.sensitivestories.com/ask
Additional Resources:
• High Sensation Seeking Self-Test: https://hsperson.com/test/high-sensation-seeking-test
• Watch the Sensitive Session on Softening Perfectionism: https://www.sensitivesessions.com
• The CBT Workbook for Perfectionism by Dr. Sharon Martin: https://bookshop.org/a/63892/9781684031535
• Find Your Strength: A Workbook for the Highly Sensitive Person by April Snow: https://bookshop.org/a/63892/9781577153009
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
April Snow: 0:00
Don't expect yourself to keep up with the same pace as everyone else, to be highly productive day after day, to do everything perfectly. That's not realistic. We feel deeply right. We experience things at a more intense level than most, so we need to have space for that. 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.
April Snow: 0:51
In this solo episode, I answered two listener questions Any suggestions on how to cope when my deep processing translates to working much slower than everyone else? And how do we find balance in a sustainable routine when feeling deeply and overwhelmed by the daily hustle 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. 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.
April Snow: 1:35
Let's dive in. How do you cope when your deep processing as a highly sensitive person translates to working more slowly than everyone else? This question really hits home for me. There are so many things that I have taken months or even years to complete after I originally had the idea to want to do them, and that's not even including the day-to-day tasks that we need more time for Starting a podcast, becoming a therapist, changing my diet, so my body would feel better, becoming a therapist, changing my diet, so my body would feel better. Ending friendships that didn't support me. I could go on and on. And the reason that we take more time and we need to think things through is because when you're born with a highly sensitive trait, the main component of that is called depth of processing. It's not the emotionality or the kind of hypersensitivity that a lot of people assume it is. It's that your brain works in a different way.
April Snow: 2:48
So deprocessing means having a break, a little break, a stop in your brain, which is called the behavioral inhibition system, which is kind of like it sounds. You're inhibiting behavior until you have time to think things through. So this creates a pause to think, to reflect before you act. So this is actually a smart tool, evolutionary speaking, to keep you safe and alive. You want someone in your group, in your community, to notice the little details, to notice the dangers, to put ideas together, to keep track of all those little pieces.
April Snow: 3:25
So being a deep processor, though, it also means that you're taking time not just to pause before you act, but also to think, to reflect, to integrate all of your experiences after they happen. So you're pausing and checking things out before, and then you're also pausing after and processing and integrating, so that way you can pull out any of the important information, the little details that are gonna be helpful to remember in the future and, just, basically speaking, to keep you safe. That's why it originally was created or kept going in us as humans, but also so you don't make the same mistakes again, so that you can strengthen your intuition. You can make really strong decisions. So this is great in decision-making, as you can imagine, to not only pause and think, but also to be someone who knows and notices all the little details and is able to put them together and then has a strong intuition around it. So there's going to be some details that you you know, and then some details that you don't know. You just intuitively know. It also helps with setting boundaries right, knowing what people are best to have around you, developing your intuition, as I talked about. But it can also slow you down right. This is gonna take a lot more time to do all this mental work, to take all those pauses before you do anything.
April Snow: 4:46
So what can you do about that? First, you can work more space into your schedule and your routine than what you're seeing other people doing. So, for instance, if you know it's going to take you 30 minutes to answer a really important email, carve out 30 minutes, not five minutes. Or if you know you need an hour to plan and cook dinner, be realistic about that. This is something I'm guilty of. I will start dinner five minutes before I want to be eating. Then everything else gets thrown off. So, just being realistic, how much time does it take you? And if it takes you a little bit longer, build that into your routine.
April Snow: 5:27
Work with your own rhythms instead of trying to put yourself in a box compared to what everyone else is doing. You also want to notice the benefits of taking your time and then also what happens when you rush right. We want to value these rhythms, this detail orientation, because it does bring a lot to the table. So put those pieces together for yourself. Here's what happens when I rush. Here's what happens when I take my time and I honor my own pace, because it's really easy to criticize yourself or to feel pressure to move more quickly, to do more, to keep up with everyone else, but this creates more mistakes, it creates more overwhelm, and then you're constantly overriding your own rhythms, which doesn't feel good.
April Snow: 6:12
You also want to embrace a quality over quantity approach to everything. So this means you may need to take on less work, less social commitments, but you will do everything more thoroughly and you're going to prevent issues before they happen. You're going to notice what people need. You're going to prevent some blow up from happening. There's just a lot that comes from slowing down, doing less, but bringing more of yourself to it and, let's be honest, it's a trade-off right. You may not be able to complete as many tasks, socialize as often, meet milestones at the same time, but you will be more prepared, you will hit the ground running once you do start, because you have processed and figured everything out beforehand and you're going to make fewer mistakes along the way.
April Snow: 6:58
So there's a lot of benefits there to going at your own pace, or what I like to call being on HSP time. So you're going to need to start working on accepting that this part of your trait is real. It's not going away that you do need more time to make decisions, you do need more time to complete tasks and you also need more time to transition from one thing to the next every single day. So build that in. And then there's another layer here which I don't want to ignore, because we have our baseline depth of processing slowing down. But there could be other things going on, which is making sure that you're not mentally overwhelmed and sluggish more than you need to be, more than is natural with the HSP trait, or that you're not getting stuck in perfectionistic or over-functioning mode to avoid a conflict or to kind of soothe out any anxiety that's present. So that's another thing to consider.
April Snow: 7:55
You want to preemptively and regularly get more recharge time so your brain is rested and it's sharp to begin with. So you have that processing time, that integration time, built in. So this is a foundational need for any highly sensitive person. So getting one to two hours of decompression time every day where you can think, you can process, you can integrate what's happened throughout the day. This is absolutely essential to process your emotions and experiences. I know finding one to two hours a day probably sounds like a lot, and when you do you will be functioning at a much higher level. You feel less overwhelmed, less stuck in overthinking or anxiety mode. So there really is a benefit. Or anxiety mode so there really is a benefit. Think of it as your fuel. It's you giving your brain time to work and clear out before taking on the next day. So, working on the perfectionism part and the over-functioning this is bigger than I can get into in this conversation. But just to have another resource, you're welcome to watch my sensitive session workshop on soothing perfectionism. You can go to sensitivesessionscom to find that if that's something you want to dive deeper into, and you'll find links to more resources in the show notes.
April Snow: 9:12
So on to the second question how do we find balance and a sustainable routine when feeling deeply and overwhelmed by the daily hustle or having a kind of solidified daily routine? So, hsps, we can benefit from a routine. It provides familiarity, consistency, it lowers decision fatigue, since you don't have to constantly be processing something new or figure out every little thing that you need to do over and over and over again every day, like what to wear, what breakfast to eat, what time to get up, what time to go to bed, when to leave the house all those little decisions that you make every day. When you have a routine, a lot of those go away, so it frees up a lot of mental energy. This is why I eat the same breakfast for months at a time and I only like to have like one or two pairs of sneakers to choose from at a time. I like to simplify my decision making process. I'd rather use that mental energy elsewhere, honestly, and it just creates a lot more ease for me. So routines are supportive, but only up to a point.
April Snow: 10:20
So you also will need unscheduled, unstructured space on a regular basis to unfurl, to get quiet, to catch up on feeling your feelings, processing your experiences, listening to your intuition and what's going on inside for you. This is why I absolutely relish a weekend with no plans. There's nothing better for me than a free space. I absolutely have to have one day a week with nothing to do. It's a must and essential for me. So it's not that I don't do anything on those days. It's the lack of needing to process and prepare for what's going to happen, which is what I enjoy. So we all need space to take a break from that every week.
April Snow: 11:10
So think about waking up. With nothing on your agenda, you can slowly get out of bed, you can linger in your pajamas and then you can see what you feel called to do that day, and maybe that's staying on the couch, beginning a new show, reading a book, getting lost in it, maybe that's going out for a hike or heading to the movie theater. But just being able to decide in the moment, based on how you feel, how much energy you have, that is a very freeing feeling which we often don't get to experience as HSPs, when we're often on someone else's timeline or trying to keep up with other people's pace, so that can be a real gift. Routines will feel even more restrictive for sensitive folks who are also high sensation seekers, and that means having more needs for novelty and stimulation while also needing more downtime than most people. So that's something you will have to intentionally balance so both parts of you get your needs met. So that need for downtime and quiet, but also that need for stimulation and novelty, so those two can tend to fight each other a bit. So if you think this might be you, I'll include a link to the highest sensation seeking test from Dr Elaine Aron in the show notes so you can check that out.
April Snow: 12:34
So for anyone who knows me personally, you know I absolutely live by my calendar. I have a weekly schedule and then I have a monthly schedule, which helps me get a lot of things done. It lets me wear different hats without a lot of stress. So I wear my therapist hat, author hat, podcast host hat, consultant hat just a lot of different pieces to my daily puzzle. Just a lot of different pieces to my daily puzzle. So having a well-organized schedule of routine gives me a sense of ease and really curbs that overwhelm of doing a lot at once. So I know what's getting done when I don't have to stress about it. I know there's somewhere for it to fit into my schedule and it also takes away that decision fatigue of when am I doing what when? So having a routine really supports me. However, I also need a counterbalance to that. You know I need to be able to have free space so I don't feel stifled or suffocated by that structure all the time.
April Snow: 13:35
As I'm sure you know, some days you don't have the emotional or the mental energy, the capacity to do what you have planned. That definitely comes up for me. So I personally need wiggle room in my schedule. I need to be able to honor my energy needs, those ebbs and flows that happen, or just to tend to my emotions if something difficult has happened. So, let's say, I've had a heavy week of meeting with my therapy clients. Maybe something a client is going through really touches into something that I personally have experienced, so it's more evocative than usual. I'm not gonna feel up to writing a blog post or recording a video, and that's just not gonna feel like a good fit. So when I'm having a heavy emotional week, I'll reschedule whatever I can, which is why it's important to have some open space in your schedule so you can move things around as you need to, based on how you're feeling in the moment, and so you want to again leave space for those ebbs and flows right, those changes and shifts in your emotions and your energy levels. It's really important to have that for yourself.
April Snow: 14:42
Don't expect yourself to keep up with the same pace as everyone else, to be highly productive, day after day to do everything perfectly. That's not realistic. We just never know how we're going to feel or react to something. We feel deeply right, we experience things at a more intense level than most. We need to have space for that in our daily or weekly routines. And then making sure that you have that counterbalance Time to rest, to process, because your brain is using a significant amount of energy, noticing all the little details, processing everything that you pick up and everything that you go through each day. Other people are not working that hard internally. Their brains are just not working at that same level. So you really need to have that extra space to rest and process.
April Snow: 15:32
It's also really important to have unstructured, unscheduled time every week. That could look like reserving the same day, let's say, every Saturday. You just keep a clear schedule, or maybe you choose a different day of the week depending on what's going on that particular week, what's going on in your life at the time, and that could also support you if you like more flexibility, if you like to change things up a bit, but making sure you get one day off a week to catch up with yourself, to rest, recharge, so you want to be able to have space to deep dive into your interests, your hobbies, your work, projects, but then be able to crash and recover and recharge and be in your own bubble for a while. So allow yourself those again, those ebbs and flows. It's really important to let that happen and then allow yourself to feel those big positive feelings, that euphoria, that excitement, that passion, but then you get to rest and you get to recover right, so you're really meeting yourself as you are. It's really important to do that, not try it again, not try to put yourself in a box of what everyone else is doing.
April Snow: 16:46
And then, really important, having regular, consistent space to process your emotions, because without that that will disrupt your ability to show up, to keep a routine. If you're constantly battling with your emotions because they're trying to keep a routine, if you're constantly battling with your emotions because they're trying to get your attention but you're constantly pushing them away Because, remember, you do feel everything deeply. That is part of being a highly sensitive person. You feel the highs and the lows deeply and you have a wide range of emotional expression. So have a regular practice of being with those emotions, whether it's journaling before bed, it's going to therapy every week or it's expressing yourself in another way.
April Snow: 17:31
Thanks so much for joining me for today's solo episode. What I hope you'll take away is that it's important to have space for the natural ebbs and flows in your energy and feelings. You will need more space and flexibility in your day-to-day compared to others, and that's okay. Taking time to rest, to process your emotions, to regularly reflect on your experiences, allows you to show up more fully in your relationships, make stronger decisions with fewer mistakes, do better quality work and access your sensitive gifts of creativity, intuition, empathy and so much more. If you'd like to submit a question for a future episode, go to sensitivestoriescom and be sure to check out the show notes for more resources. 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 HSP resources. You can sign up for my email list or follow sensitive strengths on instagram, tiktok and youtube. Check out the show notes or sensitive storiescom for all the resources from today's episode. Thanks for listening.
