31: Surrendering into Softness + Less Anxiety Through Music
With Maya Benattar, LCAT
Are you pushing yourself beyond your limits? In this episode, I talk with Maya Benattar, LCAT about ways to soften into rest and connection with yourself and:
• Using music and other sensory experiences to understand your emotions more clearly
• Leaning into softness and being gentle with yourself more often • Unhooking from the pressure to always overextend yourself
• Finding the balance between doing and being, action and rest
• The importance of having your emotions and experiences be seen and held by another
Maya is a licensed music psychotherapist in private practice in NYC, helping highly sensitive women live with less anxiety, access true confidence and finally detach from "I'm not good enough". She relishes explorations around sensitivity, big feelings, family baggage, and creativity. In addition to her private practice, Maya provides wellness workshops and professional development trainings.
Keep in touch with Maya:
• Website: https://www.mayabenattar.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mayabenattar
Resources Mentioned:
• Exhale + Soften Guided Humming Exercise: https://insighttimer.com/mayabenattar/guided-meditations/exhale-and-soften-guided-humming
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
Maya Benattar: 0:00
Not am I in some perfect state of softness or calmness, but am I connected to it? Like right now, I'm wearing yoga leggings and those are soft, and so that's the way. If I don't feel it on my body, to have it on my body, we need to give ourselves those on-ramps.
April Snow: 0:23
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 Maya Benatar about using music and other sensory experiences to understand your emotions more clearly, leaning into softness and being gentle with yourself more often, and unhooking from the pressure to always be doing something often and unhooking from the pressure to always be doing something. Maya is a licensed music psychotherapist in New York City, helping highly sensitive women live with less anxiety, access true confidence and finally detach from I'm not good enough. She relishes explorations around sensitivity, big feelings, family baggage and creativity. In addition to her private practice, maya provides wellness workshops and professional development trainings.
April Snow: 1:29
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. So, maya, can you start off by telling me your HSP discovery story, how and when you realized that you're highly sensitive?
Maya Benattar: 2:21
Yeah. So I wish I could remember exactly when it was and I think that's just my HSP self wanting to be really particular about things but it was about six or seven years ago. Everything before the pandemic started is a little fuzzy time-wise and I was doing some poking around about sensitivity. I was always one of those kids that was like, oh, you're so sensitive. I was very shy as a kid, very, very shy, and I just stumbled upon Elaine Aron's work and it was one of those moments where, like, oh, I didn't know about this and by that point I had been a therapist for about a decade already and I had never heard of it, and it just it took a little self-assessment and it was just a light bulb moment of like, oh, this makes sense yeah, isn't it really a light bulb moment?
April Snow: 3:10
oh my gosh and also I've heard this from every single therapist we don't learn about the trait in school. Oh yeah, no right. And we're sitting with so many hsps and we are ourselves one as well, but not having that information, did it change anything when you had the framework? I'm always curious about this.
Maya Benattar: 3:30
For myself or for how I work.
April Snow: 3:33
Or anything really, cause you know we, I think we always know something's different about me. I'm emotional, I'm sensitive, I'm shy, I'm introverted, but when you actually had the words, did it shift anything for you?
Maya Benattar: 3:43
It did and, to be honest, it still is right. It gave me more language. It gave me the framework. The shyness sort of fell away in the last when I wasn't looking some point in the last decade or so, although I have my moments and my different contexts where I might be a little shy.
Maya Benattar: 4:01
But knowing that I'm HSP just gives me something tangible. It feels like, even though it's not actually tangible, of how I define myself, of how I move through the world. Feels actually now that I think about it a little more. It gives me permission. I have always been, and continue to be, to be honest, a really hard worker. I grew up in a family that prized that over pretty much everything else and realizing that I could push myself but that it's not the best thing for me. And having the permission but also having the reason of like I'm sensitive and this doesn't work best for my nervous system. Honestly, no one else is really asking me for that. My husband is a lovely person, my friends are always supportive, but for myself really to be able to say like this is not what my HSP nervous system needs, has been really significant.
April Snow: 4:55
It is, Isn't it? Just to know? Oh, there's a reason why I might need to slow down or do things a little bit differently than everyone else.
Maya Benattar: 5:01
Yeah, yeah.
April Snow: 5:03
And grappling with those values or the kind of the way of living of your family or you know your community of okay, we're hard workers.
Maya Benattar: 5:12
Yeah, that's been a big piece of work for me, right, like a big, and continues to be. Like there's a lot of unlearning undoing. My father is an immigrant so there's just, I think, baked into that. Just you know you work hard. He has retired a couple of years ago but was working like 60 hours a week up until he retired. Like that was what I saw growing up. That was modeled for me really, really hard work and I think it's just modeled on a lot of immigrant families. That hard work gets you ahead and that's what you do in a lot of families in general, right. So, to step out of that, like there were years when I was working six days a week as a therapist which spoiler was not great for me. I don't think I was doing my best work. I think also I was so focused on trying to do my best work that I left little for myself or for my loved ones, so I was completely spent, which is just so hard for me.
April Snow: 6:05
It is hard. All those other pieces of you get malnourished.
Maya Benattar: 6:09
Totally that's a really good word for it. Yeah, yeah, it became a survival thing. I could push through. I learned all these little tips and tricks of. At this time of day I get caffeine or whatever. That's not a mind-breaking trick, but it came at a like a physical cost and it came at an emotional cost for sure absolutely, it really does.
April Snow: 6:33
I'm curious did anxiety play a part? Because I know that's something that you focus on and I just think about when you're pushing so hard, probably very overstimulated. What did you notice as a result of that? Was it anxiety? Was it something else?
Maya Benattar: 6:48
My anxiety has been looking back. It's been present for way longer again than I had language for it. So I think when I was a kid and when I was labeled as shy and when I called myself shy, there was anxiety there as well. And so when I was pushing myself really hard during those four or five years, my anxiety was higher. Now, was it higher because I was working a lot? Possibly, but I think my anxiety has always also been connected to being hard on myself and believing and this has changed significantly in the past couple of years. And but for a long time there was this belief of if I am mean to myself or if I just push myself, it's the pushing essentially right. If I just like push through, then I'll be okay or I'll be worthy or I'll be enough.
Maya Benattar: 7:37
And so my anxiety often manifested as being really hard on myself and again having just enough in the tank most of the time for other people in my life, but not enough for me, and so really really mean to myself. I would be really self-critical and it was a ton of self-doubt and negative internal talk and that's, for the most part, how my anxiety showed up. There was also periods of like insomnia and disconnection from my body. But I think for the most part it really, and it got woven in and around my work life. I think not my work with clients, necessarily, but my work life and building a private practice as an HSP. And when I figured out I was an HSP, that helped me connect a lot of the dots for how I wanted to have my practice.
Maya Benattar: 8:22
Look, because I can't see 30 clients a week nor do I want to, but a lot of people around me do that and I just. It's been so eye-opening to realize that I don't have to and that I don't want to right, but you don't have to do either.
April Snow: 8:39
Yeah, I love it, yeah, yeah, I think a lot of folks the anxiety shows up that way and that self-criticism where it's like push, push, push through. How do we grapple with that when you come from a hardworking family where that's the value? So I have two generations out, but my mom's side that's kind of the same mentality and my grandmother always says we should be doing right, doing is a good thing, right? She's happiest when she's doing something, which I do appreciate that value and it's gotten me really far. However, it's not sustainable when you go at that level. So how do we grapple with trying to be kinder to ourselves but also trying not to, you know, trying to meet the family's needs or expectations Totally?
Maya Benattar: 9:24
Yeah, I think it's such a great question I'm not going to pretend to have like the answer. But I think for me finding that mix right, because the reality of my life and of the world is that we do need to get stuff done right. Like when I figure out a way to not have to do things. Like when I figure out a way to not have to do things.
April Snow: 9:47
I'll do it. Yeah, I will let you know.
Maya Benattar: 9:54
But for me it there's a big physical awareness to and I'm noticing it even as I'm leaning back, and I noticed it before and I was driving. If I am leaning too far forward, that's usually a sign that I am in like complete doing mode, that I am pushing. It's almost and I've written a little bit about this it's really like there's a hand between my shoulder blades that's pushing me forward, and so when I can relax back or lay down and let my back soften, that it really is this really important somatic signal of like releasing, softening, and so I can have a little bit of both right, I can be in this moment talking to you, gesturing, because that's just how I talk, but also the back of my body is soft right now, right, and so it allows like a little bit of like the doing and being, or the output and input, whatever we want to call it right, but just a little bit of that blend. And for me it really was something I noticed years ago at this point and it's something I keep coming back to.
April Snow: 10:51
I love that we can blend the doing and the being so beautifully put. You can be engaged in the world without burning yourself out. Yeah, you can have a practice, but not see 30 clients a week. Right, right. What has helped you make that blend happen? Has there been certain practices or things that you tell yourself to soften into that blending and not always being doing?
Maya Benattar: 11:15
Yeah, I mean, it really is a practice for me. So, even though it's been quite a few years since I discovered that, like I have my moments, like we all do of like, oh, I'm holding my breath and I'm leaning, like I'll find myself writing notes like this, I'm like that's not helping me type any faster, right, and it's not making it any more enjoyable. So, practices that have been helpful for me some of it is just the mindfulness of like, what is my body doing right now?
Maya Benattar: 11:40
You know, am I connected to softness?
Maya Benattar: 11:43
Other things have been being in nature I'm a big hiker and really just things that help me experience my physical body in a different way, because so often and when we're doing it's all like forward motion, right In one way or another, whether we're walking or we're typing or we're therapizing or whatever like it's a lot of forward motion, and so I have found it helpful for this before the pandemic and then a couple years ago I got back into aerial yoga and for anyone who is not familiar with aerial yoga and I'm not an expert, but I do love to go upside down, which is not something that's in my non aerial yoga practice because of my like shoulder and jaw stuff and there's something so freeing about the experience of going upside down spine decompresses and it's just also you have to soften a little because you can clench when you're upside down and it's our natural impulse often because we're like this is not how our human bodies usually hang out, right, but when I can soften into that, it is so juicy, it's so delicious and it helps me remember, but more than just in a cognitive sense, it helps my body remember and know that there are other ways of being in the world, so that's one of my favorites.
April Snow: 12:59
I love that Changing your perspective, literally, literally. Yeah, it was a couple of years ago. I have a friend who's a yoga teacher and we were just kind of playing around in the studio after and we were in a studio that had the straps on the wall and I got to go upside down and it was amazing. It feels so good just to let, just let your body relax and release.
Maya Benattar: 13:21
Yeah, and connected to that, like my favorite part of an aerial yoga class in the studio where I was taking it is you do the Shavasana in the hammock. It's the best Shavasana, like I would literally pay for an hour of just laying in the hammock and that would be amazing. But this sense of again, it's that duality of like being held and releasing right. We always I know I always have this impulse to do more than I need to do and I think that's often that's the hardworking family, but also the anxiety showing up of like, do, do, do, produce, get validation, whatever it is.
Maya Benattar: 13:57
And so to be able to soften, whether it's being in nature or being upside down in an aerial yoga class or petting my dog, who is another huge resource for me and all of that helps me remember that I can soften right, that I have that capacity, because it's easy to forget.
April Snow: 14:15
Oh, it's so easy, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, like it is possible to slow down and instead of leaning forward and constantly going, going, going. It's like you asked a lovely question, which is am I connected to softness? I want to ask, or asking myself, that question.
Maya Benattar: 14:31
It's such a good one, right, because there's also so much nuance that's possible in that I was playing with this with a couple of clients recently of am I connected to it? Not am I in some perfect Zen state of softness or calmness or, you know, substitute any other word of a place, a feeling we want, but am I connected to it? Like, right now I'm wearing yoga leggings and those are soft, and so that's a way, if I don't feel it on my body, to have it on my body at least.
April Snow: 14:59
Right.
Maya Benattar: 15:00
And it's, yeah, like we need to give ourselves those like on ramps, right, because it can get. So I find for myself a lot of my clients if I don't find the feeling internally right away, it's like, well, fuck it. I, you know I'm not connected to softness, screw this, I'm going to go still be anxious, right. So having that on ramp and having that there's 5% of softness arbitrary number, right, but just some sense of it, some little glimmer.
April Snow: 15:26
Yes, I love that, Even if you're not able to embody it right now. How can you connect externally that on-ramp to softness? Yeah, I love that phrase. Yeah, I don't think I'd ever said that one before. It's so good I wrote it down. I was like I want to remember that. Yeah, I'm also wearing soft pants right now because it's comforting, right. It's like oh, how can we? Or like sometimes I'll have my little weighted lap pad on me or just something, or cozy socks on. It's like what, what can we bring?
Maya Benattar: 15:59
in to resource Totally. I think there's often this idea that everything has to come from inside. We have to dig deep and that's the working hard piece right. We have to dig deep and find the feeling and I am just such a huge proponent for myself and my clients of what can you bring in, like when you mentioned like the little weighted lap band, like I have a heating pad for my neck that is velvet and it's just, yes, it's warm and it has some weight to it and that's lovely, but it's velvety, like the softest velvet, and it's like oh, okay, and sometimes I'll just sit there and I'll have it on and I'll just be back. It's so, so soft. So we deserve those reminders, those on-ramps. It's okay to need that and to not have to manifest or dig deep and find it just from inside all the time.
April Snow: 16:47
Yes, exactly, we don't have to work so hard. Yes, and that it's okay to have that imperfection happening, like, yes, it could be a day where you're completely frazzled and there's no way in. That's okay, borrow it from somewhere else, totally.
Maya Benattar: 17:03
Oh, I love that.
April Snow: 17:04
Yeah, borrow it, yeah, and it seems like it's a lot, as you're talking, like a lot of sensory soothing.
Maya Benattar: 17:10
Totally I'm a very sensory person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just has always made a lot of sense to me.
April Snow: 17:18
You know right. It does make sense because, especially as HSPs, where we're so perceptive to those little nuances of touch and smell and sight and you talked about, you know, nature, animals, all these pieces I'm curious if we could also bring into the conversation music in the sensory language, because I know that's something that you bring in a lot. Could you talk more about how that could be supportive to us?
Maya Benattar: 17:43
Totally. There are so many ways. So, as a music therapist, there are so many ways that I work with my clients to bring music into the conversation, literally. One of the ways that that might be, if we stay with softness, that it's so hard for people to access softness, and I'd say 90% of my clients come in with anxiety. A lot of them are HSPs and softness feels very foreign, it's very threatening, right, it is. It is a surrender. There's a little bit of a surrender or a lot of surrender, depending on so many factors, right, and so music can be a more accessible way.
Maya Benattar: 18:20
It's certainly for a lot of people it's much more accessible than close your eyes and find softness inside. That doesn't even make sense to a lot of people and that's totally fine. That's not the world we live in. So we might, if I'm working with someone in person, it might be what sort of instrument connects you to softness? And I might, you know, invite them to try a couple instruments in my office, or I might just play a couple and say does that feel, does that sound soft? Right, because sound like, even soft in terms of like loud or quiet, makes sense. But also, then we can start to talk about softness, texture, and that's where it gets musically, gets really juicy, because a soft texture a timbre is. You know, it can be like that warm, rounded piece of music Like I was just listening to something before that has an oboe as the instrument which has the way this was played.
Maya Benattar: 19:16
It had some softness to it, it connects me to my own sense of softness, and so it might mean we find a piece of music and that can be a whole exploration in and of itself, right? The way that I work with recorded music is so much about slowing down, about permission to get really specific, right, and this is where HSPs we love this stuff, because we notice nuance, right, we live in that world. So for me to say to someone, we're going to take our time, and you know, I work a lot with an advanced technique called music and imagery, which uses recorded music and requires us to be so specific about the music that we use. So it's not just me saying this is the piece for softness, right, and so it gets away from that prescriptive stuff that those of us who are around my age I'm almost 40, we heard a lot of around, like Mozart for the mind and all of that stuff in the 90s. It gets away from that sort of prescriptive element of this. Is the music for X, y and Z, and so we'll take our time.
Maya Benattar: 20:15
If softness is the resource that someone wants to connect with, we'll take our time. I might give some options. We listen, I give such explicit permission. I literally say I didn't compose any of these. I will not be offended if you tell me that's not quite it. I want to know and I bring so much of my own curiosity, which is softness as well.
Maya Benattar: 20:36
It's very hard to be curious and to be locked down, to be tight physically. Curiosity comes, I think, with softness and openness. So I could talk forever about how the music connects to all of this.
April Snow: 20:50
It's so beautiful I just think about an HSP getting to have that permission that just being seen and their nuance and their layers of experience through that avenue, through the exploration, is just seems really powerful. And for you to invite them to say what's your experience here.
Maya Benattar: 21:11
Which is something that I mean. I think a lot of my clients, but pretty much every HSP client that I've worked with has not really been asked, or if they've been asked, it's not been enough.
Maya Benattar: 21:23
Right and I think a lot of us who are HSPs can relate to that, because we don't process, like non HSPs generally, to be asked with that openness, that curiosity of like, what's your experience, what's happening inside? Can you let the music come inside? Can you let it touch that, that place, that place that you know in your chest that feels knotted and hard? Can you breathe in some of the softness the music is offering?
April Snow: 21:48
it's so nuanced, it's so slow, it's so permission-based and curious and trauma-informed and all the things right yeah yeah, yeah, it opens up, I imagine, so many layers of a conversation and then just reconnecting to self through that and and would it? Would you say it's safer to process through music than maybe just kind of traditional talking?
Maya Benattar: 22:17
I'd say the answer to that is it depends For some people. Yes, absolutely For some people either they have told the same stories over and over and not gotten anywhere, and so music offers them a different option.
Maya Benattar: 22:34
But for some people, being open and vulnerable in the way that music can invite doesn't have to but can might feel like too much so that's when all of my trauma training comes in of like we go so slow, we titrate every little piece and I explain to my clients what titration is right, like I don't believe and I believe in being a really transparent therapist and so I'll say like, oh, we need to slow down here. Have you heard of titration? You know? Like I'll walk them through. Did you hear of this in chemistry class in high school? And some of them have.
April Snow: 23:07
I had forgotten it, but could you say share for list, cause I will often use that word too, and I was um a plant biology major, so I remember actually titrating, but I've never, done that, so could you share for folks in this capacity or context? I mean, what is titration? If you could share?
Maya Benattar: 23:28
Yeah, great question, yeah, so titration in this context, when you're working in therapy with, potentially, with someone who has a trauma history or just feels overwhelmed, is essentially a little bit at a time, right. So in biology which you could speak to far better than me or chemistry, you know, you like add a little bit of a substance and then you don't add it all, you add a little and you assess. Then you maybe add a little more and then you assess. So it's sort of the same premise in therapy of we're not going to jump the way I work, we're not going to jump straight into, let's pull out all the instruments and do an improvisation about how you feel, about, I don't know, being an HSP in this world, like, oh my goodness, that's overwhelming for me to say that.
Maya Benattar: 24:13
That's the point, right, but that's sort of what we might tend to do. When we vent right, we just like open the floodgates and all the things come out, and so titration might be slowing down of like, okay, are you connected to your breath right now? No, okay, let's do something around that. What would it be like to breathe together? What would it be like to make a little bit of sound together? Look at the instruments for a minute. That brings in a whole other thing. Can we hum together? What is it like to? These are just all options right? What is it like if I play an instrument and that in each part we're assessing, I'm checking in we might stay in any of those things I named for the rest of the session.
Maya Benattar: 24:58
This is not like a checklist that we're marching down, but sometimes just going slow and explaining to people this is what we're doing. This is why I'm doing it right, so that it is not a mystery. It's not some you know, blank slate therapist thing going on can help. Actually, when we go slow, we can go deep right, which is something that I know, that you know of right and all of us who work in these sensitive and attuned in trauma-informed ways. We don't need to go fast to make progress.
Maya Benattar: 25:27
Actually the slower we go, often the more successful and the deeper we go, yeah.
April Snow: 25:34
What a great reminder, though, that we can actually go deeper and do more healing when we slow it down. Such a good reminder not just in processing trauma or doing therapy, but in life, yes that there's so much value to slowing it down, going at your own pace as an hsp, and just as you're talking like, oh how healing to really be with someone in that you know, experiment almost right, just trying that on, it's okay to just meet yourself where you are right now.
Maya Benattar: 26:09
It's such a huge thing, right. And again in therapy, in life, in any other context right To, rather than have to push through or to justify. I hear that a lot with my clients, I hear it with myself to just have that permission of like hang out right here, yeah, Wherever the here is of the moment right. In the upside down aerial yoga hammock, or with this particular drum, or whatever it is, to not have to march down the checklist. Right yeah.
April Snow: 26:39
Yeah, exactly how freeing to put that aside. No agenda.
Maya Benattar: 26:45
It is such a process and, I'll be honest, I am still in process without myself, in my life More so, I'd say, in my life than in my work, which is often how it is, I find but it's a process that is very rich in the unfolding, in the discovery of oh, I don't have to. Actually, this happened to me yesterday.
Maya Benattar: 27:06
It was a choice in the morning between like going hiking with my husband and my dog or like doing some stuff that I wanted to get done and my MO usually is you do this stuff and then you get the reward, which absolutely comes from the way that I was raised and, I think, just our society in general.
Maya Benattar: 27:24
And my husband is the opposite. He's not an HSP, but he is very sensitive in his own way and very attuned, and we've been playing with the what if we do it the way that is not my impulse for a while, and so we went hiking and we had lunch and we explored a new little town and then I came home and I had a nap and then I came home and sat on the deck yeah, it was lovely and did the things, gave myself a container right of like I'm gonna, I have an hour and a half, that's it and it all got done. But it's such a a constant learning and repetition for me of I don't have to push through in order to get the reward, in order to get the softness or the pleasure or whatever it is. I think that I will be learning and relearning that for a long time, if not forever, you know yeah right that you don't have to earn the softness, earn the rest or the, the experience.
April Snow: 28:22
You don't have to work for it.
Maya Benattar: 28:24
Yeah, I mean, oh, what you said about earning the positive experience like that comes up a lot, I find, with clients.
Maya Benattar: 28:30
I think there's often this idea that, like therapy is all catharsis, it's all digging deep on, rooting, you know, unearthing, trauma and positive experiences. What does that mean, like? For a lot of people that's not in their language, and their way of thinking about therapy and the way that I work is that we need those positive experiences in therapy. We need them in life, obviously, as we're talking about, but, like in therapy, we need to be able to laugh together. We need to. You know, any positive experience, like to be able to for a client to share something that felt good, right, for us to pause and say, actually we're not going to go back to whatever the particular trauma story or something like that, we're going to stay with that which feels good. And I often make this gesture that I'm making right now of like it's so precious, right, it's kind of like holding a baby bird, like too fast or too loud, because it's so precious, it deserves that attention and that softness, right, and so often we just barrel through.
April Snow: 29:37
We really do and I think that, well, therapy is there. There's space for everything in therapy, but especially, I think, putting more emphasis on the good, because we don't have that permission in life to savor Right. So can we hold on and can we actually acknowledge look at this, it's so beautiful and precious and sacred and something good just happened and let's take it in yeah right, it's so.
Maya Benattar: 30:08
It feels so simple, but it's really it's so hard it's so hard and it's so unusual in so many ways, like, yeah, what leads people to therapy, if I could distill it down is too much of something or not enough of something or a combination of those Right.
Maya Benattar: 30:25
And so no one comes to therapy saying I have had so many good experiences lately, I would like more of those. That's not why I'm gonna go to therapy, it's not why I started therapy, right. And so what positive experiences are so reparative? Right, particularly for people and a lot of my clients. I sort of work at the intersection of HSP, anxiety and childhood trauma, and usually there's a pretty clear Venn diagram between those, and so a lot of times my clients have not had enough of certain important, like formative experiences of being seen, of being heard, of not being shamed, of being supported, whatever it might be Right. So therapy is, then, a space and a relationship and it doesn't matter how old they are where they can have reparative experiences of I'm going to sit down with you, I'm going to wait until you finish your sentence, I'm not going to tell you you're too much, right, like all of that. And so it can be so healing. And that's the positive stuff too, again, like the baby word thing, you know it's so important.
April Snow: 31:33
Oh, it's so incredibly important to be seen, to be in a safe relationship, to have someone make space for you and honor who you are, and you don't need to change anything. How beautiful is that? Yeah, it's incredibly powerful, and yet we don't usually come to therapy when something good is happening, but we can make space for what's good once we get there absolutely yeah, yeah, I love it I wanted to go back to something you said earlier, which you said you're bringing music and imagery and I'm just curious if you could say more about that component of the process.
April Snow: 32:12
I love hearing about the music, but I'm wondering how the imagery piece also comes in Totally.
Maya Benattar: 32:16
So in music and imagery there's two ways it can look. We can have a resource-oriented focus and we can have sort of an issue-oriented focus. So that's like a point of tension or discomfort, anxiety, anger, a memory, whatever it is, and so in both of those there is imagery, right. So there usually is some imagery that comes up or some body sensation that comes up when we land on the focus right. So there usually is some imagery that comes up or some body sensation that comes up when we land on the focus right. So let's say, someone says I'll just stay with softness because we've been talking about softness. I really I want to feel more of that. I'm disconnected from softness. Okay, can you think of a memory? Can be 10 minutes ago, 10 years ago, it doesn't matter. That connects you to softness. Most people will find something. If they don't, that's when finding stuff around us or whatever it might be comes in. But most people will find a memory. And so when we have memory, we have imagery. Okay, can you drop yourself back into that memory Just for a moment? Eyes open, eyes closed, doesn't matter. What do you notice about being in that, let's say, standing next to that lake? Oh, my feet are on the soft grass right, I'm feeling the warmth of the sun, so we've got imagery already, and then that helps us choose music to just amplify and stay with right. This is a staying with experience. So staying with something that feels like a resource, staying with something that feels like it has tension, and I can talk more about that. And so then the music that we choose for softness, for a resource, like I said before, we take our time with choosing the music.
Maya Benattar: 33:55
I might give options. They might have thoughts of certain music or instruments or whatever it is, and then the music, whatever piece it is, it loops, so it just that makes it so, so safe, so predictable. It's just this lovely container that you can just kind of soak in right. So, as opposed to, like we listen once and okay, like on to the next thing, we might spend 15, 20 minutes listening to the same piece of music. So there is a slowing down, there is a taking in and, as clients are listening, they're creating an image on a piece of paper. So really simple. It does not. I always share that. I really can't draw anything representationally. I drew a window the other day. I was very proud, but when I do this in my own personal practice, it's very, very abstract, just colors and shapes, and so the idea is just staying with the music, staying with the imagery that's coming up, any sensation, just putting it on the page, and it's my job to keep track of time so that clients don't have to.
Maya Benattar: 34:56
I have a lot of clients who like, want to take care of me and you know all of that, and so they might draw the image they initially came up with. The music might actually bring them something new, like, oh, when the violin came in all of a sudden, I left the lake and I was on this cloud, or whatever. It is Like I'm just spitballing here, but these are all pieces that I've heard over the years, and so then that ends up on the page, and so the imagery that comes up that the music can evoke I am constantly surprised in so many beautiful ways, because music is just that powerful, and when we choose it so intentionally, it will bring something. We don't always know exactly what, right. We might start with softness and end up with release, or end up with openness, and that's okay. Right, the music is bringing something else that's needed, and it's working on such an implicit level. It's so beautiful.
April Snow: 35:48
That's incredibly powerful, that you're allowed to be in the process and slow things down enough to savor and to let it impact you. I think those HSPs were often so rushed and to let it impact you. I think those HSPs were often so rushed and we don't usually get to just be with ourselves and our internal experience and here it's like you're really immersing in it and just seeing what could come out of that and letting it shift and change as it needs to. Wow how powerful.
Maya Benattar: 36:20
I'm wondering if I should speak to what I put over here to like yeah the tension.
April Snow: 36:26
Yeah, yeah, I would love to hear about that part too, what that looks like. Yeah.
Maya Benattar: 36:29
So a lot of the HSPs that I work with, and myself as well, being overwhelmed is a thing right and again that sort of also lives at the confluence I think that's the word I want of anxiety and childhood trauma and HSP like being overwhelmed.
Maya Benattar: 36:43
And for a lot of my HSP clients being told for years you're too much, you're too angry, you're too sensitive, you're too whatever doesn't help. That's an understatement, and so issue-oriented music and imagery is about staying with tension right. We so often will hear, and a lot of therapists will say this we have to feel the feeling to move through the feeling, or we have to feel it to heal it, or I can't think of any other catchphrases. But it is a hard thing for a lot of people to what does that mean? To just feel it Like I'm overwhelmed by feeling it already. Why would I want to feel it more?
Maya Benattar: 37:18
I've had a lot of HSP clients who struggle with anger more. I've had a lot of HSP clients who struggle with anger, which is so common, and so they would look at me like I had three heads If I said let's just talk more about your anger. They're already angry. They've already had so many harmful experiences around anger, around how they experience their anger. Either it's overwhelming and it's flooding, or it gets pushed down in a way which doesn't mean they don't feel it. We know this, and so if we take anger as an example, then the focus is on staying with the feeling in a way that feels okay.
Maya Benattar: 37:53
Yeah, so there may be less repeats than there are when we're doing a resource. There may be the same amount. It really does depend. How many times a piece repeats is not up to me, it's up to the client. So if it's one, it's one, if it's five, it's five, doesn't matter really. So then, if anger is the focus for the tension, then I'll ask again. There might be a memory, might be recent, might be long ago. They might know how anger feels in their body, and then we're just finding a piece of music that matches it and so there's a lot of nuance in that right.
Maya Benattar: 38:27
Anger can be so many different. Every feeling can be so many different things, but anger can be so many different things, and so I have a pool of music that has angry qualities to it whatever that might mean for different people.
Maya Benattar: 38:37
Right, it's different things for different people, and so again we'll take our time to go through and say, oh, the drumbeat is too loud on this one, or actually I want it faster, or sometimes it's so random. One time I found like a cello. Cover of it was painted black or something, and that was like perfect for a client who knows right. We never know exactly what will land. And then it's about can we stay with it? And the idea with staying with the feeling is to build a new relationship to it right.
Maya Benattar: 39:04
And sometimes that happens pretty quickly. Sometimes it takes revisiting this feeling, but essentially that's why we want to stay with. The challenging feeling is to transform it. Not necessarily to transform it into something beautiful and sunny and any of that, but to transform our experience of it, right. So if it's anger and there are other options with anger right, it's not just overwhelm or avoidance, that's just the two that I tend to see most often. But those become people's defaults. And a lot of the clients I work with they've been responding to anger in those ways for decades, Right. So it's not all of a sudden like, yeah, absolutely express your anger. They don't want to, which is fair, and they don't know where to start. And there's also, I should add, the component of I am right there with them in longer.
Maya Benattar: 39:56
That is reparative, that is hugely reparative For people, for clients who have never had that, who have been shamed or judged or anything else maligned in any way for their anger, and so me being able to say, oh yeah, I think I have a piece that might match this.
Maya Benattar: 40:15
I've done a lot of my own work around anger. That was something that was tricky for me for a long time. So in order to be able to work this closely with anger and so many other feelings, but particularly anger, I had to do a lot of my own work around it, not be afraid of it within myself, to be able to stay with it, for anger to be this generative, informative feeling, as opposed to something that was explosive and then otherwise ignored. You know so, personal work for any therapist, but if I'm talking about myself, personal work has been huge, right. And then the staying with the piece, usually by the end of the repeats, whether it's one, whether it's five, something has shifted right Whether it's oh, that wasn't as bad as I thought, which that statement in and of itself is huge, right?
Maya Benattar: 41:05
Or, oh, the anger reminded me of how tall I can be, or how strong I right. The music again, the music bringing something, whether it's oh, the cello, could be heard over everything else. That's appealing. I like that, like having a strong voice, right, like sort of getting something out of it. And those we talk about it afterwards. There's always a what's called in music and imagery, a postlude, or like a wrap up, a debrief, whatever we want to call it, to notice what happened in your experience. That's so important, otherwise it just stays internal. We have to make meaning out of it.
Maya Benattar: 41:41
And so then there's time at least like 10, 15 minutes usually to talk about what was your experience Like? What did the music do? What surprised you, you know? And the surprise one. I love that question because so often, when we respond to different feelings in these default ways, we are no longer surprised, right. We're like, oh yeah, I did the thing again, whatever the thing is right, and that usually leads to some self-criticism at least it does for me and so to be able to be surprised by your feelings, by your responses to them, that's exciting. I find it exciting and generative and new, and when there's a little something new, there's a thread to follow there, right, we've got something to come back to and continue to pay attention to. It's like sort of little seedlings, right.
April Snow: 42:29
Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, it's inspiring hope in me just thinking about that Like, oh, I can see this same emotion or the same response to an emotion or attention with fresh eyes, in a new way, and you can actually transform your relationship with it and be more curious and playful, even see the different layers of it while you're with another safe person, like I see you as a guide through this kind of like.
April Snow: 42:59
it's exactly how it's described Just kind of like going through this forest almost, or this maze of anger or emotion in any way, and I really just want to point out that you said that emotion, that anger. It can be informative. So what can we learn from it in this? Yeah, yeah, incredible?
Maya Benattar: 43:19
I talk a lot about anger, which is so funny to me sometimes because, like I said, I had such a difficult relationship to anger myself for so many years. But the past few years especially and I think to be honest, like what's been happening in our world since the pandemic and before the pandemic, many things have made me angry yeah.
April Snow: 43:37
Same.
Maya Benattar: 43:37
Yeah, and sometimes and I would rather be angry than shut down yeah, right, then numb out and look, I have my moments. I'm only human. But that anger is so informative, right, it can be so generative. It's led me to make decisions, to advocate in ways that I, as that shy kid who couldn't like talk to the kid in front of her mouth, I never thought I would do any of these things.
Maya Benattar: 44:02
So, following that thread of, oh, thought I would do any of these things. So, following that thread of, oh, I'm angry and what can I do? And also, how can I express it? And I do a lot of my own personal work still around like, what piece of music can hold and match my anger? Not like match it and then calm it down, but match it and stay right with it, right, yeah, like that is so holding and it's what we do as therapists all the time of like I'm with you wherever you are, right, the music being able to communicate that too, it's so cool to go into your experience in a safer, more exploratory way and actually learn a lot about yourself is so supportive for HSPs and we have all that depth inside of us, totally, yeah.
April Snow: 44:52
Yes, I'm curious just off the top of my head how can people use music in their day to day lives outside of the therapy room? Is there a way that you bring music into your everyday experience the therapy room.
Maya Benattar: 45:06
Is there a way that you bring music into your everyday experience? Yeah, there's so many. There's so many ways. I think, one that I often will talk about is.
Maya Benattar: 45:15
There's two things I'm thinking of right now. One of them is playlists, and I think a lot of us create playlists. This is nothing revolutionary. There's something to be said for creating specific feelings. Playlists and doing it when you're feeling fine is the biggest thing, right, yeah? Which is we're all human again. Like, if my shoulders are feeling fine, I'm probably less likely to do my stretches. We know how it goes. But creating different playlists when you're feeling fine, listening to them, getting familiar with them so that it's building the muscle, so that when you're feeling angry or you're feeling sad or whatever it is, you have it already, right, you're not like randomly searching through Spotify or not even looking through Spotify because you're so dysregulated. So creating those tools ahead of time.
April Snow: 46:00
Yeah.
Maya Benattar: 46:01
Yeah, I love that. Yeah, it also is the permission giving of like you're gonna have feelings. I do not know a single person in this world, myself included, who, like, never feels angry or never feels anxious, or never feels set, whatever that's. It's just not a thing right. But that acceptance of you. You will have some struggles and it's a gift to future you if you will like here.
Maya Benattar: 46:24
I am handing you this playlist and it doesn a gift to future you, if you will like. Here I am handing you this playlist and it doesn't have to be long or complex. Some of mine have three songs on them, but I really love doing that for myself. I love encouraging clients to do that. And then the other thing that I like to talk about a lot musically that people can do on their own is humming, and that's something that I talk about a lot. I do with a lot of clients, and so humming is so calming for the central nervous system. It is so simple. You don't need any tools, you don't need any equipment. You just need, literally yourself and you can do it anywhere.
Maya Benattar: 47:00
I do it when I'm stuck at a really long red light. I've done it on the subway in New York City. For those of you who live in cities, if you try to match pitch with the subway car, no one will hear you when it's moving Incredible, yeah, and I always say this is my little thing. Even if they do, you're probably not the weirdest thing that's happening on the subway, so it's really not a big deal. So, yeah, humming is a big one for me. I have a little track on insight timer. That is a two minute guided humming track where I do it with you and just walk you through it. So that's something that I talk about a lot. It's an internal massage, essentially, and it's great also for people who struggle with meditating and and things like that, which is something that I have an on and off relationship with. So humming has a little bit of that stillness, but also a little bit of movement to it. A little bit of vibration.
Maya Benattar: 47:56
When I hum with people or when I walk them through it and on the track, it's not about how it sounds, you don't need to be a singer. And this sort of humming as opposed to like humming along with a song, where there will be like melodic variation it's just you pick a note and you just sustain it until your breath runs out. And this isn't about compressing the breath to get all the breath out or anything like that. But an image that I like is if the breath is like a conveyor belt at the supermarket, which is even nicer because it always comes back around right Because there will be more breath and then the hum is just like a little item, a really light item that you just place on top of it and it rides until it's done.
Maya Benattar: 48:32
You know as opposed to like because we can, particularly those of us who are prone to anxiety in any way. We can create a lot of tension when we hum or when we breathe or when we try to meditate, and it's actually going back to softness Like you can be so soft with it. There can be softness here, softness inside the mouth, softness here, holding something soft right. It doesn't have to be a tension filled, productive, being as loud as possible kind of thing.
April Snow: 49:01
Right, it can be gentle, yeah, yeah, and again, you can kind of show up to it however feels right to you. Like you said, you don't have to be on pitch, you don't have to do it in any certain way, you don't have to force it, just let it be. You could do it laying down.
Maya Benattar: 49:16
You could do it in the shower. By the way, everyone sounds amazing.
April Snow: 49:19
When I'm in the shower.
Maya Benattar: 49:21
The acoustics, the tiles, the water, I don't know, but it's so good. Yeah, and it's just a lot of people just find that relaxing. So for those listening, if you love to take showers or baths or anything, it's just a nice thing to just integrate. It's also something that you can do when you're doing something else right.
Maya Benattar: 49:40
And so, for the habit stackers among us, rather than adding one more thing to do, sometimes I'll do it when I'm doing the dishes or walking the dog, when the dog is sleeping forever in one spot, you know, and it's just a nice thing to just like gently lay on top of something else you're doing, like when.
April Snow: 49:53
I'm waiting at the red light.
Maya Benattar: 49:54
I'm going to be waiting there either way, right.
April Snow: 49:58
Might as well do a little self-regulation.
Maya Benattar: 50:01
Yeah, why not?
April Snow: 50:07
Well, Maya, I'm wondering as we wrap up, is there any message you'd like to leave?
Maya Benattar: 50:09
for our HSP listeners. Such a good question, I guess. Since we've been talking about softness a lot, I think I'll just stay there of inviting people to connect a little bit with softness and remembering that you deserve it yes, you deserve it well.
April Snow: 50:31
Again, thank you so much. I just loved our conversation today. It's so rich and I'll be sure to share your website, your instagram and the show notes for folks. Is that the best way for people to connect with you? It is Beautiful. Thanks so much for joining me and Maya for today's conversation. I hope you'll feel inspired to find your own ways towards more softness and create a few playlists for your future self to support your emotional process. Be sure to listen to Maya's guided humming exercise on Insight Timer. You can find the link in the show notes. 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 sensitivestoriescom for all the resources from today's episode. Thanks for listening.
