Today, Lily welcomes Jenny Walters to the show. Jenny is a Depth Therapist and Coach for Highly Sensitive People. Together they explore what it means to be a highly sensitive person (HSP), how to navigate relationships as an HSP, and how to embrace your sensitivity as a strength rather than a weakness. Lily and Jenny also discuss the challenges of being an HSP, particularly when your partner is not, and offer practical advice on managing your sensitivity in vulnerable contexts such as dating.  

If you’re a highly sensitive person or in a relationship with one, this episode offers valuable insights and practical advice on navigating the unique challenges and opportunities of being an HSP. Tune in to learn how to step into your power and create revolutionary change in your life and relationships.

Hot-takes from this episode:

• What it means to be a highly sensitive person (HSP)

• What to do when you’re an HSP, and your partner is not

• How to manage your sensitivity in a highly vulnerable context such as dating

• Thriving as an HSP: what it means and what it looks like

Links:

The Yes Collective
Jenny on Instagram
144. Dating as a single mom + HSP dating with B. Marie Sanders
Date Brazen on Instagram
Date Brazen on TikTok

Subscribe to The Date Brazen Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher!

Show transcript:

Lily  00:05

Hey I’m Lily Womble former top matchmaker and founder of date brazen. After setting up hundreds I realized that with coaching women could match themselves better than anyone else ever could. With my unconventional feminist approach, I’ve helped women around the world build courageous and self trust build love lives. And now I’m here to support you get ready because I’m about to share the exact steps you need to attract a soul quenching partnership and feel amazing about yourself along the way. This is the date brazen podcast, gorgeous friends. Today we have an incredible guest. Her name is Jenny Walters, let me tell you a little bit about her. She is a depth of therapist and coach for highly sensitive people, she helps HSPs step into their power, find their voice and create revolutionary change. She is the founder of Highland Park, holistic psychotherapy and La co host of the yes collective podcast and CO CEO of the yes collective, which offers cutting edge tools from the best psychotherapist, along with live therapist led groups that target emotional health and personal growth. I’m so excited to have you on Jenny, welcome.

Jenny  01:07

Thank you so much for having me. I’m delighted to be here.

Lily  01:10

So I put a poll out there to the world in my Instagram world and said, like, let’s talk about being an HSP. I identify as an HSP. I don’t I that definition change or like how that expresses changes for me? On a yearly basis? It’s always sort of in flow. I think that understanding of self, I want to hear from you about what is an HSP? How did you like how did you know you were one, I think we can have a great conversation around that. But anyway, put it out there to the audience, like, who identifies as an HSP. And the majority of my audience does. And then I also asked, Who can I speak to on the subject that you love and your name came up. And so that’s how I found you and how we got connected. Because somebody said, you have to talk to Jenny Walters, that’s wonderful

Jenny  02:01

I, part of my my HSP way of walking through the world is that I am quite introverted at in certain ways, I do love karaoke, I will like just hop on the mic and put it all out there and leave it on the dance floor. But in terms of social media, I’m quite, I don’t spend a lot of time on there, I post my things and I kind of hop off. So it’s always nice to hear that someone is actually listening or find something helpful from it. That’s really, really validating I’m glad to hear

Lily  02:30

that it’s people are saying your name when you’re not even in the room. So I think that’s, that’s really cool and speaks to the the work that you’re doing in the world. In talking about what you know, talking through what we will talk about in this episode, you shared high sensitivity as a neurodivergent trait and impacts how we relate to ourselves and each other. Can you speak to what is the definition of a highly sensitive person, and how it impacts our relationships.

Jenny  03:00

There was a lot of research going on about 2030 years ago around what people were reporting in therapy rooms that this these experiences that were sort of there was a through line that they were they were speaking to. And so researchers and psychologists got together and started doing brain scans. And what they found that was in about 20% of the of the population, brains were actually showing up differently on the scans that were reporting symptoms. I shouldn’t say symptoms because it’s not a disorder, it’s it’s the way the brain is wired up. What they found was that there was a a deeper and more intense level of processing going on. What that meant and what the way it was being experienced is that people were having a high sensitivity, a high sensate experience, they were through all their senses, you know, sight, sound, touch, taste, also, energy, emotional, they were having a really intense experience they were absorbing in a more intense and deep way and then their brains were really chewing on it like really, really chewing. Something that’s really interesting about HSPs is not only are we in the moment processing what’s happening right now, we’re also simultaneously processing it in relationship to what’s going on in the past. So it’s like a double deep processing happening, which can lead to exhaustion. That’s a lot to be to be chewing on. So technically, a highly sensitive person when we use that term. They are you know, they’re referring to this subset of the population. Like I said, it’s 20%. So it’s too many people to be a disorder. But it’s not everybody not everyone is experiencing their surroundings and their environments in this in this same way.

Lily  04:53

Okay, so I’m partnered to a person who is does not identify as an HSP and like I I think that there’s so much room to grow in my ability to. And I say this in hopes that it serves people listening who also identify as a as an HSP. I can grow in my ability to, like, speak to what’s happening in my brain, like I don’t even know, but I don’t know what’s happening in his brain as a non HSP. So like. Okay, so the only way that I know to process is the way that you just described, which is chewing everything at once. How do neurotypical people or like, how do the 80% of the population process? What’s the distinction? Well,

Jenny  05:32

that’s a great question. And I am not a researcher, let me just be clear, I like to transmit the information that the researchers do all the hard work of finding. So I can’t speak to it in any kind of like scientific way. But I can say that I’m also married to someone who is not HSP, she would say that the things that I am clocking and noticing, she is not noticing, and this is what I find the experiences is that the HSPs we are without even realizing it until you realize until you start to pay attention. There is so much information that you are taking in. Whereas someone that’s not HSP, a lot of that information just isn’t registering, it’s not considered important. If I always I can give lots of little examples, like I did one on my Instagram about when we got a new flat screen TV, and we hung it above our fireplace. And then we had, we had wires hanging down for months, because it was during COVID. And we couldn’t get anyone into like install it. And when we finally got someone in there to hide those chords, I could feel my body relaxed. I was like,

Lily  06:34

did you cry, which I might have cried

Jenny  06:38

tears of relief. I know, you know, and my wife was like, I was like, Oh my God, I feel so much better those chords are gone. And my wife was like, Yeah, I was like, Yeah, there were cords there. So just as she’s learning about the way I process and grown a lot of compassion, in the ways that she just does not react and respond the same way I do, which I can go into more, I feel like those little examples help people. The same is true for me with her. Whereas I used to get really angry that she may not clean something up the way you know, not notice she’s just not noticing it. She’s not clocking it. It’s not to it’s not to, you know, pissed off, you know, it’s not personal. She’s just not noticing it the way I do. That’s so

Lily  07:21

interesting. I’m curious how you got into the field of not only psychotherapy, but the field of HS working with people who identify as HSP.

Jenny  07:33

I mean, I didn’t learn about HSP until, I mean, it wasn’t it was maybe 10 years. I mean, it was during my my early years as a therapist, I had never heard of it before I when I when I read about it, and I I understood all the research and I started to you know, this term was floating around and I, I connected the dots and I was like, This is my, this is my life. This is my experience. It was one of the most profoundly validating experiences of just like, oh my god, you know, because I had been told my whole life, I was oversensitive hypersensitive, it shed so much light on why I had been so disconnected from my body, which is a big coping strategy for HSPs. Because when you’re in a state of overwhelm, and over arousal, and you don’t understand what’s happening, we disconnect, we have to flee our bodies, which can happen in infancy for an HSP. So I had always beat myself up about being fairly dissociative and disconnected. And that then was validated like, girl, you were just trying to get through the day, you were just trying to survive, you know, so. So that was super validating. And as I learned more, I looked around at my clientele, and I, they were all HSPs. And, you know, and that’s sort of the synchronistic I mean, I can tell you, I have a practice, you know, there’s about 10 clinicians in my practice, and I think all but one or HSPs now, I don’t ask the question when I’m interviewing people, like, you know, you can work here and not be an HSP. But we sort of just find each other. And so, so I can’t say that I set out to market to clients that are HSP, I looked around and, and this is kind of true when you said it, when you start to do your therapeutic work, you tend to create, you’d kind of tend to attract and a niche finds you and that’s what happened for me,

Lily  09:22

can you speak to okay, this idea of like, being highly sensitive, overly sensitive, being labeled as a child, I resonate with that myself, and I know a lot of my clients specifically or the people who listen to this podcast, a lot of whom identify with being labeled as too much, you know, or, you know, being labeled as or feeling like they’re perpetually behind and sensitive and all of these things at once, which, you know, to some, some have a story in their brain as I did that. This is a disqualifier, right? This means that I’m going to have even harder time finding what I want in my love. Life dating life and we’re talking about dating and love not because I believe that it being in a romantic relationship makes you somehow more whole or anything like that, but that it is an actual desire that people have and feel. Yeah be disassociated from because of their internal beliefs about whether or not it’s possible with who they are. So can you speak to highly sensitive folks and dating, how it can feel disqualifying sometimes? And then how to sort of manage our own sensitivity or work with our own sensitivity in that highly vulnerable context?

Jenny  10:32

It’s such a big question. So the first thing I want to say is that there’s a difference between emotional reactivity and high sensitivity. So you can be a very emotionally reactive person due to trauma in your life and not learning as the skills to learn how to contain and manage your emotions and not be a highly sensitive

Lily  10:55

Yeah, that’s such a fucking great distinction. Yes.

Jenny  10:59

And you can be highly sensitive person, and also have high emotional reactivity, because you didn’t learn how to manage and contain everything that you were experiencing, you know, either way, some amount of, I think, you know, it’s, and I’m sure, you would probably would agree that it starts with the relationship with self, right. And so growing awareness around the way our high sensitivity manifests, and then moreover, really getting clear about what happens when we are in a state of over arousal, and overwhelm, because that is the thing for the HSP we are more likely to tip into. And that’s where the emotional reactivity starts to kick. Yeah. So when I’m in a state of overwhelm, I was in a state of overwhelm. Like three days ago, just there was like, just so much happening in my life that was just kind of hitting me one thing after another, because I’ve been paying attention for so many years now. I could feel which piece of it was my neurodivergent brain short circuiting because I was overwhelmed with information, and I was trying to process too much. And then I could also tell just the very human emotions that I was having, because there were some really sad and hard things unfolding around me. But before I did that work, and I got into that relationship with myself, it would have all just been a cluster, you know, have all that mixed up together. If that makes sense.

Lily  12:29

It makes all the sense to me, Jenny, I, I have felt in my brain before like, everything feels like a tangled like spaghetti noodles in a pot, that they’re all just like when you pull on one, everything is following. That lack of ability to compartmentalize when activated, is definitely something that I’ve struggled with. Is that is that on on track with what you’re talking about?

Jenny  12:54

Yeah. And that’s why I love parts work so much. And it’s some of your you may have heard of internal family systems are parts work, where we work with the different parts. And, you know, when I do parts work with my, with my therapist, I mean, I have the sensitive part, you know, that is the that is a part in me that I’ve identified. Now, it’s also how my brain is wired, but it helps me to understand it as a part as opposed to my entire identity. So sometimes that part, when it gets over aroused, needs, rest needs a lot of rest, it needs a it needs a dark room, it needs a lone time, it needs a quiet conversation with one person. And when that comes into place, I noticed the emotional reactivity starts to settle down. Like the other parts kind of start to calm down.

Lily  13:42

It is looking at the spaghetti noodles potentially and just like sort of sorting, getting a little more organized with like, I guess this idea of growing up. I’m in Birmingham, Alabama, which aren’t where I grew up growing up as a young woman in the deep south in a very conservative place in which I never felt like I truly belonged emotionally, spiritually, right. My parents are wonderful and the nuclear family is great. And you know, I think that when there’s a highly emotive, highly sensitive young woman or girl, it is very easy to be labeled and not even in the deep south everywhere is what I hear from my clients. It’s very easy to be labeled as the other as a problem. You know, my emotionality was labeled as a problem. And because my I don’t think anybody knew what to do, and then taking that identity as Oh, it’s just the spaghetti pot, I guess would be like it’s a problem. It’s a problem that your sense of it’s a problem that you’re freaking out right now. It’s a problem that you’re overwhelmed and overstimulated and over arouse. You are a this is a problem. You are the labeling. The shaming effect is happening right? So what I’m hearing you say with parts work and what my therapist and I do is like talk about the difference selves that are in the room. And what I hear you so I resonate for I’m tracking Chitty, what you’re saying,

Jenny  15:07

you’re, you’re picking up what I’m laying down. I also grew up in a concert. I grew up in Missouri. It wasn’t a Deep South, but it was the Midwest. And I grew up in a conservative, Catholic home, I was listening. You grew up Baptist. My best girlfriends down the street were Baptist and their parents wouldn’t let us hang out because I was Catholic. Is that like a thing? Well,

Lily  15:28

not not for my family. But I mean, we all we have to do is look at Ireland and the like 80s and 90s. To know that it’s a thing that Protestants and Catholics don’t like each other. It’s very much a thing. That’s true.

Jenny  15:40

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was like they could I could go to their church like stuff like ice cream, socials and things, but they weren’t allowed to come to mind because I think they thought it was like the

Lily  15:52

Catholics, I was told by a Catholic youth minister once when I was doing like, research for a paper that like, they, they think they she was like, we have the meat and potatoes of the of Christianity. And you have just the side dish, the vegetables, because we have the sacrament of you know, like, coming out. So yes, continue.

Jenny  16:12

Oh, my God. Okay. Anyway. Oh, boy. So um, so I grew up in in a very conservative environment, as well. And also fun fact, I actually sat around last night last year with my siblings, and my mom, and I had them all do an HSP assessment, because I was just so curious. And do you know, every single one, except for one was HSP. Wow. And so I wasn’t the only one, feeling everything. But I was the only one expressing it. And that was the problem, it freaked everybody out what was kind of just turning into things. I mean, I was a highly anxious kid, but was turning into anxiety for my mom, and my, my brothers who were much older and out of the house by the time I grew up, so I didn’t have a lot of interaction. But my mom, especially her anxiety, she wasn’t able to understand that she was really in a state of overwhelm all the time and hyper arousal all the time. And didn’t, it just didn’t have that language didn’t have any of those ways of understanding that about herself. And then here, she gets this highly sensitive kid. Well guess what threw her into an even greater state of overwhelm, is this little kid who’s feeling everything very quick to tears. You know, she used to call me the little actress. Like when I was one or two sheets that you could turn on the tears, and I had to have a therapist told me years later, toddlers don’t know how to act. Oh, you know, like, that wasn’t an act. That was that was just, but I know that it caused a lot of overwhelm in terms of how to manage that. So yes, I grew up with that stigma. Once I learned about myself and came to accept this about myself and really actually love it, even though it does and it does drive me nuts at times being highly sensitive. There are times where I just wish I wasn’t because it’s it can feel like a lot to manage. But as I came to love that about myself and accept it, I found myself needing to cry less, I found myself being able to stop the overwhelm the can before it came to the point where I had to burst into tears, you know, it was kind of managing it better. So I still cry, but I don’t, I don’t cry as much as I used to when I was little and I and growing up and just had no idea what was happening and no one helping me make sense of it.

Lily  18:32

Thank you for sharing. And I’m curious. I’m just thinking through like, okay, so we see we have the pieces of Hi, I’m, by the way, this is so selfish of me, Jenny. This is selfish. I’m like, I’m like getting so much from this conversation personally. And I am trusting that the that that will be felt in other people getting what they need. Who who, yeah. attractive because they like me and they’re like that, you know, like your clients are sort of, you know, HSP okay, but I digress. There’s the pieces right of high react, I’ve taken notes, high reactivity, right, that something happens. I’m activated. I’m having an emotional response, maybe fight flight freeze fawn. And then there’s this distinct from that is being an HSP. Now I have in the past, conflated the two I think it’s very easy to do probably. So once you have tools to emotionally reregulate if you’re being activated, you’re thrown into fight flight or freeze, you do reregulation, you lay on the floor or you take three deep breaths or you do a self compassionate meditation, whatever your tools become. Then how do you process the being highly sensitive of at all let’s let’s use an example of a date. So like a person goes on a date, it doesn’t go well. The person maybe said something that was slightly off or slightly offensive, but they can’t put their finger on it. It’s just a feeling in their body that they’re like, this isn’t right. This is Yeah, chunky, they have a reaction to that they take care of their reaction. And that still is like their, their brain is chewing on it like you’re saying like, how do you beyond emotional reregulation? How do you process the HSP? Part of it? Does that question make sense?

Jenny  20:17

Yeah. No, it totally makes sense. And I think, you know, this is where we come into complexity that, you know, we aren’t compartmentalized, right, so I can tell you that, you know, when I was dating, my reactivity, you know, at times was about an overwhelm and overstimulation and at times, that had to do with, you know, attachment trauma that was getting kicked up, that I was then feeling in a pretty intense way, you know, because of the, my mind, you know, the way my mind is processing and trying to understand it, so, and clocking details and things like that, and then going through the filter of trauma, right, like, you know, like you can, if you’re an HSP, and you’re clocking all these details in these nuances, you’re highly empathic. But then is it going through a trauma lens, right, where you’re making up a story, that isn’t actually true, about what the information you’re taking, in, which maybe we can put a pin in that because I know a lot of the work I like to do around HSP is getting really clear about the ways and it’s different for each of us, the ways you know, what is yours and what is Yeah, else’s, and a lot of HSPs because you’re feeling it and feeling it so deeply, immediately identify with it, and immediately think this is all me, this is mine, this is a story about me. And so much of my work in dating and in my marriage to is just getting clear about owning my shit, owning my stuff, and also knowing when you know, my partner, or whoever I was dating like, and that’s there isn’t it’s not mine, I don’t need to take it personally,

Lily  21:56

I did have one comment. And the listeners I had another therapist on a be Marie Sanders, who, and at this point with this release is it’ll be a couple episodes ago, who came on to talk about how she works with single moms and their dating lives and people who also identify as HSP. So we we touched on, you know, the the idea of sort of, like, what people on Instagram said to me, so this will be not for those of you who listen all the time, this won’t be new to you. But somebody said in response to my like, poll, I was like, How does being an HSP impact your dating life and a lot of people were like, well, I process rejection so much more intensely than my friends, I feel like my sensitivity kicks up and it disqualifies me from the right relationship, because that’s a turn off. It feels like a turnoff to people. Although, as somebody said, I used to identify as HSP. But now I see it as a gap in skills and need for meds. And I didn’t know what to think about that. Do you have what is your opinion on that?

Jenny  22:58

Well, I hear I hear it either or they’re and I’m always a yes. I mean, I just think our our healing. To me, our healing at its core as a as a world as humans is to come out of the binary, like the binary is so painful. And because I can say from my own HSP journey, I mean, I am HSP like, it’s not a diagnosis, it’s just, you know, I, you know, I have a lot of the experiences that line up with an HSP experience from, you know, sounds being overwhelming tastes being overwhelming touch, you know, the high empathy, the processing, I mean, all of it. So I know, I’m HSP. But I also know that there was a point in my life where I had to be on medication, I was suffering from very severe depression and anxiety, which is not an uncommon trajectory for HSPs, who are unaware that they’re HSP, because they have been in a state of overwhelm for much of their lives with no help understanding it, processing it, and understanding that it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with them. And that leads to that, that disconnect from self and self love and self compassion leads to symptoms of the soul, like depression and anxiety. Mine got so bad that I wanted to end my life and I needed medication. So I was on medication for a couple of years, it was a game changer, it helped me immensely helped me get my infrastructure worked, you know, working in therapy, get that baseline up so that the work could take Holden inside. And then I was able, you know, personally, I was able to go off medication. And a lot of that was learning some skills that helps me regulate that helped me contain my emotions and learn how to process them and understand them. So I think that can absolutely be a part of your journey for that, for that person. They might still also be HSP.

Lily  24:43

You mentioned and I wrote it down to come back to it. What are ways you know, what’s yours and what somebody else’s?

Jenny  24:50

Yeah, so I think this is where the HSPs ability to clock nuance and detail. I mean, is that something you experience is it

Lily  24:59

for me? It’s It’s sound, auditory sensitivity, I have a real trouble in restaurants, being in restaurants without feeling incredibly overwhelmed and flooded the noise. It is the the conflation of like taking responsibility for everything happening. I think that that’s also my trauma of like, mothering and trying to parent all the time and take care of people and save them, honestly. So it has been very difficult for me in the past to to have the boundary of here. So it’s, I’m I am learning how to do that. But I really Yeah,

Jenny  25:33

yeah, so one, one thing is working to shift empathy, to compassion, right to let there be a little space between so instead of feeling for the person, like feeling what they’re feeling, to be able to start to shift that toward feeling when you know, so there’s just a little bit of space between you and the other person, I don’t have to feel I don’t have to be flooded and feel everything they’re feeling to understand that this person needs my attention, my presence, my my care, you know, right. Right now, what I’ve noticed when we’re here in HSPs, is, like I mentioned earlier, there’s a lot of disconnection from the body, because you are experiencing things like sounds that are too much taste, touch, you know, things like that. And so one of the ways we cope is to sort of numb out or disconnect from our bodies. And when we do that, we miss an opportunity to start to clock, the nuances of kind of the energetic things that we’re having. So I like to start with body scans with people. And I have to do this when I, I trained therapists a lot in my practice, and they’re, like I said, they’re all HSPs. And some of them don’t learn their HSPs until they come to work here. And then we start realizing and so as a therapist, being an HSP is a blessing and a curse. Because you’re picking up on so much more really, really rich information that can help you be a really great therapist, but it’s very easy to become over stimulated over aroused, and then go into overwhelm. So with what I have to help them with is starting to get when they are experiencing, maybe sitting with someone who is very upset, right and maybe upset with them. That happens as you know, like the you know, we call it a projection, like there’s a there’s a big upset in the room. So I’ll just slow it, we try to slow everything way down and just clock exactly where they feel it in their body, the thoughts that are coming up, the images, the words, the sensations, the emotions, and I will tell you that when you start to do this, a pattern will start to emerge. And you can start to tell, well, when it’s someone else’s, I feel it in my chest, my chest tightens. And when I know it’s my own anxiety, like something’s happening in my life that I’m ruminating about, and I’m scared, it’s in my gut. Wow. Like for me, I can tell when I’m in caught up in a projection or there’s something going on between me and a client. That is it. I’m grateful when it shows up. It’s it’s welcome, because it’s information and I can help, you know, help the client but if I’m too caught up in my own experience, or I’m too quick to say like, it’s all mine, I’m missing out on an opportunity to hear to know more information. And I guess this would apply to dating, right? Because you got to start getting clear about what’s what’s yours and what someone else’s and not from a place of judgment or condemnation, but just boundary you know, just like, oh, we can be then we can be compassionate, you know, when we can know what’s theirs?

Lily  28:34

Well, I’m thinking about in dating, also in relationships, this idea of what’s mine, what’s yours, because so many people I work with have so many thoughts about what is somebody going to think about me when I do this? Or are they going to when I text them, that I really want them to plan the date, I want to sort of not do emotional labor today or I want to or I tell them, I can’t hang out this weekend because I need some downtime, they’re gonna think that I’m not I don’t want to be with them. I’m not available or I’m too much or whatever. Separating out the is separating out the projections and in your head. Is that what you’re talking about as well if like, what you’re projecting onto the other person? And

Jenny  29:13

absolutely, because that to me signals a moment to have to be really courageous, right? Which is for me to ask over what I need and be myself and I guess I may learn sooner than later that this person isn’t a fit for me because if I can’t say no and that be okay, that’s a problem. That’s not we’re not compatible. So yeah, absolutely. It’s about getting clear what’s yours and what someone else’s. When I am experiencing someone else’s stuff. There’s a couple of things that are telltale signs for me, one of them I call brain scramble. It’s a feeling where I actually feel confused when I’m with someone like very confused, and I start to blame myself. And the way I kind of came up with this was I realized that with people Who where I am safe and where I am? I’m safe, right? They, you know, they, it’s I’m not saying it’s a perfect relationship, we never have conflict. But when we do, I’m still safe, I still get to have a self. I never have brain scramble. Never, when I’m with someone where there is something manipulative going on there in their own stuff, and it’s getting projected onto me when I’m being blamed and shamed when I’m being you know, and it might be really subtle in the in the brain scramble comes on. Now, I know to press pause, yeah. And just back away from the situation. And just ask myself some key questions, you know about how I feel when I’m in this person’s presence. And if I’m in a state of brain scramble, that’s now a deal breaker for me, I dated people where I was in a perpetual state of brain scramble, because I didn’t know any better. But, you know, now that would be a deal breaker for me. And another way for me is I call it Empath flu. Oh, my God, these terms, Ginny. Well, I mean, they’re just, they’re just shorthand that I like to use. But I remember several years ago, I would go to my therapist. And this happened, like several weeks in a row where I would arrive at her office, and I felt literally just actually sick in my body like you do with the flu, like, kind of just that woozy, queasy, headachy, sweaty kind of little, you know, and I just felt sick. And my therapist who was very seasoned and knew what she was doing, said, Well, Tom, take me through your day. And what I landed on was that every time this happened, I had a client, who we were working through some particularly difficult stuff, there was a lot of I don’t mean to get into like therapy terms, but there was a lot of the difficult stuff in ourselves, we sometimes project into someone else. We call it projective identification, where it’s like this thing of like, I can’t handle this, it can me so I’m gonna put it in you. And I’m gonna say you’re icky. That was what was happening. As soon as we started to talk about it, and I started to process it with her. The flu went away, left my body, and then I could understand that when it was coming on, I didn’t over identify with it. I don’t I don’t like the fact that I get Empath flu. I don’t like the way it feels in my body. There being a therapist can be actually pretty hard on my body, because I do I do process somatically so much, but I don’t identify with it anymore. It’s like, Oh, okay. And then it’s information. I processed it. I tried to understand it. And then it it leaves usually is

Lily  32:35

like, the granularity that your ex that you are describing of like you knowing your emotions. I mean, seriously, it’s so it’s to HSP, isn’t it? I’m getting so excited about it. I’m like, Oh,

Jenny  32:47

I hope it’s not too good, too. too heady. You know, because

Lily  32:52

they turned off the episode already. They turn off the episode 30 it but the people who are here are like, Oh my God, yes, yes. I just feel that I

Jenny  33:02

love the detail because it helps me be oriented. I just once I’m oriented, I feel right side up. It’s like, as long as I understand what’s happening, I can be cool with what’s happening. Yes, you know, but it’s like, I just need to understand it. So these are just ways that I just nerd out on it. But

Lily  33:16

as a coach, I feel that I resonate so deeply with what you’re talking about. I mean, I’ve struggled. I do group coaching, because I think that belonging especially for single folks, when they are single in a space that aligns with their values is life changing. Yeah, like dating is so eyes can be so isolating. I wish

Jenny  33:34

I seriously wish I was thinking back to my dating years, like God, I wish I had something like that.

Lily  33:40

In my work and dating in my life in my clients lives. I just see so much crossover between, like, what am I making that mean about me both on dates, and in group coaching sessions. And that, that I think is really powerful to explore. And the body skin piece is so good. And like the noticing where it is in your body specifically when it’s yours. And when it’s somebody else’s is so good. I want to ask because you mentioned it earlier, how to thrive as an HSP. What is that? Like? What does that mean? And what does that look like?

Jenny  34:16

It’s a process. There’s no finish line, this is the way you’re wired. And this will be something you’ll be a companion in your life, you know, for the rest of your life. It’s so there’s there’s many parts to it. But I think it is about understanding and accepting that this is how you experience the world. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. And that we live in a world that’s not really built around this way of experiencing things. It’s just not. I mean, the sheer amount of fluorescent overhead lighting should tell you, you know, oh my god,

Lily  34:53

I change tables at a restaurant because I’m like, I can’t eat here. It’s so sad. I’m so sensitive to But

Jenny  35:00

Me too. I mean, my wife always says that when she, when I go out of town, she flips on all the overhead lights and has like an overhead light party, because slept just like low lighting low light and when I’m there, so you know, we live in a world that does not is not created for the high, the highly sensitive person, and yet highly sensitive people are, are helping to create a world that is so much more comfortable for everyone. You know, there’s so many HSP designers out there that are doing like really amazing work. But so it’s a process, I think, first is doing the self assessments and understanding of like, Is this me, you know, it’s not just oh, I’m like I said, it’s not just emotional dysregulation is not HSP. It’s not the same thing. So you know, doing a little bit of a deeper dive and kind of doing a self assessment, or working with a therapist who works with HSPs and understands that and can do you know, more proper assessment. And then it’s so validating when you find out like, Oh, my God, this makes so much sense. Really basking in that validation. I like to let I like clients to just, like, feel special for a little while, like, Yeah, I’m HSP you know, I mean, kind of, yes, you felt like a love that, you know, you felt like you were all wrong for so many years. An alien. Yeah, I feel like you’re all right for a while, like, go for it, go into some HSP grandiosity for a minute, you know, we don’t want to stay there. But we’ll just you know, hang out there. And then it’s about tracking hyper arousal and what it feels like it’s about reconnecting to your body, it’s about, you know, self care is tossed around. So quick and dirty everywhere. And it is really important, but it really is something that it’s for an HSP, you really do have to get a relationship to yourself and what care looks like for you. I want to say one quick thing too, for folks out there, there’s HSP, there’s also high sensation, high sensation seeking, folks. And that’s a different kind of assessment you can do. And sometimes you can be both, so you can be HSP. And also love, you know, going to Coachella like,

Lily  37:03

like yearning for that, like high arousal state is that yes,

Jenny  37:07

exactly. And that is that’s challenging to find the sweet spot for folks that have both of those going on, because it can slip into under arousal and over arousal, like really, so kind of paying attention to that, but just really getting clear about what are the signs when I’m starting to get overwhelmed? How do I show myself self compassion and start to take care of myself and have boundaries around it? And then educating loved ones like, Hey, this is how I’m wired. Yeah, you know, I have a quick story, if if it would be helpful around that, you know, my wife, I started really easily, that’s a big HSP thing. And it really, when I start on this, it’s really uncomfortable, like, I want to just burst into tears. And my wife’s always kind of made fun of it, you know, not in a mean way. But you know, she’s just like, kind of the drama queen, you know, I’m like the drama queen with the yelping. I had an experience where I was doing telemedicine with a therapist, my therapist, and she is not HSP. And she would kind of like, she’s older as well. So she’d like, bop out a frame to get a Kleenex or something and not. And I would start all and I was so embarrassed. It didn’t want to say anything to her because I just I had a lot of we have a lot of shame as HSPs. And like, it’s embarrassing that this is so bothersome to me, but I finally shared it with her. And my therapist said, you know, Jenny, it really matters to me. Your sensitivity really matters to me. And no one had ever said that to me in my life. And it was this really reparative moment, she said, so when I need to go out of frame, I’m gonna let you know, I’m gonna say hey, I need to get a Kleenex. And it was this big moment for me. So I shared it with my wife and my wife was like, Oh my god. So like, when you scream in the car, you’re not trying to backseat drive me, you’re just actually startled. And I was like, Yeah, that’s what I’ve been trying to save for the last 12 years. So this this argument of us in the car just dissipated, because my wife really understood how real the startle is for me. And how if a woman dipping out of a zoom frame, oh my god, you know, when a car comes too close, and it’s not a criticism of my wife’s driving, it’s just I’m actually very startled. So educating the people around you, helping them understand that you’re not doing it on purpose, but this is how you’re wired. Yeah. And that can relieve a lot of tension as well and help that self compassion and self acceptance.

Lily  39:27

That’s so beautiful. Jenny Well, thank you for that breakdown that made me feel so much belonging in this conversation and I hope that people at home are listening wherever they are felt that how can people work with you? How can people find you and work with you tell us all the things

Jenny  39:44

you can find me at on the Insta at at Jenny therapy two Ns one Y Jenny therapy. I am a part of something called the yes collective and we are working to bring therapy Take experiential groups to to the masses. And that is where you can work with me. This spring, we’re going to be launching an HSP. Therapeutic studio circle. And so we’re going to be focusing on HSP and how to thrive. So that would be the easiest way if you want to work with an HSP trained therapist, and you happen to be in California, Highland Park therapy.com is my is my website and my group practice. I’ve got a lot of clinicians who are trained in working with HSP, folks, and some of them have openings

Lily  40:29

amazing and inside the yes collective inside the HSP group specifically, can that be anyone in the country or is that just people in California?

Jenny  40:38

Nope, it can be anyone. Yeah, it’s not it’s not therapy. But we’re doing experiential therapeutic practices and exercise and things like that. Yeah, got it. Okay, awesome.

Lily  40:47

So we’ll link all of that in the show notes and in the description of this episode, and as well as your Instagram. Thank you so much, Jenny.

Jenny  40:55

Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it.

Lily  40:57

Me too, bye y’all.