Show Notes
What if the very things you do to reduce anxiety are quietly inviting it in? Highly sensitive people very often rehearse anxiety without realizing it. We ask why, search for the culprit, and turn one anxious thought into an investigation that leaves the nervous system spinning. Witnessing your anxiety without needing to fix it offers a gentler path, and it builds the capacity that makes room for more joy, more presence, and more peace.
RESOURCES:
WORK WITH ME 1:1: https://EmotionalBadass.com/coaching
COURSES: https://EmotionalBadass.com/courses
BONUS CONTENT: https://patreon.com/emotionalbadass
NEWSLETTER: https://EmotionalBadass.com/newsletter
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
More from Emotional Badass
Your intelligence can become an anxiety machine. The same sensitive mind that reads a room and anticipates consequences can build a convincing case for worry, and call that worry wise. I’ve watched highly sensitive people write worst case scenario dissertations while refusing to accept that anxiety is part of having a nervous system. Accepting it is actually what reduces it, so you can feel anxiety without handing it authority over your life.
Going no contact with family is a fracture, a splitting off from the vine you came from, and I will never casually encourage it. Many sensitive people who believe they are setting boundaries are still bargaining, explaining and pleading with relatives who do not value understanding. I share the questions to ask before you decide, and some of my own personal story, so you can count the cost honestly. You can feel grief without regret, and you can love without allowing access. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If you were raised in chaos, the first boundary you need may be one nobody taught you, which is permission to have a limit. Many of us became undercover lawyers, building a courtroom case for every no, because no one showed us that no is a complete thought. We are humans with limited capacity, and I ask what happens to our humanity when we push past it. No one else can give you permission except you, and permission is where the worth sits.
If it feels like the world has changed around you, you aren't crazy. We're highly sensitive people living in a culture that runs on speed and scale, like a computer from 1995 running modern software, so of course we're worn out. You're allowed to see what has changed, and you don't have to gaslight yourself into calling it all progress. Our minds are still ours to manage, so we can build our lives on the interior and refuse to live on the edge.
Outside a courthouse, women gathered to defend a mother who strangled her own three children, and I could not stop asking what that revealed about empathy itself. Over empathy can block natural consequences, a kind of codependency wearing empathy's clothes. Real emotional intelligence means holding more than one truth at once. That wider way of caring, without losing yourself inside it, is the kind of empathy I want for all of us.