Accepting Non-HSPs: A Guided Meditation for Highly Sensitive People

By the end of this episode, you’ll discover how to be more accepting of the non HSPs in your life.

Welcome to Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People, a podcast helping HSPs avoid overwhelm, eliminate stress, and find true inner freedom. I’m your host Todd Smith, a facilitator of the work of Byron Katie, a way to question and reduce stressful thoughts. And you guessed it, I’m a highly sensitive person myself.

In this episode, you’ll discover how difficult it can be to see eye to eye with a non HSP. Why it’s still possible to have a fulfilling experience with a non HSP, and how to move beyond the differences of sensitivity in a relationship. This is an edition of Guided Meditation Mondays, where I’ll be guiding you to do the work of Byron Katie as you listen.

We HSPs are in the minority. We make up about 20 percent of the world’s population. The other 80 percent is made up by non HSPs. Which means they are less sensitive than we are, and tend to process things less deeply by nature. This is not a bad thing, this is normal this division is just part of the way our species and other species are set up.

But, as HSPs, we can sometimes get frustrated by HSP, I’m sorry, as HSPs, we can get frustrated by non HSPs. Because we care about different things, we focus on different things, we notice different things, and so let’s do some work on this, some inner work, to see if we can find a little more balance in the way we experience this difference.

So let’s start with finding a situation, a specific situation if you can, where you noticed that difference was coming into play, and you were feeling like you got I don’t know, annoyed by a non HSP or hurt. Maybe they were maybe they were in some way just not understanding, not empathetic, or they were focused on different results than you.

Something where you’ve felt that difference in sensitivity and were feeling frustrated or stressed in some way.

An example for me is at the supermarket at the self checkout. My partner and I were there and we figured out, or at least I had the week before, that when you put the bags on there, you add a bag, Then you have to re weigh the bag, and then if you start adding things to the bag, it messes up the scale, and you end up having the clerk has to come over and help you out.

And I wanted to avoid that, I wanted to be efficient, and in kind of a flow and on a mastery level of checkout, if you will. And so when my partner didn’t follow what I saw as the new right way of doing it I said something, I think I was a little, maybe a little frustrated or impatient, and he became defensive.

And so that’s my moment, right? There’s a difference there, even though my partner is actually HSP, but I’m more sensitive. I’m, like, on the scale, I’m, have even more sensitivity, or at least that’s my perception. So find your situation. Where were you most recently or in a time where you were judging a non HSP?

And if you need more time, just pause the recording and you can take as much time as you like to find a specific moment. The moment helps a lot because it helps anchor you as you do this work. So the first question of the work Is it true? And before we get there, we have to identify a thought. So let’s think about what is it that is going on here in this situation.

I’m thinking for myself, it’s a kind of a feeling like non HSPs don’t care about what’s important. Like for me, what’s important in that situation is the intelligence with which it’s the motions are done, the lack of bringing another person over to fix it. There’s a certain, depth, if you will, to the experience that I’m attached to.

And I’m saying, yeah, my partner doesn’t care about that, or he’s doing it differently. Maybe the thought to question is, non HSPs don’t care about what’s important. Because what’s important to me is Depth, connection, empathy, the internal experience and I’m not seeing that here. So in your situation, see if you can identify with this thought, non HSPs don’t care about what’s important.

You can add to me, or what’s important can be more general. And now let’s begin with the questions. So is it true, non HSPs don’t care about what’s important? Yes or no? and take your time

and most importantly look at your situation because it may be different in different situations.

I’m going to go with a yes

and because it’s a yes I’m going to go to question two which is can you absolutely know it’s true that non HSPs don’t care about what’s important and

I have to go with no. What we’re looking for in these questions is your honest experience whether it’s a yes or a no. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that it’s, it sits with your experience, not just with your intellect. This is a meditation and it has to happen on the level of the heart or emotion or experience.

So the next question is, how do you react? What happens when you think that non HSPs don’t care about what’s important?

I get frustrated. I am impatient. I just expect it. Of course. Of course, we figured this out before. Of course he’s just gonna do it this way because it’s so much better.

And then when he doesn’t, it’s I’m disappointed, frustrated. And then when he gets reactive, then I think it’s his fault. Then I blame him for being harsh or judgmental, so I take that personally on top of it. It can spiral pretty quickly.

How do you react when you think non HSPs don’t care about what’s important?

How do you treat them?

How do you treat yourself?

I think on one level I’m special or better than, but at the same time I feel inferior and unable to go toe to toe with a non HSP.

Non HSPs don’t care about what’s important.

Who would you be without that thought in the same situation?

I would see that we’re two entirely different human beings with different Ways of seeing things, different memories, different processing, and

I wouldn’t be making one better than the other.

Without the thought, I see my partner’s not doing it the way I thought we should, and if I don’t bring this HSP thing in and use it as a way of dividing, then I just see him, either he forgot or he’s figuring it out his way. I give him space and it feels gentle. It feels calm.

I can breathe.

Without the thought, non HSPs don’t care about what’s important. I don’t feel separate from them. I don’t feel separate from him or from the 80 percent of the world’s population. that is non HSP. I just see us as individuals, as humans, not separate into different camps,

and it feels more connected.

So how about you? In your situation, is there any difference when you’re not thinking the thought that non HSPs don’t care about what’s important?

So the difference is just the thought that is in my head about not, them not caring, and about it being What I’m thinking is more important. That thought is what’s dividing us, causing impatience, and precipitating into an argument.

So let’s try turning that thought around. Non HSPs don’t care about what’s important. They do care about what’s important. So how could it be, in your situation, that this is maybe as true or truer? They do care. He or she does care.

My partner cared about

the way I was being impatient with him. It’s actually important. He didn’t want me to be impatient with him, especially in public. That’s important. It’s important for me to see it, to get the feedback about it, and it’s important to him. So Yeah, he does care about what’s important. I was putting efficiency in a way at doing the job above the person that I was with.

So HSPs do care about what’s important.

He cared about his own experience.

How about you? Where is it that, can you find any possibility that HSPs, sorry, non HSPs Maybe do care about what’s important, even to you.

Yeah, one thing that HS, that non HSPs do so well is just getting things done without over analyzing things, and it’s important. I can get lost in over analysis,

and I do care about getting things done. I just get lost in over analysis at times, and maybe I can’t help it, but it doesn’t mean that HS, non HSPs don’t. don’t care

when they’re like that.

And non HSPs do care about their own experience, which is also important.

So let’s look for another turnaround. Instead of non HSPs don’t care about what’s important, I don’t care about what’s important. HSPs don’t care about what’s important. In this case, Ironically, I’m calling myself an HSP, but where’s my sensitivity? I was not sensitive to my partner’s feelings. That’s important.

I was impatient, in public.

Where’s the line? It starts to get really blurry. Instead of us against them, it’s more like, human being with human being. And sometimes we forget things, sometimes we are insensitive, sometimes we’re sensitive, and it’s good to be realistic.

That’s the one problem sometimes of Analyzing and seeing, oh yeah, I’m highly sensitive, and these people are not highly sensitive. It can make a division, and then I can end up using that division, and make, using, basically using HSP as a weapon to judge, and to blame, and to hurt, and to separate.

That’s not caring about what’s important. What’s important is human connection. What’s important is Being real, being humble, and being myself and allowing someone else to be themselves.

I don’t care about what’s important. What do you find here? Where are you not caring a little bit about what’s important? Even though you like may want to think, Oh yeah, I’m really caring about what is important. Just play devil’s advocate with yourself.

Here’s something that I wasn’t doing there, which is important. I really see the value of empowering somebody to find what works best for them. And I wasn’t doing that for my partner there. I was saying there’s one way, my way, and you’re not doing it. So that’s not really caring about what’s important.

What’s important is someone. Respecting someone’s way of doing things, even if it’s different. In this episode, we looked at how difficult it can be to see eye to eye with a non HSP. And what we found is that difficulty lies more in how I’m seeing the non HSP than in the actual difference in sensitivity.

When I see separateness, then it’s really hard to connect. And we looked at why it’s still possible to have a fulfilling experience with a non HSP, because we are all human beings. And whether we’re super sensitive, or mildly sensitive, or less sensitive, we are all human beings, and there is sensitivity in all of us.

And there’s non sensitivity in all of us. And it’s possible to have a fulfilling experience by focusing on the similarities between us. focusing on the human connection that is possible. And we also looked at how to move beyond the differences of sensitivity in a relationship. And this takes, this happens when we start owning our own part in any kind of a situation where we were feeling frustrated or hurt or something judgmental.

When we start saying that We’re also doing things that maybe weren’t great. It starts leveling the playing field. In that situation, I was focusing on my partner’s reaction to me, and I wasn’t aware of my impatience that sparked his reaction. And so if I just stay in, Oh, no, it’s an HSP thing, or then I can end up, I can end up missing what I was doing, taking ownership of that.

But when I do, when I look at it as we did in this situation, it humbles me, it brings me down to the same level. And now relationship is possible because we’re not focused on. differences anymore. We’re focused on the similarity and the just how I’m nothing more special. Like I’m still human and make some funny decisions or funny reactions, say some things that are not necessarily sensitive.

So thanks for doing this work with me. It’s always a pleasure to work with you and to think about things with you. You never know where we go with this work, and we just have to explore. Some doors open wide, some doors open a little, and that’s the process of exploration. So thanks for being here. And I look forward to next time.

In the meantime, have a great rest of your day.