Deepening Inner Work: Overcoming Intellectualization—Effective Stress Management for the Highly Sensitive Person

Client: Yeah. To, uh, ask something. I’m working on feeling like a failure. And, uh, with the turnarounds, I somehow can intellectually give genuine examples, but I don’t totally feel them. It’s as if there’s still something underneath that wants to be truly recognized or so. Um. As if, um, as if I cannot fully own whatever kind of emotion around this is, uh, um, not yet or so, and it’s as if I cannot take responsibility for it or so.

Client 2: Yeah. [00:05:00] Do you have a specific situation that you’re working? When you say, I’m feeling like a failure. Yeah.

Client: I’m working on that situation that I’m visiting, uh, a mutual, a mutual friend in Hungary, and I have, and having a friend with me, I. And, um, and this thought, um, they make me feel like a failure is already an, a thought that is underneath another one.

So I’m getting at some point that I, I can feel there are still some more. There’s more, but I, it’s as if I cannot really reach it or so.

Client 2: Mm-hmm. Well, um, I don’t know, uh, I’m thinking if you’re open to it, we can [00:06:00] look in a little closer at the situation and maybe what your thoughts are and maybe explore a little bit there, maybe even do a little more of the work. Um, mm-hmm. I don’t know. Otherwise, I don’t have any particular. Um, suggestion.

Client: Um, one thing would you like to, that I noticed look at was that, um, um, that I frequently come with images from my childhood. So the emotions are very, very much from when I was a child.

Client 2: Mm-hmm. Okay. So what kind of, what kind of situation was it that made your friend, made you feel like you’re a failure? What, what if you care to share? Uh, you don’t have to, but if you wish to. [00:07:00]

Client: I actually, uh, when I do this work, I’m doing it on the whole period because it, it was like. Uh, the feeling was a, a, an an, how you say that?

It was constantly there underneath everything else. So you see it’s, it was not mm-hmm. A particular mm-hmm. Um, okay. Thing.

Client 2: So that’s, um, going back to your original question when you said that. Examples felt a little bit intellectual, um, and didn’t, couldn’t fully own it, uh, as much. Uh, sometimes that happens to me when I’m working on a more general period, like if it’s a, mm-hmm. A whole week or a whole longer period, or a whole person in general.

Uh, it’s harder [00:08:00] to. Work with the thought and define turnarounds that, and find examples that mean something to me because of the general nature of the situation, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be done, but it’s harder because there’s, I’m looking for, uh, I’m, I’m not focused in a specific direction. So the mind often just sees all the general.

Feeling and then just says, I don’t see anything. And so then it stays in the same stuck place like with the original thought. Um, so, but it doesn’t mean you can’t do the work in, in a general situation like that. One suggestion would be when did that thought or that feeling that was going on the whole period, when did it begin?

What, when do you, do you remember? Uh, like I [00:09:00] assume some months before, it wasn’t so much there, but at some point it came up to the forefront. Do you remember anything, um, about when that started to show up?

Client: Oops. Somebody’s coming home here.

Client 2: Ah, okay. Do you need to attend to them?

Client: I’m not sure. Um, but um, I will, I will anyway. I will have to, um, to, uh. Read my diary. I think because, uh, my, my memory is really bad. Mm-hmm. And so I will have to check that I, I’m sure I’ve been, I’ve been, I’m sure I’ve been, [00:10:00] uh, uh, uh, writing, writing it down somehow or.

Client 2: Okay. Yeah. And one other thought on that is that it might be that whenever you think of that person, you have this feeling. Uh, and so then, um, like what is it specifically about that person that makes you feel that way? Was there an event? Sometime in the long, in the past that your mind keeps going back to, and maybe that would be your situation, something in the past, not just now in this, uh, period.

Um, and as you mentioned, even images are coming from your childhood. It might, might be that this person is similar to something you experienced [00:11:00] in your childhood. You can go back to the childhood situation and do your work in that particular situation. So there’s different places you can look for a situation that might not be in the week or two weeks that you were visiting, uh, with your friend.

Client: Okay, thanks. I will, I will look into that. That’s interesting. That helps already. Okay.

Client 2: Yeah, like the work, if I can land somewhere, if I can get where it started, when it started, what, um, like even a general feeling started somewhere. So if I can find some starting place for it, that can help me get, uh, dealing with the specifics again.

And that will often, uh, be easier to. Do [00:12:00] the work with and, and can make it easier to find examples that that land in your heart, not just intellectual.

Cool. Well, thank you. So anyone else wanna do the work or have a question? I think that, um, feeling like a failure. Um. It is related to looking for other dis other disapproval. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, um, and, um, I, I read your article about saying no to the people and, um, I, I’d like to know. How you did the work about that, about saying no to the people.

You, you did the judge, your native work worksheet or, [00:13:00] uh, one belief at a time. Because, uh, saying no to the, if I, if you say, I can’t say no to the people, it’s about you. And, um, did, did you do the work about that or about the other person? Um, yeah, I did the work mainly on the other person. Uh, and just what you said, I’m looking for their approval.

Uh, and so as long as I’m looking for, uh, their approval, then I can’t say no. If it goes against what they want, that, that’s, that’s my. Basic problem is that I want to please because I want approval. And so as long as I’m still wanting that, even if I want to say no, I cannot say no because I want their approval more.

So doing the [00:14:00] work on like a judge your neighbor worksheet on uh, what I’m wanting and needing from the other person helps. Balance that down a bit, and it’s still a tendency for me. It’s not like gone, but it, it’s balancing down. And often when I’m dealing with a specific situation, like in this case, it can reduce it quite a lot, but, uh, that’s all I’m doing.

I’m just reducing my attachment to, to their approval and then leaves me in a, a more free place to ask me what I want and to act on. According to what I want, but I could have, I didn’t do it, but I could have asked, I’d done the work on. I can’t say no. It’s also possible, it’s just a one belief at a time.

I just, I can’t say no. Is it true? And it would be very interesting to do that work and see in that specific situation. That it [00:15:00] may not be as hard for me as I think it is. Uh, it could actually give me courage, uh, to do that work. So both are options. I happen to choose the judge your neighbor worksheet option in that case.

But, uh, either one could be good work for sure. So just so you have, you have to try to, first of all, judge your neighbor worksheet. As, uh, the first option. Even if you, that’s what I went to. It doesn’t mean it has to be the first option. Sometimes I just go straight to um, uh, just straight to, I can’t say no or I want something, I want something could be just a one liner, but sometimes, many times I do go to judge your neighbor worksheet and.

You just try one. You know, they all, all the roads lead to Rome, so you don’t have to worry. You just need try one and see where you go with that and, [00:16:00] and then try again if there’s a need for more. Mm-hmm. Thank you. But it is nice to see how, how almost all stress, even the stress that I judge when I’m judging myself.

In a lot of ways it does come from my thoughts about other people, right? I can’t say no, seems like it’s just my own weakness, my own problem, but it’s coming from me wanting their approval and that’s, that’s handicapping. So it’s always worth the time to look around and see. What, what is causing this for me from outside there?

There usually is something that’s what makes me feel like a victim. I feel powerless ’cause something is bigger than me. What is that? And, and who knows? Sometimes you find something, sometimes you don’t, but [00:17:00] it’s worth looking for. Sure. Yeah.

Okay, thank you. I’d like to, another question about, um. I have a, I have a baby daughter of two years old and I have a lot, a lot of anxiety about what can happen to her after, after I, after I saw, I, I watched on television, for example, Israel Facts to, and um, the moment she goes, um, for example. To the, the school for kids.

I don’t know any English name of the Italian, but Okay. I don’t know any English and I, I elementary school always think, I always, I, I always think, what if something happens to her? Only something [00:18:00] bad happens to her, something very bad happens to her, or all the other fact about. In the Gregory, the English girl that has a genetic pathology.

And uh, um, and I think that it’s not easy to do the work about that because if, if I do the work about that, in a way it’s like I’m not caring of her without anxiety. It’s like I’m not caring enough of her and. How would you deal with that, Todd? Okay. That’s a good question. Yeah. That is something that happens with certain topics when you’re doing the work.

Uh, in some ways it happens with a lot of the topics. Um, and that is the fear that if I do the work on something, like I don’t [00:19:00] want something bad to happen to her. Then, oh my gosh, what? I know there’s some turnarounds. Like, I do want something bad to happen to her, or I’m willing for something bad to happen to her.

Like, that sounds really scary.

I’ll just stop right there. Don’t do any work. Right. So, and that’s a, that’s legitimate, um, concern and so. The, the solution lies in how you’re holding the work, how you’re doing the work, and that specifically how you’re holding the turnarounds. Uh, because it’s not, I think when we begin doing the work, it’s easy to go from one thing and.

That I’m believing and then just turn to the opposite. And only the opposite is true. And now this original statement is not true, and I’m flipping from one side to the other side. But in [00:20:00] this case, uh, that would be, that doesn’t feel right, that you can tell right away. That doesn’t feel right. Of course, I don’t want something bad to happen to her.

But all the work is doing is saying, let’s find the balance here. Um. Right now I’m overly attached to nothing bad should happen to her. I’m, I’m so much attached to that, that I have anxiety. Uh, even when nothing bad is happening, I’m worrying about the future. I’m in a state of stress inside of myself, so that’s like too much attachment.

It’s like I’m carrying too much. I’m, I’m carrying too much, so much so that I’m stressed about it. Now that doesn’t mean that I should care. Zero. No, that would be also not balanced. Would not be right. It doesn’t feel true. But when I do the work, I [00:21:00] go from, yeah, I, I don’t want something bad to happen to her.

And I question it. I see how stressful it is, and then I come to the turnaround. I do want something bad to happen to her and it sounds crazy, or maybe I take the easier turnaround. I’m willing for something bad to happen to her, and even that is very strong. So I have to be gentle with myself. To find, okay, I don’t have to stop caring about her, but this turnaround is saying, can you care?

Just a little bit less, just enough, less that I’m not going into anxiety about it. And then I find the place where, yeah, I care about her. I will do everything I can to keep her safe and, and I, I do care, but I’m not going crazy about it either. I also accept. You know, there’s many things in life I cannot control, and I will do everything from my side, [00:22:00] but whatever happens, happens.

Uh, and so this for me is, uh, using the turnaround to balance the original statement instead of I care. So much that I’m stressed or I don’t care at all and I’m cold and distant, somewhere in between is this place where I care, but I don’t care. I love her and I also trust life that it will be exactly. As it should be.

Um, it’s like saying, I will control everything in my power, but I will not worry about what I cannot control. Um, and so you have to find this for yourself when doing the work. But the idea is that if you can. Find that balance point between the original statement and the turnaround, then you can often find a place that’s bigger than either one.

It’s like your mind has to [00:23:00] expand to contain these opposites at the same time. And you know, as Byron Katie says, it’s not, she doesn’t call it the work for nothing. It takes some stillness to, to, to find this. And you may find it, you may not find it, you may find a little bit, then it may go back and forth.

All of that is okay, but it’s the exploration. It’s like what you’re looking for is a more peaceful way of. Thinking about your daughter. That’s all you’re looking for, a way that works for you. And you can, you’ll find that you’ll recognize when it feels more peaceful. You’ll also recognize when it feels more stressful.

So if it gets, starts to feel, if the turnaround starts to feel more stressful than the original thought. Back off of the turnaround, that’s not true for you. So find the place where it is true for you. And that’s how I like to do the work. I, I use that [00:24:00] analogy of, uh, feeling your way in the dark and just, you know, that game of warmer, colder, it’s like warmer, warmer, and oh no, too hot and then colder, you know, you can feel your way.

Like this turnaround is, is helping. I feel the. Openness happening. Oh no. Too much of the turnaround. It’s making me feel pain. Let me back off. And then, but there’s the sweet spot right there where that turnaround is doing good medicine. Like it, it’s exactly like a medicine. You give too much of the medicine to the patient, they will die.

If you don’t give any medicine to them, they will still be sick. So you have to give the right dosage and the dosage is important even with a term.

I have to say that you have an answer for everything. Todd.

I don’t know how you[00:25:00]

Well, the cool thing is the work addresses everything in a way. Um. But the principles are, are the same in a way no matter what the situation. So, yeah, maybe I do.

Anyway, thank you for that question though. It’s, it’s a really important one. Yeah. Monica.

Client: Uh, I wanted to add that Rafu when you started to, to, to go to your question about saying no. Um, some, somehow, uh, that resonated with me with my question. So I am, it feels like, uh, this, this, um. Question of how to inquire being a failure and feel it, [00:26:00] uh, has to do with saying no.

It, it, it has, I’m, I’m going to explore that, and I wanted to thank you for the, for the unintended suggestion.

Client 2: That’s why I said, um, I, I said with, um, uh, the, the, the thing about saying no, ’cause it was related to your question. Okay, thanks. I wanted to, to ask the question about my daughter, but I said the, the, the saying no thing because, because of your question. So thank you. Yeah. Cool to see how they’re related.

Right? That’s one of the joys of listening to other people do the work or ask about the work. Think about the work because it, it makes you think [00:27:00] about your own situation differently and we all kind of gain from each other as we explore together. Yeah. I was even thinking just now when you mentioned that, I hadn’t thought about it at the moment, but like your stressful thought, I’m feeling like a failure is, uh.

Also just like, I can’t say no, it’s a one belief, it’s like a judgment on myself. And those ones are often harder to find the turnarounds, to find examples that really mean something. Uh, and so it could be another way to explore your, your question, your situation is, okay, what is making me feel like a failure?

Like, uh, what are, what is. What is making me feel like a victim here? Why is, why, what is it that I can’t control that, uh, makes me feel like a failure as a result? And there might be something, maybe it’s [00:28:00] something your friend did or said, or maybe it’s something from your past or maybe anything. And then that might be the source of, I feel like a failure.

I. Sometimes these self judgements are secondary. They’re, they’re not. The first thing, first thing is somebody said something to me and then how do I react? I got angry at them, but I also, how do I react? I start to feel like I’m a failure, and so it’s the symptom that I feel like a failure is, it’s a, it’s a stressful thought, but it’s a symptom thought.

The cause thought could be what they actually were saying or what you were believing they were meaning when they said something or they did something. So if you can get closer to the cause, then working that can sometimes give you more ability to, to find something that’s satisfying. Work it.[00:29:00]

So when you do the work, you have to. To look for a specific situation that you, you can’t do the work. Generally speaking to, for example, I feel like a failure, you can do it. You can do it, but it’s, it tends to work best when you do it, uh, in a specific situation or I find it’s more powerful. It touches me more.

I know what I mean. But I do do the work in general. Sometimes I do sometimes do very global kind of stressful thoughts and. It, it can work. It can definitely work. Uh, it, it also depends. Some people like to think very abstractly and that’s okay. Um, it, it can, it can be a fit for that. But the danger of doing something very general and doing something, working on something abstract is that [00:30:00] everything tends to be more intellectual because you’re dealing with abstract.

Experie affect ideas. And so you’re seeing the relationship of these different abstract ideas, but it may or may not be connected to your heart, which deals with the, you know, the physical or emotional or down to like the daily life kind of, uh, situations. So. What I find is the specifics gets me into my heart more.

The general tends to keep me more, in my mind. It’s not absolute, but there’s tends to be a little bit of a tendency like that. So when I look for something specific, I know exactly what I was thinking. I know what I was feeling. I, I can feel it right now and I’m talking about it. And now I can, when I start to do the work, I’m actually doing some kind of.

Changes inside of my heart, inside of my emotions, rather than just playing [00:31:00] chess in my mind, which is also fun and can be interesting and, and can be revealing. But there’s uh, there’s something special about the specifics that just gets you beat on the ground and like really touches your, your life. Um, and then when you go in the situation similar.

In the future, uh, it’s familiar. You, you’re, you have a, you have a reference because you’ve re-experienced it, um, when you did the work in a different way. So, I mean, that’s my take on it. It’s, I, I think there’s no rules for doing the work, so you don’t have to say, never do the work on it, something general.

But my experience over 15, 16 years of doing the work, and I’ve heard from others as well. Is that it’s, it just seems to land more deeply when I find something specific. One. One contradiction to that I would [00:32:00] add is that sometimes a specific, very minute specific situation does is too minute that it misses the real issue.

Maybe that it is a little bit less. Specific than I’m landing on. And so you have to fi feel okay, yeah, I got so lost in the trees in that situation that I can’t find, I, I missed the forest. Uh, that can happen. Or sometimes there’s like a situation that is building on two or three events all happening together and I might have to keep my awareness on all three of those to be able to do an effective piece of work.

But more or less, the more specific I am, the more. The easier it is for me to land and to do the work and experience something. Changing in my emotions as right.

Well, thank you.[00:33:00]

If you would like to participate in open sessions like the one you just heard now, then go to the work as meditation.com and go to the open sessions page and you can see the schedule there. You can read how it works and you can join up. Be one of the participants in these open sessions. We do them every week through different times of the day, uh, on different days of the week.

And it’s always just, uh, seven participants plus myself for a total of eight people. And so it’s a nice intimate setting and even if you just wanna come and hang out and listen, you’re perfectly welcome to join us. While you’re at the work as meditation.com, I also encourage you to look at the Work 1 0 2 course, which is a fairly new course for me, and it is all about doing the work with a partner in spoken form.

The Work 1 0 1 course focuses on doing the work in written form, and that’s the prerequisite for taking the work 1 0 2. But the [00:34:00] work 1 0 2 goes further. It’s more, uh, there’s more involved when you’re working with a partner because it’s not just you and your work, it’s you, your work, and the other person.

And that adds a new dimension for us to look at. So we go into great depth in this, and I share my experience, and I think you may find it, uh, very. Helpful, interesting, and something that may deepen your practice of doing this work. So you can find that at the work as meditation.com under the work 1 0 2.

Next, I’m gonna read one of my newsletter articles called No and Yes or Equal, unless I want You to Like Me.

Black and White are instantly important in a photograph. The word no is almost taboo, or at least it has been in my life, taboo because I believe that people [00:35:00] don’t like me when I say no taboo, because I don’t hear others saying no too often either. My conclusion has been since growing up that no is a kind of a bad word.

I’ve avoided using it as best I could, but it leaves me with only a partial vocabulary in my attempt to have the world like me. By not saying no, I actually handicapped myself. It’s like driving a car with only an accelerator and no break. I wonder, I don’t want to go more than five miles an hour. No wonder, I panic if there’s a slope.

It takes courage to say no, but only if I want someone’s approval. Wanting someone to like me is the nemesis of saying no. So if I wanna strengthen my ability to say no, I have to question my desire [00:36:00] to be liked. After all, that’s what makes it hard because I think my no is going to be too much for the other person, or they’re gonna turn on me or dislike me.

This works best for me. One situation at a time, it’s hard to question. I want other people to like me in a general way. It becomes quickly some kind of philosophy, but it becomes very real and concrete when I’m dealing with a concrete situation. Here’s an example. I remember when I was young, my mom wanted me to be a doctor and I wanted to live in an ashram meditating instead.

I wanted my mom to approve of me, which made it very difficult to say in, uh, a clear no to her ideas. For me, my solution was to stay more distant from her, and that’s often what happens when I can’t say no. I. It leaves me no choice. I don’t wanna be dishonest to myself, [00:37:00] so I end up going away from people and hiding out and experiencing it.

You know, you typically think of cowardice as that, that desire to just not deal with it. Um, and it’s a, it’s an attempt to be honest with myself, but there’s an inability to actually communicate that in an effective way to another person. To some degree, not being able to say no to my mom cost me having her more in my life.

I remember when I moved to the ashram, I didn’t actually tell her until after a few weeks. Um, after I moved, I was trying to stand up for myself, but the best I could do was I coward the immersion of it. If I was doing the work on it today, I’d have some options. Start, start writing and said, your neighbor worksheet on my mom.

It might sound something like this. I’m afraid of mom because she won’t approve of me going to the ashram. I want her to [00:38:00] approve of my decision. I want her to let me live my own life. I want her to forget about medical school. I want her to stop judging me based on career. She should see that I’m a seeker.

She should let me follow my own path. She should stop trying to make a duplicate of herself. I need her to respect me. I need her to let me explore freely. I need her to love me unconditionally. She is materialistic, selfish, close-minded, controlling. I don’t ever want her to disapprove of my decisions again.

And I can see just writing this now that it still has some charge for me after all these years. But I’m going to put this in my queue of worksheets to work. These are literally these, judge your neighbor worksheets are literally a record of the thoughts in my mind and really in my heart, emotional thoughts that I have, [00:39:00] uh, regarding this old situation.

The point is that it was my desire for approval that stopped my no. I’d be willing to bet that if I had questioned these thoughts. Back in my twenties, I would’ve had been much closer to having a fearless conversation with her about what I wanted to do. In fact, I bet I could have even listened to her side with an open mind without feeling obligated to please her.

That could have been a very different relationship, but luckily with the work, it’s never too late. I can still do this now. The other piece of it for me was not wanting to admit confusion. I wasn’t always a hundred percent clear about my life in my twenties, let alone even now. I felt a lot of confusion in both my career plans and in my personal life.

My mom would’ve probably been a great person to talk with about it, but I couldn’t because I believed that she was [00:40:00] expecting some kind of perfection from me, or that she had some ideals of how she wanted me to live. And I assumed since when I first started getting grades in fourth grade, that she always expected perfect grades for me.

And my goal was always to please her by being as close to perfect as I could.

And so I assumed that my personal life was the same. It had to be perfect, no confusion allowed, and that left me isolated from her separate. Trying to get there and then go back and present myself to her in some kind of perf perfect state. And this is what I called my miserable, my my terrible twenties.

Um, so what makes them terrible is having this kind of thought, unquestioned. I didn’t have the work back then. I worked it out as best I could, but now I can go back. Clean up pieces of my life [00:41:00] that, um, were stressful for me many years ago. So here’s another judge, your neighbor worksheet again on my mom. I feel distant with my mom because she expects me to be perfect.

I want her to stop expecting perfection from me. I want her to be approachable, to talk to. I want her to drop her motives to change me. I want her to be a safe place. For me to explore things with. I want her to not judge me for being confused. She should see that her desire to influence me keeps me away.

She, she should tell me that we are all just finding our way in the dark. She should share stories of how she was confused too. She should de-stigmatize confusion. For me, she should be an example of vulnerability for me. I need her to listen without judgment to me. I need her to accept me as I am. [00:42:00] I need her to love me.

She is judgmental, harsh, motive driven, unforgiving. I don’t ever want her to expect me to be perfect when I’m confused again. So once again, more thoughts between me and an honest conversation with my mom. The only things stopping me were my beliefs. Now I see that these beliefs can be questioned. I want to do this work even now after my mother has died because the same beliefs that stopped me then from being honest and saying no in the face of her potential disapproval, continue to stop me today with others.

This is how doing the work on one situation, one relationship can open up possibilities for the whole of life. This is why I love the work. Through inquiry no becomes equal to yes, just like the accelerator and the brake are equal in driving a car. [00:43:00] When I question the stressful thoughts that keep me from saying no, saying no begins to be easier, becomes a good thing, not something to hide in taboo.

If you wanna question your stressful thoughts about saying no, schedule a private session with me, and I would love to go into that with you. Finally, we will end with a quote from Byron Katie’s book, I Need Your Love Is that true, honest Communication begins with you communicating with yourself. It means responding to what is true for you regardless of how someone may react to your answer.

First, you have to discover what is true, uh, really true for you, a dishonest yes as a no to yourself.

So thanks for listening and be sure to subscribe to this podcast. Share it with a friend of something on social [00:44:00] media. Leave a review for the podcast wherever you happen to get yours, and stop by the work as meditation.com to get my newsletter. To participate in open sessions like this one that you heard today, and you’ll also find hundreds of articles there on the work of Byron Katie, as well as information about my courses such as the Work 1 0 1, uh, the Work 1 0 2 Virtual Retreats.

Inquiry Circle, private sessions, um, the Living with Money course, the Finding the Door to Inquiry Book, and other programs that I continue to develop. Thanks again for being with me. Until next time, have a great week.