How to Release Stress Without Emotional Bypassing: Inner Work for HSPs

Todd: [00:00:00] By the end of this episode, you’ll discover how to transform your stress, even when your mind just wants to bury it.

Todd: 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 certified 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.

Todd: In this episode, you’ll discover how to respect your stressful experience without getting sucked into it. The difference between an experiential process and an intellectual one. And how to gradually open your mind when it’s shut down. Today is another edition of Open Session Wednesdays. [00:01:00] You bring your questions and stressful situations.

Todd: And I facilitate you in the simple, powerful process of the work of Byron Katie. As always, I share the unedited recording so you can experience the open session just as we did.

Client: But my question for you, Todd, is, as I do the work, and I know that any stressful thing that arises is, a belief, or I generally know, I mix.

Client: What I’m, what I wonder is, when I feel the stress, and then I go, that’s a belief. How do I like honor it or how do you honor that without burying it? Because I find what I’m doing sometimes is just that’s a belief, push it aside, and then it’s still there. And then blow up or or I think it’s not bothering me.

Client: But I, the only way so far that I can experience this is to let myself have the story, which also doesn’t really work [00:02:00] that well. Where do you, how do you. How do you manage beliefs coming out without knowing they’re a belief, without shoving them to the side, repressing them? How do you let them breathe?

Todd: Yeah, that’s a super question, right? Just so appropriate for This whole process of doing the work of Byron Katie it’s so quick to jump to a turnaround and just be like, Oh that’s a belief, Oh, that’s just my thinking. And if we’re not careful, that can become a spiritual bypass, if you will, where we’re like, Oh, yeah.

Todd: Oh, I already get that. That’s a thought. Don’t have to look at it and it’s still going on inside. That didn’t, that wasn’t enough. That didn’t really turn it around or really land in a new place, a new way of being. So this is extremely important. When you’re doing the work, which from one point of view looks like it’s a way of turning things around oh, great, I’ll just turn things around.

Todd: But [00:03:00] that is just one part of doing the work. The work is an experiential process, and it is something that starts with one thing, listening. And so I have to listen to my thought, which Comes with an emotion and I’d rather not feel it sometimes I just want to push it away and oh, that’s a belief Let me just be done with it.

Todd: But as you said that just buries it So this thing is coming up for a reason because it wants some attention. It needs some healing. It needs some awareness so that it can start to Get what it needs and start to come back to a place of a balance inside And so the starting point is to start where you’re actually at Anyway, the only way that something can be experiential as opposed to intellectual kind of process is it has to, you have to honor, just like you said, you have to honor where you’re at.

Todd: And so the [00:04:00] starting point of doing the work is a stress. I feel stressed. That’s where I’m at. I need to give all ears to that. I sometimes say, give the mic to your stressful emotion and let it talk. Let it have its day. And if you skip that process or rush that process or even have in the back of your mind yeah, you can talk all you want now, but I’m just going to turn you around later.

Todd: It doesn’t feel like respect and this part is not going to feel safe inside. It’s not going to fully express or it’s not going to trust you to handle what it expresses. So the first part, whether we go any further with the work or not, is to listen, hear and really honor the experience that you’re having on a stressful level.

Todd: That is itself, that in itself is therapeutic. They’ve done studies on that, not related to the work at all. If you [00:05:00] just write out your stressful thoughts and just see them and experience them it changes something like that alone is therapeutic. So we need to be heard. We’ve been trying to suppress it forever, trying to not pay attention to it.

Todd: And we need to give time and space for the stuck to, to cry and to be angry and to, really express its fear and whatever other emotions it may be having. First stage of doing the work is identifying the stressful thoughts, identifying what’s going on and really listening. And so you can do that in writing a worksheet.

Todd: You can do that in talking with a facilitator and having them write down your thoughts. Regardless, you are honoring that and you’re not rushing it. So that’s number one. Basically, like your question is almost like the mind starts to do a shortcut of the work [00:06:00] and we’re hoping that will be enough because sometimes it is sometimes there’s enough openness in me that somehow I’m like saying oh that’s just a belief and bingo I feel free and light and everything’s great and that’s fantastic.

Todd: But sometimes a lot of times That little trick doesn’t work. The shortcut doesn’t work. And so that’s when I need to slow it down and really get in touch with the experience of stress and begin to to listen to it, to hear what it’s saying okay, tell me more. Why do you feel stressed?

Todd: Oh, it’s because they did this to me and then that, and then you’re like, okay, I’m listening. What else? What? What should they have done, writing a judge your neighbor worksheet? What should they have done differently? And what do you need and what do you think of them and like all these chances for this emotional peace?

Todd: stressed peace To emote and to express what’s really on its mind because up to this point nobody’s been listening to it namely myself [00:07:00] mainly You know, the mind is not listening to the heart or to the emotions. So I think that’s first step. We’re talking about experiential process. And so that is the beginning of it and a very important part of it.

Todd: Then you have to go through this experiential process of asking the four questions. Is it true? Can you absolutely know it’s true? How do you react? What happens when you believe that thought? And who would you be without that thought, and take your time with that. That’s to take some time so that you can experience a yes or a no or you can experience how you react compared to who you’d be in the same situation.

Todd: It’s an experiential thing. And so if you rush that, or if you go, oh yeah, I already did that, I get it, oh it’s just a belief, you skip all that, and it stays intellectual, stays mental, and it doesn’t touch, it doesn’t honor. emotional piece that started it. [00:08:00] I like to go even further and say, I want that emotional piece to be the one answering the questions, the four questions.

Todd: Is it true? I want to hear from you. Little stuck piece. Is it true for you? And can you absolutely know it’s true? Because that’s the one that needs to do the work. And I also want to know how do you react and who would you be so that it knows it’s in the control place like it’s not going to be it’s not going to be, I don’t know what the word is like.

Todd: We’re not going to fool it. We’re not going to manipulate it with this kind of work. We’re saying no, you, the emotional part of you, I want to hear from you. What do you think? And experience who would you be without the thought and all of that. So then As you go through those four questions, it starts to loosen the attachment a little bit, or it may not, but it often does, and you can then go on to the turnarounds, which is basically saying could [00:09:00] the opposite be true and asking that question and then looking at different opposites and finding examples.

Todd: And then sitting in why those examples could actually be true for you. Again, the little stuff piece is answering that this whole thing is an experiential process that might take a half hour or might take who knows how long that is set up so that this emotional part can be honored, can be heard, can question its own self and look for other possibilities.

Todd: And it’s so respectful, it’s so respectful of that emotion, because it’s bringing something valid. And we’re saying, I hear you. What is it? And is there more to the story? And let’s look. And in the end, if you go through that process, often something really significant does change, and you’re left with a feeling of okay, [00:10:00] wow, get it.

Todd: Oh, yes, it’s a belief, but it’s not just, it’s a belief. Oh, yeah, it’s a belief. I really get how this is. This belief has been blocking me or causing me issues. And and now it’s not just conceptual that it’s a belief. I actually see the opposite. And I see how my perspective is larger to be able to see it in a larger perspective, larger point of view.

Todd: The idea is you have to slow down when when something is not just opening right away. You have to take your time and go in and give it the process. That’s what the work is for.

Todd (2): Yeah.

Client: Thank you. Reed, do you have any questions or work or anything like that?

Todd: I always can keep talking. That was great. I’d never heard a, the word experiential and describing giving

Client: that feeling,

Client: It’s day to talk.[00:11:00]

Todd: Yeah, it’s a meditation, right? It’s a meditative process. You can understand meditation, but you have to do meditation for anything to actually change. And what meditation is experience. It’s a, it’s an experiential process. Whether it’s the experience of stress or the experience of a turnaround and some freedom that comes from that it has to stay on the experiential level.

Todd: Otherwise otherwise it doesn’t touch me.

Client: Anything that, that you’ve worked on in the last little while that you’re interested in sharing or I could, I’d certainly always have a million beliefs, but I’d love to hear anything from you, Todd, if there’s anything or Edwin,

Todd: yeah. I was, I actually just recorded a little, another episode for podcast will come out next week, but it was an [00:12:00] interesting situation with my dad where I where I was He said something a little bit critical or a little bit almost like negative in a situation where he was wanting more positives or at least I was thinking that and then I was getting self critical about it.

Todd: And so I did a cool piece of work on that and just show that it was more exaggerated in my mind than in reality. And I think that’s that was my main takeaway.

Client: It was a self judgment that you were questioning? Yeah.

Todd: Basically a self judgment. Yeah, like I was I can’t remember the exact words, but something like I was too negative or Oh, I, no, I hurt him.

Todd: That’s what I did to work. I hurt him. Yeah. And the assumption was that he would take it really badly and my guess is it may have, but I guessed that it was not so strong.

Client: I don’t know about if we look at The world’s in [00:13:00] trouble with this announcement from Katie because that kind of went through my head.

Todd (2): Sure. Yeah,

Client: Oh, shoot How’s the work gonna survive? Through this and if we don’t have the work the works gonna be gone stuff like so I think I did have a little bit Of time we’re in trouble.

Todd: So for anyone That’s not aware of it Byron Katie the founder of the work As had for many years something called the Institute for the work where she’s trained people, including me. That’s where I got my certification and as a sort of as a facilitator of the work. And she’s had an ongoing support and helpline and.

Todd: Classes and community there for doing the work. And just yesterday she shut it down, said, okay, it’s gone. And and she was very sweet, had a large group zoom call and explained her thinking. And, but the reality is she closed [00:14:00] down an institution that has been there for quite a long time. And a lot of people have been participating in, your belief, if I heard you correctly from this, is something like the world is in trouble or something like that?

Client: The world is in trouble.

Todd: So let’s question it. Where, first of all, where were you? Where is the time and place that you can anchor yourself as you do this work?

Client: Yesterday, outside, listening to the call with Katie.

Client: I was part of the, I got to hear her announcement in real time, so I was outside here, in the afternoon.

Todd (2): You’re

Todd: right. Yeah, I think I saw you there on the outside of your cottage there. Yes, I remember. Because she’s closing down the Institute for the Work,

Todd (2): the world is in trouble. Is that true?

Todd (2): Yes. And, can you [00:15:00] absolutely know it’s true?

Todd: The world is in trouble.

Todd (2): No.

Todd: How do you react? What happens when you think that the world is in trouble because of her closing this?

Client: In that moment, I felt like sad and fear, a lot of fear. And I And that, this is one of the things that prompted my other question, I just was like, get that out of here.

Client: That’s too bad. This is all a belief. It’s going to be fine. It’s Katie. But in that instant, it was like, so sad, so scared, seeing this world. It’s but to me, the work is salvation. The work is, people will do the work and the world is going to be so much more peaceful. And this is the only tool that works because I see for me the work’s the only thing that works.

Client: Or me. And I see that’s [00:16:00] gonna be gone, it’s gonna be a game of broken telephone, no one’s gonna be consistent, and it seems the future is total loss and total loss of the work, and without the work, no hope. And all the hopes I was pitting on the work for the world come crashing down.

Client: So I feel scared and sad, and I feel like, how do I treat people, it’s kinda nobody else matters other than Katie. And this institute now, it’s just a bunch of people running around with their heads cut off or whatever. That’s how I treat everybody else. There’s not wisdom outside. And how I treat myself is shoot, I can’t do it.

Client: They won’t, they don’t listen to me. Katie says people come to her when she started and I’m like, that’s not happening. People don’t come. Only, so I, it’s just a lot of seeing a future for the work and then just feeling like I guess I’ll retreat I’ll do it myself and hopefully that’ll keep me alive while the rest of the world falls [00:17:00] apart.

Client: It’s like a lot of fear for the health of the world.

Todd: Okay. So who would you be without this thought, that the world is in trouble because of her closing the

Todd (2): Institute for the Work?

Client: Without the thoughts, just, she’s talking, I love hearing and seeing Katie, and I see all these people who care deeply, about her and about the work. I feel comfortable, I’m fine outside in the, just that moment, it’s everything’s okay. It’s okay, here’s some uncertainty, here’s I thought things were this way, and now here’s some uncertainty, and it’s.[00:18:00]

Client: Without the thoughts, just wake up to this moment here, not the future, this moment and how wonderful it is to be with people and Katie and also how comforting it is that she’s still there. The Institute’s gone and she’s still there. And also feeling privileged to be part of this experience of hearing her and thank goodness I discovered.

Client: The school and was able to do it and got to have a bit of the Institute. So without the fear there’s gratitude and there’s just waking to this moment being.

Todd: And what do you see when you look at the world without the thought that it’s in trouble without the Institute for the work?

Client: I see, first of

Todd (2): all, that I don’t know what the world’s

Client: I see there’s [00:19:00] lots of interesting things happening in the world. In my experiences. I’ve recently been more seeing more people talk about presence and awareness.

Client: I see the work is so great for me and other people seem to have other tools that work well for them. And so the world looks like it’s on a journey. It’s not all, it’s not with the how to react, it’s they’re all just like believing their thoughts and doom. And with, without that, it’s like the world’s on a journey, everyone’s doing interesting things.

Client: It’s I thought it was going to come from the work, but where’s things come, where’s things coming? I don’t know. So it just feels, and then it just connects to the universe, like everything’s bigger than any one thing. [00:20:00] So the world seems like vibrant and living again.

Todd: So how would you turn the thought around? The world is in trouble because Kitty is closing the Institute for the

Client: work.

Client: The world is not in trouble. That connects me to Kitty. Katie, because she is doing this and she’s in touch with reality. She not saying this is the right plan, but she is I’m okay with it. She’s okay with it. So to me, that’s a bit of a vote of confidence.

Todd (2): Sure.

Client: The world is not in trouble. I feel like, yeah, it can happen.

Client: It’s her. She was the genesis of it. She’s now doing a different direction. The world’s not in trouble. The world’s not in trouble.

Client: I just see that even though [00:21:00] a lot of people do the work, a lot of people don’t do the work, and the world’s not in trouble good things come from places outside the work, outside the institute.

Todd: Yeah.

Client: Good things come from those other places as well. Things that I like, appreciate.

Todd: Yeah, I love that perspective.

Todd: Yeah. Not like the world, or the world, yeah, the world’s happiness, the world is dependent on. on the work or the institute for the work, right? Because Cady didn’t shut down the work. The work is just for questions and turnarounds but that particular institute is shut down. Yeah, the world’s not in trouble.

Todd: Not necessarily. There’s a lot of support.

Todd (2): Yeah. So

Todd: what are some of the supports that you see for the world that besides the work, just to spell them out

Client: a little more in [00:22:00] detail if you can.

Todd (2): So many people care about the world.

Client: So many people are planting trees or making peace, initiatives are learning or singing or dancing. So many children, they don’t know the work. They’re like bringing their beautiful gifts to the world. They’re wise, we don’t know where it will come from, children,

Todd (2): and

Client: also there are examples. I just also see all the different languages and cultures and things going on in the world that I don’t even know any idea about. [00:23:00] And I’m looking at very, one very specific way of being. I’m judging it as bad and then I’m judging it as doom, but it’s that’s the very narrow lens.

Client: And there’s so many cultures doing interesting things. So many religions, so many,

Client: On Instagram. So many interesting people saying very cool stuff that’s similar, that’s the same in touch with presence and awareness and yeah, on judgment, no, no blame. Yeah. And things, people I’ve felt very personally touched and inspired by, even though they’re not connected to the work.

Todd: It’s really good to see, to balance the story, because like you say, you can just get so focused on this, because this works for me, then this is what the world needs. And miss what’s actually happening in the world, which is so many different ways of expressing this and different, ways of [00:24:00] expressing wisdom and truths.

Todd: And yeah, so seeing some of that, even just touching on it as we’re doing here can help to balance that on an experiential level inside. And it’s something that you can continue to look for too. Like just keep your mind open to what else is going great about the world? What else? Is available in the world.

Todd: What else? What else? What else? What else? And it may start to be. Yeah, you may start to see a lot in case one of them and going back to it’s just the Institute that’s closing. So how is it that maybe even with regards to the work and allowing people access to the work? How could it be better with the Institute of the work close for getting?

Todd: People to have the, [00:25:00] have it come in contact with the work also.

Client: That’s like a burst of energy where everybody’s okay. And like I checked there’s a WhatsApp group for anybody who wants. And it’s like 250 messages. Like everybody’s talk is connected. Everyone’s being supportive things for each other as a community.

Client: Every, and I see the dedication to the work. It’s not just me. A lot of people really care about the work. Compile people. Want to, like with the belief, I’m almost like, Oh, nobody, everyone’s going to be in their own economic, I’m judging facilitators according to my own thing. And without that, with the chairman, it’s they care about the work.

Client: Everybody who’s doing it is, cares about the work and they still are there. And with the Institute gone, maybe you’ll have a, the Institute had one way of doing things and one way of creating [00:26:00] awareness of the work and recruiting or whatever. And now you have all these people, oh shoot, okay, how will I let people know about the work and how will I broadcast my courses and who can I touch?

Client: And so it’s like ultimate in responsibility. The Institute’s not doing it for us, all of us, to do it. If we care about it, let’s see what we can do. And that could certainly. Without the belief, it could certainly be, and I see there’s a facilitator. I really want to work with. I still can.

Client: She’s offering something outside of the Institute. So that’s going to be great. And see, I saw you there. I saw Susan in that call, like people, I, you. Really respect and care about, and I know they care about offering the work, and it’s it’d be great if people could discover more facilitators, [00:27:00] maybe through these different ways.

Todd: Interesting, like how you said she’s there isn’t this structure or built in support so much with that institute gone. But that could actually make everyone dig deep, become more responsible for how they share the work. And you never know, it could be like an explosion of different ways of, sharing this process from people that are inspired and have done a lot of work themselves.

Todd: So almost, it’s almost like I’m thinking of it now that you talk about it, like the, when kids go off to school and then off to college or something and there’s no more you’re not, everything’s not done by your mom and dad anymore. And like you, And it’s a little awkward in the spots, but it can actually become amazing because there’s the freedom there to go in any direction.[00:28:00]

Client: It can have the possibility of maybe there’s a way of uniting people without having that. For me, when I starting to do the certification process, I was having difficulty, competition, ideas. Qualification is the questioning authority, like a lot of side issues to the work

Todd (2): and

Client: without that sort of okay, we’re not going to waste our energy on, I’m sure I can find ways to waste it in other side tangents, but that one is,

Todd: that’s

Client: not going to be there.

Todd: So all that institutional stuff, all that hierarchy or whatever you want to call it that administrative kind of side of things. It’s just being cut out. Maybe that’s why Katie did it. Who knows? Just let’s be done with all that stuff. And just, here are the four [00:29:00] questions, turnarounds.

Todd: It’s real simple, and go as far as you want with it. Some people will just go really far with it. Some people will Be like, ah, yeah, tried it next. And there’s just this freedom of not having to make people get there or something or, and I don’t know, I’m not saying that the Institute for the Work did that, but There’s a less structured thing.

Todd: So it’s like just a big playground instead of, Oh, we’re in school now. And we have to get to grade whatever and graduate and all those pressures.

Todd: So these are just ways of thinking about it, right? Like the world is in trouble because Katie closed the Institute for the work. That’s the original stressful thought. The world’s not in trouble. And. And expanding to how that could actually be as good or even better.

Todd (2): It’s I,[00:30:00]

Todd: yeah, so there’s more turnarounds you can play with. And we’ll just I’ll just mention them here. One would be the world is in. I am in trouble because I closed my own self. Basically, I enclosed my own. My own my institute for myself. So just to touch on that. Can does that make any sense to you?

Todd: Did you close your

Client: yeah, there’s part of me like, okay no, no one’s ever going to know about me because there’s no more marketing. I will be able to get the certification and put that name and then get the website. So it’s It closed, or I’m in trouble. It’s who cares about the work?

Client: What’s happening to Sarah? What?

Todd: Yeah, it all comes down to me, right? I’m in trouble. Am I going to get a refund for

Client: my e course? What’s going on for me?

Todd (2): Yeah. What’s

Client: There’s, which could spur that, that individual focus. Can be like, okay the, yeah, everything’s in trouble. So I’m in trouble.

Client: And [00:31:00] also, anytime I’m fixed to anything, I’m in trouble. And I always, I keep trying to remind myself any religion in the work can be a religion and it can be person can take the con take, turn the work into a concept that’s a religion, and so I’m in trouble whenever I start to do that.

Client: Yeah.

Todd: Now we’re in trouble. Now we’re doing things the old way, the way that’s never really gone that far, where we just build institutions and have religions and I’m not saying religions are bad, but what I’m saying is okay, we’ve done that a lot and there’s still problems in the world. And she’s just saying, just let it be there, out there without any structure.

Todd: Yeah, so I’m in trouble. I’m in trouble because I’m closing down basically my viewpoint, my [00:32:00] awareness to just one way.

Client: Anytime I hook myself to something, I’m probably going to be in trouble. Okay, my success is with the institute. Institute’s gone. What happens to me? Like my success is based on my age or my income.

Client: Anytime I’m hooking myself to something external to me, I’m in trouble, just the way the world.

Todd: That’s it. Cool. All right. I’m sure we could keep exploring, but this is a a great start to playing with this kind of a stressful thought and I love where you went with it. Thank you.

Client: Thank you.

Todd: In this episode, we looked at how to respect your stressful experience without getting sucked into it.

Todd: And we found that by listening to it, by honoring it, and by letting it answer the questions, you can give a lot of respect without getting sucked into the story. And we also looked at the difference between an [00:33:00] experiential process and an intellectual one. The experiential process deals with the actual experience, whether it’s stressful or and doesn’t rush ahead of where the experience actually is.

Todd: An intellectual one can rush light years ahead and it has its own value, but the experiential one will bring your stuck point, your stuck part, to a new place if you take the time to do it. And then finally, we looked at how to gradually open your mind when it’s shut down. And this is that same process of starting where you’re at, in this case, starting with a stressful experience.

Todd: And then walking through that, allowing that to be experienced fully, to be heard. And then to move through this questioning process so that a new perspective can be gained. It’s a move from closed to open, and it can happen very naturally through this process of the work of Byron Katie. [00:34:00] So thanks again for listening.

Todd: It’s always a pleasure to be with you, and I look forward to next time. Have a great day.