HSP Boundary Challenges: Overcoming the Pressure to Conform

By the end of this episode, you’ll discover how to stay in touch with yourself, even when others don’t understand your need for periodic isolation as an HSP.

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 to find the thought that is stressing you when faced with a boundary situation, how to gently shift your awareness from them to you, and why you may be taking on too much of the responsibility and not enough at the same time. Today is another edition of Open Session Wednesdays.

You bring your questions and stressful situations. 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.

I was really triggered by you saying that you wanted to explore another time, a situation where you feel as an HSP very overwhelmed and you find it very difficult to really set your boundaries, out of fear for the reaction of the other person. And I have one situation at work where I was really feeling very overwhelmed and I really needed to take my rest.

And I did. And afterwards I was very judged by the other person and it didn’t feel, yeah, it didn’t feel very well. So yeah. I don’t know if we can explore this or I don’t know if Sarah has something. Sounds good. Yeah.

Okay, great. I think it’s a, it’s a great topic, certainly one that I can relate to as an HSP. And I think even if you’re not an HSP, people, we get overwhelmed. But, especially for highly sensitive people, that threshold to get overwhelmed is, is lower, so we can get overwhelmed quicker. And, there is a need to actually take care of ourselves.

We actually need to step away, take some rest, regroup, and find that inner balance again. Yes, the challenge of that is it requires setting some boundaries and saying no to other people. So I’d love to take a look at the situation. What was the actual moment when you felt this experience of being judged by the other person for setting boundaries when you were overwhelmed?

Yeah. At work, we always eat with all the coworkers. So at six o’clock in the evening, I was really feeling overwhelmed and I really needed to eat without anyone around me. So I took my plate downstairs. My boss was not there at that moment, and then he was looking for me, and he found me downstairs in the basement with my plate.

And he said, why are you sitting here? Why are you not eating with the rest of your colleagues? That was the moment I really felt judged by him. So that’s where the stress started for me.

Yeah, I can, I can experience that myself just listening to you that that would be a stressful moment. So what are your, what are your stressful thoughts, in that moment, especially towards your boss? Uh, maybe it’s the, yeah, let’s just brainstorm for a minute. Like, what are you thinking, what are your stressful thoughts about him or her in that moment?

I have no right to set my boundaries, because he is now judging me. I am different and he is not accepting me being different. He doesn’t understand how I feel because he is completely the opposite. He is not sensitive at all. So, yeah, I am not allowed to set my boundaries. I need to adapt to what all the others are doing.

I need to please him also by picking up my plate and going upstairs and eating with my colleagues to please him, because I’m not allowed to take my rest when I need it, because I’m supposed to be with my colleagues upstairs. They will find me a strange lady.

Yeah. All this kind of thoughts going on. Yeah. Good list. A list of stressful thoughts. Yeah. So, let me read back to you what you just were speaking and tell me if one of these sounds like one that you would like to question. So, I have no right to set my boundaries. I am different. He doesn’t accept me.

He doesn’t understand me. I’m not allowed to set my boundaries. I need to adapt to what the others are doing. I need to please him. I’m not allowed to take my rest when I need it. And they will think of me as a strange lady. I think I need to adapt.

I need to adapt to, it’s like forcing myself to do.

Yeah, to do the same as they do, but it’s like, yeah, it’s like forcing myself to be like them, so. Yeah, there’s a need to adapt even if I know I will not succeed. Yes. So let’s do the work on this. You need to adapt and be in that situation. And you know, it’s a challenging situation. Your boss is coming down and saying, why are you not there? Instead of sitting up where we’re supposed to sit during the meals. So in that moment, is it true? You need to adapt?

No.

It feels like. So how do you react in that moment? It feels like that, but it,

Yeah, it’s more like question number one is a yes, and then question number two, can I absolutely know it’s true, it will be a no. It’s more like this. Yeah.

Okay. So how do you react when you think you need to adapt? What happens to you in that moment?

I feel forced, doing something,

against my real need for rest. I feel that I need to be like my colleagues who are tending to enjoy being all the time together and talking, and I feel very different and I judge myself for this. I really would like to be like them, but I am not. So I feel separated from them. I don’t want to be different, but I am.

So I have difficulties with really setting my boundaries. It was the first time I did it. I have felt it before, but so I see myself in the past, to my colleagues and to what I’m supposed to be doing. And this time I really felt like I need my rest now. So I go downstairs and then my boss comes and says, why are you sitting here?

And I’m like, so I feel judged by him. I,

I treat him like he is my judge. He has the power of forcing me to do something I don’t really want because I begin to doubt myself. Do I really need it? Maybe I need to listen to him. Why am I not eating upstairs? Am I too difficult? It’s really very busy in my head. My shoulders are very tense.

I feel hot. I’m desperate that nobody will ever understand that I’m really different. But it’s not because I don’t want to be with them, but I really need my rest to be present for the next four hours. Who will come after dinner?

I see images of the future that I will never succeed of really being with them, taking good care of myself and so much difficulties of explaining that I am different. It’s like I almost feel ashamed for being this different.

Yeah.

Yeah. And then how does this idea that you need to adapt affect your ability to set boundaries or to say no as we were starting in the very beginning of this discussion? How does this thought I need to adapt affect that for you? I completely shift from my action of taking, of setting my boundaries for the first time.

And now I’m sitting downstairs and my boss is coming in and he said, why are you not? And immediately I begin to shift to his side that I have no, I really need to adapt. So I can’t stick to this taking care of myself. I immediately go.

It’s so difficult to stay in this need for rest. It affects it in a negative way. So this is the power of a thought like this. I need to adapt. As soon as I believe that, then even though I see the need for rest, I know it’s important, I literally cannot act on it because I believe this other thought, I need to adapt. And then I put myself in the other person’s position, I imagine what they’re thinking. I’m just doing this work with you and then I adapt. So this is the power of a thought one, and there may be different phrases of this thought, but the feeling is the same, like this idea. I need to adapt, changes this, and makes it impossible to take care of myself. So who would you be if we replay the same situation, and you went downstairs to eat alone, and your boss comes down and says, why are you sitting here?

And you didn’t have any thought, for some reason, that you need to adapt. Who would you be, hypothetically, if you were listening to him saying that, without the idea that you need to adapt? Yeah, I feel that I’m really grounded in my need for rest, and without the thought, I see myself sitting on the table downstairs and he’s coming in and I see myself very calmly answer his question.

It wasn’t, I see it like, it’s just a question. The judgment is, I don’t hear the judgment anymore because he, yeah, he’s just asking me a question and I’m calmly answering this question and I explained him that I felt very overwhelmed and for the rest of the evening, being as enthusiastic as I am normally, I need really now to eat my dinner here, to upload my battery and to take this half an hour of rest, to be able to be present afterwards, like, I like to do my work very, with much energy and I’m very calm and very grounded in my need.

Yeah. It’s completely different. It’s interesting. Amazing. Yeah. And all these thoughts of you will never understand and

they are just, they are not there. It’s like, I need my rest now and I’m taking care of myself Whatever person will and whatever they will think of it, it’s like, I’m just taking care of myself and I’m really, I’m kind of proud of myself be doing that.