Why HSPs Need More Personal Space & How to Get It So You Can Ease Overwhelm and Find Balance

 By the end of this episode, you’ll discover why you need more personal space as a highly sensitive person and how to get it.

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 why HSPs need more personal space than others to stay balanced. Five ways to reclaim your space without causing more stress in the process, and how to work with the guilt of retreating to your own space. This is an addition of strategy Fridays where we think about specific things you can do to help manage stress as a highly sensitive person.

Have you ever bought an app for your computer or your phone that requires a lot of processing? It’s maybe uses a lot of graphics, does a lot of computations. It’s, uses up a lot of space. If you have, you may have run into the place where you disc space is not enough or your memory is not enough for it to be able to function properly.

This is very similar to being a highly sensitive person. We process things. We have a big processor and we have a lot of things that we compute and process naturally as highly sensitive people. So for that reason, it can use up our disc space quite quickly and we can end up in that place of overwhelm, just like a computer that just shuts down.

Can’t go any further. So it’s important to find ways of taking personal space for yourself in order to stay balanced as a highly sensitive person. It’d be nice if we could just increase the space of our disc like we can with a computer. In a way we can do that in our lives by getting more rest, taking more time for ourselves.

At least we can clear up the space that we actually have. So if there’s constant input without any time to process that, then that’s what clogs up the system. If you go from one activity to the next activity to the next activity, and each time there is more input coming at you than you have time to deal with, then that’s how we as highly sensitive people and even everyone else.

Eventually it gets overwhelmed. It just happens quicker for us. So if you can find a balance between the input, all that information coming in, all those experiences coming in, and the processing of those, the time you have for processing them, then there will be no backlog. You’re actually bringing new things in, new experiences, you’re processing them, and then you’re ready for more new experiences.

If on the other hand, it becomes more on the input side and not enough processing time, that’s where the problems begin. I wanna share an experience. I recently quit playing pickleball for a while. I don’t know how long I’ll quit. It might be forever. It might be for a few months. It might be for a few years.

I’m not sure. What I noticed is that it was too much. It was just too much. At the end of a long day, instead of sitting to meditate, I’d go play pickleball. Not every day, a couple times a week. And it would take me a day or two or three to recover. Sometimes I noticed a lot of back tension ’cause I’d been doing it for a long time and have other back issues.

And so it was just like it was too much. And on top of that, there was just. Like some of the dynamics on the courts was not as fun as it used to be, and so I just decided, and my partner joined me as well in just saying, let’s take a break. Let’s just take a break. And it feels like a relief.

It feels oh, okay, now I don’t have to push myself to keep up with the group and always be there and be enthusiastic. Because, yeah, I do the game. It’s fun. But the amount of input and the lack of ability to process that quickly was just starting to be, give a residual backlog of tension, of stress.

So what are some ways that you can reclaim your space, come back to yourself without causing more stress in the process? I think this is really important. Ultimately, we have to actually do something. We actually have to say no. One of the hardest things for us as HSPs, but we have to exercise that muscle and we have to come back to ourselves.

Luckily, if you get overwhelmed enough, you body will tell you no, and there’ll be no choice at some point. But ideally, I like to catch it earlier before it becomes too much, and the more attuned you are to your system and your needs. The more you can regulate yourself before the experience becomes too strong.

So one of the things that can really help, and it helps for me when claiming my space, taking space for myself, coming back and saying, you know what I need rest is to talk about my direct experience, not a theory or what’s the ideal or what should happen or anything like that. It’s just what is my direct experience?

My direct experience is I’m tired and so I’m gonna go to bed early. No one can argue with that. It’s so just true. It’s not making any kind of broad statements is just the honest truth. I’m tired. I like to go to bed, I’m feeling overwhelmed. I like to just go to my room and chill there for a while.

And there’s no ex like excuses in it. There’s no explanation in it. There’s no justification, or this is why, because of this and da. Those kinds of things always end up in an argument and always end up you get challenged on it instead of simply telling your direct experience. I think that’s one of the most powerful ways.

To reclaim your space Also. Number two, don’t insinuate that it’s someone else’s fault because it isn’t everyone runs at a different pace. And if you’re around people who are not highly sensitive, they may be surprised or confused or wondering why you need to check out now when they’re just getting going and everything’s great.

So don’t think don’t. Say, oh, if you guys would just get it and start, would just slow down earlier or something that insinuates that it’s their fault, then again, it’s not gonna be so easy to take care of yourself. But again, if you come back to direct experience solves the problem.

Oh yeah, you know what I’m done guys. We’ll see you tomorrow. And it’s as simple as that. Also find ways, this is number three. Find ways to retreat without spoiling everyone else’s fun. This is not serious. This is not something that they need to get to the bottom of, or need to even understand.

They’re having fun anyway, so let them continue having fun and just just check out. It’s oh, this has been awesome. Thank you guys. I’m gonna, I’m gonna head out now and. I can’t wait till next time. Just, it’s not even about you. It’s not about anything. It’s just, yeah, I’m feeling a little tired.

I think I’m gonna go and it becomes something very light and easy and they can just continue on with their fun. Instead of when you leave, as you’re making it a big deal, they’re gonna be like, oh God, what’s going on with them? Geez this is a, like, why are they so stressed? It’s just, it’s only, still early and like they’re gonna start.

It’s like arguing with you or complaining about you instead of, if you’re just leaving with a, with an open feeling and it’s just you taking care of you and it’s not really a big deal, then it comes off that way. The other thing number four is be willing to compromise because sometimes there are situations where.

You not getting your perfect needs met is actually gonna be less stressful than than doing it exactly the way you would want to. And life is a compromise. And being with other people is a compromise. And I think it’s something that’s really important for us as HSPs to look at, to consider and to think about ways of doing.

Sometimes maybe it’s just yeah, okay, you know what I’ll play one more game. Or I’ll I’ll stay up for another half hour or. There are different ways that you can compromise that will give you basically enough time for yourself, but it won’t be like hogging all the time so that it feels like an imbalance.

And there’s a fine line in here because we do need to take care of ourselves and a lot of us tend to over compromise in some regards. So if you’re over compromising, then you know this one won’t be for you. You maybe need to. To step up a little bit more for yourself, but always there’s a room for compromise and I think it’s really important to keep in mind.

And then finally, number five don’t lean too heavily on being an HSP. I say this because it’s very easy to start saying, oh yeah, because I’m an HSP, I’m gonna go to bed early, or I’m gonna go because I’m an HSP. It’s, it becomes like a. A crutch in a way. I love HSP, I love the idea of understanding myself, but that’s for me to understand If I’m trying to make other people understand it’s fine to yeah, say, yeah, I’m an HSP and people understand that after a while, but if I keep using that as the reason why I am leaving, it’s one level removed from my direct experience.

Direct experience is something that you can’t argue with. I’m tired and I’m gonna go to bed. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed. I just need some space. Instead of constantly saying, because I’m an HSP or because I’m highly sensitive. And after a while people are gonna get tired of hearing that HSP thing.

It starts to be almost like a bone of contention. It becomes like a little place where work can start to break out. Instead of being something that can help you. So understand you are an HSP understand that, be that, take care of yourself as an HSP, but don’t use that as the way of getting out of things all the time because people will start attacking it instead of just respecting your decision to say, end early.

So finally, let’s look at how to work with the guilt of retreating to your own space. And this can happen. You came back, you took your time away, and you get a home and you’re ready to relax and you feel guilty about it can totally happen because, we think about and care about what others think.

And so if that happens, notice your thoughts. What are you thinking? Whose business are you in? What are you believing here and what are you needing? So you may be needing them to be happy about you leaving. You may mean needing them to approve. You may think that their needs are more important than yours.

And I’m not saying intellectually, but viscerally you may be feeling that. And if that’s the case, then that’s where a little bit of inner work can help a lot. You may be believing on some level that you should be putting them first. And then you’re feeling guilty when you put yourself first.

So if you do your work, you question these kinds of thoughts, you will start to find that you are an equal, that you do have rights, and you do have there’s nothing wrong with taking time for yourself and over time as you question these kinds of beliefs. You will find that you can come home or go to your room or take time for yourself and feel less and less guilty about it.

So the feeling I’m left with today is that there’s a balance in being understanding of other people’s needs as well as being understanding of your needs. And I find this, if I can keep this balance in mind, it helps me navigate the challenges of. Taking time for myself. In this episode, we looked at why HSPs need more personal space than others to stay balanced.

And that’s because we receive so much input. We’re like that sensitive seismograph that notices everything. And with that much input, we have to have a balanced amount of processing time to process that and be ready for more. We also looked at five ways to reclaim your space without causing more stress in the process.

And I think my favorite one is talking about your direct experience. Just saying, I’m tired if I’m tired, or just saying I just need time for myself. And just being honest and direct about that. And then finally we looked at how to work with guilt if it comes up. When you’re retreating to your own space, and if you notice that we talked about finding the thoughts that you’re believing and it’s usually needing someone’s approval or needing them to like it or something like that, or that they should be put first.

And when you question these thoughts, it can start to open up a state of more freedom so that you can actually enjoy the rest. And get what you need and then come back out, feeling refreshed. So thanks for listening. It’s always great to explore with you. This program comes out three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Join me next time for Breakthrough Mondays, where I share success stories and helpful insights for highly sensitive people on the path towards inner freedom.