[LISA LEWIS] The Am I Ok? Podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Faith Fringes, the Holistic Counseling Podcast, and Beta Male Revolution, go to the website, www.practiceofthepractice.com/network. Welcome to the Am I Ok? Podcast, where you will discover that being highly sensitive is something to embrace and it’s actually a gift you bring to the world. We will learn together how to take ownership of your high sensitivity, so you can make positive changes in your life, in the lives of others, and it’s totally okay to feel this way. I’m your host, Lisa Lewis. I’m so glad you’re here for the journey. Welcome to today’s episode of the Am I Ok? Podcast. I’m your host, Lisa Lewis. Thank you so much for tuning in. I would like to remind my listeners that I offer a free eight-week email course titled Highly Sensitive People. My email course provides weekly tools that help you feel more whole in a world isn’t exactly made for us and I show you how your sensitivity can be seen as a unique gift and how many others are just like you. To find out more about my email course. Please go to my website, amiokpodcast.com. During the month of February, my podcast episodes will be focusing on HSPs and love with today’s theme, talking about a loving, sensitive marriage. So, wow, I can’t wait to get started. Today’s guest on the show is Hannah Brooks. Hannah is a highly sensitive person, love expert and marriage coach and host of Highly Sensitive Happily Married Podcast. She helps sensitive women put it in to all the upset in their marriage and be the most lovable, loving, powerful version of themselves so they can have the light, connected, nourishing relationship they really want with their partner, one that gets better by the day. Welcome to the show. Hannah, [HANNAH BROOKS] Thank you, Lisa. It’s an honor, and a pleasure to be here with you. [LISA] Well, it’s so wonderful to have you on, and I’m really excited and waiting to hear about the information you’re going to be providing us about a loving, sensitive marriage; and me, myself being in a marriage and being highly sensitive, and I’d have to say my partner is non-HSP but a little bit HSP [HANNAH] That’s like my husband too. Same. I describe him the same way. [LISA] So before we get started on the topic, I like to ask all my guests that I have on this show, can you share about how you came to know that you were highly sensitive? [HANNAH] Yes, I’d love to. I actually heard the term highly sensitive probably when I was in late high school or early college. It didn’t really register. I mean, sort of it was like, oh yes, that sounds like me, but I dismissed it. It wasn’t until over a decade, well, over a decade later when I went through a divorce that I realized, oh my gosh, I don’t know where I saw it at first or where it came back into my awareness, this idea of high sensitivity, but it like clarified for me all the, it was clearly to me like a light bulb moment of being, oh, this is why my marriage was so hard. It was actually incredibly liberating to find that out. So it was really just like looking back at my marriage and seeing all these things. I could trace it to both of us being highly sensitive. So many of the common, the things that we as highly sensitive people tend to struggle with, particularly when we don’t understand that we’re highly sensitive or how to honor and work with. [LISA] I love that. And I was noticing as you’re talking about your previous marriage and you were laughing about it and I was, can you share about the laughter? [HANNAH] Yes, that’s interesting. I guess I don’t look at my divorce as a terrible thing. It was such a journey of learning and self-discover and actually being able to move into where I am now in my life, which is like super happily married, doing work that I love. It’s all about love, and I have an amazing relationship with my ex. So there’s just no hard feelings. It’s easy to think about that time with I guess with laughter as you just heard. [LISA] That’s really touching and you’re just really hopeful for anyone that maybe be struggling with their marriage or thinking about divorce, that it doesn’t have to end or you don’t like each other, you could still be friends or connected in some way. [HANNAH] Totally. [LISA] So you say HSPs make amazing partners and actually have some of the best marriages possible once they understand their challenges and learn to work with them and their trait. So what are some of the challenges that the trait of high sensitivity brings to marriages? [HANNAH] Yes, well, over the years we came with clients and reflecting on my own self and other highly sensitive people that are in my sphere. I’ve noticed that there’s quite a few things that can present as challenges, well sort of arising from our trait, but I did want to specifically point out the common ones that I see regularly. And I think of these as combining some experiences or challenges in so many of marriages. The highly sensitive marriages. Obviously, that could be like you and I were both or one partner is sensitive and the other is not or both partners are sensitive. So the five things are as highly sensitive people, we tend to be easily over stimulated or stressed. I won’t go into too many, like why this is a challenge, but clearly, I like to say when emotions are high intelligence is low, meaning emotional intelligence is low. Meaning we get cut out of our heart. We’re not connected to our best parts when we’re stressed out and overstimulated. That’s one. The second one is we have a tendency to notice what’s wrong or missing. This is the negativity bias of the brain and we all, as humans have it, but highly sensitive people we might call, you may have heard people use the term hyper vigilant when it comes to highly sensitive people. It’s just because like, with that part of the species that has meant to be looking out for danger and threats, and we’ve been an essential part of the species. It’s helped the species survive. But I think there can be this antenna a little bit stronger than in maybe non-highly sensitive people that is on the lookout for what’s wrong or missing. So this can be challenging in a marriage. [LISA] Yes. I can say I agree with both of those two examples that you just gave. I can identify with both of those. [HANNAH] And I think actually they’re part and parcel of the same thing. Like when we’re stressed or overstimulated, we then naturally see more of what’s wrong or missing. The negativity bias kicks in harder so that’s interesting. Another one is we tend to be really conscientious and caring, which is a beautiful thing, but what we often do in relationships, and this is not just sensitive people, but we tend to put, we want other people to be more like us as human beings. So when we’re really conscientious and caring, we as sensitive people, we can oftentimes tend to think our partner should be the same and to the same degree and in the same way that we are. This can lead to disappointment, frustration, resentment. The fourth one that I wanted to offer today is, and actually this is probably more where we’re going to going to go today, that I want to focus more on today is we have this tendency to not value our own amazingness nearly enough, or as much as we could. This is oftentimes just because we’ve picked up on the message that something’s wrong with us or that we’re different and the black sheep. This has some big consequences in our marriages, which I’ll actually get into in a minute. Then the last that I wanted to share today was we feel things more intensely, which can be beautiful and can have its challenging aspects. We feel hurt more easily. We feel frustration, any of the emotions, we feel them more deeply. If we haven’t learned how to, what I call steward our emotions and care our emotions and guide our emotions, we can end up stewing in our emotions or reacting out of them. So, I mean, I think all of these things together can lead to us feeling like lot’s going wrong in our partnership, with ourselves, with our partner, with our relationship. And just again, like feeling a lot of that heavy heart emotion. [LISA] Yes. I’m just listening to you and I’m going, oh yes, that’s me. I do that thing. My partner does that thing too. Anyway, just working with HSPs myself and just, sometimes I think it just comes down to not feeling valued and all of these things that we attribute as gift feel so wrong with us, feel it inside ourselves. We feel so deeply. We just want to be really accepted for who we are. And I just find in this, our society, maybe our Western culture society it’s extroversion is so much easier. It seems like to fit in. When you’re not that way, and maybe you have to learn or push yourself to put yourself out there. I think it comes with a handicap and it doesn’t feel maybe so good inside and then we don’t feel like we show up authentically really deep down in our heart. We just want to be authentic and just accept who we are. So I know for me, it’s taking probably most of my life just to realize that and to be able to accept who I am, and this is what this is, maybe this is the way I show up. And I guess you don’t, like it then maybe this is not a good relationship or friendship to have. [HANNAH] I can hear you’ve done some work there, like learning how to accept what I call insource your value, validate yourself. And I think that’s sort of a skill that is just never taught. So most of us haven’t learned it. All these things that I’ve been sharing, a lot of them and can lead to trying to get that validation from outside of ourselves. I think that oftentimes can look like, sometimes it even looks like being critical or judgmental or nitpicky or shutting down and going into withdrawal mode or, of course, getting our feelings hurt, easily taking things personally. Like you were just saying, feeling generally unloved and not valued enough, or like our partner just doesn’t care. I hear that a lot. I don’t feel important to him. He doesn’t, I don’t matter to him. And I think a lot of that, it doesn’t, none of this leads to, it can lead to more conflict. Or even a partner who also doesn’t feel like he can do anything right or feels like he has to walk on eggshells. Then this tendency to miss all the good that actually is here, like the ways that our partner actually is loving us and showing up for us and admiring us and even ultimately overlooking what we love about our partner. [LISA] Yes. And it just doesn’t create connection. Maybe both people are wanting connection and it’s this like driving them in their own ways, separate ways. [HANNAH] Yes, totally. [LISA] So how can, HSPs bring out their best parts and make high sensitivity an asset in their marriage? [HANNAH] I love it. I totally like it. High sensitivity for all you listening is absolutely an asset in our marriages. I know it might have just sounded like it’s not but I really want to be clear about that. Hopefully our discussion today will help people get that more deeply. [LISA] Well I think we had to address maybe what’s not working and maybe people can identify it and then like, okay, now let’s look at the good part of what is working and what you can look forward to or be hopeful for. [HANNAH] Yes. Yes, I think we’ll probably get to talking about seeing that asset, that we are a sensitive people in our marriages in a few minutes. And I think it’s really, can be enlightening for us to see that. That’s a huge part of what I love helping my clients too. But they’re, so obviously bringing out the best parts of us and making our marriages great as highly sensitive people, there’s a lot of answers to that. And of course it depends on the unique person and I talk a lot about it in different aspects in my own podcast. But one area that I, again, this area that I’d love to dive into today is what I call, one thing we can all learn to do is what I call insourcing validation. In other words, that really just means like developing the skill to feel really deep down good about ourselves without needing the proof of it always from outside ourselves. Like from partners. [LISA] I love that. Can you give some examples of that? [HANNAH] Like what insourcing validation actually looks like? [LISA] Yes. Maybe like, are there particular words that you use at a certain time? [HANNAH] Yes. I mean, there’s so many different ways to do it. Again, it’s unique to us as individuals. I will share some more things that people can like, I’ll tell you details in just a minute. I think that I would love to, but as a quick example, it might be, it might simply be telling ourselves instead of like, Ugh, I’m less than, that’s one of those things or I’m not important to him. It might not, instead of telling ourselves that it might be like, maybe he’s distracted right now and of course I’m important. Something so simple. [LISA] I know. Just wondering how come we don’t think of that just on our own? [HANNAH] I mean, I think that’s one of the things I hear so often, like I said earlier, like this, I don’t matter to him and I’m not important, in the old refrain of I’m not good enough. Well, these aren’t facts, these are thoughts going through your head. It’s learning to catch our thoughts like that and tell ourselves different stories. So that’s a big piece of it. Of course, it’s easier to do when you can really see how valuable you are as a sensitive person. And I just like, I want to, I want to emphasize how important it is to feeling good about her, like how important it’s to feel good about ourselves in our relationships. Because it helps us feel more safe and relaxed about who we are. It helps us speak up and be ourselves. It helps us communicate clearly. It helps us set boundaries, which is HSPs is important. If we don’t feel good about ourselves, we might try to people-please and accommodate other people and not set those boundaries that are going to really help us take care of ourselves. It helps us, I call see clearly instead of through the negativity bias. Does that make sense? So we’re not always interpreting the things our partner does like, I’m not important. If we know we’re important and we’re not going to constantly see that we’re not important. We’re not going to read into his actions. If he forgot to call and he said he would, we’re not going to be like, oh no, I’m just not important to him. I think also when we’re able to feel really good about ourselves. It just allows us to access, like, it’s the opposite of what I said before about when emotions are strong, intelligence is low. It’s when we’re feeling good about ourselves and we’re feeling strong and peaceful inside of ourselves, we’re actually going to be able to access our brilliantly emotional, emotionally intelligent minds and hearts and show up with that compassion and love and admiration and acceptance and respect with our partner and of course, ourselves. Then, and it’s also, from there, we’re able to see that the love is there and really be able to take it in and feel it. Is that making sense? [LISA] It is making sense. And I’m wondering, as I’m listening to you, and I’m just thinking maybe about my own relationship or just other people I work with the focus, I hear like the focus, HSPs are so attuned to other people and then the focus, maybe the majority of the focus is identify with the other person and then they lose sight of themselves. Is that making sense to you? Then they maybe forget who they are as a person, because they’re so focused on the other. [HANNAH] Yes, totally. I mean, I see that a lot and I do think it ties back to what we’re talking about. It’s like I mean, there’s so many reasons that that might go on. I don’t, I think oftentimes it’s more of like, where I often see it is, some of it comes from genuine love and care for the other people and just forgetting of doing, having that same relationship with ourselves, that same care for ourselves. But some of it also comes from exactly what I’m talking about, which is like wanting that approval, wanting to show up in a really great way with the other person so that they approve of us, so that if they validate us; like give and give and give so that we are liked. And this is the exact thing. Like it sometimes comes from there and comes from that place of like, needing what I call outsourcing validation instead of insourcing it. [LISA] I love that. So how do we put in, and to the issue of not valuing ourselves? I know you just gave an example of that instead of outsourcing and insourcing validation for ourselves. [HANNAH] I love it. So I think one of the important things is just to understand, well, for one that our value is in need and other people can’t make it more or less their thoughts about us. But also to understand that, I think first, it’s important to understand where that comes from, where this idea that we need, how do I say this. We’re like not feeling valuable comes from it. Understanding that helps to then move on to being able to enforce it. So again, it’s like exactly what you were saying earlier. I know we’ve picked up the message probably since we were little, little people, when people start around us, our parents, our family, our culture, our teachers, whoever started noticing like, oh, she’s different, she’s too sensitive. She’s too emotional. We started to hear that. At least most of us did. Or if not, like the words you are too much, or you are too emotional, you probably pick up on, like people see in you is different. It was, in other words, like not feeling good about ourselves was taught to us to our culture, because our doesn’t yet fully recognize and celebrate sensitive people for our strengths. It actually does the opposite. So we’ve just kind internalized that. So many of us have, that we aren’t to par, that we are too touchy, that we’re too sensitive. That we’re not, like you were talking about the extroverted super popular person maybe. So we internalize that and then we just keep sending ourselves that same message. We see it in the world outside us. We see it. I don’t know if you’ve talked about or like the confirmation bias. [LISA] No, I haven’t. Can you share that with us? [HANNAH] So basically the confirmation bias is one of the ways our brain works a bias in our human brains. Basically what it does is it makes it like what we believe we see. What we believe inside of ourselves, like in this case, when we believe we are not good enough, we’re not valuable, we’re going to see that reflected back to us. Our brain’s going to go looking for evidence for how that’s true. If we believe we’re not important, we’re going to see our husband, again, that example of him not calling or him forgetting to take out the trash or him not saying, “I love you” for a few days. We’re going to then make that mean we’re not important, we’re not being valued, not being important. [LISA] I can see how that can play out in work settings too. You can be overlooked for promotions or projects because you’re not maybe the one that speaks up or you are, you do a good job, you’re productive, you have results, but maybe you’re not the one that is extroverted. [HANNAH] Yes, totally. It might often be in those work settings. It’s not that you couldn’t speak up or you don’t have good ideas. It’s just you’re not recognizing that your ideas are just as valuable and just as important and just as good to actually share them. [LISA] Can you share some of those gifts, that least sensitive women and people bring? [HANNAH] Yes, totally. This is what insourcing validation is. It’s like choosing to look for what’s good in us, what is wonderful about us? Like purposefully focusing our lenses right on that. It’s really important to be able to give ourselves permission to do this but I think so often people are uncomfortable looking at what’s good in them and bringing that to the forefront of their awareness because we’ve been taught that’s egotistical. [LISA] Right. [HANNAH] But I call it clear scene, really being willing to look at what’s amazing about me? What’s amazing about being sensitive? What is valuable? There are so many things. I know you’re, I’m sure you’re so aware of all that, so many things. But we really do have so much to bring and offer and so much to be loved for in all settings and definitely when it comes to relationships and marriages. So one thing I love for people to just start with is actually thinking about what the word sensitive really means. If you look it up, there’s all sorts of definitions but the one that I look at when looking with my sourcing validation eyes is it means responsive, aware, compassionate, attentive, quick to detect or respond to slight changes or signals. Perceptive. In tune. Having one of the official definitions is having or displaying a quick and delicate appreciation of others’ feelings. Which there’s a lot of empathy and understanding and care. And all of these things are really, actually love enhancing. They’re great for our love lives in the world in general. And one thing I believe fiercely is that we, as sensitive people have so much of what the world lacks. Our world, if we don’t all just look out there, like we read the news. What we can see is the world needs more sensitivity if more people were paying attention to subtleties, if more people were coming from a place of empathy and care, being aware of each other’s feelings, being conscientious, being perceptive. The world needs these things and more like appreciation and consideration of others. [LISA] Sure does. They make great leaders too. [HANNAH] I mean, all of these things are just really innate in us, especially when we’re not like stressed out and thinking we’re not such good people. I think of us as leaders of love in our world. [LISA] Oh, I love that, leaders of love in the world. That’s beautiful. [HANNAH] I think when we were, that’s like one of the things we were born for. I mean, on top of that, some of the other specifics for what I call like leading love in marriages and insourcing validation, some of the assets that we have in a marriage is we really tend to be great at listening. We can be really calming, grounding presence. And this can be really nourishing to our partner. We tend to be creative and dynamic, which makes us interesting and fascinating people to spend to, for others to spend their life with. [HANNAH] We’re also really good at processing. We love that processing, that talking things out and going over challenges and sort of working towards deeper connection. I see this all the time in my clients and that’s a beautiful thing. It allows us to access insights and solutions that are going to take a relationship to a richer, deeper level. And just to throw one or two more, our capacity for feeling deeply. Sometimes it can be challenging and cause some challenges but it’s also what I like to think of as, to doubt to the numbness that so often people find themselves in long-term relationships. It also means we experience love and joy intensely. Having these deep emotions we get to experience the love and the joy and all that really deeply. Then we bring that to our relationship and we bring that wherever we go. [LISA] Do you find that there can be like two extremes, because HSPs love so deeply, so there’s this intensity where it, and there can be the positive intensity and then the negative intensity. And I’m wondering like, how do you find maybe that balance in between those two? [HANNAH] So what do you mean by the negative intensity? [LISA] Well, if you’re not valuing yourself or you’re seeing more negative and then that can be really intense. Then if you swing to the other side of the pendulum and you’re really in, like it’s intense, this positivity, which is very healing, but it can feel like maybe too much to the other partner, so finding that balance where it’s maybe, I think I’d say more of a smooth or easier swing than so high to each side of the pendulum. [HANNAH] That’s an interesting yes. I think that this is where the piece about really learning how to work, again, I call it emotional stewardship or emotional agency. It’s where we learn how to not only support ourselves through these harder moments of emotion. Insourcing validation is one of the ways we do that because we usually go to that negative extreme, not always because of this, but oftentimes it has to do with a little bit of not knowing how to insource that validation. So we might go down the rabbit hole of negative emotions. So learning how to support ourselves there and through that, and guide ourselves back over to that other place. There’s so much. There’s lots of different ways we can do that. Then I was just interested in what you said about maybe being too much, almost like the opposite side of that pendulum swing. I think that’s where we just like, because we’re good at being responsive, we might pick that up. Like, oh, if we’re smothering our partner or being like too caring, we might notice. Then we can just be like self-aware. I call it sensitively aware and just recalibrate. But if we’re not, if we are really good at insourcing validation, we’re not going to make that into, I guess going to be no big deal if for some reason they’re like not meeting us or able to be excited when we’re so joyous and loving towards them. That makes sense? [LISA] That makes sense. Yes. [HANNAH] We’re so good at reading them too. So from that place, if we’re rooted in this place of really valuing ourselves for one, we’re not going to swing to that lower, hard part of the pendulum as deeply, and we’re not going to have problems at the other end either. [LISA] That’s a good point. That makes sense. [HANNAH] I do, if people are interested in hearing more, I think there’s so much more to be discovered in what, sometimes I think when we’ve been walking around for so much of our life, not recognizing how amazing we are as highly sensitive people, it can be hard to start seeing that. And I think that’s one why one reason I wanted to share these truths about highly sensitive people and why I tend to do a lot of this is like create a lot of things that helps highly sensitive people see and really own how amazing they are. So I have, like many podcast episodes, but in my Highly Sensitive, Happily Married Podcast, in episode one through three, I dive into this more deeply. I also, on episode 46, I talk about what I call the sensitive love revolution. It goes into some depth on this too. [LISA] Those would be great to check out. [HANNAH] My goal is, one of my big goals is helping all highly sensitive people learn how to really feel amazing about themselves because we are leaders and we are amazing, and we are here to offer so much to the world, to our marriages, but to the world. We do that naturally and much more effortlessly and more joyously with more rooted and feeling great about ourselves. [LISA] So what is the most important thing you want our listeners to take away? [HANNAH] I think what’s coming to my mind is knowing that you, to be able to feel this amazing, to feel really good about yourself and value yourself in this way, which is going to change and improve so much in your relationship and even in your work life and your friend life and everything; is knowing that it’s the conscious choice. It’s actually like something we have to choose to do deliberately because it’s been, the opposite’s been feeling like it’s just happened to us all our life. We’re also probably very used to thinking of ourselves in a way that isn’t so great, that doesn’t insource validation. So it requires like a conscious choice and just like one day at a time, choosing on purpose to see the value that you are. [LISA] I love that message, just to really value who you are and to really own it and feel it within yourself and see if you can work with those other messages that throughout your life that maybe didn’t feel so good and see if you can enjoy maybe the rest of your life feeling better about yourself and your relationship. [HANNAH] Yes, totally. I think it, I just wanted to say one more thing; that all brings back the title, like a loving, sensitive marriage. Hey, it’s like, we’re able to show up with our most beautiful gifts of sensitivity and even patiently support our partner in moving towards more sensitivity with us when we are rooted in this sense of internal validation value. [LISA] I just love that. So where can listeners get in touch with you? [HANNAH] So again, you can all check out my podcast, Highly Sensitive, Happily Married, which is all the places you would find a podcast. You can also find me at my website, which is www.lifeisworthloving.com. Those are the best places. I’m also on Instagram at Hannah Brooks Love Coach. [LISA] Thank you so much for coming on the show to today and sharing all of your expertise and wisdom on the loving, sensitive marriage for highly sensitive people, Hannah. [HANNAH] You’re so welcome, Lisa. Thanks so much for having me. It’s been fun. [LISA] Thank you my listeners for tuning in today. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review wherever you get your podcast. To find out more about highly sensitive persons, please visit my website at amiokpodcast.com and subscribe to my free-eight week email course to help you navigate your own sensitivities and show you that it’s okay to not take on everyone else’s problems. This is Lisa Lewis reminding each and every one of you that you are okay. Until next time be well. Thank you for listening today at Am I Ok? Podcast. If you are loving the show, please rate, review and subscribe to it on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you’d like to learn how to manage situations as a highly sensitive person, discover your unique gift as a highly sensitive person, and learn how to be comfortable in your own skin, I offer a free eight-week email course called Highly Sensitive People. Just go to amiokpodcast.com to sign up. In addition, I love hearing from my listeners, drop me an email to let me know what is on your mind. You can reach me at lisa@amiokpodcast.com. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want to professional, you should find one.