Transcript
00:00:00Hello, friends. I'm bringing a brand new live show across the UK and Ireland this October.
00:00:05It's stories, psychology, audience Q&As, and whatever happens when thousands of overthinkers
00:00:09voluntarily leave the house and end up in the same room together. I'd love to see you there.
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00:00:26Why did you get interested in researching emotionally sensitive people?
00:00:30Because I am an emotionally sensitive person. And I think also just from my body of work,
00:00:36seeing patients, you just start to see patterns of people becoming more or falling into the pattern
00:00:45of being emotionally sensitive. And what does that look like? What's the experience of life like for
00:00:49someone who's an emotionally sensitive person? You know, I think it's different for each person,
00:00:54but I think one of the bigger overarching things is that these are the people who feel things quickly,
00:01:01deeply, and for a long time.
00:01:03Okay. What would be the sort of way that they spend their days? Like they're going about their day,
00:01:08what will be some of the habits, some of the mental experiences that they go through?
00:01:13Yeah. So I think a lot of times people with emotional sensitivity, because they're taking in so much
00:01:18emotional data, they are overanalyzing every interaction and reading it for,
00:01:25am I doing something weird? Is this other person doing something weird? Are you mad at me?
00:01:29They're just interpreting and reevaluating every single interaction, which takes up a lot of
00:01:35brainpower throughout the day.
00:01:38The other thing that they do is you see a tremendous amount of time spent where you're
00:01:43already predicting that that could be an issue. So they are changing their behavior,
00:01:47they're masking behavior, they're overcompensating for certain things. So there's work that's being
00:01:53done within interactions on a day-to-day basis, and there's stuff that they're also anticipating
00:01:58these possible interactions.
00:01:59Oh, that's interesting. So even silence and in preparation, people are interpreting that
00:02:05with a particular lens as well. Right? That's interesting. What about criticism? What's the
00:02:11relationship like with criticism?
00:02:13I don't think anybody in the universe likes criticism. But I think when you look at
00:02:17rejection-sensitive dysphoria, which is a neurological phenomenon we're talking about,
00:02:22it is this robust emotional, sometimes physical response to rejection or criticism. So it's not
00:02:31just like, okay, that happened and that really hurt my feelings and that sucks. It's, I feel like
00:02:37the air has been pushed out of my lungs. I don't know if I can recover from this. And it becomes this
00:02:43thing that instead of being like, okay, well, I'm chewing on this and it's annoying, it becomes this
00:02:49thing that consumes them. And can it be as significant as to look like a major depressive
00:02:54episode?
00:02:54Hmm. It feels like a fear of disappointing other people is kind of quite central to this.
00:03:01Yeah, it can be.
00:03:02Right. Why?
00:03:03I think it stems from this fear of rejection or criticism. So if you're going to disappoint someone,
00:03:10you don't want the other person to be upset with you. You don't want them to reject you. You don't
00:03:14want them to think badly of you. You don't want them to criticize you. And so you're dealing
00:03:19with this very complicated phenomenon that's coming at you. All of these emotions happening
00:03:24at once and you're trying to process them in real time.
00:03:27Is rejection sensitive dysphoria the same thing as being a highly sensitive person? Is there
00:03:31something like sufficient, but necessary, but not sufficient in here?
00:03:35Well, okay. So here's my deal. So highly sensitive person, I mean, I think that was a,
00:03:40it's not a clinical term, but that, that came about, um, years and years ago. Um, and it's
00:03:47talking about highly sensitive to everything. So not just emotions, but sounds, lights,
00:03:52everything you're sensitive to.
00:03:55When I talk about rejection sensitive dysphoria, I'm putting that on a spectrum of emotional
00:04:01sensitivity. So in terms of, there are some people that, you know, emotions and emotional
00:04:07data doesn't impact them that tremendously on a day-to-day basis. And they kind of roll along
00:04:12their day and maybe it could be a little bit off median where they're like, you probably
00:04:17could look forward to being a little bit more emotional. Um, there's people who, you know,
00:04:23this, they have healthy ups and downs. And then there are other people who emotional data
00:04:27can just sync them with things which might be completely out of proportion to what the stimulus
00:04:33is happening.
00:04:34Right. Okay. So when you've got highly sensitive people, they might be highly sensitive to emotions,
00:04:38but also light, sound, uh, busyness, chaos, et cetera. RSD rejection, sensitive dysphoria.
00:04:48Yes.
00:04:48Is specifically an emotional, uh, angle that we're looking at here. Why the word rejection
00:04:54sensitive? Why not emotionally sensitive dysphoria?
00:04:57That's a good question. I think, uh, you know, this, this term was coined by, uh, Dr. William
00:05:02Dodson, who was brilliant and brought this up. And I think when he was looking at that kind
00:05:07of longitudinal data with patients, a lot of them were responding to that rejection and that
00:05:13criticism that would trigger this kind of profound emotional response. Um, so I think those are two
00:05:21really big cases that it could happen, but you know, I think we need to start expanding and talking about
00:05:27emotional sensitivity just in general, because then you can start talking about emotional dysregulation.
00:05:33And that really, I think becomes one of the things that we have been missing talking about with ADHD
00:05:38and anxiety and things like that for years and years and years.
00:05:40Okay. Why does social rejection hurt so much?
00:05:43Hmm. How much time do you have?
00:05:48It's one of those things that, you know, you look at, um, there are many different reasons
00:05:54that this is so painful. Neurobiologically, there is inherently a dopamine imbalance. So what's
00:06:02happening is that your brain already is, you know, struggling to emotionally regulate. So something
00:06:09happens and instead of being like, okay, we can work with this. It's just that you're shot down and you're
00:06:16right now, then you get suspended in this low mood, highly anxious mood where you're spinning and chewing
00:06:21on this for hours and hours. Another reason this happens is that people who are highly emotionally
00:06:26sensitive, a lot of times there are two areas of the brain that are really impacted by this. The first
00:06:31one is the amygdala, which is your threat receptor. So that in this, in these cases is very highly attuned to
00:06:39picking up emotional data. So your brain is picking up this seemingly negative data. And then the frontal
00:06:47lobe, which is in charge of judgment and processing and decision making, which should be able to be
00:06:51like, this isn't that big of a deal. That isn't as active. So now you have this highly active threat
00:06:57receptor and this poorly responsive frontal lobe. And you're just, you're, that emotional train is
00:07:05running away. Right. So, okay. Explain to me the underlying neuroscience of why emotional sensitivity
00:07:14exists. Like what is happening inside of the brain of somebody that is an emotionally sensitive person?
00:07:19So I think it depends on a lot of things. The first one is what I talked about, like that highly
00:07:24responsive amygdala and that poorly responsive frontal lobe. You have, you know, you feel things
00:07:30before you actually think about them logically. The second thing is dopamine dysregulation.
00:07:37Dopamine is that thing that helps you. It's very multifaceted. It helps with many different
00:07:42things. But when you feel things, you're less able to regulate because of that.
00:07:47What's happening with the dopamine? Are these people with high dopamine baseline,
00:07:51with a low dopamine baseline, with a low catecholamine clearance, like what's going on?
00:07:54So I want to say low, but it's not, it's not as simple as that. It's that there's not enough
00:08:00dopamine at the right place at the right time. So what would that do if they had that dopamine,
00:08:05it would help them to be able to weather the ups and downs? Regulate better.
00:08:09Right. Okay. So, you know, the COM-T variant. Okay. So I'm COM-T AA, right? So I've got two copies of it.
00:08:15Okay. And a bunch of others that come along,
00:08:18polymorphisms that come along with that similarly. That means that for me, if stuff's chaotic,
00:08:22it's really hard for me to focus. But if things are a little bit more predictable and less ambiguous,
00:08:28it's hard to get me to stop. So for me, environment design is really important.
00:08:32Yeah. But it also means I had this really great interaction with ChatGPT where I sent my genetic
00:08:38data to it and had a conversation with it and said, "Hey, imagine you know nothing about me. Tell me
00:08:42what sort of a person you think I would be just based on my genetic data." And it came back with
00:08:46all of these really interesting insights. And one of the things that it said was you would make a great
00:08:51detective and a horrible SWAT operator that someone who is in a relatively controlled environment focused
00:08:59on one quite complex task. Great. Someone who's got these big peaks and troughs of intensity and then
00:09:06has to come back down and then has to do it again. That is worse for me because my ability to sort of
00:09:11clear off a lot of the adrenaline and the catecholamine. So that is what I was thinking about when it comes
00:09:15to the dopamine side of things that some people are able to be airplanes, as Stantat can cause them,
00:09:21they can sort of go up and down quite quickly, but they have less depth. And some people are submarines,
00:09:25which is that they have way more depth, but it takes some time to come back up. So that was what
00:09:28was interesting about the dopamine thing. But keep going. So you've got the dopamine side.
00:09:33The dopamine side, you have the norepinephrine side, which is like fueling that very physical
00:09:37response. So it's not, a lot of times with this rejection sensitivity, it's not just,
00:09:43I feel bad that something bad happened. It's, I can't breathe. I feel like my ribs hurt. I'm
00:09:50feeling chest pain. I'm feeling, like a lot of times people think that they're having an anxiety
00:09:55attack or they think they're having a heart attack. And it's truly just that rejection sensitivity.
00:09:59And it's because of that surge of norepinephrine that's spilling those alarm chemicals, telling your
00:10:04body that something bad is happening. So your brain at this point, it's not just that your brain is,
00:10:09you're psyching yourself up into like, you know, someone didn't text me back and you know,
00:10:14they must be, you know, it's, they're mad at me or something like that. Your body is telling you
00:10:20that there is a problem. You are panicked. Your heart rate is up. You are sweating. You're tremulous.
00:10:27So you think there's something wrong because your body's responding in that way.
00:10:31So we've talked about dopamine, norepinephrine, you said the amygdala.
00:10:36Yes. Yeah. Um, but imagine that presumably for people, the reason that we have a
00:10:41PFC is in an attempt to be able to control the amygdala. So it has to be the relationship between
00:10:46the two. It's a linkage between the two. There's there, not only are we dealing with a hyperactive
00:10:51amygdala and underactive prefrontal cortex, but the linkage between them is also frayed.
00:10:57Okay. So in this sort of a situation, I guess this would, I'm thinking about the SWAT operator.
00:11:02You know what else comes to mind? Dana White, when he was in the room at the correspondence dinner,
00:11:09where that guy tried to shoot the president and everybody else is sort of ducked down. I don't
00:11:14know whether you've seen this video. Can you try and get the video up of Dana, just say Dana White
00:11:17correspondence dinner reaction. And it's him as an active shooter comes in and you hear the gunshots
00:11:24go off, right? Cause the guy that was the shooter shot a couple of secret service people, and then
00:11:28he gets taken down. Like what's even happening with that guy? Like, do we even know? I'm now I'm
00:11:33interested in whether or not it's another, you know, what's crazy. There's multiple presidential
00:11:38assassins, like just in the legal system at the moment. Has there ever been multiple
00:11:44fucking presidential assassins in the legal system at the same time? Cause the guy in Utah is currently
00:11:50being, uh, like he's, he's, he's in trial at the moment. And then the dude that did the other one,
00:11:56he's also being taken, he's like getting the queue. Um, uh, yeah, this one, this, this, this.
00:12:00The video. So I see if you can find the actual video, dude. It's so again, that's what's happened.
00:12:22This assassin's gone in Dana White's actual reaction when he sat down in the room is
00:12:30everybody else is under the table and he just can't, that all he wants is some, my point being
00:12:35that, uh, amygdala prefrontal cortex thing. Yeah. Obviously the triggering of his fear center
00:12:41hasn't kicked in and he's able to go, isn't this like full access to his ability to think,
00:12:47isn't this interesting? I think this is a memory that would be worth me encoding for a while.
00:12:51I'm having a good time. You know what I mean? I would, I would maybe an underactive amygdala
00:12:56for that guy. That's what I would say too. Yeah. This is it. Look at this. Look at his face.
00:13:06Absolute kid in a candy store, but just having the best time.
00:13:15Actively smiling. Like forget the active shooter, active smiler. Yeah. That's yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So
00:13:24you know what I mean? Like, isn't that an interesting response from somebody else's?
00:13:28I get what you mean. Um, I think that there is like, again, when you look at like just neurophysiology
00:13:35and the brain is so fascinating for so many different reasons, but like when you actually understand
00:13:40what areas of the brain do what and the connections between them, you can see it in human behaviors and
00:13:45patterns. It's wild. What about the limbic system? Yeah. Limbic system. So limbic system is important
00:13:50because that's really talking about like that emotional circuitry in general. And so when you
00:13:56are dealing with big emotional data that may or may not be justified, right? It may, it might just be
00:14:03that you've perceived this rejection or criticism or emotional data coming in. Your limbic system just
00:14:09goes wild areas are lighting up. You're communicating as if like this big emotional response is happening
00:14:15and you're trying to navigate that in real time. Hmm. Is it right to say that some people feel emotions
00:14:21more than others? Yes. Is that a fair assessment? Yes. Okay. What do we mean when we say that? Well,
00:14:26I mean, if you think about like emotions in general, like when you're talking about feeling emotions,
00:14:30you're talking about perceiving them. That's the first step that happens. You're talking about then
00:14:36experiencing them in the moment. And then you're talking about how long you spend on that emotion
00:14:40afterwards. Right. So there are people that, you know, you can walk into a room. You already know
00:14:46something weird is happening. You can feel like an emotional and I, I give the example of like someone
00:14:53walking into a room with like a complicated social interactions all over the place. And they can just,
00:15:00you know, they say to me like something feels off or there's there's something in the air. They say
00:15:05something like that and they're referring to like picking up. So because what they're doing is they're
00:15:09scanning the room. Not only are they listening to words that are coming out at them during immediate
00:15:15conversation, but they're looking at body position. They're looking at tone. They're looking at volume
00:15:20of voice. They're picking up all these different cues, amalgamating them. And, and sometimes for the
00:15:26negative. Yeah. So that it's interesting, the sort of noticing intensity and duration. Yeah. Right.
00:15:33And what we're talking about when it comes to emotional intensity, first off, you have to realize
00:15:37the happening. Then it has to be how big does the feeling feel inside of you? That is how many different
00:15:42cascades occur inside of your brain and body to make you feel it. And then how long is the fall off
00:15:47after that happens? Yes. What's interesting, I suppose, certain people walk into a room,
00:15:52they're hypervigilant, they're paying attention. They realize that this person's turned away a little
00:15:56bit, or they're blinking a bit more, or they don't even know what's happening, but there is just a sense
00:15:59feeling that person doesn't feel too good. I suppose a lot of the time, kind of like a smoke detector
00:16:04principle, those people are going to perceive problems where there are none. And that's when it becomes very
00:16:10maladaptive. It's already kind of maladaptive to just perceive stuff as it is with a level of resolution
00:16:16that's more than everyone else, because the world that most people are in, the center of the bell curve,
00:16:20and then the world that you're in, maybe out toward the tail end, and the world that Dana White's in,
00:16:25out on the other tail end, are kind of different existences. And Dana will miss out on some stuff
00:16:32that I'm sure that it would be great for him to pay a bit more attention to. But then the person who has realized that
00:16:38the auntie over the far side is actually in a mood with the sister or whatever, but they're not,
00:16:44they've got a different type of error. Dana's ignored something, and they've pattern matched
00:16:47something that wasn't actually there. So there's, I suppose, some strengths and weaknesses. All right,
00:16:52I guess, what, when you're thinking about, like, RSD, what other traits does it tend to be bundled in
00:17:02with? Are there other things that tend to come along for the ride?
00:17:07So with, actually, I'm going to go back, because we forgot a huge thing that happens in the brain as
00:17:14well, and that's hormones. We can talk about that later if you want to.
00:17:17And tell me about hormones now.
00:17:18Okay, so I wanted to talk about hormones, because I think when you look at the brain in general,
00:17:25I mean, there is not much else you can look at that would be equivalent to, like, this huge,
00:17:33that has the capacity to kind of change your entire system just globally from top to bottom.
00:17:38And hormones are something so interesting to look at, especially for females, because, like,
00:17:42for women, you're changing every month. You're changing when you're pregnant. You're changing
00:17:47when you're perimenopausal. You're changing when you have a kid. It's just, like, you can have
00:17:52eight different versions of yourself. And with men, I mean, you deal with the hormonal stuff with, like,
00:17:56as their testosterone drops and other things that are happening in real time. So hormones directly
00:18:03impact, like, for example, with estrogen. As your estrogen drops, your dopamine drops as well. And so
00:18:10then you're less able to regulate your emotions and things like that. And that's a huge, huge thing to
00:18:15bring up. It's an important factor in emotional sensitivity and rejection sensitivity, because if for
00:18:21two weeks out of the month, your estrogen level is intrinsically lower, your dopamine level is lower,
00:18:27and it's harder for you to regulate, you're going to be more rejection sensitive, emotionally sensitive
00:18:33during those times. What relationship does testosterone have to emotional sensitivity?
00:18:39Yeah, so testosterone is actually, it can be protective in that front to a degree. It helps you feel alert and
00:18:50awake and might help you emotionally regulate and balance a little bit better. The problem is, is that
00:18:55sometimes as that testosterone drops, as happens, you know, 50s, 60s with males, sometimes you can,
00:19:02because of that drop in testosterone, you can feel this huge rise in emotional sensitivity. And a lot of
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00:20:05Going back to why social rejection hurts so much, right? From an adaptive standpoint, presumably,
00:20:18I'm being kicked out of the tribe. There's only 30 people in my pod out of 150 Dunbar tribe that
00:20:23I'm a part of. If I'm on my own, I'm dead. Why would evolution create a brain that can be so
00:20:29devastated by criticism? I don't know. So here's the deal. I don't think, like if you were to ask me,
00:20:39it would, like you, me, myself, I know that I'm emotionally sensitive. I wouldn't trade that
00:20:45for the world. Yeah, it's really difficult at times to be highly emotionally sensitive, but I think it
00:20:50makes me a better person. I think it makes me a better physician. I think it makes me a better parent.
00:20:55I think it makes me a better partner. I think being able to be highly attuned to emotional data and
00:21:02incoming information can be, it can be one of the greatest signs of emotional intelligence you have.
00:21:10So I think that that's, I wouldn't trade that emotional sensitivity. So yeah, I mean, did evolution
00:21:16make a brain that can be devastated by rejection? I mean, yes, but there's also some positives that come
00:21:24with that. Okay. You talked about hormones there. Yeah. Does RSD look different in men?
00:21:30Um, you want a weird answer for that? Sure. Okay. I, this is my soapbox for this. I think
00:21:39that looking at just, you know, being a psychiatrist and seeing mental health just in general and seeing
00:21:45the progression of mental health, especially as we've talked about it a little bit more,
00:21:48you start to notice patterns. And as you look at male mental health, I think that we have done a huge
00:21:55disservice to men in terms of, we don't educate men and help cultivate with men a lot of information
00:22:04about emotional sensitivity. And as a result for a lot of men, they know how to target a couple of
00:22:10emotions and one of them being anger. So I think for a lot of men, you see men that have, you know,
00:22:17they've been told, you know, just man up. This is not that big of a deal. Don't cry about it. Don't
00:22:22like, they have been forced to suppress emotions, but the only socially acceptable emotion they're
00:22:28allowed to express is anger. I would say that some of that is probably misdirected or confusing signals
00:22:33of maybe emotional sensitivity. What happens when emotionally sensitive
00:22:38boys are told to man up? I mean that, you get really angry dudes.
00:22:43And I mean, it's just such a, like, I think as a parent who has a son, it's weird because,
00:22:52and maybe it's, this is like the mom-son thing that I'm so protective over him. But, you know,
00:22:59you see in other settings and you, you start to really zoom in and you look at how other people are,
00:23:05are bringing up their, their six-year-olds, their six-year-old boys. And even from a young age in
00:23:12the kindergarten class, you know, the way that the girls are treated in the class versus the boys are
00:23:17treated in the class and not by the teacher, right? Like the parents, you look at it in birthday parties,
00:23:21you know, a girl will fall down, they're scooped up, they're, they're coddled, they're told, you know,
00:23:26everything's okay. A boy will fall down and it's like, oh, that's not that big of a deal. You know,
00:23:30let's, let's move on from this. And it's, it just, it doesn't seem like, it's like from Genesis,
00:23:36there's not like a huge spot where they can start to explore and really navigate emotional sensitivity
00:23:44well. Yeah. I think emotionally sensitive women seem to have a bit more latitude and forgiveness
00:23:52to explore that kind of sensitivity than men do, especially as they get into adulthood. Like I,
00:23:57I, you know, I think you're right that it's weird. Anger is such an antisocial emotion.
00:24:02Yeah. Right. It's dangerous. It can be destructive. It's often not wanted by the people that are
00:24:06experiencing it and they don't want the impact of it to happen. Yeah. But anger is for many men
00:24:13more socially acceptable than sadness. And when you think about how antisocial anger is as an emotion,
00:24:19it really goes to show sort of how unaccepted sadness can be. But yeah, you know, we talk a lot
00:24:25online about the importance of getting men to open up. I had a conversation, two conversations this week,
00:24:30talking about male suicide. And in both of them, there is this, I just wish that this guy had reached
00:24:36out. I wish that he talked, but in over 90% of cases where a man takes his own life in the UK,
00:24:41he's already gone to some form of mental health counseling. So it's not just the talking about
00:24:48it thing. It's actually allowing, like giving room for men to be able to feel their feelings.
00:24:53And I think that to be honest, like a lot of the blame, a lot of the work, not blame, a lot of the
00:24:59work here can be laid at other men's feet because everyone says they want their friend to open up.
00:25:05If you're having a bad time that I really need you to talk to me. And this is easy to say after the
00:25:10fact, especially if something really dangerous or devastating has happened. But how many guys
00:25:16are supportive of another man on the internet that's opening up about how much he's struggling,
00:25:21like not to the emotional Overton window of acceptability, which is, you know, things are
00:25:26hard, but I'm getting back in the gym and I'm going to put some muscle on or whatever,
00:25:29like really broken down. And I don't know what to do. I'm alone. I'm broken. I'm
00:25:34I'm lost. I'm devastated. A guy that's crying is aversive to a lot of men and women too.
00:25:42But I'm like, you don't get to say male suicide's a big problem. We need to do more of more for this.
00:25:48Society needs to care more and then take the piss out of a guy who is opening up about his emotions
00:25:54online. I had this idea of man points, which is guys need to accumulate sufficient kind of surplus
00:26:02masculinity in areas like muscularity or strength or success or money or notoriety or women or whatever.
00:26:09And if they've got this bank account reserve of masculinity, they can kind of withdraw from that
00:26:15and then talk about emotions. It's like this special video game unlock that only happens once you've
00:26:20reached a particular level of being a man. Basically, people have a big ick, most of society has a big
00:26:28ick with men talking about deep emotions, especially difficult emotions, but they have far fewer if it
00:26:33comes from a place of prestige than one of poverty. A guy who's already down on his luck and might not have
00:26:40much going for him talking about how much things are hurting doesn't get the same kind of sympathy
00:26:46that Chris Bumstead, six-time Olympia world champion, one of the most muscular guys on the planet,
00:26:51that he gets. He can cry and talk about how he broke down in his girlfriend's arms six weeks
00:26:55before he's about to win the world championship because he's got all of these trappings and trimmings
00:27:00of masculinity that make it seem like it's not coming from a place of weakness, it's coming from a place
00:27:05of strength. But again, Chris doesn't need the same kind of support because he's already got a
00:27:12community around him of a supportive wife and all of these successes that are continuing to move him
00:27:17down the track. The people that really need it are the guys that kind of don't have anything going
00:27:21for them and they're presumably going to be the biggest risk as well. But yeah, that's my that's my
00:27:25soapbox as well to just I really wish that there was more latitude like speaking as a guy that feels
00:27:31feelings. I just I did a full week retreat working exclusively on emotions 12 hours a day for seven
00:27:37days in Northern California last year. Two weeks ago, I just did a Jhana meditation retreat, which is
00:27:42exclusively working on conductivity of emotions, a silent meditation retreat for seven days, like sitting
00:27:48on the cushion for I know six or eight hours a day. So that was like both of those things for me and me
00:27:54trying to get below the neck me trying to move away from a lot of the
00:28:03judge not even judgment like felt scrutiny and existing patterns of how is this going to show up
00:28:11in the world? Can I operate this way inside of my business? Is this something that I can do that's
00:28:15publicly acceptable? It's like it doesn't you can go and work on this thing in isolation and then come
00:28:19back. But yeah, I I know what it's like to be a really sensitive kid growing up that didn't have
00:28:26anywhere to put it because you're in a working class blue collar environment or the people around you
00:28:33don't notice or don't have the tools to be able to help. And it can drive you to do really amazing things,
00:28:40but it also creates a bunch of coping mechanisms that mean, huh, I had this weird gift. Like I had this
00:28:46depth of connection that I could have had with the world and I contorted it, alchemized it you could
00:28:52say because it went from something that was a challenge to something that you've turned into
00:28:55something good. Yeah. But it is kind of a denial of a bit of yourself as well at the same time. So
00:29:00that's been this has been a it's one of the reasons I was excited to speak to you because it's a very
00:29:05personal like super interesting topic. I think it's fascinating what a lot of emotionally sensitive
00:29:10people also they go through life and they hide that part of them because there's so much internalized
00:29:15shame about like you're not supposed to be sensitive. You're supposed to be strong. You're supposed to be
00:29:19able to handle stuff. You're I mean male and females like I mean this is something that as a human condition
00:29:26people are are celebrated for like you were able to get on the other side of that adversity like you did so
00:29:31well you didn't complain you didn't do and so like you from a young age you just kind of learn to shut
00:29:37down that part of yourself or become really embarrassed. I remember being like a kid and you
00:29:43know my mom something would happen and it would like hit my ear the wrong way and I I would think that
00:29:49oh my god like I'm so embarrassed or something and I would like go and hide I would like hide under a
00:29:55table or hide in a closet or because I was just like embarrassed and sad and everything happening all at
00:30:02once and eventually I was like this is like young like eight I was like this is not conducive for me
00:30:09moving forward not functioning well yeah this is I can't do that when I'm grown up and so then you just
00:30:16start hiding it so if you're emotional or if you're having a hard day you lie about it you're like I'm
00:30:22fine I'm fine I'm fine it's not a big deal I don't want to talk about it or and sometimes I would be
00:30:27like I don't want to talk about it with other people because I'll cry and that'll prove that
00:30:31I'm emotionally sensitive and so I I hear that story a lot as well. The insight that suppression isn't
00:30:37the same thing as strength yeah is I don't know kind of kind of world-changing that what you're doing
00:30:44if you're an emotionally sensitive person that's swallowing them down is you're performing the role
00:30:51of somebody who's got composure yeah but that's not the same as having composure that's not the same
00:30:56you're performing the role of somebody that hasn't felt the thing that's not the same as no not feeling
00:31:00the thing no and you've got this line the real challenge lies in not feeling deeply but in living
00:31:05in a world that doesn't always know how to support that sensitivity that's a good quote it's a great
00:31:12it's it's a great line it really is the real challenge lies not in feeling deeply but in living
00:31:17in a world that doesn't always know how to support that sensitivity yeah yeah the world feels very
00:31:22spiky every time I come back from retreat I always feel like everything is so tender I know and then what
00:31:30what you get to see is how operating in a world that's incredibly intense very chaotic fast moving
00:31:38you have to create these strange patterns and coping mechanisms and wall yourself off and guard yourself
00:31:45just so that you can move through the day and that's fine right you don't want to be a whimpering blob
00:31:49on the floor yeah I don't want to be a puddle I don't want to be a puddle of emotions I want to be able to
00:31:52show up but then also there are bits of your experience that you're denying yourself yeah and there are
00:31:57strengths that you can have that come along for this that's a question what are the strengths of
00:32:01highly sensitive people what are the strengths of people with rejection sensitive dysphoria yeah
00:32:06I think being able again I think that there is a direct pipeline between being highly emotionally
00:32:13sensitive and being highly emotionally intelligent and I think that's just how you deal with that
00:32:17sensitivity and so some of the strengths that can come with that emotional sensitivity are
00:32:23number one you have a deep deep deep understanding of other people's emotional insides and I think that's
00:32:30part of you know what led me into psychiatry in the first place that's part of why I've continued to
00:32:36enjoy it as much as I have because I think that you can intimately understand when people are talking about
00:32:42their experience or like you can even understand you know sometimes I'll have a patient come into my office
00:32:49and you start asking them questions and you know their answer is like I don't know like okay so
00:32:55can you tell me anything in the past two months that has really made you upset I don't know like
00:33:01and so then it's for a lot of people that's like a stone wall you don't really know where to go from
00:33:06there but for some people who are highly emotionally sensitive you're picking up like okay I'm picking up
00:33:11from like previous body cues that they were giving me when they were talking about their family or when
00:33:15they were answering in certain ways you're just like okay well there's some tension there and so
00:33:20you start asking about other questions so you're picking up stuff that you might not even have
00:33:24clocked as it was happening at the time but you've amalgamated and you know exactly what direction to go
00:33:29i think that's an incredibly um wonderful thing to have um and i think that yeah that outside of just
00:33:37psychiatry i think that does make you a good friend it makes you a good partner it makes you a good
00:33:42parent i think it's so helpful with parenting um so i think i think it's just that huge scope of
00:33:49understanding that emotional condition does emotional sensitivity have an impact on people's self-esteem
00:33:57um yes but sometimes it can be negative you know if you're highly emotionally sensitive i think and
00:34:04you're used to reading emotional data negatively sometimes that can start to impact your self-esteem
00:34:11and you're you're walking into a room and you know self-worth and self-confidence are different but
00:34:16you walk into a room and you start to feel like okay maybe i'm not wanted here and things like that and
00:34:21and you're reading emotional information and and possibly attaching a narrative
00:34:27on there that doesn't actually exist that can impact your self-esteem for sure
00:34:32um but there are other times like for example in the work that i do as a psychiatrist because of
00:34:37that emotional sensitivity i'm celebrated for that and i think it's a really unique field to be in
00:34:42as an emotionally sensitive person because that's one of the areas where i get the most validation
00:34:47because people feel like they have been understood for the first time the supplement industry is full
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00:35:40slash modern wisdom and using the code modern wisdom at checkout that's l-i-v-e-m-o-m-e-n-t-o-u-s.com
00:35:46slash modern wisdom and modern wisdom at checkout what's the difference between confidence and self-esteem
00:35:51i think self-esteem is like inherent inherent in like that's that's you confidence is more
00:36:00i think what you're capable of and what you're you know your like your confidence and your skills and
00:36:07what you can do in that moment so confidence i think fluctuates and self-esteem is just
00:36:13self-worth is your base okay does that mean that people with rsd are more likely to need constant
00:36:18reassurance yes right yes it is because i think what what's happening is that they're getting
00:36:26this negative input or potentially it's not actually negative they're reading neutral input is negative
00:36:32yeah positive input is negative yes yeah that's happened too uh but you're reading it as negative
00:36:37and so there are times where you get so stuck in these amygdala loops of fear and your your stress
00:36:44hormones are like just cascading through your body that you're just like i just need someone else to
00:36:50tell me that i'm not like that this isn't actually the case and so it's a it's a form of reality testing
00:36:57do you think that you can build self-esteem without external validation
00:37:01yeah yeah i think so um i think with you know i i guess success is kind of external validation but
00:37:11but doing i think there is stuff that you can work on your self-esteem one of the biggest things to help
00:37:20with self-esteem i think is understanding your own brain because i think if you have this if you are able to
00:37:27destigmatize for yourself like this isn't a personal feeling this is just truly neurobiologically how my
00:37:33brain is working i think that can bolster your self-esteem pretty tremendously does this mean that
00:37:39compliments are hard for these people to believe that somebody pays you a compliment is it quite likely
00:37:44that it's going to be brushed off by someone with rsd sometimes sometimes i think it depends on on
00:37:51how they're receiving it in the moment like and what the what the relationship is with the person
00:37:55like for example if it's a relationship where you know a sibling that's always kind of been a straight
00:38:02broker and they get a compliment you know you might not feel like i don't trust that compliment that's
00:38:07weird if it might be they're already self-conscious about something and they don't know the other
00:38:12person well and they give them a compliment maybe that hits their ear weird because they're already kind
00:38:16of self-conscious about it really depends on where they are in that moment okay but it's possible
00:38:21how does emotional sensitivity show up in relationships um
00:38:29it you sound exasperated i know because it's such a broad question um i think emotional sensitivity
00:38:34plays a role in every relationship like whether you're highly emotionally sensitive or not i think
00:38:39relationships are just kind of this minefield for emotions anyway because for in a very real way
00:38:46you're putting yourself in a spot of vulnerability you are you know i mean theoretically in vulnerability
00:38:53where you're exposing parts of yourself to another person and you're having to navigate those waters
00:39:00and see you know you're really like putting it out there and if the person likes you or doesn't like
00:39:04you you're you're putting yourself out there to possibly receive rejection possibly receive criticism
00:39:10so i think that for a highly emotionally sensitive person can get really tricky um and people i know
00:39:18a lot of people that are highly emotionally sensitive who have rejection sensitive dysphoria who don't want
00:39:24to date anymore they're like this is too hard i can't do that because as soon as there is a delay in texting
00:39:30i've convinced myself that this person isn't isn't interested and i've re-downloaded an app
00:39:36why does waiting for a text feel so unbearable i think it's just that that lack of that immediate
00:39:45answer and that knowledge your brain just fills in a narrative in that empty space and so like for
00:39:50example if they were interested they would respond to me right away if that like i've even had people
00:39:56who have thought and i've thought this in the past if i'm sitting on someone who hasn't texted back
00:40:02my brain will go to well they're with somebody else like they're they're not thinking about me they're
00:40:07with somebody else and like by the time they respond like they got off of their shift i have already
00:40:14moved on like i'm angry with them and then you know it takes a while for me to recalibrate and figure
00:40:20out but that sometimes that's where my brain is gone right so does this mean that anxious people
00:40:25sometimes will sabotage relationships yes before they've even had the chance to be rejected yes how
00:40:32does that show up i mean that was my pattern in all of my 20s like as soon as what would you do be
00:40:37like as soon as people got close enough and i was worried that i was you know like we're getting a
00:40:45little bit too close and now i have to show you actual parts of myself or or i'm i'm afraid that
00:40:51if you know certain parts of myself or you know that i'm really really emotionally sensitive and i
00:40:57overthink absolutely everything that you say you're gonna leave so i'm just gonna end it
00:41:03so i've never been broken up with because ever because i would just like you can't find me i quit
00:41:11yeah i quit i'm out of here so i would just leave before and and it was literally no fault of their
00:41:19own right they would not be the cause of this big fear of abandonment yeah well i mean not even
00:41:26abandonment just like because it wouldn't be abandonment because i would opt i would rather
00:41:31be alone i like but i don't want you to say something negative about me i don't want you to
00:41:37point out something that i already fear about myself i don't want you i don't want you to say
00:41:42those words that you don't want to be with me like i'm fine alone i just don't want you to say that
00:41:47because that would be a judgment on you and that would be you being pushed away yeah i'm fine by
00:41:51myself but i just don't want you to push me away okay like vulnerability hangovers as well after
00:41:56you've opened up having this oh yeah period of time what is vulnerability hangover to me it is and
00:42:04like for so many of my patients it's this period where you feel like you've shared too much and
00:42:09you've been too vulnerable and you have like let in somebody else a little bit into your internal
00:42:15environment and so you've you've cracked that door open so they can see that kind of stuff and so then
00:42:20what my brain does is i just spin and spin and spin and think about like okay well now they know this
00:42:26they probably know this and they probably they're probably thinking that i'm just like a huge weenie
00:42:31and that i can't handle anything and that i you know and that and i think it's like a direct shot
00:42:37from being very vulnerable to being very embarrassed and then pulling away yeah it feels to me like the
00:42:42common thread between a lot of this is not really the feeling of the emotions deeply it's the story that you
00:42:48tell yourself about what those emotions mean and what other people might think about you for having
00:42:53them it's like a lot of shame wrapped up in this at least that's how i'm interpreting it i think i
00:42:59think if you were to look at emotional sensitivity kind of as a spectrum i mean there is a place where you
00:43:04know maybe you're not as emotionally sensitive as you might should be dana white i don't want to say it
00:43:12um then there is a place where you know you're you're ups and down you're kind of regulated up in
00:43:18the middle there's a place where i think you're highly emotionally sensitive and then i think when
00:43:22you move further down that pathologically sensitive yeah i think that's that's more rejection sensitive
00:43:28dysphoria right okay so we're talking about the most sensitive that's what i say okay and and you
00:43:34consider this to be you yeah right okay but you've managed to operate in the world i mean you've chosen
00:43:39a very specific industry to be in yeah right i think this is a this is the thing again if we were to
00:43:45take you at one end of the spectrum and dana white at the other um physiologically also two very
00:43:50different humans um what has happened there which is i guess pretty great like dana white would
00:43:55probably make a horrendous psychiatrist and i don't i don't think that you would be fantastic as
00:44:01the ceo of the ufc a fighting sport you don't know yeah well maybe you might be true but there are
00:44:08dispositions and there are situations that you put yourself into if you were in a relationship with
00:44:12somebody who was go go go doesn't really think about emotions that much isn't able to sit with
00:44:17you in the muck isn't able to hold space that much that would be a bad type of partnership right now
00:44:22i'm sure you can make it work maybe you could even have a flourishing relationship but it would be
00:44:25done by like gritting your teeth and gripping the bar incredibly aggressively yes the same thing for
00:44:30dana white if dana white was in a relationship or in a business where he constantly had to sort of
00:44:35be very fluffy and very soft and sort of patient sensitive more demure you know moving at a
00:44:42a more uh delicate pace i don't think he might be able to make it work i'm sure that he he is a
00:44:47flexible competent human but if he does that he's going to be like not fully utilizing this part of
00:44:52his capacity in the same way as the world loses a great psychiatrist if you become the ceo of the ufc
00:44:59so this and this to me is like compatibility the more that i think about it and the older that i get
00:45:06compatibility is kind of everything in life okay i have this type of a disposition i can work on it and
00:45:12i can try and smooth us some of the edges that do feel a little bit close to pathological or just a
00:45:17bit maladaptive right it's it's firing in the wrong at the wrong times and i want it to be a little bit
00:45:21more this and a bit less that okay but largely you have a set and a suite of strengths that come along
00:45:28with this particular disposition that you have and you can put yourself in a situation where those aren't
00:45:32things that you need to curtail they're things that you can use as a platform and a springboard yeah
00:45:38i pay a lot of attention to stuff right i pay a lot of attention specifically words words was like
00:45:43my first love as a kid i read a lot as a kid and now it means that when i build brands like i've
00:45:47built this thing i've built this podcast word play and coming up with cool copy and spending
00:45:52obsessive amounts of time the for the first run that we ever did you'll see that there's three icons
00:45:58on the back of this can yeah one of the icons was half a point off offset on the back and this had
00:46:04gone through like we sold millions of cans and no one had noticed and one day i picked the can up and
00:46:09i was like guys there's something wrong with the back of the can and the only reason that that was
00:46:13able to be seen was because of that level of attention to detail now is that going to be the
00:46:17difference between this being a billion dollar brand and not probably not however that same trait
00:46:23delicious wonderful that's yeah that's from a board certified psychiatrist nonetheless
00:46:30um yeah my point being i work in industries where that attention to detail can be used properly right
00:46:37can be used really well let's say that i was a an architect or an engineer that helped to build
00:46:41bridges or i was uh somebody maybe a surgeon's assistant or something like that like really paying
00:46:46attention to how clean the surfaces are things like that like that'd be great if i was in a different
00:46:50industry i'm not convinced that that level of attention to detail would be so good so again
00:46:55what i'm kind of trying to get at here is that for people who think wow i i feel stuff a lot or i pay
00:47:00a lot of attention or i i focus on things i tend to ruminate i tend to have intrusive thoughts that
00:47:05play out these pantomimes of what might have happened with this person and their motivations
00:47:09it's like okay that can be and should be uh uh alchemized in some ways right you can we can work
00:47:17on that but also you can just find worlds and domains in which that's like a real fucking superpower
00:47:23and i think that trying to get people to not see that suppression is a strength but to see okay
00:47:30the issue is not you being sensitive the issue is you being in a world that doesn't utilize your
00:47:35sensitivity properly i think that's a i don't know it's just an interesting way to get tactical around
00:47:39that's how i ended up in psychiatry so i went into medical school with the hopes of doing pediatrics
00:47:45my mom's a pediatrician i was like that's what i'm gonna do i got through pediatrics and i'm like
00:47:51this is a little boring i wish it wasn't but i was like i can't be in clinic all day and i also
00:47:56can't be sick every winter like i can't do it right um and so i was like okay let me pivot and
00:48:01i'm gonna do peds icu i like i really thought that was my calling and it was because i was like i'm
00:48:10doing all this work from med school and like this is the superhero job like i am saving children like
00:48:17there's nothing that is better than that yep i went in for my like letter of recommendation walk into
00:48:22her office i was like at the door of her office and this woman like stops me at the door and she's like
00:48:28i hope you're not coming in here for a letter and i was like okay what and she's like you cry
00:48:34all the time you cannot do this you will burn out in five seconds and i like i wish and i put this in
00:48:41my book like this story because i was like i like in my brain i was like just say something make a
00:48:47noise respond i couldn't even say anything because i was like she's correct i knew in that moment that
00:48:53she was correct like it that were every day i went to work that i was in the peds icu i was scared
00:49:00and i was upset and i like i like i would be like reporting to my um attending and i would be telling
00:49:08them what happened overnight and i'm like crying as i'm telling them at the bedside and so i leave her
00:49:15office and i was sitting in my car and i was like okay well i guess what area of medicine can i cry in
00:49:22and that's how i ended up in psychiatry and so that's i mean it you finding an environment
00:49:31that can hold all of that emotional sensitivity i think is really important and the same thing goes for
00:49:38friendships and relationships yeah yeah yeah okay just on the relationship thing uh texting waiting
00:49:45for text why is uncertainty so much harder to deal with than bad news uh because it's not i think
00:49:54i think it's it's the the fact that it's not different hard news bad news difficult but i think
00:50:02at some point you're like okay that's really bad but here are the steps i need to do to make it better and
00:50:07like now i can kind of make a game plan the uncertainty i will tell you 10 times out of 10
00:50:13i will convince myself that a way worse outcome is happening in real time and so i've already
00:50:21convinced myself that the worst possible outcome is happening rather than if i actually get you know
00:50:27the the knowledge that something bad is happening i'm like okay that's not as bad as what i thought it
00:50:32would be i suppose as well you can create situations in imagination that like defy the laws of physics
00:50:40like your dead great grandmother can come back from the grave to laugh at you about the things that
00:50:44that can't even happen but that's how much our brains abhor having uncertainty that they would rather
00:50:49fantasize a nightmare than deal with ambiguity i i know that i i for one have have come up with
00:50:57situations where like then later i'm telling like my mom has taken the brunt of this where i'm telling
00:51:03her all this stuff and she's like what that's deranged what is this how did that come in your brain okay
00:51:09so this must be the same thing the same dynamic of why ghosting is so damaging yeah because there's no
00:51:17closure yeah right yeah there's no closure and i think also like this is ghosting is just awful people
00:51:26shouldn't do that just just so you know it's just an awful way to communicate um i think this is one of
00:51:35those things where as an emotionally sensitive person you you ghosting is not just like okay this is the
00:51:42dissolution of the relationship your brain automatically goes into there's something about
00:51:48me that forced this person away and and so that uncertainty it's not they're an asshole it's i'm
00:51:53insufficient yes so it gets turned on you and which i think is such it's so cruel to do to somebody else
00:52:01tell me if this sounds familiar you train regularly you eat reasonably well you feel fine but you're
00:52:07just kind of going off vibes most people have absolutely no idea what's going on inside their
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00:52:57functionhealth.com modern wisdom i'm wondering to sort of take it back to the how rsd and emotional
00:53:05sensitivity shows up in men i wonder whether emotionally avoidant men are sometimes just emotionally
00:53:11sensitive men in disguise that don't have enough courage yeah oh yeah a lot of times yes i think emotionally
00:53:20avoidant men um you know you again going back to this thing of like men really don't have
00:53:30a lot of space to explore how to be emotionally sensitive um because you know just from a young age
00:53:38they're told that they can't be and so they learn how to suppress it and to change it and so when they're
00:53:43put into situations where they may have to be emotionally sensitive or they may have to
00:53:48you know engage in a way that they could get hurt or they could get rejected or something else could
00:53:54trigger sadness or an emotional response they're just like nope i'm out i'm just gonna pull myself
00:54:00away from this i mean i've told you about i mean i've been avoiding in the past because of that
00:54:04how do you draw the line between emotional sensitivity and emotional fragility because
00:54:08what we're talking about here is hey you have this superpower there's going to be some challenges
00:54:13that come along with it but wherever you are on the spectrum from from dana white to yourself the
00:54:20i love that we're the extremes i think you are i really think i think you're kind of technically
00:54:23different species um i'm interested in when saying this is actually something that you need to man up
00:54:34about this is something that you need to get over this is something that you need to grit your teeth
00:54:38and work through as opposed to you just don't fully understand how emotionally fluid and sensitive
00:54:43i am like i feel things deeply you know because everybody likes the idea of being validated sure but
00:54:48validation done to the extreme results in no accountability yeah right there's no point if
00:54:54if every emotion that you feel and every response that you have is valid then you go okay in that
00:55:00case i don't have to work on anything i can just be as big of an asshole or a pussy as i want and never
00:55:07actually as opposed to okay there are there are some limits that i need to push myself up against so
00:55:11i think a lot of people will be feeling this if they listen to cry okay like these people this is
00:55:14interesting like my sister or my girlfriend is like she cries at things that i wouldn't usually and
00:55:21sometimes it takes a while for her to come back down after she's had an emotional event and so on and
00:55:24so forth like how does somebody know when it's emotional fragility that should be worked on when
00:55:30should they push and when should they pivot i don't think it's for another person to make that decision
00:55:35i think it's for the person experiencing that moment because like for me i think this is what
00:55:40that past three years of research has gotten me to because it i for years i'm like am i too fragile
00:55:48am i too weak what is wrong like what is this and i think it we've just emotionally sensitive people
00:55:56in general have been kind of put and not put but existing in an extremely difficult like right now
00:56:04the world is a hard place to be a human in this is just a weird time to live if you want to feel feelings
00:56:09it is if you don't want to feel feelings it's actually quite a fun place to be in i think you
00:56:13know there's like so much there's so much novelty and there's lots of things that you can do and you
00:56:17can have an infinite number of like the velocity of different stimulus that you can enjoy that's great
00:56:24but if you actually want to feel feelings it's kind of horrendous yeah okay well i'm on the horrendous end
00:56:30like i i think i think existing in the world right now can sometimes be very difficult um but i think
00:56:37that for an emotionally sensitive person we've also never been given tools like there's they we have
00:56:44been told you're too sensitive you're too fragile you're too weak and you need to kind of strengthen
00:56:50yourself but no one's told you how to do that and really what it boils down to is is looking at that
00:56:58like there's that step of us receiving that emotional data and then how do we catch it kind of in that
00:57:06moment so that we can you know impact either we're not going to change the processing because we're still
00:57:11going to read it but can we impact the intensity can we impact the duration can we get past this
00:57:16and make it a usable moment and there's skills and tools that come with it and that's what three
00:57:21years of like pulling from every area of psychology and psychiatry to give tools that were would work
00:57:28in the moment and over time that's what led to this book because i don't think people have that i never
00:57:34got that what are the most powerful emotional regulation tools okay so i i came up with the
00:57:42calm your mind toolkit which is 12 of them um and i will i will tell you that all of them are are
00:57:49things that you've probably heard before you you've heard challenge negative thoughts you've heard move
00:57:54your body you've heard delay your reaction you've heard stuff like that but i think for an emotionally
00:58:01sensitive person or someone who's going through big emotions in real time things can get so overwhelming
00:58:06in that moment that it's like when i have that like get absolutely flooded emotionally nothing is
00:58:13happening up here like i can't think or process or like utilize what tool am i supposed to use
00:58:20so this was so helpful for me to actually go through and in a place where i was regulated i could be like
00:58:26okay this is the tool i want to use and then actually break down the steps knowing from an emotionally
00:58:31sensitive brain this is when i'm going to feel blank now if i have this book that can tell me like step
00:58:36by step what i'm supposed to do because that's what i wish i had i just i just want like a guy i wanted
00:58:43a guide because i think it would have made med school easier it would have made dating easier it would
00:58:48have made you know the early years my marriage easier it would have made parenting easier i think it's
00:58:54just there did that answer your question well i guess pick the top three tools to calm your mind
00:59:01and how do people do them correctly that was the question okay um i think one of my favorite ones is
00:59:08just utilizing movement because i think that there is a tremendous and i'm not saying like you have to
00:59:14be in like some heavy duty like weight lifting kind of thing and you have to do a certain amount of
00:59:19cardio or something i'm saying that when you are incredibly emotionally overloaded there's a
00:59:25tremendous amount of value in like physical movement and one to like pattern disruption so
00:59:31you're actually moving to you're getting oxygenated glucose to your brain and hopefully shunting it to
00:59:36that frontal lobe so you can get resources there so you can think and process and override that amygdala in real
00:59:42time what does that look like someone's going through a event where they're emotionally activated do they
00:59:47start doing push-ups i mean whatever flows your boat man but i i would say like during
00:59:54i the last time i utilized it in real time was in a meeting and i was talking during the meeting i was
01:00:04talking about leaving the practice i'd been at for nine years and starting my own practice and so i'm like
01:00:09they were all of my partners were around me i felt like i was just like i was overcome with guilt and
01:00:15fear about starting something new and it was just it was a very big moment for me and i recognized like
01:00:21okay this is what i need to do and even within that i just from under like i started like just
01:00:27tensing my calves and like moving my legs and and just like and i think when you look at like adhd
01:00:35in general because you know almost 100 percent of people with adhd have some some form of rsd or you
01:00:42know they're they're fall on that spectrum you look at fidgeting and things like that as a form of
01:00:49like emotional regulation and self-stimulation and things like that you're trying to actually
01:00:54surge some of that dopamine norepinephrine kind of data okay movement yeah what next okay um you're asking
01:01:02me my favorite so i'm thinking about the ones i've most recently used one of them really like and
01:01:08it's delay your reaction because my initial impulse the minute i get pressed up against the wall or like
01:01:14if i have like this like big emotional stuff that i don't know how to deal with is i i respond with
01:01:19urgency so all of the time if something is happening like if there is a delay in a text message i will be that
01:01:28person who takes a four time where are you what's happening and this is just like a reminder like
01:01:35if i delay my response i'm allowing that amygdala to stop spinning as much and i allow that frontal
01:01:43lobe to come on and then the narrative i'm telling myself is going to be significantly less negative
01:01:49and usually by that time that person has responded does that not also create more time and uncertainty
01:01:54though here's the deal i think that if you are if you understand that that it's a very purposeful and
01:02:01mindful thing that you're doing if you if you know that that's what you're doing for your brain you're
01:02:05not you're not just like stepping away and like you're like okay well maybe they'll respond in that
01:02:11time i'm stepping away because i know that i need to give my brain time to just like stop overheating
01:02:19like i want my amygdala to stop spinning out of control i want my frontal lobe to come online i
01:02:24want to give it enough time to do that because i know that i will think better i think that gives me
01:02:30i know that i'm using a tool i'm not just sitting there how has it been being a mom with this because
01:02:37when i think about even the well-balanced parents there is anxiety where's my kid they're late back from
01:02:43soccer practice i don't know when they're going to come through the door who who are you going out with
01:02:47this evening i have to assume that the disposition that you're going into parenting with can be great
01:02:54because you're going to be attuned to your child's needs but can also be highly chaotic because you're
01:03:01going to feel worried yeah i i think i mean it's chaotic but i think all parenting is kind of chaotic
01:03:11to be honest with you i think it's just it's a it's it's a wild ride but i think that i'm very lucky
01:03:18because my husband is very measured and calm and patient and so i think he is like such a good
01:03:26emotional barometer for all of us and i think that in that context where i feel so much safety and so
01:03:32much you know we're all given kind of free reign to explore our feelings and to navigate through life
01:03:39i think being emotionally sensitive as a parent has been really helpful for me and it's really helped me
01:03:44kind of understand because kids are like can be very annoying because that's just part of being a kid
01:03:52well reliably they grow up to be annoying adults as well yeah they can be annoying you've totally but
01:03:57as kids they're stuff like even just like noise and and just like stuff that they do and you know
01:04:05they're not little adults they're kids their frontal lobes aren't developed they don't know any better
01:04:10but you're you're so tired and fatigued from this non-stop like marathon of parenting that sometimes
01:04:16it's it's hard to remember that i think being emotionally sensitive you look at your kid having
01:04:21a big emotional moment and you're like i know what this feels like and i know what what can help you
01:04:27come out of it and it's not going to be like snapping or yelling or like trying to pull you out of that
01:04:33moment by force it's it's giving you that safety and that and that freedom to explore and figure out the
01:04:39solution for yourself and pull yourself out of it exercise delay your response what's your third
01:04:44favorite my third favorite um
01:04:52i think you'll like this is mindfulness i think being like really really drilling down on the
01:04:57mindfulness and for me i think what is really important about this is not for i always thought
01:05:02that mindfulness is like factory reset like you got to be thinking about nothing like if you're doing
01:05:08meditation or something like that nothing is going on in your brain and i think the difference for me
01:05:13is giving myself the space to non-judgmentally just observe what's happening in my brain
01:05:21and like just observe what is going on and there you know there there was a study that came out of
01:05:27yale that was looking at this mindfulness and like the power of like just observation instead of like
01:05:32judgmentally rushing to solve that feeling just looking at the feeling it reduces activation in
01:05:38the brain yeah i mean that was something that i learned on that that meditation retreat it's an
01:05:43interesting style of meditation jhana which is the one that i was doing so with mindfulness it's a bit
01:05:48more brute forcey which is i think why it's become more popular you have a thought you notice the thought is
01:05:54there and then you sort of release it away you almost it's not quite a pushing it's more an opening of the
01:06:00hand but with the school that i was doing you're you actually welcome that in so you pull the thought
01:06:07towards yourself so you see the part of you that goes um you start thinking about work and then you
01:06:13judge yourself of being distracted for thinking about work and then you notice both of those thoughts
01:06:18and you go wow there's that bit of me that thinks about work like i'm really glad that i care that
01:06:23much about my pursuits like why don't you come like show some gratitude to that and then wow there's
01:06:27that bit of me that's judging me for not being good at this thing he just wants to work so hard like
01:06:32he really wants to do this thing right and he's here to protect me and like you can come here as
01:06:37well and as you continue to do that it's a very different it was a very different experience
01:06:41especially doing i've done i don't know two thousand two and a half thousand sessions of vipassana
01:06:46across my life and then got thrust into this new school i guess it must be similar to learning to
01:06:52kickbox your entire life and then going and doing brazilian jiu-jitsu and you go well i'm still
01:06:55fighting somebody but the way that i'm doing it the domain is completely different and um yeah one of
01:07:00the things that was kind of interesting at least with the the mindfulness part there was it's it's
01:07:06very much about emotional conductivity it's about okay how can i see what i'm feeling completely
01:07:11non-judgmentally and i think that it's the same thing that you're getting at with one of them
01:07:15you're letting it go and with the other one you're bringing it in but for both of them there is a lack
01:07:19of judgment right and i think that that shame spiral that we were talking about is you talked about kids
01:07:24that what do you think tick tock is doing and social media what do you think social media is
01:07:30doing to emotionally sensitive teenagers oh well okay so here's the deal i think i think social media
01:07:40is just a weird place in general that that's coming from someone who is on social media um i myself find
01:07:49my i get triggered by social media all the time i'm constantly comparing myself to others i feel like
01:07:55my a lot of my day-to-day um relationship with self-worth for a long time was driven by numbers
01:08:04like how many likes did i get on a post how much engagement am i getting like how like what's
01:08:08happening on that that's what was driving like am i good at what i'm doing like is i was getting that
01:08:14external validation i am i'm a physician who's gone to med school and who studied the brain like and
01:08:22that's still happening to me so for kids whose their frontal lobe isn't fully developed i think they
01:08:28probably are at higher risk and so i think that it's just a difficult i don't think i don't think
01:08:34completely like shielding them from social media and and from that entire world just like you can't
01:08:44really like the train is moving you can't you can't completely shelter your kids from absolutely
01:08:51everything you have to teach them how to navigate these constantly evolving waters i've learned from over
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01:09:46slash modern wisdom that's drink ag1.com slash modern wisdom can the way that you're raised in early
01:09:53childhood enhance your sensitivity i don't know whether you've done much work into nature versus
01:09:58nurture for this i think there is a huge part that's genetic there is a huge part that also if you grow
01:10:03up in like this incredibly chaotic and tumultuous home you are already hyper vigilant you're searching for
01:10:12cues you you can be more emotionally sensitive because of that as well and then if those two things get
01:10:19combined yeah right okay how early does rejection sensitivity emerge you i mean you can see it in two
01:10:26year olds you can see it in three year olds right are there some parenting behaviors you think that
01:10:31accidentally create emotional sensitivity or maybe even fragility
01:10:38i don't i don't i think that there's some things that a lot of parents are doing in hopes that they
01:10:46are getting a more resilient child like teaching them you don't need to cry about this you need to move
01:10:54on you need to you know this isn't a big deal where and the way that i kind of have thought about those
01:11:00kind of because like even raising my own kids like i think about that all the time that isn't that
01:11:06big of a deal like my kid had a tantrum the other day that i wouldn't give him the heel of like the
01:11:12loaf of bread and i was like that's objectively the worst part like you don't want that i don't want
01:11:16to give it to you and like it was like a huge thing but then i was like this kid has not dealt with
01:11:23like disappointment yet it is it from what i'm understanding this is probably one of the worst
01:11:30things has happened to date like he hasn't had a very hard life so like i need to teach him how
01:11:35to navigate disappointment instead of being like this isn't a big deal it probably is kind of a big
01:11:40deal to him he really wants that heel of bread and so it's you know and i don't really have a good
01:11:44reason not to give him it but like we just we had to navigate through that moment and like with big
01:11:50tantrums you you deal with that but i think it's easy in that moment to be like this is a dumb problem
01:11:57move on i think the heel of bread is actually a really lovely meme for everything which is working
01:12:03out the difference between validating feelings and encouraging victimhood and this is in adulthood
01:12:08as well you know there can be a situation that you're in where what you're after is a heel of bread
01:12:12and everybody around you and you yourself the better version of you has every right to go no dude you
01:12:19don't want that like you're being silly you're being ridiculous um and again finding this difference
01:12:26and finding the line between validating somebody's feelings and going hey i know that you feel this way
01:12:31but also not encouraging them to further
01:12:38weaken the uh resilience that they need emotionally i think that's where the sort of rubber is really
01:12:47going to meet the road with this thing how we got through that moment this heel of bread moment is i
01:12:53took out a heel of bread and then i took out another piece of bread and i was like let me just tell you
01:12:59these are the two pieces of bread we were talking about and i know you want this one
01:13:03describe what you like about this one instead of this one and then he's like no i wanted this one
01:13:07instead and so i like i think it was just like he was so stuck on this idea and like didn't get past
01:13:14it and like instead of just being like that's dumb allowing him to actually see and get to that
01:13:19conclusion like i don't actually want the heel of bread was helpful for us how does rsd show up in
01:13:26work and achievement because i have to assume that these are the overachievers the perfectionists
01:13:33sometimes but sometimes it actually before you can even get to that spot where you're kind of
01:13:39overcompensating you're not even putting yourself out there so i have patients who have been you know
01:13:46i i couldn't even like i got spooked in the job interview and i like walked out i couldn't do it
01:13:51like i i didn't feel like they liked me so you get past that spot and you're in the work environment
01:13:58sometimes you are so and you see this a lot with high achieving
01:14:02people and especially high achieving women
01:14:05i think societally there's just like this pressure on women to do everything to do it all and to just
01:14:14like not complain so if another thing comes along their way yes i can do it yes i can take that on
01:14:18yes i can do all this stuff and so you just what happens is that you start to override the signs of
01:14:26burnout and you just keep adding more and more and more onto your plate because you don't want to look
01:14:30like you're less than your peers you don't want to look you don't want people to be like ah she was able to do that
01:14:35last week why can't you do that this week you don't want to look incapable and so you just keep adding
01:14:40more until you kind of reach that tipping point where you can't yeah i think it's uh i found this
01:14:47essay uh the ambitious mother paradox good mother or wasted potential it's really great it's a quite a
01:14:53long read but there's a a really interesting line here that says the implicit logic of protecting your
01:14:59right to work in the workforce was clear you can't argue for equal access and then immediately ask for a
01:15:05accommodation that implies you are different that women have just been brought into the workplace this
01:15:09is not something they want to be taken away from them this is something that they're worried might
01:15:12be taken away from them and yet there are certain elements of many people's but often many women's
01:15:21psychologies that can make the workplace feel like kind of a spiky and unforgiving and a bit sterile and
01:15:27cold place to be like hey your emotional sensitivity in this like capitalist meritocratic very fast-paced
01:15:34environment okay there's not a massive amount of room for that yeah and yet you also know as somebody
01:15:41who's just gotten into this high-powered career that you fought for this and everybody else all of the
01:15:45other women that have just fought for this have just got here and you're like well i like i really
01:15:49want to be here and i don't want it to be taken away from me and now i feel bad about asking for
01:15:54accommodation that implies that i'm different which is i feel this thing and the guys around me don't
01:16:00seem to be feeling it in quite the same way or maybe they're just able to suppress it more effectively than i am
01:16:05i just thought it was such a i'd never really heard of anybody highlight the fact that there is a
01:16:12there's a tension like a bridge doing this in an earthquake that's moving in difficult directions
01:16:18that creates a sort of a pull on the system especially for women in the workplace especially
01:16:21for highly sensitive women in the workplace i feel like i need to show up as the men that i think are
01:16:26the ones that are running the company but i want to be one of the women that's maybe running the company
01:16:31but i'm like denying part of the nurturing empathetic people skills that i've got that are
01:16:37my competitive advantage so i need to perform in this way and i don't want to be seen as less than
01:16:42and i also want to protect it for everybody else but i also don't want to deny myself and i might need
01:16:47to ask for a bit of support but i'm worried if i have support that's accommodation for this brand new
01:16:50world that just like it's hard reading that essay this big massive essay by taylor i was like that's
01:16:57a lot that's a lot to navigate it's a lot and then just like from a logistical perspective there's also
01:17:02that you know child rearing falls in that so all of a sudden you're at the peak of your career you have a
01:17:07head you have to step away from that and then reintegrate and then all of a sudden you'll find that
01:17:12you know and you know it's probably because you did step away it now you know you're it's almost as if
01:17:22everything you work towards kind of gets pulled away from you and you're you're everyone assumes that
01:17:28all of your priorities are completely different and and there's opportunities that are kept out of your reach
01:17:33it's like it's a whole it can be very difficult to maneuver just from a logistical perspective as
01:17:39women are the ones burying the children i had a great conversation about dad brain but also mum
01:17:46brain came up too and the fact that if you have a kid as a mother 2.5 percent gray matter loss ish
01:17:53like that really does not basically anything that requires executive function that is not your child
01:18:00gets pruned a little bit yeah and that means yeah you're if you were the ea to some high powered ceo
01:18:08and you were basically running his entire life or you're the chief of staff right and you before
01:18:11were just this absolute military killer you could go you knew exactly what was going on at all times
01:18:16and now it feels like this fluff in your brain you go huh i i again this is another situation where i
01:18:22think compatibility and one thing that would be cool i know that other people this isn't my idea but
01:18:28suggesting that mothers look at um transitioning careers to things that utilize this new skill set
01:18:37not to see it as a weakness right not to go i want to be the person that i was when i was 25 and i had
01:18:43literally a different brain and different priorities and a different stage of life as opposed to going
01:18:47huh i've just unlocked this entire new world maybe becoming a therapist would be like a really incredible
01:18:54opportunity for me to focus this brand new level of empathy that would be that'd be great flip side yes
01:19:01flip side is have those environments accommodate those changes understand that those those changes are
01:19:07happening to women and that you know priorities shift and instead of putting them in the same roles
01:19:13pivot their roles so they can utilize some of those skills that they have i so same sort of thing but
01:19:19inside of the same company i think that's a great idea i get the sense and this is a culture and
01:19:25narrative change that would need to be made i get the sense that a lot of women would feel that as
01:19:29being if it was imposed on them i'm less than now or you're saying that i can't do what i used to do
01:19:35and in some ways what you're trying to open up is no i'm saying that you're better at doing other
01:19:41things that you couldn't do previously there's two ways to look at it right what have i lost what have
01:19:44i gained yeah and we're saying this is something you've gained why don't we utilize this new skill
01:19:49as opposed to this is something you've lost why don't we get you away from using that old skill
01:19:54and just the framing but i i don't think in the volitional component like if if if the woman felt like
01:20:01you know what this is where i could spend more time and i could utilize these skill sets a little bit
01:20:07better like i think i think at the end of the day should be kind of her choice and her her pushing
01:20:13that kind of decision yeah i agree creating the culture that makes that not feel like just chalking
01:20:19up an l yeah is that is where an external influence can uh adapt like an internal desire you know
01:20:30oh the way that this is framed externally what society says i should be doing yeah actually
01:20:36makes me feel more or less comfortable with doing it and i think you know the ruthless part of this
01:20:40and this is for every woman that runs a career let alone every man it's like the market doesn't give
01:20:46a fuck yeah and ultimately businesses need to run businesses that are profitable and are growing and
01:20:52that is where again finding that line between validation and when do you push when do you pivot
01:21:02at some point that has to be and this is the same thing is true for guys the same thing is true for
01:21:05like you can't be if your testosterone is dropping and if you're not quite as mentally quick at 65 you're
01:21:14probably not going to be the same killer salesman that you were at 28. sure this is the market doesn't
01:21:22care i'm sorry like you've come up and you've shown all of this but anyway here's how i've like thinking
01:21:27about this whole conversation and thinking about your book sensitivity is the input and emotional
01:21:32intelligence is the output feels like the equation that we're playing with is that a fair assessment yeah
01:21:38yeah yeah yeah and that gives people certain advantages and it gives people certain challenges
01:21:45as well yeah i think emotional sensitivity as a whole i think it's something that can be difficult
01:21:52and it can be wonderful and it's just i i know like as a person who's gone through this and as a
01:22:00physician who's gone through medical school and psychiatry training and all this this was never taught
01:22:06people aren't taught about how to actually in a very real and tangible way deal with their emotions
01:22:11and i think that emotional stuff like when you're looking at because a lot of my research was on adhd
01:22:17when you're looking at adhd like a lot of that like executive function and all that stuff like
01:22:22to some degree you can you can find a hack or you can delegate or you can do that you can't do that
01:22:27with emotions yeah they're just in you and you can't show them to anybody else no you can't like you
01:22:33have to be able to process and get through on the other side so if you are completely consumed by
01:22:38them or if you're having a hard time regulating them i mean you're not going to be able to think
01:22:43you're not going to be able to move on from that moment it takes so much brain space and so that's
01:22:47that's one of the things that i hope that this book will help give people a little bit more agency over
01:22:54their emotions if there's someone that feels like they're in the world and it's too spiky for their
01:23:02emotions what would you want them to take away what would you want to tell them they just don't have
01:23:07the tools yet just like it life is hard this world is hard and i think being emotionally sensitive it
01:23:17for so many of us is a beautiful thing is a beautiful thing it's just it's sometimes really difficult to
01:23:24keep your head above water when emotions are big and so having those tools and being able to grab hold
01:23:29of them and use them in appropriate times is life-changing dr sasha hamdani ladies and gentlemen
01:23:37you're great i appreciate you going into the murky depths of people with way too many emotions
01:23:42where should people go to check out everything you've got going on so i'm on instagram i'm on
01:23:47tick tock i'm on youtube and it's the psych dr md and the new book and the new book too sensitive
01:23:53which is out um august 25th heck yeah appreciate you all right goodbye my beauties yes yay we did it
01:24:02congratulations you made it to the end of a podcast episode without dying now here's another one go on watch it
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