#05: Did you know some people are ‘highly sensitive’ - genetically? Now we know what it means to have a highly acute nervous system, but there’s still work to be done to acknowledge there’s nothing wrong, and actually a whole lot right, about Just Being Seen as sensitive.
#05: I’m one of those people who cries when impassioned - like when talking about the work I do or when watching someone in the fullest expression of their gift. I also cry when I feel like I’m in trouble or did something wrong. And definitely cry when I witness something traumatic - like when I found a resident unresponsive while working as a teenager at an Assisted Living Center. So while I’ve always known I was emotional, what I didn’t know was that some people are highly sensitive - genetically. Experts have studied what it means to have a highly acute nervous system, but there’s still work to be done to acknowledge there’s nothing wrong, and actually a whole lot right, about Just Being Seen as sensitive.
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Thanks to special guest Shannon Callarman!
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Website: https://validfeelings.substack.com/
Shauna VanBogart 0:00
Hi. I'm Shauna Vanbogart. And this is just being seen.
Shauna VanBogart 0:13
When I was in high school, I worked as a waitress in an assisted living center over the dinner shift. I did this for three years, it was my first and only job in high school other than babysitting. And I loved it. Because unlike a normal waitressing job where you're dealing with different kinds of people on a daily basis, we saw the same people who live there day in and day out come into the dining room. We had the table of widowers who would often write the waitresses poems on their napkins. And then you'd have a separate table of widows who were always gossiping about our short skirts. And then you had the couple in the back who were always sneaking in mini bottles of vodka to put into their Sangha. It was great because we really got to know people. One of the shifts was to bring dinner service directly up to the tower to people's individual apartments who couldn't make it down to the dining room for whatever reason. And then after dinner, we would go up and pick their empty trays up. My friend was on the service, and I was done with all of my dining room tasks. So until my shift ended, I was helping her by going up the elevator into the tower of apartments to help pick up dishes. We went to one of our residents' apartments and mind you we had keys since they often couldn't get to the door on their own. We knocked and there was no answer. So we let ourselves in. And we found the woman unresponsive on the ground.
Shauna VanBogart 1:38
She had passed at some point during the dinner hour, because when her food was delivered, she was interacting and alive. We were 15/16 years old at the time. So you can imagine how traumatizing that was I mean to anyone really, but especially to a teenager. So we of course rush out of there and contact the right people to take it from there. When we got back down to the dining room where our manager was, we of course told him what was happening, and I couldn't keep it together. I mean, I was crying. I wasn't hysterical. But I was emotional, of course. And then this happened. My manager looks at me with frustration, and tells me to stop crying and to pull it together. Now mind you, this is at the end of dinner, most of the residents had left the dining room. We were in the privacy of his office telling him so it's not like I was causing a scene but I was met with absolutely no empathy. At least that's what it felt like at the time. I definitely walked out of there feeling like something was wrong with me. I walked out of there feeling like I was being too sensitive that I wasn't professional.
I had another experience just a few years later. It was shortly after I started working at Zales in my hometown. Like three weeks after I started, and a theft occurred on my watch. I had checked someone out who had used a stolen credit card. And the next day when I came into work, the police were there in the back room reviewing the camera footage from my shift the night before and they were asking me some questions. No one made me feel like I was in trouble or anything. But I started crying because I felt like I did something really, really wrong. I mean, it just the whole thing was very intimidating. And I was new and I was young. And again, I was told to pull it together, I was at work to get back out onto the floor to stop crying. Pull it together.
I would argue that this specific circumstance probably did command that reaction. But because I had been here in a similar feeling with a similar reaction from a boss, it deepened a narrative even further in me that I was too sensitive and something was wrong with me, and that I needed to toughen up.
Shauna VanBogart 3:51
We've already talked about making mistakes and being afraid of failure. I had enough self awareness to know that I had perfectionistic tendencies that made me really hard on myself. Then along my journey as you heard in season one, I discovered that I was also empathic, meaning I was feeling other people's emotions as an experience of my own. So between this and the perfectionism, my entire sense of self was very convoluted. I had a hard time understanding myself between picking up on what everyone else was experiencing, and not knowing I was doing this. And then my perfectionism, which I was in denial of for a very long time. And if you heard my journey in season one, once I started to do the inner work, a lot of this got straightened out. But there was this one piece, this sensitivity, which really drove a lot of resistance to showing up in my intimate relationships, taking certain business risks. That was a part of me that really didn't want to be seen because I have to say this part of me felt like at any moment, I could have an emotional reaction that would not work in my favor, or was not appropriate for the circumstance at the time.
Shauna VanBogart 5:00
Right after I had started my business, I had gone to this business conference put on by the Center for Women. I don't know how I found it, probably on Facebook. But it was a big deal for me to go because I had just started my business. I didn't know anyone. I had a hard enough time introducing myself with this freshly minted title of an image consultant. And it was a large crowd, which was always intimidating to me. As I sat in one of the breakout workshops, I said to myself, I will speak at this conference next year. It's like a declaration. It was an intention of my business. And guess what happened a year later, fast forward, I'm asked to speak at this same annual conference. They paired me with someone I didn't know to co present on the topic of image and first impressions. My colleague and my co presenter was Angie, special shout out to Angie Mozelle, dear friend of mine to this day all because of the Center for Women. And Angie was and is this beautiful, polished former news anchor, I mean, talk about intimidating. We mapped out an awesome presentation which we had to deliver two times on the day of the conference once in the morning. And once in the afternoon.
The first morning session comes and it's my turn to speak. And I start speaking about a client, I start sharing an example of a woman who had told me she felt invisible. And I start getting emotional during my presentation. So much so that I start crying. This was one of my first big presentations of my self employed career and I am mortified. Angie had to take over while I collected myself, I was so impassioned by what I was talking about, I got so swept up into the example I was using and the feelings my client was expressing that I couldn't maintain my composure, even telling the story. So I had to muster up the courage to do the whole presentation again in the afternoon after that. And luckily, I was able to make a joke about it, which helped me maintain my composure and move through it. But talk about not wanting to show up after that. Just another humiliating moment of the start of my career. If you know me now, if you've sat in on any of my work, whether that be a webinar or a group program that I run, you know, it's not uncommon for me to get emotional. But now it's no big deal. And I can, for the most part, maintain my composure. And I think generally people see it as a real human caring moment.
But as I reflect back on these earlier moments, I can see where I was at with my own emotions, which as we learned in season one, were not safe to me, they were not comfortable for me. And so I rarely let emotions out of the cage. So of course, there were volcanoes waiting to erupt at any point. Pair that with an always on radar, highly attuned to what's happening around me at any time and what other people are feeling at all times. And not knowing that I was doing that not knowing I had this always on radar. And yeah, it's pretty hard to feel like you're stable at times. But I have to say of all the work I've done on myself, for how in integrity I am between my outer world and my inner world, one thing has not really changed. I've just learned to navigate it. And it is that sensitivity. And it wasn't until a few years ago that I stumbled upon this term: highly sensitive person. And when I googled it to learn more, and I took one of the many quizzes you can take to find out online if you are one of those people. Turns out I fit the mold to a T.
Shannon Callarman 8:39
A personality trait that has been found in about 20% of the population is found in both men and women equally.
Shauna VanBogart
This is Shannon Callarman. She is an emotional intelligence facilitator and a coach to highly sensitive people.
Shannon Callarman
You process information and stimuli much deeper than the average person. It also can show up physically, so you know, having an intolerance to pain. Having very strong senses, whether it's loud noises distract you. Any kind of like distracting noise or stimuli is going to be more intense for you than someone who would be not sensitive.
Shauna VanBogart 09:22
Shannon uses the word non sensitive in contrast to an HSP when she talks about non sensitive she does not mean insensitive, it's just a term to describe people who do not feel emotions on this deeper level that HSPs do. I can't tell you what a relief it was to have a label for this because I have done so much work on myself. This trait as we now know it made me oftentimes feel like I was still broken or that my self work was falling short. Shannon got into this work because she had the same realization.
Shannon Callarman 09:56
My experience was a strong sense of relief. I was like this explains everything. You know, like I instantly felt empowered because my whole life going through chronic invalidation, not understanding my sensitive trait and thinking something was wrong with me. It was just like the validation. I need, like, oh, you're a highly sensitive person. There's nothing wrong with that. And that's all I needed. All right, like, I'm ready to go. I finally found this answer, because I grew up with so much anxiety around it, because I didn't understand and there was always a stubborn side of me that was like, Yeah, okay, I might have anxiety, but why? And I kept asking, like, you know, my therapist and everything, like, why, like, I feel so intensely and anxious, but why there has to be an answer. And so the highly sensitive was a big answer for me.
Shauna VanBogart 10:40
There is tons out there about this innate trait of sensitivity, including ongoing research. In 2011 a study looking at 480 Healthy Chinese college students found 10 statistically significant gene variants that had main associations with HSP. What's fascinating is this trait has been found in at least 100 other species. One of the books that put this on the map is “the highly sensitive person” by PhD and international best seller, Elaine Aron. I encourage you to look her up and look up this research, science has verified so much of what she's spoken to. And there's a list of ongoing studies that can be found at HSperson.com.
To give you a high level overview, you first have to understand that high sensitivity is genetic. And it's not just a single gene, but a collection of gene variants that causes it, one of those having to do with your serotonin transporter that is the on and off switch for the chemical serotonin that stabilizes your mood. If you are an HSP, this transporter behaves just a little differently, and you have lower serotonin levels. The good news is this doesn't cause any mood disorders on its own. But as the research says, it will make you more sensitive to your surroundings and the associated narrative you tell about those surroundings and your circumstances. In other words, your upbringing will determine a lot, more than someone who is non sensitive about how this personality trait will play out and the effects that will have on your life.
Shannon Callarman 12:17
Is it appropriate to showcase your emotions in certain situations, and it's a lot that you learn as a child, right? You will learn it from your parents, might learn it from a sibling, teachers. So if you, you feel something very intensely and you share it, you're going to get a response. And that response would either be someone who is going to acknowledge it, and empathize with you, and validate the fact that you feel this emotion tensely or it can go the opposite direction in terms of someone telling you that you're overreacting, or this feeling that you're having, you know, you need to calm down, you're not thinking straight, you know, think more logically. And so either way, depending on the people that are in your life, especially as a child or teenager are going to give you cues in terms of ‘Am I allowed to express my emotions or no?’. And you'll start to pick up on the fact that if you don't understand that you're a highly sensitive person, or you don't have those resources, you might have grown up making that the fact that you feel intensely is a bad thing, or there's something wrong with you. So it can really go either way, depending on your life experiences. But if you are someone who learned these skills in terms of showcasing your emotions and and expressing them fully, and you know, being very open to vulnerability, then you're more likely to be a more secure, confident, empowered adult. Whereas if you learned at a young age that your emotions were too intense. And you know, you were around people that maybe didn't provide you the necessary space or the time to feel those emotions, then you might grow up feeling a little sense of low self esteem or lack of self worth, because you are constantly withholding those emotions, and you can't express them fully. So you start to develop a lot of maybe resentment or anger or just struggling with not knowing really what to do with any of it. So it can go either way.
Shauna VanBogart 14:16
You can see how someone who processes feelings, emotions and external stimuli very deeply, may have some challenges in showing up and being seen despite doing all kinds of other self work. That's a rather vulnerable situation to put yourself in when at any moment like I shared, you could have an emotional reaction that maybe isn't appropriate for the context or the space you're in. Or you could be so overwhelmed by the stimuli of the audience, for example, that you don't risk putting yourselves in situations altogether. Perhaps you don't go to networking events because large crowds are overwhelming to you. So you don't put yourself out there even to connect with the people that would further your career. And if you're a highly sensitive person and you've had adverse childhood experiences, where you felt invalidated, or perhaps even experienced abuse and you haven't had resources to navigate these experiences appropriately as it relates to being highly sensitive. This trait, as Shannon tells us, may play out in ways as an adult that do not work in your favor in the workplace, in your personal and romantic relationships, etc.
Shannon explains that it can look like putting your needs second, it can look like taking ownership of your partner's emotions, it could create codependency dynamics and relationships, individuals may subconsciously seek partners that continue to play this dynamic out. It perpetuates or exacerbates feelings of what she calls chronic invalidation.
Shannon Callarman 15:47
Chronic invalidation is when you try to express your emotions and you try to ask for what you need. That person will tell you: invalid. Like you're overreacting, that's not true. So it's more of a validation of your emotions, it starts to develop in you through a series of experiences as a kid and a teenager during your most vulnerable time period, right. Like, I don't know, anyone who has ever said, I would love to go back to my middle school years, like everyone has, you know, some sort of emotional experience during that time, whether you're a highly sensitive person or not.
Shauna VanBogart 16:24
Invalidation can happen in a variety of ways, from small to large. Shannon shares an example from her personal life.
Shannon Callarman 16:36
I think I had an event like maybe eighth grade or a freshman in high school. And I was feeling a lot of anxiety, feeling a lot of anger. I think there was around the time my parents were divorcing. So it was an obvious reason why I was having these, you know, big responses to it. My mom brought me to a therapist. And I remember vividly, Shauna, that when I was telling this therapist, how I felt like I went in there, I'm like, This is how I feel. I didn't hold anything back. And the therapist gave me the violin, meaning like she, you know, motion violin. And I've been going to therapy for years after that. And so it only takes one moment, as a child as a teenager to be like, okay, like, invalidated. And the rest is history. It only takes one experience.
Shauna VanBogart 17:26
I wish that you could see my face when she's telling this story. We're on a Zoom video call when I do these interviews, and I am just staring at her with my jaw on my desk. Can you imagine bravely going to therapy for the first time, which should be a safe space to process your feelings and your therapist mimes the violin, the age old symbol for self pity, and who cares? She tells me this and I said, What did you say back to that therapist?
Shannon Callarman 18:10
You know, honestly, I don't remember, I just know that I was traumatized by it. At that age, you're just I mean, it's you're walking around with a brain fog, you know, you're not really thinking straight. And I think that I just I think it made me more angry. If anything, it made me more anxious, because I just felt alone. And luckily, I had a mother who is a highly sensitive person, but she didn't, you know, we didn't have those resources back then. Right? And so she didn't know how to manage her emotions. So she didn't know how to like, help me manage those emotions, because she's like, I'm trying to figure it out for myself. So I can't help you, which can be a form of chronic invalidation of, I don't have the resources to help you there emotionally, I'm dealing with it myself. You know, it's hard when you have a parent who doesn't understand your emotions, you know, it's same thing we look up to these people. And we believe them it's so easy for us to believe because you're so vulnerable at that age.
Shauna VanBogart 18:59
You might be thinking about some instances in your past where you felt invalidated. Sometimes it's not because someone did anything that was deliberately hurtful or hurtful at all, but as an HSP. Feeling into things more intensely, you might walk away with a very internalized or personalized negative experience. As Shannon says, it's more about whether or not you had the tools to understand what was happening within you at this time. And we need to understand that our parents did not or may not have had access to these resources. So much of this has just come on the line in the past few decades with millennials really leading the way at least I believe with self awareness and destigmatizing, going to therapy and promoting mental well being and promoting mental health as important as our physical health. Bottom line. Chronic invalidation can be a thing that happens and it's not always Ill intended. We need to recognize people were doing the best that they could with what they had. So the first piece is realizing that maybe you are inhibited by the sense of chronic invalidation. The second is to realize the impact it's having in your day to day life.
Shannon Callarman 20:00
You start to over function, and you'll end up over functioning at work, you'll end up over functioning in relationships, you'll even end up over functioning as a parent. Because when you are chronically invalidated by your feelings, that means that you are going to do everything in your power to try to make up for that by putting the needs of others first, what ends up happening is that we tend to make everything perfect, right? Like we strive for perfection, what we really want to do is we want to strive for excellence. Like there's nothing wrong with having high standards on your work and the things that you do. But in order to strive for excellence, you have to make sure that you're taking care of yourself, right, you have to make sure that you are meeting your needs and that you have the energy to do the hard work.
If you're feeling insecure, or you're feeling either a sense of chronic invalidation or impostor syndrome, or you don't know how to regulate your emotions, you're going to make up for all those bad behaviors that highly sensitive people are prone to develop more so than someone who's non sensitive. They're coping mechanisms, you start to use perfectionism as a way of feeling in control, you start to over function as a way to make sure that you don't let anyone down. And you people please, because it's a way to make other people feel good. So that you can get yourself out of your head, like, oh, I don't want to base my emotions. So I'm going to make sure that everyone else's needs are met before mine because that's safer. So that I don't have to worry about myself, we have to acknowledge those and start to make some changes if we really want to push our businesses to the next level.
Shauna VanBogart 21:48
I feel like I need to take a deep breath here. Because for some people listening right now, this could potentially be a huge moment. This could be a lightning strike, like, Whoa, that is me.
Over functioning and feeling constantly frustrated. And just imagine what all the energy that's being used and over functioning is being siphoned away from? No wonder it's difficult to put yourself out there. If you resonate, and you're wondering, what do I do with all of this, the first step is that inner work that is becoming a very common theme in these episodes. And by the way, I had no idea any of my guests were even going to speak to that. But it is so beautiful that that's become a common theme, going internally to examine what's been going on journaling, therapy, healing practitioners, if you haven't gone there before, it's going to feel uncomfortable, you're going to face resistance, and a lot of times, you see people feeling that resistance, which often feels painful, and then they stop,
Shannon Callarman 22:59
It is going to be uncomfortable, you're going to face resistance, but that's actually a really good sign.
Shauna VanBogart 23:07
If you've ever recovered from surgery, you know that healing hurts. It's the same when you heal your emotional being. It's about managing expectations for yourself and realizing the pain is to be expected. And what are you going to do? And who are you going to be when you have to face it?
Shannon Callarman
Healing is about really going into those dark corners, those memories, those experiences, and actually looking at them through the eyes of an adult and being there for your inner child and knowing Oh, now that I understand all this, I need to comfort you, you know, it's never too late to comfort your inner child, right. And so it's going to be uncomfortable.
Shauna VanBogart 23:48
It's about developing self awareness on deeper and deeper levels, because that's where your self agency is found. That's where your ability to discern what's about you and what's not about you is found. And it's also about where you discover just how resourceful you are.
Shannon Callarman
You have to believe the answers are within you. That is the most important thing. Once you know the answers are within you, you can start trusting yourself more. And you can start to notice when you're going down this downward spiral, it's not about always being mentally positive or time or learning how to be more stoic. It's really about, okay, I'm recognizing that I'm going down this downward spiral. How do I get myself back to where I need to be? That's the key. I mean, that's a lot about why I teach emotional intelligence for highly sensitive people. Because feeling deeply is not the problem that we're trying to solve. It's about what do you do with those big emotions, and we learned the skills and techniques to come back to a balance.
Shauna VanBogart 24:49
This is your permission slip, to get the support you deserve. And to understand you may have possessed this trait unknowingly, which we both hope provides context allowing for somewhat of a pressure release valve.
Shannon Callarman 25:00
You're going to need the support so no one should have to suffer alone. So if you're going through that self discovery phase and you're going through this deep, you know, you're doing the thought work and things are coming up some traumas coming up. That's also an indication that you need a support group, whether it's a group of other business owners, where you can talk about the real shit, you know, like about being vulnerable about the stuff that's holding you back and not just talking about sales and in marketing, which is all good, like, talking about the emotional side of building a business is also important. And also talking about, hey, this is holding me back because of these old beliefs. And you need people who I call loving critics who are going to tell you how it is, they're not going to sugarcoat it. If you're around people who understand your needs and where you want to take your business. They're going to validate how you feel, but they're not going to sit there, they're going to help you go beyond that and go, Hey, I understand where you're coming from, totally, you know, empathize. Let's do some of the hard work together. So you can overcome this and get to where you need to be.
Shauna VanBogart 26:07
So listen, cards were dealt in your life, we each have our stuff. If being highly sensitive is yours, there's a way to work it in your favor, just like any other trait that can be viewed as hindering. The awareness, what we spoke about before is really important for HSPs. And realizing that right now is an excellent time for an HSP to be in business. Because being professional doesn't look the way it did before. Especially as a woman, you know, before it was about wearing the power suit and embodying masculine traits to get ahead. We live in a world now where radical departure from those rules, not an approving rebellious to be rebellious way, but in a, I'm going to do mean do me fiercely kind of way, and that's celebrated.
But if you are pivoting to business ownership, or started your business journey, after years, in a traditional nine to five setting, it may take some time to adjust, you have to understand our definition of what it means to be professional is a combination of what our parents taught us, what the world taught us. And of course, our reactions and responses to both of those, which created our own personal informed image of what professional looks like. It's going to take some time to break away from the mold that was inherited or imposed on you and to step into your own as you go out on your own. Patience to unlearn the unhelpful or unnecessary rules of the past is key.
Shannon Callarman
This is the best time to be building a business. Because all those things that we learned about what it means to be professional, we can like tear up the rules now. The problem is, is that even though we know this, we don't need to go by the rules anymore. So much of like what we believe in terms of what it means to show up and be seen, we have to do a lot of thought work to rewire our brains, so that we can actually start to make some changes. And that takes a lot of time. Depending on how long you've been in the professional field or been working before you became a business owner. Those are years that you'll have to learn like, oh, I don't have to do this anymore. You have to start to break those old habits. It starts with self awareness and then it goes into self management, right, of just like okay, now I need to unlearn these old skills, these old behaviors and these old rules and these old beliefs.
Shauna VanBogart 28:28
We already talked about managing over functioning. But I hate to tell you that there's two other ways chronic invalidation can play out as an adult. And the other two are perfectionism, which is about being afraid of making mistakes, and people pleasing. For an HSP, criticism, even constructive, helpful, loving criticism is going to feel more intensely haters, trolls canceled culture, all of those things are likely going to weigh heavier into the calculations of risk for an HSP to put themselves out there to be seen. But on top of the self awareness, if you can offer yourself a reframe, that making mistakes or sparking disagreements is progress. For example, you can still honor your desire to be seen and make an impact in this world by mitigating that emotional sting. And by the way, I find it easier not to focus on being so tough or, so unbothered that you don't feel the sting. I've had a lot more progress in this area by allowing it to sting, letting it in observing it with the awareness of what it's really about checking in to see if there's anything I actually need to do and what part of me is dictating that action, and if not, which, usually there's not, I can then move on.
Shannon Callarman
We know it but it still doesn't mean that it's not scary that when you do show up if you want to be seen. People are going to disagree with you. People are going to have things to say. And that's scary because I think that we show up because we want to show up for others.
We want to be a resource, we want people to trust us. And that's all good. But we can't please everyone, we just can't. And I think it's a really good sign that if you are doing the hard work and you're showing up as your most authentic self. Sometimes people aren't going to like you. And and no, it's such a hard truth for a highly sensitive business owner to swallow. It's something that I'm still struggling with as a newfound business owner. But the fact that I was, I think it was so powerful for me to know that about myself and be aware of it, because it allowed me to do things I've never done before. And I'm still learning.
But it was a really great way of me to overcome my perfectionism because I knew it was going to hold me back. So I looked at it more as a good sign of oh, this is uncomfortable, or oh, that person didn't like what I said. And you can still need to like, you know, acknowledge it and see like, oh, well, maybe I said this wrong or get curious about it. You know, if it stings, that's fine. Like that's normal. But look at it as the only way to overcome it is, oh, this is good. I'm making progress. I'm getting people to talk. That's a good thing.
Shauna VanBogart 31:19
One thing I found very interesting that Shannon shared is that HSPs are more prone to shooting than non sensitive people. We see this all over the business world, especially in the online space, oh, you should do it this way. Oh, marketing should look like this. And so this plays into the over functioning and the people pleasing and the perfectionism. It can end up looking like we're striving for perfection versus excellence. For HSPs. It tugs at the emotional depth that HSPs register at. And this awareness is so key.
Shannon Callarman 31:52
I'm going to come from this as someone who was in marketing for so many years, like think of the headlines that we read every day, they're meant to pull on your emotional strings, right? Your insecurities. They're meant to get a rise out of you. And so that's why those articles about the 10 things you should be doing in your business, let's say like, that's going to really hit and highly sensitive person of like, oh, my gosh, I better be doing these things, you know, because we get this emotional response to it. So those headlines and those shoulds, and all that advice out there and the things that we've been told of how to run our business, or how to run our lives even, they're all meant to pull on the emotional strain.
And so someone who feels deeper, is going to hit you harder than someone who's not insensitive, and we might end up believing those or taking them too seriously. And so that's when you have to get back to either trust myself. So if something doesn't feel right, like, you know what, I'm not going to do that, or I don't feel like that's the right thing for my business. So we have to start to make sure that we don't fall into believing everything that we hear, taking in all the advice from others, even if they look more or far more successful than us, doesn't necessarily mean that it's right for us. And that's when you have to trust yourself as your own business and put your own experiences into play. You can listen to the advice and all the shoulds. But you still need that time to be like, Okay, I learned this, this is the advice I was given. But what's right for my business what's right for me, and then make that decision from there.
Shauna VanBogart 33:20
I would say up until about five years into my business, I would have been mid late 20s. I was obsessed with reading as many nonfiction books as I could. It was this benchmark of success and productivity, like in my mind, that's what a successful person did. They read a shit ton of books. And I just hit this point in my life where it didn't start to feel good anymore. First, I realized how much of this am I actually retaining? And second, is this encouraging my voice? Or is this stifling my voice? I just started to feel like my creative spark was gone because I was so oriented in the direction of what I was consuming through various forms of media, and what all the other experts and thought leaders were saying, but this was one of those small things that felt like, again, that's what you do to be successful. You be someone who reads. A lot. So I decided to experiment with setting it all down. What if reading fiction could be more furthering for my career and myself than all the nonfiction books I was consuming. And guess what? Something actually shifted for me.
Shannon Callarman 34:37
I'm like you like I still love reading nonfiction books. I'm always taking notes like I've just eat all that up. However, there's times when I do need to take a step back because I start to feel overwhelmed by all these things that these people are telling me about, like how I should run my business. But it's all about when you start to make connections like so anytime you're reading a lot, especially nonfiction, you'll start to notice contradictions. And then you'll start to connect these dots and what's wonderful about that when you can look at it as more of just like guidance and best practices in terms of like, okay, this is this person's experience, it's not a manual of like, okay, you must do all these things or you don't have a real business, it's more of like in my experience of what I've learned, and you know, they all come from different backgrounds, I mean, I'll read something from a psychologist who's going to have a totally different viewpoint than a philosopher. But you can make those connections and then you can come up with your own guidelines, your own role. So if you're able to look at those to kind of help strengthen your own roadmap, then you won't be as vulnerable in terms of believing everything you read.
Shauna VanBogart 35:45
It's about finding your inner authority and realizing as an HSP, that your emotional intensity may be linked to you giving away your authority and essentially, your voice, overall, contributing to why you may face some intense resistance to wanting to show up in the way you both want to and need to.
Shannon Callarman 36:00
You can find security and comfort and knowing that you have the answers with video going back to what I said earlier.
Shauna VanBogart 36:10
This episode was intended to bring awareness to a trait that you may have and didn't know about or to assist you in better understanding others who may possess this trait. The more research being done on HSPs, the more we can see that being highly sensitive can be a huge evolutionary advantage. After all, being highly sensitive, allows you to pick up on very subtle cues and people in your environment. It allows you to see things that other people don't pick up on, which is really helpful for making certain kinds of decisions. There's a certain emotional vividness that you possess, because you naturally take notice of emotional tones occurring in a group or a conversation that other people can't register. I heard it said about HSPs, that they have a brighter palette of emotional colors, so to speak, because of the gene variants found in HSPs. And this ability to see things others don't makes you especially valuable.
Shauna VanBogart 37:04
So you're starting to get the point here, the work is not more efforting to make something work where there's a lot of friction. The point is seeing yourself clearly so you can move forward with the most accurate information and context. It's not coincidence that doing the work to see yourself more clearly, is the very thing that makes being seen by others in and outside of your business. Not only more comfortable, but actually thrilling, joyful, fun and expansive.
Shauna VanBogart 37:35
What if that's what healing is really about? Not fixing yourself per se, but doing what you can utilizing the resources available to you to get everything out of the way that makes it difficult in seeing yourself clearly for who you really are a whole dynamic and beautiful, worthy human. More to come on just being seen.
Shauna VanBogart 38:03
Shauna here, hoping that you’re coming off this episode of Just Being Seen feeling inspired and challenged to see how good it can get for you in your journey to showing up and being seen in your gifts. If you want the crash course to deepening into the truth of who you are, you’ll want to get on the waitlist for the next round of Mynd Over Matter. Head on over to ShaunaVanBogart.com/MOMWaitlist to put your name down.
If you’re loving this series - guess what? There’s bonus episodes, behind-the-scenes video, and other discussions happening over on the Just Being Patreon community. Join in on the fun at patreon.com/justbeing.
Just Being is produced by Jeremy Enns and the team at Counterweight Creative. Special thanks to the variety of people who had their hands on some aspect of this creative piece, including my featured guests. And to the right-hand women I am honored to call my team, Kelly Elizabeth and Jess Butler, I see you, I appreciate you, and know that your support in this work is changing the lives of women around the world.