06 230726 Are you highly sensitive, or is your work environment toxic?

11:23PM Sep 20, 2023

Speakers:

Meredith Holley

Megan Goering Mellin

Keywords:

sensitive

people

environment

boundaries

sensitivity

uncomfortable

situation

person

discomfort

work

notice

space

happening

create

memo

experience

talked

workplace

internalize

toughen

Are you highly sensitive? Or is your work environment toxic, or maybe both? highly sensitive people are sometimes classified as having a neuro divergence assay that involves an increased sensitivity of the central nervous system, and a deeper cognitive processing of physical, social and emotional stimuli. But sometimes we think that if we're the sensitive one, maybe we aren't actually correct about what's going on, or the idea that we might need to respond. So today, we're going to dive into these thorny topics around sensitivity, and sucky workplaces and see if we can create some clarity for those moments where we wish we didn't feel like everything was busted. And yet, it totally might be. So Meredith, I am so happy to be with you again today. And I would love to start us off by talking about sensitivity, maybe in relationship to boundaries. Yeah. So what makes us sensitive? How can we think about sensitivity in a way that relates to this idea of boundaries?

Yeah, I mean, I think I do personally think that some people are inherently more sensitive than other people to environment issues. I also think that there are a few other things that happen in these when somebody's asking, am I just highly sensitive? Is there a real, a lot of time we're asking, is there a real problem? Or am I making the problem up? Right. And, and I think that that's sort of the wrong framework to approach things as. So when we're thinking about boundaries and sensitivity. Boundaries are the the line between where you end and another person begins, right? If we have a sensitivity around our boundary, sometimes that can make us more able to create safe environments and more able to enforce our boundaries, it can make us more clear about what our boundaries are. A lot of times, though, when people are talking about sensitivity, what they're really saying, though, and being a highly sensitive person is they're saying, if somebody in my environment is experiencing an uncomfortable emotion, I have a hard time tolerating that, or I also am feeling that uncomfortable emotion, which I do think happens for some people more than other people. But I also think in culture, we a lot of times pressure people to toughen up and get less sensitive, and we say, like, sensitivity is a problem, we say, you're just being too sensitive. This behavior is okay. When really, if we're going to improve our work environments, I think we have to say thank you for being sensitive. Thank you for noticing this problem ahead of time. But in order to get there, I also think that we have to create spaces where we can be sensitive, and also healthy, where we're not absorbing work environments or behaviors around us that are toxic. So we talked, we were kind of chatting before we started recording. And we're talking about this really common example that I see where there is like a very well established CEO, or we see this a lot in legal spaces where there's like a boss, a main lawyer, who is kind of a bully or abusive, and there's an assistant who works for that. Boss, and

that's the handler, yeah, here, you know, I am a cleaner, you know, like, I clean up all the messes, and I try to keep it really, really comfortable for the big boss,

and is often a highly sensitive person, they're very attuned to if people are behaving in a way that's gonna set the boss off. I had this experience once when I was a lawyer. When I was a pretty new lawyer, I wrote this memo about an expert that we had found for a case and we've done all this research and talk to other attorneys about finding this expert. And it really contributed to the case, do I wrote this memo so that we could capture it for future similar cases? And I submitted it to like the big boss in our office who was actually a really lovely person, and I love and so but he had a lot of power in the office. And he had one of these assistants who made sure everybody conformed to the way he wanted things. And she came to my office and she said, Well, he's a little upset about your memo. And she showed it to me and he had taken a Sharpie marker and blacked out the names of the people who referred us to the expert, and I was like what's happening? And she was like, Well, the next time you read a memo, you might just consider attributing all of the good things that happened to him, so that he can take credit for that. cuz I was like, No, thank you, I'm not going to do that. That's really silly what is happening? They know. But that's what she was like, Well, you know, we don't want to make him mad. And she didn't want to make him mad both because it felt unsafe to her. Like there could be consequences, but also because she was not willing to tolerate his uncomfortable feeling.

Right. Right. But you were right. And I think for you in that situation, it's like, cool, I don't actually need him to like my memo in that way. Like, that works for me, because I, you know, I've got, I see the boundary showing up there, like intellectual boundaries, and also the values and kind of like professional boundaries as well. We were like, cool. Got it. We all want what we want. Get it, you want that this is what the work is. And so you were able to hold your boundaries and showing up in doing the work. And even though somebody else was like, well, we wouldn't want to ruffle his feathers, you're like, No, like, it's actually okay, then there's a message here that's like, it is okay for other people's feathers to be ruffled in a situation where you what you are doing is your job. And then this other thing is happening, where we're like trying to wind up around the over optimizing for the emotional comfort of one person, at the expense of the purpose of the firm. Like, that's valid, that's it's actually important that you were sensitive to the like, I don't know, if it's ethics at that stage or the truthfulness of the memo, as opposed to be too uncomfortable, you know, by by perspective of the feather ruffling

to me at that point, for me, I had to build up a willingness to allow people who had certain power over my job, I had to build up a tolerance to allow them to be uncomfortable for the greater good kind of for the, for the outcomes, the shared outcomes that we had. But I think like if she had come to me about a year earlier, or something I would have had a crisis and melted down and, and blamed myself about it. And I think that that's one of the dynamics that happens is if we are highly sensitive, we perceive that other people are having feelings. And often for highly sensitive people, we do perceive them accurately, I think we can never really perceive other people's emotions 100% accurately because we live in different bodies. But I think highly sensitive people do have a really valuable skill of accurately perceiving, to some extent, and to a higher extent than other people, the uncomfortable feelings that another person has. But then when we're talking about boundaries, we need to take a step back and say, I am still living in my bubble. And just because I can observe and notice and accurately know that the feeling that the other person's having, and that it's uncomfortable, that they're angry, that they're experiencing disappointment that they're experiencing shame that they're experiencing feelings that we kind of collectively agree on adequacy, in this case, inadequacy. unfairness, this other person, especially this person in power, is having this uncomfortable feeling does not mean that I need to hang on to that feeling also, even if there's a moment where it passes through me, and I kind of absorb it. And that's how it alerts me and I notice it, I can still let it go, I can be like there's that saying that says be a screen, not a sponge, like you can allow things to kind of come through you and pass through you. The on the other side, though the other and so I but I think that if we can notice it, we can strategically plan for how we want to encounter the other person's behaviors that come from their uncomfortable feelings, right? Their thoughts create their feelings, and their feelings motivate their actions in the same way that ours our thoughts, create our feelings and our feelings motivate our actions. But if we can step back into our space and own that, we can be really valuable in that space of strategically acting. And then on the other side, if we're highly sensitive on the other side of the power dynamic, and we're the person in power, and we notice somebody that we maybe have privilege around being uncomfortable, it makes us very valuable as allies because we can notice things before they have to say something. So for example, as white when like a lot of white women have been raised to become highly sensitive and to be very vigilant around white men's feelings, right? Then we enforce that whiteness against black people specifically and indigenous peoples specifically right to make the white men safe and we we don't think that we're imposing whiteness, but real We aren't we think we're just like being normal, but really we are. But if we can use our highly our high sensitivity in the reverse and say, Wow, I noticed ahead of time that there is a black person in this space who's being targeted or being tokenized or being, like forced to do something that they're probably uncomfortable about. That gives me the high sensitivity ability to step in, in that situation so that all of all of the advocacy is not left on the people who are the most marginalized.

I have heard this statement that's gonna sound weird in this context, but have you ever it's about power and it's like, there somebody said, like, there's some managers who punch down and kiss up. But other people punch up and kiss down. I'm not sure we really want to be kissing down on this podcast. Morning around that like punching horsemen watching, I can say nothing. But that I think that what that like glib kind of phrasing points to is being aware of like the up down directions. And here's, here's what I'm getting so far. So am I too sensitive? Or is it a toxic work toxic workplace? I think the first thing we're saying here is that, you know, red flag, too sensitive, quote, unquote, can actually be a slur that functions to dismiss and disempower people. Whether that's us accidentally disempowering somebody else, somebody's preparing us, or US disempowering ourselves. Like even that question that's like, wait a minute, maybe I'm just too sensitive. That might be the hedge Aman sneaking in if you are newly listening to this episode, as your first episode. We talk a lot in this podcast, and it Meredith and her work about reprogramming hegemony, the internalized vestiges of externalize dominance and oppression, those voices sneak in there. And this whole MIT sensitive thing, it definitely has the, you know, vibe, alert blaring here that actually it's coded sensitive as bad. I will also wager here propose that actually can be used really viciously, in alignment with gender as well, like there's like ways in which like people who are have been trained included, as mentioned, not be too sensitive. There's other ways that people coded as white women shouldn't be or women of color shouldn't be, or non binary people, there are a lot of tightropes around it. So our first thing is flag that language Am I choose, maybe I'm just too sensitive. Just notice the disempowerment there. That's a really great opportunity. The second thing that I think is the key takeaway so far, is that there could be there can be a difference between being sensitive, like having high sensing ability, and then also what we do with that information, right? So when people say, stop being so sensitive, often they're like, I don't want to be accountable for what you're saying right now. Right? Empowerment, we want to keep the sensors, and then try to do sensors plus spaciousness, so that we can be strategic, not like power over people. But we can play a strategic role in the accomplishment of our shared goals in our firm environment of respect and well being. The image I keep getting is actually I did not think about this before is we have a Prius in our house. And we got it has the sensors on it, right? So it will tell you, right? Like, if you're backing up, it's like Beep, beep, beep. And sometimes there's a lot of beeping. But like, at first, we're like, Oh, my God, the beeping is like scrambling our brain. We're like, wow, we shouldn't be doing this. Sometimes you'll it'll have multiple kinds of beeping at why that first it made us feel like we needed to immediately get rid of a Prius, and maybe just like ride bikes forever, despite weather patterns. And what we have realized over time is like, Nope, you kind of acclimate to it. And you're like, oh, okay, yep, there's a beat. That's cool. Now, there's also a setting on the Prius, where if you're backing up, at some point, depending on how it's calibrated, you can have a setting where it slams on the brakes automatically, which is very alarming. So we're like, Alright, how would we like to calibrate this in our family we have chosen we would like beeps sooner and more frequently. We're okay with the beeps around here. But we have we have a higher tolerance on the automatic braking. Because we would not actually like the car to be like taking over the situation, this reflexive action, the same amount. And that's what that's what you're offering here is like, actually, what if instead of toughening up and hunkering down and just going along with it, with everybody else, we choose to lean in to our abilities or super abilities to be perceptive, and to sense what's going on. Then we claim the space to choose what to do next, including sometimes choosing to tick people off, who are above us in the power rink, knowing that that we might have been groomed to view that as dangerous and that that also might freak out the other in our case Here's the other nice white ladies who are trained to predict violence, right? From a certain kind of dominant fat actor, and then be sure everybody else is real compliant with that, like, sometimes we're going to need to be willing to tick the nice white ladies off, as well as the dominant players in our workplace. And that's okay.

Yeah, and I even don't think of it anymore as ticking them off. Because I think like, really what it is, is showing up as ourselves and creating the environments that we want to see in the world. And I think the thing that ticks them off is our programming that normal means unfairness that normal means protecting certain people and

more than others, rather than the business or the organization,

the thing that really get that really causes that discomfort and the other person is whatever their programming is, that you're living outside of at that point, you know,

yeah. I don't know if you said this, or if someone you quoted it, or if it was somebody else was someone said recently, like, people's repeated thoughts become their belief, like you're building Byron, Katie. Katie is like the practice thing, the thinking that we practice becomes our believing. Yeah, and I love what you're saying, which is like, if you're not taking the boss off, in your case, or like, one of the situations that I've been through in my career, I had a colleague who had was in was embarking on a secret relationship with another manager on the team. And it was like giving me all the anxiety and heart palpitations because I was like, I love working with you. This is like against policy, actually, because you're not supposed to do dating with like a leap. It made me complete, it made me nuts. And I just think in those situations, it was so easy to be like, I'm the only one or kind of alienate yourself around it. But it doesn't need to be that way. Like we can see the situation, we can have a spaciousness, and then if it takes somebody if somebody you what I'm doing here and

their belief system ticks them off.

Yeah, I'm like, actually, I'm, I have an issue with this. And they're like, I can't believe that. You're saying that right now. Right? Like I think I got trained to fear is so funny, because I found out literally right there, because I'm like, this is still fresh. But like bringing that up. I'm like, oh, no, it can feel really personal. I'm an intern. I mean, I grew up as an internal iser Yeah. Right. So I'm like, Oh, my God, it's like, the mythology for me is that if I don't say anything about it, maybe it's not a problem. Yes. I'm gonna go away. Yeah, go away, and it affects other people. And I think what you're saying is, the way you would have me have had me think about that. And in that situation, is to be like you like Megan's gonna bring forth what's there for Meghan to bring forth? Yeah, other people are experiencing anger, frustration, resentment, shame, inconvenience, because actually, there are behavioral choices there. And now it's in the light, it's almost like, I'm not the one that put the behaviors in the light, the behaviors, but the behaviors are already there. And he's bouncing the light doesn't actually help.

I mean, and that kind of brings up two things for me. So I think like, I think that there's the space of sensitivity because of our own privilege. And then I think that there's a space of sensitivity because of our own compassion and our own connection to humans. And I think that the space of sensitivity around privilege is different. I think that sometimes when we are being sensitive, I think that it's fair for people to say, Okay, do you want to center yourself in this experience? So for example, in the memo situation that I was talking about, my boss was also being sensitive. He was sensitive because of his thinking, but it's not okay for other people to have contributed to a case, right. He believed that he was sensitive around that he was experiencing discomfort around that. And I think that there's an invitation for him to not center himself there, because it's not contributing to the common good. On the other hand, another way that I say I see people tell someone to toughen up around a toxic situation is out of love. So I see a lot of partners do this with with people who are going through a challenging work experience. And their partners say like, like you got to just let it go. You got to just move on. You got to just like, you can't take everything on like this. And some of that is also fair. I think that but I think that that's different than letting go of our sensitivity. I think that that That's exactly what you said, that's the internalization of it. So that's the space. Where we go from, we start out and we say, I noticed this other person is experiencing discomfort, I noticed this behavior is having an impact I don't like in my environment, I noticed something I don't want to tolerate is in my presence, right, like I have seen

as the screen, right, we're able to see through, but we are not sponging, we're not taking

that yet. And then there's a second step where then we say, This is my fault. I've done something wrong to create this, maybe I don't belong here and we internalize it, and we turn judgment in ourselves. And then we experience a separate discomfort because of our thinking about it, than the discomfort that we're noticing in the environment. So I think in that those are the sort of the two spaces where I do see people say, like, hey, this experience you're having doesn't seem healthy for you. The first is privilege sensitivity. And the second is internalizing a narrative that we have to fix other people's uncomfortable feelings. But I do think that it's shall it is hard to be in a space and observe somebody having discomfort and not fix it. Like that is a practice, like, I shouldn't

do like your colleagues. Like you said, in this example, too. You're like, I really liked this person. It's like, but this you know, the data about like assault and harassment is like, overwhelmingly that it actually it's not like some random villain popped out of like a dark wood. No, this stuff has, it's really these are relational problems. This is old as human relationships. And so I feel like that is one place to and you like you've really liked the person. But then you're like, Oh, am I going to do this to them? If only I wish I wasn't that person. I feel like to your point about how we come after ourselves, wishing we didn't feel that way, or wishing we were different, is kind of like the yellow card of like, Oh, if we wish we didn't feel that way. When we start like creating storylines from that space. It's kind of a signal to like, Wait, come back. Let's go back to the original sensing of what's happening. Let's, you know, squeeze out the sponge, set it aside, so it doesn't get weird and moldy. And then we're going to be the screen. What do we notice? What is the discomfort that it's creating? Is this my discomfort? Is this discomfort with other people? Another like, white lady problem we sometimes have is that is tricky. It's compassion. It's masquerading as compassion. But sometimes it is this right to comfort thing where we're like, oh, this is going to make other people uncomfortable. Okay, so we watch for Savior ism, because we're not saving people. Right? But like, there is, that is good discernment work to say, right? I'm the screen, there is just comfort. Why is this important? Why is that important? This is important, because we don't have relationships like that, because it creates a cloudy environment for all of us, new hires, people in the mid level of their career to be like, Oh, crap, is this what I need to do to get ahead, which can be a whole thing and industries, which part you know, it hits people differently based on the privilege and the choices that they feel in their lives. And, you know, my workplace wasn't talking about that, that some people felt like they came to the industry from like a more stable place, and had a bigger right to resist or stay noticed that they didn't want to do. And one of the earliest pieces of advice, when I took my first job in tech that I got from a mentor was like, I'm not saying anything about you. But no matter what you do, don't sleep with your boss. That was like their recommendation for this specific tech company, because they were like, it just happens all the time. But like, I care about your career, and it always goes badly for the person who is the shape and size of you. So just don't do it. The woman seems like what you have to do, don't do it. And I was like, Okay, thank you. For your it was like an uncomfortable interaction. But I understood like the good intentions about it. But you know, some people in the environment, you know, person who doesn't really want their dating relationship exposed, they're not really being responsible for the bit, you know, the bigger picture and the reason that we put those kinds of guidelines in place, which has nothing to do with them not getting to date, who they want to date. So there is a bit of mindfulness here, that we are allowing people to learn, when we are not just wishing ourselves out of observing the negative impact of

allowing, allowing people in dominant positions, allowing people with privilege to experience discomfort, even if we're uncomfortable with that, even if we've been trained that that's acceptable,

because it's part of experiential learning for an part of accountability.

And I think so like, I think that I think that people can have realistic concerns about reporting abuses in the workplace like people can think I legitimately maybe be fired for this. And that's like, reasonable in a lot of spaces. And often it's true. I think that it's a separate thing to say, I am afraid to report this because I'm not willing to tolerate this abuser being uncomfortable. This person I don't respect. Having discomfort is going to be so painful for me that I just can't do it. Or I'm not willing to watch this other person report this, I have a friend who talks about another one of our friends, who probably will eventually both of them I think will be on the podcast at some point. But um, my friend says, Oh, she just always says the quiet part loud. And she tells a story about watching our friend who says the quiet part loud. Do it and say, Oh, I thought we were only allowed to talk about this and whispers behind the scenes, like, Am I safe? Is this okay? And like watching that happen? And then realizing like, Oh, this is how abuse takes up space is because we are those of us who are sensitive or not willing to tolerate abusers being uncomfortable.

Yeah, and if you go really deep into the domestic violence literature, and like how it actually works, we're almost nobody wants to know but you guys don't want to know about this stuff. But like if you really get want to get really nerdy and learn about manipulation control, part of the conscious or subconscious dark arts of it, is that abuse behaviors program everybody else to protect the abuser Frys, right, that's not your fault. That's a very Oh, yes, I mean, that's gonna be like, we should get a button. And when we push it, that's like, reminder, this is not your fault. And just be Be watchful. If you find that internal voice in you, that is self silencing. See if you can respond with immense compassion and be like, Well, wait a minute, am I getting Vince to protect somebody who is choosing like non aligned behaviors at the expense of my own self, it's like, it's not like the oldest gotcha in the book, like, we're all dummies for falling for it. It's just this like, really slippery, quick split quicksand trap, that the more we know about it, the more that we can, the more we can actually choose what to do next. Right, slow it all down practice the impact model that we've talked about, as we talked about in past episodes. And then and just see if you can start creating some space by diagramming the thinking, diagramming the other players and creating that room for you to sit with what really is. Meredith, I would love to ask you on this. Rather than toughen up, you have like a new invitation for people in a different direction, I think is really sweet.

Yeah, I just think we can sensitive up sometimes. And that's how we create more effective boundaries. I mean, when we talked about boundaries. Last time, we talked a lot about our personal safety and our personal rewards and our personal experience of the workplace, and how those interact with other people's boundaries. And we talked about like, it's not a boundary for like the Jonah Hill thing that it was in the news over the summer, where he told his girlfriend, it was his boundary that she not post a picture of herself in her bathing suit on social media, right? Like that's not a boundary that's just control. However, I do think other people can be within our boundary environment as communities, right, we can think of the safety that I create does create safety for other people. And as long and have communities be within our bubble of safety, as long as we're not then imposing control on the people who are in our bubbles, right? And I think if we sensitive up we can say oh, like, is there a toxin in this environment like, like, if you ingest a lot of poison over time, if you ingest small amounts of poison, you develop more tolerance to poison, which lets you take more poison, right? If you don't ingest poison, your body is sensitive to poison. And so the only reason to toughen up about it is if you want to ingest more poison. But if we sensitive up, we can have immediate alerts where we say, oh, let's resolve this not to control the people around us, but to notice what's happening and work towards creating the communities and the workplaces. We want to create.

Yeah, we didn't say this earlier. But I think you all know this. This is we are not therapists or mental health professionals. And I do think that so much good work can happen in some of those spaces around some of these topics. I think a lot of us have found a lot of support in therapy and counseling environments around reclaiming sensitivity. Even if you toughened up before, then guess what, boy your 30s have something if you're in your 30s Yeah, boy, your 30s has something in store for you where sometimes Our old sensitivity that we try it, we thought we left behind surgery service and strange and uncanny moments. And we can either try to force it back down into the dark dark hole, which it will not want to go back into, or we can be like, okay, and now and like re embrace it and reintegrate. And that can also be an environment a good environment to pursue. There's this there's this topic of like emotional self self regulation, nervous system regulation, where there's like breathing practices and all sorts of different work that we can do. visualizations, meditations, there's so much good stuff out there and so that you

can work Somatic Experiencing work. Work Yeah,

Holly Vega love it, like you could google google this stuff if you want to y'all but basically, there is this whole field of support and healing and sort of regeneration that can happen around our ability to both recover sensitivity, and not be completely overtaken by it right and holding our own space around it.

I know he said this a bunch in this episode, but like, notice, use the sensitivity to notice not to attach like to notice what's happening, not to internalize it and take it on yourself and punish yourself.

Yeah. And then from there, we find the space, we can navigate it. And we also practice holding the space for other people to have their experience of it. We can witness and acknowledge we are not merging and meshing, we are not getting all wound around them or entangled in other people's workplace co dependencies. Nope, we are grounding. And also we can be respectful as we do this, without being the cause, you know, someone else can have discomfort and doesn't mean we caused it. We can speak in a respectful manner and still make it happen. Is there any bottom line Meredith? Like, what what should people practice for the if they're in a situation right now? Where they, they want to take an action and be be more distinctive, you know, be more in line with their own boundary? Any final words for what they should? Do you know, what we should do the first time that we choose to sensitive up and then actually bring something into our environment?

Yeah, I think it's, I think, it's not all or nothing, it's not being silent, or throwing bombs, it's, it's showing up as you it, looking into your body, your mind who you truly are, and your experience and showing up a little more as yourself every day. Like, in instead of ingesting a little bit of poison, letting the environment accept a little bit of you, every day. And it can be gradual, it doesn't have to be overnight, you don't have to go from feeling like you're internalizing your environment to all of a sudden, like being a like, activist, you know, it's just like, what's one thing that you can do in this environment to show up a little bit more as yourself, let yourself have a little bit more space, let your sensitivity be a notice to you, not a disaster, and not take on if somebody else is having abusive behavior in your environment, and you take that on yourself, like the wrong person is getting punished in that situation.

So we are squeezing out our inner sponges. And then we are seeing through our screens. And maybe the first step is some journaling on I noticed non judgmental noticing. And then we don't have to like run it in or read the riot act to everybody right away. This can be gradual process, but we're starting from within, so that we can make a bigger impact without

and some of it when you're journaling. If you're if you're doing a journaling exercise on it, you can say like, what is one thing that would make me feel a little more safe in this situation? What is one thing that would make me feel a little more nurtured in this situation? You can write out everything that's going wrong and just like do free right, like there's nothing wrong in journaling. And what what do you deserve? If you saw someone you loved who was like you in this situation? What would you do for them to care for them,

and then those can become requests. Mariana thank you so much for all your work. Thank you for today and we will see you next time on power communication.