The Art of Sensitive Living, Dating and Sex #65

Ever wonder why some people seem to experience the world with a heightened sense of emotion and intuition? We introduce you to the fascinating look at highly sensitive people (HSP) as Chris Lyon, a seasoned coach with a 24-year track record, joins us to share their profound insights. Together, we're peeling back the curtain on the lives of HSPs, exploring the strengths that lie in their deep-seated creativity and empathy, and debunking the myths that paint them as fragile or rigid. This episode isn't just a conversation; it's an invitation to rethink what it means to be sensitive and how that shapes our interactions and self-awareness.

Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding Highly Sensitive People
• 9:43 Dating as a Highly Sensitive Person
• 14:49 Sensitive Person Navigating Relationships
• 27:03 Embracing Highly Sensitive Individuals

Transcript

Chris: 0:00

Welcome to the Straight from the Source's Mouth podcast. Frank talk about sex and dating.

Tamara: 0:06

Hello everyone, tamara here, welcome to the show. Today's guest is Chris Lyon, and we'll be talking about highly sensitive people. If you like this episode, be sure to tell your friends about it and rate it as well. Thanks for joining me, chris hey it's great to be here.

Chris: 0:20

Thanks for having me.

Tamara: 0:22

Yes, I think it'll be. There's a lot of highly sensitive people out there and I know you want to talk about some of the misconceptions or in relationships within and with people who are highly sensitive. So let's first start with how you got started, or like what drew you to this topic.

Chris: 0:39

Well, sounds good. I did get started because I found out that I'm a highly sensitive person and it was pretty illuminating. It was in the late nineties. I read a book by Dr Elaine Aaron called the highly sensitive person, and it just really opened my eyes to what had been going on, with so many of my experiences growing up and being a young child being a teenager, an adult, and it really helped me.

Chris: 1:08

See, you know why I felt the way I did, why I processed the way that I did and why I saw the world and felt the world the way that I did made a lot of sense, and in my work, I began about 24 years ago doing work, coaching and hypnosis with clients and in my work.

Chris: 1:24

I began about 24 years ago doing work, coaching and hypnosis with clients and in my work I found that quite often I would have clients that were highly sensitive and after a while most of them were highly sensitive, and not to say that most people are highly sensitive.

Chris: 1:37

I would say that the research in the past has said one out of every five or so, and more recent research has been more like one out of every three or four people are highly sensitive. So a lot of my clients identified that way and I've worked with them on it and I have learned so much about the healing process and about different mindsets, about different types of ways to manage your life as a highly sensitive person. That changes everything. So I've done that for myself and with my clients all these years.

Tamara: 2:08

And what are some of the either you can go, either way. Misconceptions or things to know, like the positives, like whichever way you want to go.

Chris: 2:17

Well, sure Cause, you know what. I think they do go together. So it's a great question. Um, people tend to, um, see highly sensitive people as well. You know they're different. So a lot of times people don't accept that people are different anyway they don't, they don't embrace that very well. But people see highly sensitive people historically as being weak or, you know, being inflexible, being lazy, different types of thoughts like that.

Chris: 2:50

So it's rough to be growing up as a kid with your caregivers and maybe some of your peers thinking these things about you and thinking that there's maybe something wrong with you and that's something that's bad or something wrong with you and it's something that's bad or something that needs to be fixed, something that you don't have, and it's just not true. We just experience life differently. We take in more at once of details, energy, you know, in the situation. We take in more at once and we process it more deeply. So there is a lot of overwhelm that can be involved in, overstimulation can be involved with that. But that's part of managing your life, as I highly said to the person, knowing that you're going to take in more and that you're going to feel more deeply.

Chris: 3:38

You're going to be extremely creative or extremely intuitive. You're going to have more empathy for people. They say that in some studies that the mirror neurons are more active with people with high sensitivity, and the high sensitivity is a difference in the central nervous system. So it's just a different genetic trait. And you know, we have all of these things where we feel things more. Some people feel things more physically, some feel more emotionally and we're feeling all of these things. We can get overwhelmed. We also can compare ourselves to others. Especially if we grew up with people doing that, with us saying, why can't you be like so-and-so, et cetera, et cetera, why can't you be like everyone else? That we would feel very deeply, we would take that very personally. So there is a lot to hey, you know what? You have to understand that everyone's different and you have to also understand that not everyone is highly sensitive and so you have to manage your life as somebody who is highly sensitive and someone who has those feelings and to have your feelings and also with the overwhelm to prepare ahead of time or to do things differently or avoid doing

Chris: 4:49

some things if you're going to be overwhelmed, or if you know you're going to be overwhelmed, if you prepare and then you have your downtime. App time after the downtime after is is gold. It's amazing because we need a lot of time to recharge, to process, to rest all of those things. So it's important that we're not trying to handle things like everyone else, because in a lot of ways, we have more to deal with. So that's part of managing your life as a highly sensitive person. There is some self-care involved and there is also a lot of highly sensitive people have difficulty with boundaries, and that's super important in relationships, interactions with other people.

Tamara: 5:35

So yeah.

Chris: 5:36

I do work with clients a lot on really giving themselves grace, understanding themselves better and then managing their lives in the way that suits who they are and not really in consideration of other people.

Tamara: 5:50

Yeah, as you're describing it, I'm like, oh, maybe I am one of these people yeah, I think so and um, and is it like being an introvert, or are they generally introverted if you are highly sensitive?

Chris: 6:04

Yeah, people think that most of them are introverted and it's true from what they have found. I would say, from what I've heard, the latest is that about 70% of them are introverted and 30% may be extroverted. For me I'm an omnivert, so that works fine if it's fine for me, but often they are introverted. You know we need introverts in this world. We need introverts when we need highly sensitive people. They're very helpful for us in many, many ways. So, yeah, they may be more quiet, but you know what they like to have deep connection with people, you know, maybe in just the same way as everyone else does, maybe in different ways, maybe in deeper ways. And they also respond very well to the arts and music Some of them have great relationships with the arts.

Chris: 6:54

I know I love music. I couldn't do without it. I listen to it every day. It's a big deal for me, and many of them have quite a deep connection with nature. So a lot of highly sensitive people can go and feel transcendent experiences in nature more easily than people who may not be highly sensitive. So there's a lot to this that's really good. Except what happens in mainstream society is that people are not understanding it or they're ashamed because they have it in there, they have the high sensitivity and they were treated badly, or they just they don't know how to deal with it, or they misunderstand it. They think it's something that's off. So a lot of times the way that highly sensitive people are treated when they're younger, it's going to make them feel more victimized over the entire concept.

Chris: 7:49

So they can go into life, thinking, oh man, this is really hard on me and I can't handle this like other people do, which we handle a lot of things in ways people cannot, but they just say, oh, I can't do this like other people can and this is so difficult for me and I I feel these things and they're I'm miserable and I'm depressed and I'm anxious, and they focus on a mentality of lack or mentality of being a victim. And one of the things that makes them focus on that victim mentality and be really clear about this and really honest is that highly sensitive people are internally focused, so they can have like rich, deep inner worlds, right. But because they are internally focused, unfortunately it makes them a little bit quite often self-centered. As far as other interactions with people, we can have lots of empathy, but when someone is saying something hurtful to us or angry with us, we can tend to take that energy and just accept it when it's really not even ours a lot of times, and process that inside in ways that hurt us, that really hurt, instead of coming outside feeling the feeling and validating and then coming outside of ourself focusing on why would they have said that?

Chris: 9:07

I've heard countless times how they sense that people think well, my mother thinks I'm this or my spouse says that I'm this, and we find out 95% of the time that they said this to them because of their own agendas. It's not that they really felt that way about them. Not that they've done a deep study, a deep analytic study, you know, and a process and found and I'm giving this to you to help you no, they're projecting. They can be projecting. They can be just taking whatever they have that they're feeling out on someone else. They can be trying to manipulate or control in some way, but highly sensitive people make it about them all too often. The other thing they make about them is their responsibility for other people. They take a lot of responsibility to help other people, to fix other people, to make things right for other people and other situations where they don't have that responsibility. So they make not in a narcissistic way, but they make too many things about them that are not about them at all.

Chris: 10:13

That, that, uh, is what a lot of them carry around. That's part of learning about that as part of learning how to manage your life as a highly sensitive person is to just realize that that isn't often the truth, it's not often what's happening in the situation and it's better to work on those muscles to be able to go externally to be more clear on what's going on.

Tamara: 10:50

Yeah, I can see that where you internalize it and I can see how that would also correlate to the dating world too. It and I can see how that would also correlate to the dating world too. Like if you're a highly sensitive person in the dating world and something doesn't go well or you're on a date and you're assuming the worst you know cause that kind of stuff, say more about that within the dating world.

Chris: 11:09

A hundred percent. Thank you for bringing that up, cause that happens a lot.

Tamara: 11:12

And that is on a lot of people's minds.

Chris: 11:15

Yes, I say as a highly sensitive person when you're going into the dating process, first of all, before that, do your own work. Do your own, like 2020, on what happened in these previous relationships or even your early relationships with caregivers. What happened that didn't work for me? What happened that caused me pain or harm that didn't turn out right? Or my last relationship, wow, what happened? Like did I not have boundaries? Did I not have my voice heard? Was I not making sure that I'm being heard? Was I not aware of my needs, because I've been worried about everyone else and what everyone else thinks, and fixing everyone else? Was it codependent? I mean all those things. Do the healing first. Do the looking and the healing first and really make yourself someone who is a good partner and would be able to have a healthy relationship, and then, when you go into the dating process, know how to have boundaries. Go into it in a way where you're not thinking, oh, I wonder if they like me, because that's a lot of times, the key thought that people have when they find out someone likes them, which you can be being love bombed instead, which is horrible. They find someone. It seems like someone likes them. They can get a little high off of it Now, a lot of people do, but I think HSPs have a really strong dose of that. So it's better to look at it as an adventure and kind of promise yourself a few simple things.

Chris: 12:48

When I am going to go meet this person, I'm going to go sit with them and talk with them. I'm going to enjoy it. I'm going to enjoy it. I'm going to, I'm going to enjoy the process. I'm going to enjoy it. I'm going to learn something about the world and something about me. Those are my goals, not to see if someone approves of me or someone likes me. So you see how we change mindsets too. We work on mindset changes and also old beliefs. Overriding old beliefs, right With the management of your life as a highly sensitive person. So going into the dating world.

Chris: 13:22

You're going and saying, hey, I'm gonna get the best I can get out of this. I'm gonna have this new experience. It's like an adventure. This is great. It kind of removes you from someone else's energy instead of taking it on, and it lets you have a whole different view of the situation. So, and it lets you have a whole different view of the situation. So, if something really strikes for you and you like it, you learned about the world, you learned about you and you had this great time. But you feel like you connected Great, great. Don't read deepest things into that. Take it and pace yourself on it.

Chris: 13:49

Highly sensitive people I'm sure that you figured out by now with the way I talk about it. We are very intense people. Whether we're quiet or not, we're intense. That's great. I think it's wonderful. But there's some ways that we need to kind of use that to our advantage and be able to control that. So in the dating process, we've got to be really careful about what our uh, what our objective is, instead of the default of. I hope they approve of me.

Tamara: 14:18

Yeah, and the rushing it thing A lot of people do that, even if they're not highly sensitive. You know that's good advice for everyone to go slow and see if you're compatible and all the things Go slow.

Chris: 14:29

Have the conversations like. Talk to them about their past, their present, their future. Listen, ask more questions and observe. See how they treat people, see how they talk about work situations, how they talk about their family, how they talk about their exes. Take your time Now. Here's the big thing. I suggest that highly sensitive people work with someone regarding their awareness, you know, finding out more about who they are and bringing out the best in them right and have the best quality of life. I suggest they work with someone because I've worked with people on that myself for me and it's really helped that cooperative relationship. So when you're doing that, you get people's insights and you know an outside view is great, because we can't have an outside view for ourselves. I mean nobody can. So what I suggest to people is that they work on that. They work on them, you know, with with somebody else, and then when they go into the like the dating process, that they make a commitment they're going to make sure that they pace themselves and and and take the time and they're very observant about their energy during that time, almost using it like for practice with you know, like building healthy, interactive skills, and you practice, practice, practice just pacing yourself and knowing when those feel good chemicals come up and they stir up in you and you're feeling the intensity of it. That's valid, but it doesn't mean it's reality. That person is right for you Right. So you definitely want to pace yourself. You definitely want to go slow at it. You definitely want to know three things. Number one what do I bring to a relationship? And that's a list. Number two another list is what do I look for in experience with a relationship, not necessarily someone who has brown eyes and is this tall. But what do I want to experience in a relationship with a partner? The third list is important. What are my non-negotiables, what are my limits, what are my boundaries? That I will not. And mostly when someone says something about their life and it kind of goes against that list, it's a no. I need to stick to that because I need to trust my own guidance. I'm my caregiver now. I need to trust my guidance here. Can't be complaining about my caregivers if I'm being a crappy one, right, so I have to be the best that I can be. But yeah, I think we need to see this in a whole new process.

Chris: 16:50

And I do have something that I tell people that I know isn't a favorite and it's beyond kind of the normal MO that's going on these days. But I strongly suggest that people do not message each other while they're dating. They do not message as if they're already in a relationship. They do not message, you know, from time to time, good morning.

Chris: 17:13

Whatever you message, if you're arranging getting together a video date or in person date and if you're saying thank you, I had a great time and that's it. Other than that, get on the phone and see each other in person, because the messaging part and hsps can really get caught on this and so can other people. But you, it's easy, it's low effort, so someone else can love, bomb you or tell you things or even act another part and you wouldn't know any different, you wouldn't be able to see the tonality and their facial expression and and and other things involved with having an in-person conversation. So I tell people, hey, don't, don't even message, because hsps can hear these romantic things and you're so beautiful, these things, and they can really feel those and you process those and you know that's not what I'm suggesting for people at all.

Chris: 18:00

I'm saying be realistic about it, Feel the feelings, but don't do the texting. Take things slow and just be real conscious of what's going on. A lot of HSPs don't understand this is a big thing. They don't understand that all that energy they're taking in, they have control over what they do receive. We're like human sponges, if that makes sense, but we have control over what we're going to take on. So something happens to us that's like really hurtful or whatever, and it's from someone else. Right, we can send that right back to them and not take that in. And it does take developing new muscles to do that too. That's super important not to take on everyone's stuff. If someone's angry with me and they're lashing out at me, I am obligated to not absorb it. I am obligated to stop and think okay, is that mine to take in or not? Or even in the moment I'm not going to take that in. And now I'm going to go ahead and process it and see what my responsibility or what part of it is mine, if any that's important.

Tamara: 19:11

Yeah, and when you were saying no texting, you do say you can take phone calls and see each other in person, or is it more just in person?

Chris: 19:18

out. Nah, I don't feel comfortable with that, I don't want to. They just messaged and then met. I've had a number of clients come back and tell me oh, I had the worst time ever. I wanted to leave so bad, I wanted out. It was awful, it was horrible, I wish I had gone, et cetera, et cetera, right, and then, of course, you know what I'm going to ask them. Right, yeah, I'm going to say okay, so I'm sorry that it went so badly, because I am.

Chris: 20:00

And do you think if you would have talked to them on one phone call, if you would have determined that, um, you didn't want to go on a date? And they, every single time, tell me yes, that's not just your time, it's your time, your energy and your bandwidth, you know. So, yes, I strongly recommend that people message only for when they, they first encounter each other. Let's say online that they, you, you, have to message. So you only message for two or three days, not about your whole life, your whole life story, just messaging like, hey, this is great. Oh, I saw this, that you do this on your profile, whatever, that's really great.

Chris: 20:34

After the second day, like during the second day, at the most the third day, but if you're busy to be the third day, if you're not too busy the second day after that, it's get on the phone. It's hey, uh, roy, would love to have a conversation. Messaging is so limiting. Would really love to talk for a few. You want to chat or they can ask you or whatever, and definitely make plans, get on the phone. Get on the phone and talk and the messaging should stop there. And again, if you need to tell somebody hey, I'm sorry, I don't message much when I'm first, you know, getting to know somebody, it's just not not what I do, so you know nothing personal. There's all kinds of ways to put boundaries down in the nicest, kindest way.

Tamara: 21:17

Yeah, and a lot of people struggle with that. So I was going to offer either offer you the chance to share how people can get ahold of you and I know you have a podcast as well and or, and maybe afterwards, talk about an HSP and sex, since my podcast is about sex and dating. But whichever one you want to do first and we can, um, yeah, or we can not cover the second part and just do the first. Sure, no, what was the second part again? Um, it's talking about HSPs within sex. If there's anything in particular, like I know he's, you know if you want to talk about that, but whatever, whatever you like.

Tamara: 21:53

Yeah, whichever one you like.

Chris: 21:55

So HSPs and sex again, hsps very intense, people very intense. I mean as a rule in general and there's exceptions to rules, of course I suggest that they go really slow with the sex part of things when getting to know someone and I don't mean doing it, I don't mean just doing it, I mean talking about it I mean that when you're getting to know someone, get to know them more holistically, okay, the whole picture, the whole thing. If you have that connection and you have that chemistry, then really the sexual connection will probably be great. It's not something to worry about too much. But if you have concerns about it, you may want to talk to someone about it and say, hey, this is something I don't really do. This for the first few months or the first few weeks or the first few dates. I don't really do any intimacy or kissing or whatever.

Chris: 22:53

If you want to, you could give them a kiss, but sometimes that leads to a lot of other things. So I suggest in the first few dates you don't go out and get inebriated with someone, that you just go out and talk. You don't even go out and like some people need to do things to talk, and I understand that. Maybe you can go and you can do something like axe throwing or going for a walk to a library museum or something like that right, and then after have a cup of coffee or have lunch or something.

Chris: 23:18

But I don't suggest going out doing up the night in drinking until ends of the night where you don't have control of yourself. You need to do things later that maybe went too fast or that you regret so the sex part of it.

Chris: 23:31

I would say use your own judgment on that. When that kind of thing begins, when the dialogue happens, when the flirting happens, that can get a little harmful for some people. Even though it feels like it's fun, later it can cause a little harm. I've seen that in a number of ways. As far as having intimacy, again, that's up to you. But with an HSP you can imagine they're going to feel very intense about it and that's going to influence not only the thought process but the way they proceed in the dating and the vetting process.

Chris: 24:02

So I suggest just like okay, great, you get someone with, with someone romantically and you make a commitment You're probably going to have sex with them, unless you are asexual or you know in a in a way where you don't, you don't, you don't plan on having sex with them. Right, those conversations need to be had, for sure. But just take it easy and take it slow. Don't make that a priority, because when it happens if you are a sexual person, when it does happen it can be very, very, very intense. So get some business taken care of before that. Wait, pace yourself, watch, listen, ask the questions, have the important conversations before you get into the intimacy part of it.

Chris: 24:38

I know everyone wants to feel the chemistry and then they want to confirm it with the intimacy. I suggest you don't. I strongly advise against it.

Tamara: 24:46

Yeah, yeah, I think people would say that about most people. But yeah, I can imagine if you have intense feelings and you don't know each other well and you, you know.

Chris: 24:56

Yeah, if you could look at the recipe there, as in, someone is an HSP. They've been raised to try to be like other people and they've been raised that what they were in many ways wasn't good enough, right and wasn't something that a lot of people would approve of, accept, understand. And they're trying to go out now and they're going to try to find someone to approve of them and accept them and like them. Okay, plus, they're really intense and then they find someone who likes them. They're intense, they have that sexual experience with them. The intensity goes way up. What happens is your frontal lobe, your cognitive brain, is like, well, I'm just idling me right here with nothing to do, while all the hormones are, you know, as I like to say, slam dancing. And then we have you know fallout from that later. And. I've heard it plenty of times. So just a warning, you know again, just part of managing your life as a highly sensitive person some self control, some pacing yourself, looking at it and dating in a different way, starting out and making those three lists before you start at all, so you have those in your mind the whole time and you can use that during your dating process with people.

Tamara: 26:06

Okay, thank you. And then now, if you want to share how people can get ahold of you or work with you,

Chris: 26:11

Sure, sure, uh, I have a website. It's coach lion lioncom, coach ly o ncom. I also have a podcast there, so you can go ahead and take a look at the podcast. You actually can listen to it, and that is for really for highly sensitive people and people who love them, and it's called sensitive with an edge. So welcome everyone to come take a look at that. Uh, if you'd like to work with me, my website will help walk you through that, and there's also some courses offered, and I have a membership coming up as well, which is pretty exciting.

Tamara: 26:43

So everyone is welcome to come visit. All right, thank you very much. Well, we can um if there's any like final comments or closing comment you want to make, and then we'll wrap this up.

Chris: 26:57

I want people to understand that highly sensitive people are awesome humans as well. They deserve to be, you know, looked at as people who are also gifted and who are strong, resilient people. There's so much resilience there, and if you have someone who, if you know somebody who's highly sensitive care about, really try to understand, uh, what high sensitivity means and what means for them. And if you're a highly sensitive person, please do everything you can to work consistently on your healing, growth and empowerment journey. It's amazing and it'll just change your life. So, and thank you for the opportunity to talk about it.

Tamara: 27:41

All right. Well, thank you for being on and if you like this episode, be sure to tell your friends about it and rate it as well. And thank you again, chris. All right, bye, everyone.

Tamara: 27:51

Frank. Talk Frank, talk Sex and Dating Educate.