How many of these you can relate to in your own experience, past or present?? Relationships are such an important part of our lives but sometimes, as a highly sensitive person, it can feel like we attract challenging relationships or even just give too much of ourselves away.

Learn these five "must-know" traps and how to overcome them as a highly sensitive empath. We will also talk about the opportunity for growth that each one of these represents. These aren’t judgements, rather they are the challenging sides of some of the most beautiful and powerful attributes of being a highly sensitive person.

And remember, your sensitivity is your SuperPower.

Episode Transcript:

hey, beautiful soul, welcome to spirit speakeasy.
I'm Joy Giovanni, joyful medium. I'm a working psychic medium, energy healer and spiritual gifts mentor. This podcast is like a seat at the table in a secret club, but with mediums, mystics and the spiritual luminaries of our time. So come behind the velvet ropes with me and see inside my world as I chat insider style with profoundly gifted souls, we go deep, share juicy stories, laugh a lot, and it wouldn't be a speakeasy without great insider secrets and tips. You might even learn that you have some gifts of your own so step inside the spirit speakeasy. Hey, beautiful soul, welcome back, or welcome in for another episode of spirit speakeasy today, I want to share with you five relationship traps highly sensitive people must avoid and how to overcome them. We're gonna learn some of these signs, and I want you to see how many of these you can relate to, whether it's past versions of you or in the present, across any of the relationships that you had in your life with different people, these aren't judgments, so I wanted to keep that in mind, but rather, they're challenging sides of some of the most beautiful and powerful attributes of being a highly sensitive person. So these aren't mistakes, but they are traps that we as highly sensitive people can sometimes fall into, and again, it's in any of the relationships in our lives. So while yes, they could apply to a romantic relationship, they could also apply to a parent child relationship, whether you're the parent or whether you're the child in the relationship, with siblings, with friends, with colleagues and coworkers, with people of authority in your life, with anyone that you've ever had a relationship of any kind with. Just see if you can place any of these own, own red flags, these red flags, in your own life, or if you can even place the emotions that come with them. And I think you're going to really like the suggestions and opportunities for growth, and that the perspective shifts here, because I know if you're here with me, listening on this podcast, not only do you have some sensitivities and some abilities, but you likely also like to do personal growth and personal evaluation and Look at yourself to continue to work on yourself and expand to be the version of yourself that you want to be in any given moment. So let's get right into these red flags. Is the number one of these five pitfalls that we can sometimes find ourselves in. The way I titled this number one is what red flags. So this can look like family or friends or even sometimes ourselves, seeing red flags and ignoring them, and then we're also hard on ourselves on the other end. So say the you know, we distance from the relationship or the relationship falls apart, and then on the other end, we're hard on ourselves, and we kick our intuition in the closet for failing us when there's a part of us that sort of knew it all along that there were these red flags. So don't beat yourself up. Is is part of what not to do with this one. You want to believe and see the best in people, which is a great quality of yours, but it can also tip into the unhealthy end of that spectrum when we ignore potentially harmful behaviors because we love those rose colored glasses as sensitives, right? We want to see the best in people. We want to believe that anyone can change or anyone can grow. And while maybe that's possible, they have to want to change and want to grow. And it's okay to want to believe the best about somebody, but it's also necessary to be honest with ourself about things that might be unhealthy or harmful or maybe just not in alignment with us about that person's behavior. Sometimes it can even have to do with our own upbringing. Were you ever around and and thought like, Don't say that about that person. That's not nice. Don't be mean. Don't be rude. Many of us are taught to kind of override our own gut feelings. I think if we think back in our youth, our childhood, there often is, you know, it could be a person in the family, it could be a family friend, it could be a teacher that you might yourself remember thinking like, oh, I don't like that person. And someone told you, Oh, don't be. Rude, or, Oh, you have to give that person a hug. Or, oh, you know, no, we believe that teacher over all of these kids, for example, it's part of our cultural experience, certainly in North America, but definitely in most of Europe and in lots of other countries as well, that we want to be polite, not rude, agreeable, right? And I want to say not always, only women, but particularly women are female identifying people are trained to be subservient, to be you know, you don't want to be offensive, you don't want to step on toes, you don't want to make people uncomfortable. So under this guise of manners or being polite or being behaving in the correct way, minding our own business, sometimes we override these gut feelings. So the work here is really to practice noticing subtle flags, because so many of us have been trained away from them like we were just talking about and have been trained to sometimes just not even notice them anymore. Or if we've had a certain brand of tough upbringing, we might perceive someone who is kind of a mean bully personality. We might perceive them as strong and favorable, or they really get things done, or they're going to really protect me, but really just working with practicing noticing the subtle red flags just in your day to day life, you could even practice noticing people's personality quirks, not dismissing something at face value, but really noticing what's underlying about that. Because often our personality quirks say something about our emotions. Could say we're a fearful person, could say we're a confident person. Could say a lot of things about someone so even just no not necessarily that those personality quirks or traits are flags, but just noticing those flags, notice emotional language and expressions as you go through your day to day, and just practice being truly honest with yourself, even when the truth conflicts with what you want, right? Sometimes we have this way of even internally, trying to manipulate the situation or the details or the facts based on the outcome that we want. So that's what you can practice. Is really just being honest with yourself, even when the truth conflicts with what you thought you wanted. You could consider something like a truth journal and ask questions or use prompts like the hard, painful, ugly, whatever word you like in there, secret truth that I'm not admitting to myself about this person is, or the hard, painful, ugly, secret truth that I'm not admitting to myself about this situation or this choice is, and just keeping a Journal for yourself, where you have somewhere that you can really dive into hard truths that you're trying not to look at, right? Because that's what we do with red flags. Often we see them and we dismiss them. We don't want to look at them for one reason or another. And there may also be some healing or some growth available around trusting yourself, that self trust, you could consider journaling about what feelings or thoughts these following bring up for you. So I'm going to give you a little list of journaling prompts you can come back and write them down so that you can work with them in your own journaling. And again, it's what thoughts or feelings that these bring up for you personally, I fully trust myself. I fully trust myself. I trust the inner nudges I receive. I trust myself to make good choices for me, my gut feelings are valid.
I'm willing to see the whole truth about people and situations. And if there's something specific you're working on, you could even insert a name or a situation in there and just write what thoughts or feelings that brings up for you. I'm always honest with myself. I have permission to trust my gut feelings. And so the way to use those prompts is just write them down, or you could even pick one or two of them that resonate with you. And it's not thinking about the prompt. It's just starting to write your emotional response, your first reaction, your knee jerk, thoughts, feelings, energy, and it's really just a way in to look at working with ourselves. And if you wanted to take it to the next level, you could do something called Mirror work. Mirror work is really a lot what it sounds like. It's you could either sit with one of those little, handheld, small mirrors or a big mirror, like a bathroom mirror, or if you even have. A tall like a full length mirror. You could sit in front of that if you wanted. And it's just saying each of those prompts that I just listed out those statements while looking into your own eyes, so you want to say them to yourself, looking into your own eyes, and then just feeling what thoughts, emotions, memories start to rise up as you do that exercise in the mirror and then journal about it. And really the thing to know is just don't judge just don't judge yourself, because it's just you with you. There's nothing to be afraid of, even the deepest, darkest secrets you don't have to share with anyone else, but it's just a different way to go a little deeper with yourself. So and I know red flags are important to all of us. We all need to, you know, be able to recognize them. We we can move with them so much more seamlessly if we can recognize them sooner and give ourselves permission to acknowledge them and permission to evaluate. It's not even that we need to judge the person that we're aware of the red flags about it's just, do I want to be in business with this person, or do I want to move further in a relationship with this person? Is this the type of person that I want to engage with going forward? And if it's a situation like a work situation, where you realize all the red flags, but you still have to engage with them anyway, at least you know where you stand and you know how much to let them in or not let them in, or how much to trust them, for example, or not to trust them. So there's lots of ways that this can help you, once you start getting the hang of it. Number two on this list of relationship traps that highly sensitive people must avoid is this idea of dimming your light. Now, you may have heard this before. It's sometimes talked about in pop culture these days, with all social media. It's this idea of just turning down your Natural Shine, your natural personality, the vibe of who you naturally are. So if you notice that you're continually needing to, quote, unquote, turn down either your opinions your personality, you feel like you shouldn't share your wins, big or small. You feel like you need to focus on the other person and minimize yourself. For example, you might be frequently, quote, unquote, too much for someone, if someone's telling you, Oh, you're too much or you're too much with all these emotions, but it's usually some version of the words too much that are in there, and you being too much for someone will ultimately make you feel like you need to turn it down. Right? If it's too much, you gotta, you gotta reduce that flow. You gotta reduce that intensity of the emotions or who you are. And this is not a sign to change yourself. They just might not be the right person or friend or business partner or relationship that's the right fit for you, for you in this moment, even it's, again, not a sign that you need to change yourself, although it's a great idea to find, like, for example, a good therapist if you're able to have access to help you process and learn and see, is there more going On in my emotions here, or is this person aiming to to control right? So sometimes we're taught that it's kind to keep ourselves small, or that we should want more like we you know, we should, we shouldn't want any more attention than we're getting. We shouldn't want any more success than we're having. We shouldn't need to be the winner, for example. And while, yeah, that can tip into the challenge too, if someone's needing to win all the time to the point where they're no longer being kind or compassionate, but it's okay to let yourself go for something that you want. It's okay to, you know, if you feel like you want to have an art show and show your art that's not you wanting more attention, that's you wanting to share your art so really paying attention to areas that you're noticing, that you're wanting to pull back the way that you express yourself. You know, even in some cultures, right? Like, you know, within our own countries, we have these these sub cultures and subgroups. So lots of us fit into lots of different categories, right? So even in the culture that you were raised in, or that you exist in, now, some people hold this idea that it's frowned upon to shine or to stand out. It's like you need to blend in. You need to fit in. You need to be the same as everybody else. Why are you, you know, singing louder? Why are you dancing brighter? We've all seen those clips on social media. I'm sure there's a few different ones of. Like kids dancing at a recital, and then there'll be one kid in the video that is like really feeling the music and really just going all out with the movements. There's a couple different ones that I'm thinking of. But why shouldn't they? Why shouldn't they really give their best performance or shine as bright as they can? Why would they need to focus on the other people around them and try to match that energy. Why can't they just be themselves? So if you think you might be dimming your light, I certainly can recognize lots of relationships that I have done that in the past in and made that other person's needs more important than mine. Wants more important than mine, been more attentive to them than my own needs, put my own needs to the back burner to make them feel more important, because they needed that, for example. So you can explore questions like, Is it safe to be me? Now, some of these questions, when you listen to them at face value, our natural inclination can sometimes be like, I'm Is it safe to be me on me all the time? What are you talking about? That's why I encourage you to just make a note of these and then sit with them in a time where you have more space, where you're not rushing off to do something, where you're feeling the answers and not thinking the answers. I hope that makes sense to me. So the prompts or things to consider with this dimming your light challenge is, is it safe to be me? Because sometimes we're dimming our light because we're afraid of being judged. I know that I didn't share about my mediumship for a long time because I was afraid of being judged. It didn't feel safe to express that part of me in certain company. Who do I pretend to be? Is another question, Who do I pretend to be? I think we all, at some point in our life, can identify I mean, I feel like in my life, it's always been a part of my life where it with different people. I'm a different version of myself. I wear different hats, different I'm in different roles, right? And yes, to a degree, some of that's natural. But are we the same person? Do we have permission to be our whole self, or are we pretending to be someone else that is more acceptable supposedly, or that is more highly regarded, right? Are we pretending to be something different? And I like the opposite of that question too. Who do I pretend not to be this? This version of this question always makes me think of something in my family that happened where my grandparents immigrated here, and Italian was both of their first language and both of their only language for a long time. And my grandma really wanted to hang on to, I would assume, to hang on to that culture, that heritage, and she didn't really learn English. The truth is, she could understand a good bit, but she would, I only ever heard her speak in Italian. Once in a while I would hear a word or two in English, but I only ever heard her speak in Italian. And
when my dad was growing up, he was one of 10, and he's on the younger end. And when he was growing up, if you spoke your own language of origin, like your own familial language, if it was anything other than English, and you spoke a different language back then, when he was growing up, it people were considered like not American enough. And so while he was trying so hard to fit in, he would pretend to be English as a first language. So who do you pretend not to be? It can show up as something big like that, like something about the origins of who you truly are within yourself. Or it could be something small. It could be, you know, I pretended. It's not that I pretended not to be a medium, but I didn't let it out of the out of the bag, right? So who are we pretending not to be? Are there things that we feel like we need to dim or hide about ourselves to make other people more comfortable? And this last question with this dimming your light is, if I wasn't afraid to shine my brightest, I would, and then you fill it in, I would do. I would say. I would be, because the truth is that most of us, even if we're working on ourselves, even if we're on this journey of personal growth, we still have some level or degree or shade of fear of judgment, or, I mean, most of its fear comes down to fear of judgment. I can phrase it a lot of different ways, but most of it comes down to fear of judgment. And so we we don't shine as bright as we could in all the areas that we might want to we don't always, you know, really let ourselves expand, or really let ourselves seize something we want, because we have these un. Conscious beliefs or programs or patterns or cultural expectations that perhaps we don't even realize. In some cases, we might have grown a lot, but we might still have these little shades of of this being afraid to shine our brightest, right? And it could be fear of judgment, it could be fear of failure, but really just continuing to identify those areas and ways that we might be dimming our light, sometimes in relationship with people, but sometimes in relationship to our community or our family group or the bigger group of our community, right, like our state or our country, or a platform or a group that we might belong to. So that's that last question. If I wasn't afraid to shine my brightest, I would do say, be okay. This third one might surprise you the way I wrote it, this third trap, relationship, trap that highly sensitive people sometimes fall into and must avoid. I wrote it as empathing all over people. Just because you can feel other people's emotions or you could imagine what they might be going through, doesn't always mean you need to, quote, fix, help or advise. The question I try to ask, I struggle with this one sometimes, to be honest with you, because I'm a helper, and I know so many of you are natural helpers, especially with people we care about. We just want to help, or we just, you know, can feel their emotions, or we are assuming or thinking we understand some advice for them. So asking yourself, did they ask for your help? And how often kind of start trying to notice and keep track of how often do you find yourself offering advice that no one has asked for, or going out of your way to do something that no one has asked you to do, putting yourself out, for example, to help someone else, not you, who didn't request you to help in that way, this is an area of growth that we can strengthen our own boundaries and and our boundaries with others. So for some even more could be going on when this starts to show up. For some this can be almost like a sneaky self sabotage maneuver, subconsciously placing yourself in prime position to step into that archetype of either the martyr who's always putting themselves out to help everyone in an attempt to either gain approval or love or acceptance, or sometimes even to make themselves needed to avoid abandonment. So you can see how this can tip into the shadow aspect of this challenge, this desire to help and care about and want to give advice or want to show up for someone, right? And what you can do is, instead of just assuming what someone might want or need, you can ask them, would XYZ feel helpful to you right now? Or are you hoping for me to give you some advice in this conversation? Or would it be more helpful and supportive for me to just listen and you can just share, let me know what feels good to you. So you can even just ask if you're not sure it's something that I have been trying to get into the habit of doing. It's it can be challenging for my perspective, because in the office, like when I with my work, if I'm doing coaching, or sometimes as part of a mediumship reading or an intuitive reading, people do want some guidance. They do want some advice. And sometimes it's for me and my experience, and sometimes it's for me, blending with their soul and understanding their soul's guidance, or their loved ones on the other side. So a lot of times in my life, when someone's coming to me, it is for advice or help of some kind. And even before I did this work, as a lot of sensitives are, maybe this is you too. We do tend to be that person that people come to for advice, for guidance, for help, for support, for our opinions. So it can be tough for me to not step into that automatically and not even consider whether that's what's happening in this situation, or if it's just my natural go to and the truth is, when I was young, maybe that's how I found a way to make myself more valuable. Was being that person who was always I was always the teacher's helper. I was always there to do clap any eraser or do any chore or stay after and help anyone or so in some ways, we maybe, like I did, used it as a defense mechanism or a helping mechanism, to get us a little more attention or to make us feel a little more valued or a little more important or recognized, or just because we have a helping heart. How a lot of us are, but are we empathing all over other people when that's not what they need? Maybe that person doesn't need my guidance or my advice or me to fix their situation or help them. Maybe they just want me to listen. Maybe there is something I can do, but am I asserting it all over them, or are they asking for it? It's a nuanced point, and a lot of you that listen are advanced and have been empathic or have been that person who people come to for a long time. So I know this won't be new to you, to recognize that people come to you, but just start recognizing what is it they're actually asking for you to do. And are you ever clarifying, even if it's a position where the person's coming to you and sitting down in your office and sharing something hard going on with them, do you spring into the advice giving? Do you spring into that natural helper? Are you assuming what their emotions are? Are they telling you their emotions just because you can feel some nuanced essence of their emotion. The truth is, it's lighting up a resonating or similar emotion in you. So if I'm sitting with you, for example, and you're telling me a story about something that's really hard that's happening in your life right now, I might assume one emotion because it's lighting up a similar emotion in me. So if I've had a situation that triggers a similar emotion, that I haven't healed, that I haven't processed as an empath, I could easily misunderstand what exactly that emotion is that you're feeling, and it could even be misunderstanding by a small shade, maybe you're frustrated and I'm perceiving it in my emotions as stressed and overwhelmed. Well, those are almost the same, but not quite right, so I might give different guidance to someone who I felt or assumed was stressed and overwhelmed than someone who is just frustrated. So one, are you clarifying, right? Are you saying it sounds like you're saying you feel this. Is this how you feel? You could do it that way. You could just be open and listen and say, Tell me more about that. Tell me more about those feelings. You could directly ask them. Is there something I can help you with? Do you want some advice? Do you want my opinion? Would it be more helpful for me to just listen and let you share your feelings, so just kind of clarifying, and I know it feels a little weird when we're just getting started doing it, especially for me, I try to do it with the people closest to me, in my family and in my friend group, so it can feel a little awkward or a little,
I don't know, therapy talk to just say, How can I support you right now? Is there something I can do to show up for you or to make you feel supported right now as you're going through this? If this sounds like you, if you're someone who is sometimes empathic all over other people. It likely means that there's deeper healing and understanding available to you right now, as you explore your own patterns and parts, we all have these different parts of ourselves, right and these different patterns that we can sometimes be unconsciously subject to. So it's really just starting to notice when people do share things with you, or even if they're not sharing, maybe you just work next to somebody, or maybe you just, you know are seeing a friend for lunch, and they're not actually sharing what's going on. You're just feeling it there and and wanting to give advice or help, just start communicating a little differently, instead of just using your gifts as an empath, start using your gifts as a person and communicate with them. Ask them, What can you do? What would feel supportive? What do they need? How do they feel? It's a beautiful thing to be an empath, but it does cross boundaries when we are just inserting ourselves or asserting ourselves over someone, and it can start to make that help that we want to give feel not so helpful. So just make sure that you are directing all of that love and help and goodness, which is a beautiful part of you in a way that that person's going to receive it the way you intend, right? Because we don't want feelings someone feeling like we're like oppressing them with our with our love or with our help. We want them to feel good and supported and cared about, so just making sure that it's being received that way by the person who's actually receiving it. Number four in this list of five relationship traps that we can get ourselves into as highly sensitives. It's a lead in from what we were just talking about. Keep communicating. Don't just shove your feelings and opinions down or to the side. You know, say what you mean. Mean what you. Say it's okay to take time to process, but you do need to be direct, but kind. Make clear requests and boundaries and state them out loud, then kindly reinforce them. It's okay to ask for what you want and what you need. Get clear on your own emotions and needs and express them and expect others to do the same. Sensitives can also often slip into this passive, aggressive, or even sometimes aggressive behavior, if we're holding on to our own needs and not allowing ourselves to be seen in the relationship, and then we're doing, doing, doing for others, we can start to feel passive aggressive, like our needs aren't being met, but are we communicating them? Don't expect others to guess or intuitively know or understand your needs. Don't assume you're correctly intuiting or understanding what someone else is needing or thinking or feeling, ask them. I'm assuming that you are feeling this. Is this correct? The story you just told me, when I'm putting it together and listening, it sounds like you are thinking about doing this. Is that what you're thinking so just verifying, asking and sharing how we feel, if it's us that's needing to share something or US that has a boundary, don't just expect people to know what your boundaries are. If you've been someone that has always obliged when people have asked things, even if you didn't want to, it's not really fair to be mad at them for continuing to ask. Maybe they think you like showing up in that way. State your boundary. If you need me to make a item for the bake sale, I'm going to need two weeks notice, and I need to let you know that if it's shorter than two weeks notice, I'm not going to be able to grant that request and and show up with a fresh bake sale item. If you let me know within three days, I could get something pre packaged. But if you want something homemade, I really need two weeks notice. Thanks. So really just starting to say your needs instead of I've been the mom who's been very frustrated by the last minute bake sale request. So if you're struggling in this area, it could indicate you have some fear around setting or holding boundaries. I think a lot of us do at different times and in different ways. You could possibly even have some fear of abandonment or rejection, maybe even fear of not getting your own needs met. Sometimes we're afraid because of our own history or experience, either as an adult or a child, maybe we didn't get our needs met. And so we're afraid that if we ask for what we need, we're going to get rejected, or we might not get our needs met, or maybe it's back to that, oh, we're going to be too much. We're going to need too much. So there could be some healing to do around that within ourselves. For many of us, this could come from, like I said, experiences in our past. And many of us didn't grow up with a lot of permission to express our needs. I grew up in a time, probably like a lot of you, where I wasn't always getting asked how I felt about things or what I needed to feel safe that just wasn't this wasn't what happened in that time period for most sensitives, communication about our own needs and wants can feel really vulnerable and often very outside of our comfort zone. I know I'm asking you to look at some things today that are outside of your comfort zone, saying difficult feelings that we feel is hard enough, let alone the idea of keep doing it, keep communicating right. There may be some deeper work and healing and growth for you to have around your own ability to be vulnerable with your chosen family feelings you know might feel confusing when it comes to expressing them, you might realize, Oh, I'm not actually clear on what I want here, or what my needs are, or what my boundary is here. So it might give you an opportunity to get even more clear with yourself, within yourself first, and then work on expressing it to others. And it can even feel really scary sometimes to share our true self with others. Maybe
people think that you This is, I don't know if you have this example gonna resonate, but when I was a kid, there was a short period of time where my mom decided that I needed to collect clowns, and I it's not that I didn't have, like, some profound fear of clowns. I just didn't have a particular interest in clowns and in a no affinity. And she told other people, her, you know, her chosen family, that I was collecting clowns. And so I started to get I was little. I was probably 910, 11. I. Started to get all these clowns. And when someone wanted to give a birthday gift or a Christmas gift, or I started getting weird clowns, I just didn't have the permission or the understanding at that time in my life. I mean, I'm sure a voice to my mom that like I don't, I don't care about these clowns, but I remember her saying, No, you need to collect something. But I definitely wasn't going to tell these some people that I even loved and cared about, that I had my own relationship with. As a kiddo, I didn't have the permission or the words or the vulnerability to say, I don't want to hurt your feelings. I love that you think of me and want to give me something I don't like clowns. So there might even be something like that where it's a positive thing that someone wants to do something nice for you, and you're not able to articulate you don't like it. My best friend and I have a joke. I know a lot of people love spas and spa days and different types of like treatments, nails done, and all of those things I've done, all of those things that I don't particularly like it. I don't find it really enjoyable. Personally, it's often physically uncomfortable. I tend to be physically very sensitive, too. And we have this joke about, you know, that, like, Ishida also doesn't like that kind of stuff. And so we both have a boundary around that for ourselves, that that's not what we find to be a romantic or relaxing or fun day, and we've had at times when we didn't have the boundaries or the ability, or the I don't know, communication skills, to tell people in a kind way that we didn't like it. Both of us have gone on many spa dates our lives that we just you know, even though it's a sweet thing, we could have asked for something different, or we could have shared our need or even ahead of time, right? So what are the instances that you can think about where you didn't communicate your own wants or needs or boundaries, and maybe you even got frustrated with someone for feeling like they were walking on you, but you didn't make a statement yourself. You didn't say what you'd rather have, or you didn't feel like you could be heard. And if you notice in a particular relationship that you have been working on stating boundaries and communicating, but that person is not respecting your boundaries. Well, then that's something to look at about that relationship, and perhaps why? Maybe it's just in the dynamic, and maybe it's something you can accept and continue to work with. But maybe the nature of the relationship is one where they do need to be respecting your wishes, your needs, your boundaries, and taking a look at why it is that you're allowing that person to continue to show up that way, so you see how there's lots of growth we can have for each of these and again, for most sensitives, communicating about our own needs and wants, It can feel very vulnerable. So be patient with yourself, and do work on getting clear within yourself about what you need and want first, so that you can really have more security in expressing it. And it will feel vulnerable and outside of your comfort zone sometimes, but stick at it, because you are important and valuable, and you get to have needs and wants and boundaries and have them met as well. This number five last in the list here of our five relationship traps that highly sensitive people get to avoid or get to work on. I wrote it as big, codependent hearts, because you're a beautiful, highly sensitive soul, you likely feel the emotions and moods of others, whether you know it or not, it's likely unintentional some of the time. You may have even learned in childhood or at some point in your life so far, if you grew up with an emotionally unpredictable person in your life to take the temperature of other people and adjust your emotions behaviors, needs accordingly, and this creates codependence. It's sort of the definition of what codependence is, setting our emotions by the emotions of someone else. As a natural nurturer and carer, you can be especially susceptible to becoming too aware and too dependent on the opinions, approval, emotional value, validation or support of someone you care about. In some cases, this can tip into that unhealthy part of the spectrum of the emotions. If we're hiding ourselves back from exploring our own hobbies or our own interests, for example, because this person might judge us. You know. Just because we care and we want others to be happy, it's finding that balance between can we find happiness? Can we enjoy something? Do they need to approve of it? Can we be autonomous on our own sensitives? Can also take on their partners or friends or loved ones stress or emotions as their own. This can lead to emotional overload. This could lead to completely aligning our emotions with someone else throughout the day, kind of checking in energetically, intentionally or unintentionally, to decide how we need to act right, codependent, dependent on someone else, and maybe they're dependent on us behaving a certain way as well. And again, this can lead to being dependent on their mood to set our own in its most challenging forms, it can land us in relationships with narcissists or with people who have narcissistic behavior. But codependency can come in a variety of types of relationships, not just with romantic partners. At its core, codependency involves a dynamic where one person's happiness and sense of self worth becomes tied to another person's well being, emotions, approval, needs that can happen in almost any type of relationship. Again, this is an area where growth and deeper self understanding is possible. This is a good place to remind you that I'm not a therapist, but I wholeheartedly believe that if you see yourself in any of this, you could likely benefit from therapy of some kind, and I think all of us can right? This is an area I'm continually growing in myself. It's very hard for me as a mom to keep my emotions independent of my kids, for example, when they're really going through it, my emotions are affected. I'm literally actively working on this right now in my life, in my existence, just because my kids are adults, for some reason I thought it would feel different, and it does. But also I notice it's still there. So I'm actively working on it. I'm learning to hold the energy of caring deeply and completely for them as things rise up in their lives, but also trying to manage my energetic, emotional and physical responses to like, text messages, for example, not too long ago, one of my kiddos had something really stressful, not not like a life and death situation, but a really, like, validly stressful situation in their lives, and they were texting me throughout the day about it, And I was at work, I couldn't look at my phone, and the urgency and number and rapid succession of texts is often just how they communicate. But I could feel my own anxiety rising, wanting to check and make sure everything was okay, wanting to help manage their emotions, wanting to support them because I care, but I really can't take it on to the point where it totally destroys my focus, and I couldn't give a reading, for example. So it's something I'm always working on myself. It's gonna rise up for us. So don't judge yourself, because as an empath, as a sensitive, of course, we care so much so we don't want to fight that natural part of us. It's who we are, and it wouldn't even work to suppress it, but just working on managing our own energy, our own emotions, our own physical responses. And you know, I've had a lot of tough relationships in my life, as I know many of us had, and I do have different degrees of like PTSD, for example, that my body will have an actual physical response when I feel anxious about someone else's emotions. So it's something I can continue to work on, and I will continue to work on, but it's something I need to notice and actively work on and maybe it's the same for you, but definitely we're all always a work in progress. So I'm so curious to know which of these five you see yourself in. I
want to give you some final thoughts. What I've learned so far I've I'm I'm always learning. For as long as I have the grace of being here in the physical world, I'm going to continue learning. But at the place I'm at currently, in my mid 40s, with two kids in their early to mid 20s, kind of tipping into mid 20s. Now, I recently noticed over my years so far, these ups and downs in life. Sometimes, for me, anyway, it seems like insane ups and insane downs. And sometimes we have an up in one area and a really, really down in another area, or we're having a fantastic win and our best friend or someone. Very close to us is in the midst of a terrible loss, to hold both at once, to find the balance between releasing our quote, unquote Perfect pictures, which is like the way we thought our family was going to look, or the way we thought childbirth was going to be, for example, or the way we thought our career was going to go, maybe those perfect pictures of what we thought was going to happen, almost like those perfect scenes in a movie, of what we thought things would be like look like, just kind of letting those go and appreciating the beauty and the disappointments of the messy reality of what we're all experiencing. For many, many years, I felt like I was running in this hamster wheel, just trying to get everything good, everything good all at once, all at the same time. And I still often feel this way, if I'm honest, and all I can work to quote, unquote control is me. And even that's dicey sometimes it's never gonna stay all okay permanently. You know, those unique, fleeting moments that everything is okay all at once. I've learned to try to pause and really intentionally take notice, to take a deep breath in, you know, breathe in all the energy of that moment to sit in the gratitude. Sometimes it's when everyone I love feels physically and emotionally healthy all at once, even if other things are, quote, unquote, going wrong. What I'm settling into is this awareness that this is it, the ups and the downs. I think we all know that, right. But somehow in the past few years, I've really understood this truth to a much deeper level. As sensitives, we have multiple layers of awareness happening all at the same time and in every moment, and somehow it helped me to learn to just expect the flow of ups and downs, wins and losses, except that the direction they'll come from and the timing which they'll come is mostly unpredictable along the way, some things just happen, and sometimes shit gets messy. You're always doing the best you can with what you have. Give some love to all of the past versions of you. They were also doing their best with what they had at that time. Keep evolving. Let your inner voice lead you to the next right thing, and don't get too concerned too far beyond that. Be honest with yourself, but be kind, and remember your sensitivity is your superpower. I hope that you've seen yourself in some of these and gotten some valuable suggestions to continue to grow and expand, and I'm so grateful to you for being here with me today. Let me know which of these resonated with you, and if you have any tips or tricks or tools that you use to avoid any of these relationship traps of highly sensitive people, or how you overcome them yourself, the work that you've done. And if you found this episode valuable, or any of the other episodes, I would love it if you would share it with a friend. And if you go to the main page wherever you're watching this and hit that subscribe button, it lets the powers that be, all of the internet magic, know that this podcast is valuable and being heard, and it lets me know that you're listening out there. I truly appreciate you and so excited for wrapping up this year and seeing what next year has to offer. We have so much coming in these next several weeks. I always love as we approach the end of the year with this podcast, because we start doing a little bit of introspection and retrospection and prediction and getting ourselves ready in the energy. So I'm here. We're here to share and to maybe give you a little break, to hopefully have some laughs together and hopefully teach you a few things here and there. Like I said, I always still learning, and I love getting to have you learning alongside me sometimes. So thanks for being here. Big hugs. Lots of love. Bye for now from inside spirit speakeasy, you.