Do you feel overwhelmed not just by your own intense feelings but by everyone else’s too? This episode will help you honour and appreciate your sensitive nervous system.

I (Eve Menezes Cunningham, author, columnist, trauma therapist, senior accredited supervisor, coach, trauma survivor and AuDHDer) share practical strategies for managing hyper empathy which is common with ADHD, autism, AuDHD and trauma histories.

I encourage you to create protected silence in your life, from daily meditation to weekly 12-hour mini retreats, explaining why this isn’t indulgent but can be especially helpful for sensitive nervous systems.

Using my Feel. Love. Heal. framework, I guide you through:

• Creating buffer time and space for yourself (Feel)
• Accepting your sensitivity as a superpower (Love)
• Building community support for your needs (Heal)

Perfect for trauma survivors, AuDHDers, autistic people and ADHDers (and those who identify highly sensitive people or empaths) and anyone who finds themselves absorbing everyone else’s emotions and energy.

Le grá (with love),

Eve

Resources mentioned:

• Tracy Otsuka (ADHD for Smart Ass Women) and Episode 86 for our interview
• Alice Tew & Carly Radford episode
• The Sole to Soul Circle
• 365 Ways to Feel Better book

Topics: hyper empathy, ADHD, autism, AuDHD, trauma recovery, sensitivity, boundaries, nervous system regulation, self-care

Chapters

(0:00) Overwhelmed by everyone else’s feelings

(1:00) Honouring your extra-sensitive nervous system

(2:30) When boundaries collapse under sensory overload

(3:05) The Feel. Love. Heal. framework and creating space for silence

(4:39) When life gets “too peopley”

(8:17) Sensitivity as a superpower (when you protect it)

(10:33) Healing through community and collective care

(12:20) Imagining your future self with stronger boundaries

Links

Tracy Otsuka: Episode 86

Too Sensitive? Too Much? Says Who? Episode 78 with Alice Tew and Carly Radford

Shadow Work with Black Cats and Sharks: Episode 71

Be More Cat: Episode 70

Love your inner Smelly Cat this Bealtaine and beyond Episode 56

Cattitude: Purr! Hiss! Freeze! Episode 48

Sole to Soul Circle membership (just €8/month):

https://selfcarecoaching.net/sole-to-soul-circle/

Book: 365 Ways to Feel Better

https://selfcarecoaching.net/book/

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Do you ever feel overwhelmed not just by your own intense feelings but seemingly everyone else’s feelings?

This episode, Episode 88 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast, is for you. You can access show notes and everything else via thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com You can subscribe wherever you want to subscribe and you can also access loads of free resources and find out other ways in which we might work together through selfcarecoaching.net

Each Tuesday I release new episodes to help you take better care of yourself, that highest, wisest, truest, most miraculous part of yourself, create a life you don’t need to retreat from and help build a world in which everyone feels safe, welcome and able to thrive. And that starts with you.

In today’s episode, we’re looking at ways in which, well I’m recommending one particular way in which you can honour that beautiful extra sensitive nervous system of yours and rather than feeling Gaaghh it’s overwhelming, I can’t do anything.

You recognise that you need extra care, extra buffer time, extra space that you’re deserving of connecting with your own feelings and I hope that what I’m recommending will help you.

With autism, with ADHD, with trauma, with AuADHD, sensory issues like hypervigilance, it’s all very much our day-to-day. And with that in mind, it’s natural that we have become, even if we weren’t born, attuned to other people’s needs and moods and potentially walking on eggshells, just wanting others to be happy, all of that.

For some people it goes into hyposensitivity where it’s just too much, shut down, not doing it. and for others it’s hyper, sorry, hyper empathy as opposed to hypo empathy where that feeling, not just your own but everyone else’s, it can feel and be debilitating.

It might be you go to a party and you get cornered by someone who you don’t want to be rude to, you learn boundaries, all of this gets much, much easier but boundaries are much easier to set and assert and maintain when we’re in that good place.

When we’re feeling bombarded, when there’s that sensory overload where it’s just too much, our defences go down and it can feel like we just want to move away to a cave in the forest in the middle of the earth. It doesn’t have to be like that.

Working with the Feel. Love. Feel. framework that I developed, for the Feel part, that’s the lowercase hyphenated self-care, the regulatory, the things you can do to help yourself feel better.

It’s really about looking at your schedule and thinking how can you create and protect some space for silence. I’ve talked about my weekly 12-hour mini retreats before and, full disclosure I had a journal to get off to press and I’m, at time of recording going away for my first holiday in over nine years. So manic preparations, trying to get everything prepared and it’s been a few weeks since I’ve managed my own weekly 12-hour mini retreat and I’m feeling it.

And I also know that when I get back from the holiday that will be a non-negotiable because it’s so beneficial for me. By having that silence, by having that time each week, I do over Christmas a 24-hour one which is even better but I’ve spoken in previous episodes about this, it just wasn’t sustainable.

I’d think to myself, oh on the bank holiday weekends I will do that and then instead I joined a Sub Aqua club and I’ve been going snorkelling around the country which has been really lovely but…

Doing less, 12 hours, half of what I thought I needed most of the year, most weeks this year, it’s been amazing. And I know each week when life gets too peopley and don’t get me wrong, I adore people, I love people but I need time to completely connect with myself, to tune in to myself and I need to not feel on call. Loved ones have my landline number, it’s not technically a landline, it’s that VoIP internet but it means I can switch my phone off, no telly, no washing machine, nothing noisy, just ahhh.

12 hours might sound like the height of indulgence to you. It might sound like nowhere near enough time, look at your schedule, think about what you need, be honest with yourself and create and protect that kind of space for yourself on a daily or weekly or monthly basis and experiment with it.

It’s not all or nothing, this is just about giving yourself space where you withdraw your senses from everyone else and you instead attune to your own. If you’re living with others it obviously complicates things but there are many people where they do kind of their silence in companionship and that can be even more nourishing depending on the relationships and this will be information as well.

But it might be that you live with lots of people and you can still take yourself away and have some time to think purely about whatever you want to be thinking about and not be bombarded with other people’s demands or perceived demands because you feel like you can feel what they’re feeling with that hyper empathy.

Moving on to the Love part and it’s accepting your sensitivity, it’s reminding yourself that you’re part of nature, you’re part of the Divine and you are created exactly as you ought to be. And the more you honour how you are, the greater the contribution to the world you can make, the more you can enjoy doing the things that help you make those contributions to the world.

Denying what you need is not going to help, beating yourself up is not going to help, telling yourself you’re too much, you’re too sensitive, any of that is not going to help.

If you haven’t already listened to my episode with Tracy Otsuka, the author of ADHD for Smart Ass Women, links in the show notes, she does loads around helping us remember that we’re not too much.

And there’s also the Alice Tew and Carly Radford [Too Much… Apparently] episode and Carly in particular is a sensitivity counsellor. She specialises in working with sensitivity, she’s autistic and both of them absolutely delightful.

I really loved recording both of those episodes so there’ll be links in the show notes and check them out and I’m also aware this is my job, this is my work, I spend so many hours every week talking to clients, talking to supervisees, talking to groups, writing, recording and I still have to use that soothing tone to myself when I feel like I shouldn’t need whatever it is I need or want whatever it is I want, I shouldn’t be too sensitive.

Recognising your sensitivity is and can be a superpower but that’s when you protect it, not when you let it overwhelm you. When you can be in that kind of ventral, that, think of a cat purring, it lets itself purr and it’s not helpless, it’s not defenceless, it’s allowing itself to be completely present and embodied and strong and it knows that if it needs to leap into action it can completely do that. But it’s not gonna stop giving itself that sun puddle, that glorious stretch, that delicious drink, whatever it might be.

We can all be more cat and if you haven’t already checked out the cat episodes, the Feline Better Every Day, the Rescue Cattitude and Polyvagal Purrs on Instagram, I’m actually going to be creating accounts for all the cats so they can… anyway that’s for another day but I use the rescue cats to help to illustrate Polyvagal Theory because it’s much simpler than the jargon makes it sound.

The more you recognise yes, your hyper empathy can be a superpower and you need to protect it, you need to honour it, you need to work with it and that might involve silence, that might involve space. This episode is around silent night coming up to Christmas, very cheesy, I know but think for yourself, it might be a silent hour, it might be a silent half hour, might be like I can’t imagine where I’d be without my daily meditation and I do it in different chunks.

I don’t do huge long chunks like some people, you need to work with your brain, you need to work with your window of tolerance, you need to love yourself exactly as you are and know that you were created and are perfect and you know what you need and it’s about giving yourself permission to have that rather than instead berating yourself and telling yourself you shouldn’t need it, so that’s the Love part.

The Heal part is to find or create community, the collective care, so the Love part it’s that uppercase Self care, that highest, wisest, truest, most miraculous, joyful, brilliant part of yourself and for the Heal it’s the collective care and the co-regulation.

In an ideal world, you’re going to be able to tell your nearest and dearest what you need, they’re going to respect it, all is going to be wonderful. In reality, people may want what’s best for you but they also have their own priorities and it’s potentially an advanced practice. And you’re going to have hopefully people in your life who help champion you and who help champion your need for space even when you’re struggling to honour it yourself, so think about who you would most love to talk to about this in your life, feel free to email eve at selfcarecoaching.net or comment on any of the platforms where you’re listening or watching or where you’ve come across this episode.

Share with someone who might benefit, talk to them about it, how might you do it for each other, how might you help each other honour that space, that time, that silence however long or short and ask for exactly what you want, so you’re asking yourself and you’re giving it to yourself and it will get easier the more you ask yourself and others and you’ll recognise the benefits and it will then be easier to protect that and to honour it for yourself.

In the Sole to Soul Circle this week and there’s a link in the show notes to the Sole to Soul Circle, we’re going to be going to afformations, so similar to affirmations but afformations and they’ll be designed to help you and if you’re not already a member you’re welcome to join, but to help you imagine how you got to this space where future imaginary you, happy, healthy, delighted to be around people knowing that you have stronger boundaries and you’re no longer that hyper empathy victim to everyone else’s feelings but you can instead ground, you can resource yourself and you can be present but you are no longer getting sucked into that.

That’s our deeper dive this week. Thank you, as always for listening and this has been episode 88 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast produced by me, your host Eve Menezes Cunningham and there’ll be more next week.

If you haven’t already subscribed feel free to do so, if it’s been helpful it would be helpful for me if you were to leave a comment or like or share with someone who you think will benefit, leave a five star review, it helps to get it out, it’s a small independent podcast and basically the more people I can reach helping people with trauma, with ADHD, with AuDHD to help yourself create a life you don’t need to retreat from, that’s helping others as well, everything I do, everything you do, it has an impact, it ripples out, so in order to reach as many people as possible I really appreciate you doing as many of those things as feel good for you and thanks again for listening and you can find more at selfcarecoaching.net or the feelbettereverydaypodcast.com also follow me on any of the socials and there are links on the site as well to that.

Let me know how you’re getting on, I love hearing from you, I love sharing all of this and how we’re all so uniquely human and the more we get to know ourselves and the more we befriend our unique ADHD or AuDHD brains, the more we heal our trauma and the better life gets.

You were wired differently for a reason and it can be a wonderful, wonderful thing, so look after yourself and I look forward to sharing more next week.

Thank you for listening or watching the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. This episode, like all of them, was produced by me, your host Eve Menezes Cunningham. You can find full transcripts, links and more information in the show notes and also at selfcarecoaching.net as well as more information about the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing and if you’re interested in those deeper dives, joining the Sole to Soul Circle, as well as lots of other free resources and information about other offerings.

If this episode was helpful, please leave a five-star review in a world in which so much is coming up for healing and so many people are feeling unsafe. I want to do whatever I can to help as many people as possible heal from trauma, helping create a world in which everyone is safe, welcome and loved, physiologically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally able to thrive. So your subscribing or liking or sharing feedback and other support helps me help as many people of all genders with trauma histories and ADHD.

And your learning to take better care of yourself isn’t just good for you, it creates a ripple effect helping others heal too. So keep looking after yourself, do what feels good, let yourself honour your nervous system, let yourself honour your charge, your life force and míle buíochas, a thousand thank yous.