[LISA LEWIS] The Am I Ok? Podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Faith Fringes, the Holistic Counseling Podcast, and Beta Male Revolution, go to the website, www.practiceofthepractice.com/slash network. Welcome to the Am I Ok? Podcast, where you will discover that being highly sensitive is something to embrace and it’s actually a gift you bring to the world. We will learn together how to take ownership of your high sensitivity, so you can make positive changes in your life, in the lives of others, and it’s totally okay to feel this way. I’m your host, Lisa Lewis. I’m so glad you’re here for the journey. . Welcome to today’s episode of the Am I Ok? Podcast. I’m your host, Lisa Lewis. Thank you so much for tuning in. I would like to remind my listeners that I offer a free eight-week email course titled Highly Sensitive People. My email course provides weekly tools that help you feel more whole in a world that isn’t exactly made for us. I show you how your sensitivity can be seen as a unique gift and how many others are just like you. One of my listeners named Sherry emailed me to let me know how much my email course has motivated her to reach out, to get caught up with friends and to start a workout, to get fit and to meet new people, which is not easy for her. To find out more about my email course, please go to my website, amiokpodcast.com. Today, my guest is Dr. Holly Sawyer. Dr. Holly is a licensed therapist in Philadelphia. She is the CEO and lead psychotherapist at her solo practice Life First Therapy and Therapy Loft Collective, an online group practice. Dr. Holly is an entrepreneur, mindset coach, national mental health public speaker, and college professor. She is the author of Get Your Mind Right, Get Your Money Right! The Mental Health Guide for Successful Entrepreneurs and It’s Time to Talk About Trauma. She’s been featured on Philadelphia’s Fox News 29, Bustle, Popsugar, and more. Welcome to the podcast Dr. Holly. [DR. HOLLY SAWYER] Thank you for having me, Lisa, how are you today? [LISA] I’m doing well. Thank you. I’m in Los Angeles and it’s sunny here today. Hasn’t been too hot. [HOLLY] Nice. [LISA] How is it in Philadelphia? [HOLLY] It has been very hot, very hot. Oh my gosh. But can’t complain. That’s what summer is hot. [LISA] That’s right. So I like to ask all my guest interviewees, if they consider themselves highly sensitive or not. [HOLLY] I do think that I am highly sensitive when it comes to reading people’s vibes and if someone may not be feeling well or feeling anxious or depressed and not just because I’m a therapist. I think I’ve always been intuitive. So I think I’m like highly sensitive and that. [LISA] Okay. And then what do you notice? I’m just curious if you want to share or not what happens for you in that high sensitivity? [HOLLY] Ooh, so I had a situation, I would say, I think maybe March, April, and it was a small event that I attended and a young lady was just sharing about like all of this trauma that she had experienced with her divorce and just like where she’s at mentally. She admitted to not really being in a good space and was looking for a psychiatrist because she knows that she needs medication. She just presented very dark and heavy with everything that she was describing and how she was feeling emotionally, mentally, while trying to just really just sustain herself and finish school and everything else that you know was going on in her life. At the end of the meeting, she reached out for a hug. We both had masks going on, me giving her a hug, but after I left that meeting, I felt very discombobulated. I felt drained. I felt like part, if not all of her heaviness became like really attached to me just in that bit of exchange. I know it sounds like woo, woo, woo, or very weird, but I find myself to be highly sensitive in that regard. So I have become extremely guarded into certain spaces that I allow myself to be in around certain people. And just from that experience alone, it took me like a week or so to like really bounce back. I felt very lethargic, I didn’t have a lot of energy and I really couldn’t figure out what it was because nothing happened to me because remember this is like April, so everybody’s on quarantine and nothing was going on, but it was just that exchange with her. And then that hug, which was something maybe not intimate and, oh my gosh, just the end result of that was not good. And it taught me a really good lesson. [LISA] Yes. And being highly sensitive myself that highly sensitive people can easily take on other people’s energy and not knowing it, like what just happened, kind of like what you described. [HOLLY] It’s kind of like something leaped out of her and then just kind of landed onto me and then taking it in. It’s kind like a virus or a cold, if you’ll. And the next day you’re waking up, you’re congested, you may have a fever, you’re like, what’s going on. And then you kind of try to reflect back to like, “Hey, what happened?” [LISA] And when you figured out what happened what did you do for yourself or did you think that, oh, maybe I need to do something different next time? [HOLLY] So what I did was I, oh yes, for sure, I knew what to do next time. Again, like when people, I ask them who’s your guest list? Depending on if it’s public, you could even see the guest list. And I know that may sound like over the top, but I become so guarded now. Because usually I could be in this space with people, somebody could have a conversation, if even if they’re heavy, I could kind of balance myself, but this one was like something I had never experienced before. And I was like, okay, that can’t happen again. But it was just like, wow, what can I do? I actually started to be around people. I basically called a couple of friends. I met with them individually or spoke with them on the phone and explained to them what I was feeling and then I was talking to them and sharing my experience. And they really just started to share with me like, okay, this is what you’re seeing and this is what’s going on. Here are some things that you can do. So I basically rested. I journaled, I got outdoors as much as I could, even with the quarantine. I just took walks alone and I made sure that I no longer had contact with the young lady. That was key. That was really key. [LISA] Wow. Okay. Well, these are great tips that you’re providing, and I’m going to ask you for some more tips later on as we continue our conversation. So I wanted to just shift gears a little bit. I was reading over your website and I noticed right on the front page that you help professional black women navigate microaggressions and racism in the workplace. I wanted to ask you, how would you help, let’s a highly sensitive black women navigate microaggressions and racism in the workplace or just in their life? [HOLLY] Wow. So no two black professional women that I’ve worked with have been the same, but what they do have in common is that they’re black and female. They’ve experienced microaggression. However some are not as assertive, some have to learn how to advocate for themselves and they never had to do it. So it really is a spectrum if you’ll. So it’s not like I use like a broad brush. I take a case by case basis, because I do have some clients who will come in and they’ll say, “Hey, this is what I want from out of this situation, whether it’s going to another job or suing and going to court.” I’ve been subpoenaed to testify on behalf of clients who have experienced trauma and PTSD from the ongoing discrimination, prejudice, microaggressions, racism that they experience in the workplace. So again, it’s like a wide spectrum as far as tools that I work with on individual basis. But a lot of it is centered around empowerment, advocating getting that voice back, believing that even though you are in a workplace environment that doesn’t treat you as an equal as a human, in this space between you and I, I ensure and support you that you are human, you are equal, you are valued. So that could be centered around self-esteem or just in really deep self-reflection as into, if it maybe have come up in the family systems but it’s showing up or manifesting in the work. So, yes, it’s a wide spectrum. [LISA] Yes. And I was, as you were sharing that, I was just thinking about, you just named how just working with highly sensitive people, just building up their self-esteem and their empowerment, because a lot of the time they don’t feel like they “fit in” anywhere. I’m Caucasian and I’m wondering just how I feel fitting in whether it’s professionally or personally, and I’m wondering wow, how must it feel if I’m a person of color and sensitive on top of that? How would I fit in whether at work or in social situations? [HOLLY] Got it, got it. And it’s like some people, I won’t say all, some people find a way to figure out how they can ostracize and make people feel less or beneath them. There’s nothing wrong with being a highly sensitive person or whoever you are, or however you identify, if you identify as that. It’s just that’s what makes you, you and part of what makes you unique. And I don’t think it’s a matter of, or I wouldn’t per se subscribe to the message of how do I fit in. It’s a matter of how do I associate or find people who are just like and we fit in with each other, because there are a lot of times when people just won’t understand and they won’t get it. But if you do have someone who doesn’t understand and want to be educated, then that is someone that you can probably bring in and have like some type of friendship or comradery or association. I just want to be clear that you are who you are, you don’t have to necessarily fit in, but if there are people who, again, don’t get it, but they’re open to associating with you and learning that’s even better. [LISA] Yes. And how would a highly sensitive black woman benefit from working with you? [HOLLY] I think that she would benefit from working with me by knowing that she’s just accepted for who she’s and that she can use being highly sensitive to her strengths. It’s not a weakness, it’s not something of, again, that she’ll be ostracized but it is definitely something that could play too, to see, okay, how can I use this as maybe a wife or a girlfriend or in the workplace? What are some strengths that I can pull out from this? Because a lot of times we look at the things that we think are core or not so great about us and don’t look to see how we can use them to our strengths. [LISA] And what would some of those strengths be or look like? [HOLLY] Well, say if you had someone who was going through something personally and they’re coming to work, they’re stressed out, they’re very depressed, they may not have the support of their supervisor or another coworker, but you being a highly sensitive person, you could empathize on another level that again, other staff or supervisors could not. You don’t necessarily have to go to this person and have them tell you everything that’s happening, but a highly sensitive person will always be in tune when something is off or if that coworker is not feeling like themselves. Then they can go and lend support. And I think not just for like stressful situations, but they’re able to balance out the room when you have someone who is very maybe aggressive or extroverted or someone who’s introverted, but doesn’t really know how to blend in. I think the person who’s highly sensitive sets a balance between those two types of personalities. [LISA] Wow. That’s a great way to say it. I love that. Just the balance. And highly sensitive people do make great leaders I think just for that reason. [HOLLY] I agree. I agree. I agree. So again, just pointing those things out, I think a lot of us in the workplace, or as we interact with people, whether we’re going to the grocery store or Walmart, we could all use the help of someone who’s highly sensitive, especially today with everything that’s going on. Do you know what I mean? [LISA] Yes, I do. And what are some of the self-care strategies that could benefit listeners, people that are highly sensitive, people of color that are highly sensitive? I know that you have, that was like, I think your specialty that I was noticing on your website. [HOLLY] Oh, okay. So again, it’s self-care is very individualized. So I don’t want to say what I am going to say applies to everybody, but you have to be on a self-care individual basis. So if you’re highly sensitive, the number one thing that I would suggest is always finding time for yourself by yourself, because when you’re highly sensitive or you are in situations where you take on a lot of other energies you want to find time where you can literally decompress. So being alone, it could be, again, like I took a walk in nature. For some people, it could be sleeping, for some people it could be exercising, having their headphones on, listening to whatever that gets going as they’re working out. For some people could be journaling. So the premise is just to have that alone time so we can really kind of decompress and recharge. I think that is like very important for highly sensitive people. Another thing that I think will be beneficial is to identify certain individuals who you could be around that would help you in rejuvenating and recharging. So if it’s a Wednesday and you may have had a rough day at work, who’s someone that you can call that maybe you can talk to a little bit, but at the same time, can pour into you to kind of help you rejuvenate and rebalance back? So I think those two main things are important. We kind of really have to watch again, who we’re around as much as we can because we’re working. So we do have to be around other people, but you also want to have your select people who you can confide in, but at the same time also setting aside time where you are alone. [LISA] Yes. And what do you recommend for like people that may not have a group of friends or someone that they feel comfortable with talking to, like they feel very isolated? [HOLLY] That’s a good question because I am noticing like a lot of people are starting to isolate. So I would suggest two things, one if they don’t have a therapist they could definitely seek out a therapist and then two, if they are into social media, and some highly sensitive persons are not, but if they’re, I would suggest finding a group that supports highly sensitive persons. [LISA] Okay. Yes, that’s a great reminder. And I don’t, I have clients, they tell me like, oh no, I’ve tried those things. They don’t work. What do you do when you have someone that says I’ve tried that. It doesn’t work. How do you keep them motivated? [HOLLY] Well, the first thing is we try to do a troubleshoot, like what didn’t work? Was it that you didn’t like Facebook? Was it that you couldn’t find a group? What actually didn’t work? Because there’s ton of groups. So maybe there wasn’t a group on Facebook, but you find a group on LinkedIn for highly sensitive professionals. Maybe you were not able to find a group on LinkedIn, but you find a group on Facebook, you were able to get into the group, but the group was not something that you felt comfortable with for whatever reason. But I wouldn’t say give up because people create so many different social support groups around so many different niches. That is crazy. So if you do find that you’re in a group and it doesn’t jail well for you or it doesn’t flow, don’t be afraid to leave it and find the group or start your own. [LISA] Yes. I was just thinking about that. If you’re a person of color and you’re highly sensitive and you’re going to other highly sensitive groups that, hey, maybe, I don’t know, I’m just, it’s not working for me, start your own group. [HOLLY] Exactly. Yep, exactly. That’s what I tell people. Don’t be afraid to start your own group. If you don’t see something out there that’s supportive of what you are and what you’re trying to do, then don’t be afraid to start your own group. You don’t have to have like hundreds and thousands of people in the group. You want a group that has people so that you can again, land and give the support that you’re looking for as a highly sensitive person. [LISA] Now, what do you think is the most important thing that list learners should know? [HOLLY] That highly sensitive people are human. We’re just wired a little different, but we’re all different. So I don’t think that people should get in the habit of like name calling or shaming someone who’s highly sensitive. And I find that pretty common and I think that it’s unfortunate. I think people who are highly sensitive, again an array of skill sets and value and not just to the workplace, but just relationships in general. And oftentimes those things are not brought out because you may have someone again who just don’t understand it. So they may shut down the person who’s highly sensitive. So I think the highly sensitive persons are people who should be a part of conversations. They should be people who are not made fun of or ostracized. It should be people who are understood. And if you are not clear on what that means, ask the next highly sensitive person that you know. Have a conversation. You’ll be shocked what you hear. [LISA] I love that. I want to ask one more question and I just loved how you framed all this and really empowering the highly sensitive person to feel more accepted and really to feel empowered within themselves. I just want to ask you one last question, where can listeners get in touch with you, Dr. Holly? [HOLLY] Sure. So I am on LinkedIn so they can definitely look for me there. I am also on Instagram. My handle is Life First Therapy, LLC. And again, that’s Life First Therapy, LLC. Listeners can find me there as well as my website, lifefirsttherapy.com. [LISA] Great. Thank you so much. And thank you for coming on the show today. [HOLLY] Thank you for having me [LISA] And thank you my listeners for tuning in today. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review wherever you get your podcast. To find out more about highly sensitive persons, please visit my website at wwwamiokpodcast.com and subscribe to my free eight-week email course. This is Lisa Lewis reminding each and every one of you that you are okay. Until next time, take care. Thank you for listening today at Am I Okay? Podcast. If you are loving the show, please rate, review and subscribe to it on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you’d like to learn how to manage situations as a highly sensitive person, discover your unique gift as a highly sensitive person, and learn how to be comfortable in your own skin, I offer a free eight-week email course called Highly Sensitive People. Just go to amiokpodcast.com to sign up. In addition, I love hearing from my listeners, drop me an email to let me know what is on your mind. You can reach me at lisa@amiokpodcast.com. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want to professional, you should find one.