Highly Sensitive Men with Rick Belden

0:01 You are listening to the real men. Feel show with your host, Sandy Grant and optio Hunter. Real men, feel encourages men to allow an Express all of their emotions, despite what you may have been taught all emotions, do serve you real. Men feel is committed to engaging in discussions that most men aren't having, but you don't need to be a man to join us. The real men feel show is produced live each Tuesday at 9 p.m. Eastern for your growth and enjoyment. Listen to us. On podcast platforms, including iTunes, Google play SoundCloud and Stitcher. You can also watch the show on YouTube by visiting real men, feel dot, org, slash youtube, come back often and feel free to add the podcast to your favorite RSS feed, or subscribe on iTunes by visiting real men, feel dot org, slash iTunes. You can follow us on Twitter at real men feel org and on Facebook, facebook.com slash real men, feel shy All links mentioned in each episode are in the show notes found on the blog at 30 men, feel dot-org, show your support for real men. Feel by shopping at real men, feel dot org, slash Swag by visiting digital tip, jar.com, real men's field or even text us at.

1:18 If you can show some love for real men, filled by texting real men, feel that's all one word 250 for 2265 306, yo, Receive a link back to complete your tip and choose the amount. This is a weekly program and your reviews comments feedback and participation are welcome during the live show and any time in our Facebook group, on Twitter or at real men, feel dot-org. Now let's dive into this week's show. Hello and welcome to another edition of real men. Feel this is Andy Grant your host with The Feelers. I don't know what that means, but I know tonight's one of those, I really like shows.

2:00 When we have a guest return because that really means like that we really enjoyed them. Or could mean like I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel but it really means that we really enjoy them in the coming back, Dad add more depth and more everything and of course the person that's that's you know usually here mr. A PO Hunter is here. Yes. Yeah you know it's been it's kind of funny because for a little while some the streak of having to miss out either eyes out of the country or something came up and it's good to be back into a rhythm again. Cool. Ooh, cool. And yeah. So so Rick Belden is joining us again. And Rick has been exploring and chronicling the psychology and inner lives of men for 30 years in his work as a poet author, Artisan coach, and, and podcast guest, we should add that right. This is Rick second appearance with us and and Rick, before we get going, I shared with you before the show started, but the last time you were on which was episode 89 done. On April 10th exploring father, wounds and mother wounds. And I think that set a record for the number of guys that privately messaged me and emailed me saying, what a great episode that was that they had gotten tremendous insights and and they all the most common comment was seeing the differences in Father wounds and mother wounds and how we had permission to go after Dad, but Mom was sacred, and that really is struck a nerve with a lot of guys. Yeah, I believe it and as I was

3:31 telling you, I was actually on a interviewed on a program in FM station in Jamaica Sunday morning for 20 minutes and we were talking about the mother's womb in that very thing, came up the business of how it is difficult to approach that and how it is considered to be largely taboo especially relationship. As you said the father wound where it's just like hey have Adam, you know, he can take it. That's alright we expect it. It but the mother wound is far different in that way in that people tend not to want to talk about it or even hear anybody talk about it. And there was a fair amount of pushback in on social media that the host was seeing during that conversation Ode to Being against having the conversation. Yeah.

4:19 There were some challenges around that about we shouldn't necessarily be talking about this. Yeah wow. So this is such resistance to looking at their wound that I want anyone talking about it? Yeah I mean it wasn't all that I mean but they're that was a you know, there was a segment of the listening, the listeners who are engaged through social media during the conversation that were kind of waving their hands and going. No no no no, no cool. Well tonight we want to explore is the notion of a highly sensitive man and I know that you would written a blog post a few years ago now. About this subject and I think was the first time, you know, I got to take that bat was going to say it's really the first time I heard that term but I'm sure it wasn't but it's a term.

5:07 I don't like hearing. I don't like seeing myself in that term so of but I am so I probably didn't want to recognize it or remember it, but that's what I'm talking about and I think the best place to start is, you know, what do you mean by a highly sensitive man? Yeah, so I'm actually going to share some definitions around that. Then we can have a good foundation to have a conversation. The the broader term is highly sensitive person and because I'm a man, I'm most interested in the highly sensitive man subset of that population. And according to the research has been done by a woman named dr. Elaine Erin, she's a clinical psychologist and she did I believe the pioneering work on the subject. According to her research Anywhere between 15 to 20 percent of the general population, she would classify as a highly sensitive person and we'll get into what some of the criteria are for that in a moment. The important fact about that in her work. That struck me that I think is really useful to be aware of is that the breakdown of that 15 to 20 percent of the general population that she considers.

6:22 Highly sensitive is 50/50 between men and women. I think a lot of people would Might tend to think that there would be a higher percentage of women who would be classed as highly sensitive. But the research that she's done has consistently shown that it's just about even between men and women. Yeah, that's like so good in math. Yeah. Thatthat seems surprising to me in my stereotypical looking at things, so right. And it was surprising to me as well. And so that's one of the reasons that's important is because given the nature of the culture that we live in and the ways that male behavior and female Behavior are sort of defined or pre defined in terms of what's acceptable and what's not, you know, you're talking about one in five men who were kind of trying to swim up hill as I like to say. You know, given the fact that sensitivity and Men is not really encouraged or valued was often actively and aggressively discouraged.

7:27 And then you look at and one in five men who are On the higher end is sensitivity according to the criteria that dr. Aaron has established and you're talking about, you know, like one in five guys that you know that might be having some problems with this because it flies in the face of what they believe they're supposed to be like. So that was I think that was one of the themes of the blog post that I wrote about to talk about, which is called I and I'm a highly sensitive man. And it first appeared on the good men project about four and a half years ago, I think. And and then it's appeared on some other sites as well.

8:07 So let me back up a little bit here and talk about a definition. So there is a there's a personality trait, called sensory processing sensitivity. And that is characterized by a high level of sensitivity to external stimuli tends to correlate with a greater depth of cognitive processing and high emotional reactivity. A human with a particularly High measure of sensory processing. Sensitivity is considered to be a highly sensitive person. This terminology has been around since, about the mid-1990s, as I said psychologist, Elaine Aaron is most famous for her work in this, what she did with her husband.

8:49 And so, again, as I said about 15 to 20 percent of the population is thought to process sensory data, more deeply due to the nature of their Central. Nervous system. So that's important. We're actually talking about physiology here. We're not talking about a choice that a person gets to consciously. Make about how much information. They're going to process how much they're going to take in and How Deeply that they need to do it. So one of the things that were that we're talking about here is capacity and so one of the important elements of this that and I think kind of last thing I'm going to read here, is that dr.

9:36 Aaron has said that sensory processing, he refers not to the sense organs as such, but what occurs as sensory information is transmitted to, or processed in the brain. So, we're actually talking about internal physiological processes here that are innate again, that are not choices and the Thing to she emphasizes a lot is that this is not, she does not see this as a disorder. It is a trait and it has its plus side. And it's - side it has its pros and cons. And so, you know, we're not trying to characterize people. Here is having some sort of defect, not at all. I don't consider myself to have a defect. I consider myself to have a trait that as I said, provides me with some advantages and certain circumstances and some disadvantages and others.

10:31 And I'm not something that I am learning to manage over time more and more because we don't really live in a culture just at large that tends to favor. D processors, who maybe take a little longer to move through a situation because they're taking in so much information and it's going in. So deep along along so many different channels. Once that there's a lot to do to make sense of it and formulate it and understand it and then respond in a positive or appropriate or effective. Way. Cool. So it's not that I think, kind of the quick reaction to that term is highly sensitive knees.

11:19 Overly sensitive, but not like, the way your phrasing is more. No, it's a deeper sensation, feeling more, right? Correct. And we're not just talking about, About emotional sensitivity. That's the other important part of it. This is physiological. So, you know, I noticed with myself, for example, if if I go into like if I go to the massage therapist and I go every couple of weeks, if she has changed something in that room, I noticed that the first time almost right away. A lot of people, I think, might take them a few months or might, they might not register. But that's just an example of the The kind of subtlety that is sort of part and parcel of taking in a lot of information.

12:06 And that's the kind of sensitive. It's really, you know, emotional sensitivity is part of it for can be part of it. But really, for me, it's about the amount of information that is being taken in. It's almost like having an antenna that, you know, you have a cheap antenna picks up three channels, you have a really good one, it picks up 50. Well, you know, That's a lot more information for process and one is not better than the other. That's the other point. I like to always try to get up front is like, I'm not saying that a highly sensitive, man. I'm not saying that the one in five men, whose highly sensitive is better in any way than the other for that. That is not the case. It's just a case of different. And and again, some people are going to be, you know, the four out of five are going to be better in some situations, you know, off the right off the bat.

12:59 The one in five, might take a little bit longer ramp up and then catch up and they might actually succeed. But this is not a any kind of Judgment of one being better than the other. I want us to make space for everybody, you know. So that's a conversation for sure. And you know when you're talking about traits, that's something I absolutely can relate to because know, as recently as the mat I think was like the 1960s or 1970s. So I mean it's a little while back. But the American Psychological Association had characterized homosexuality as a as a disorder, and now it's recognized as an actual physiological. Trait.

13:42 So, so to see that classification of that, this High being highly sensitive, is it trait as opposed to a quote-unquote disorder is extremely heartening to see ya in a lot of people bristle at it. I mean, I've had conversations with people before saying I don't want to be tagged, you know, I don't believe. I don't want to be labeled. The Sounds - and you're right. There's a lot of history around that with, with other personality traits other A logical traits and cetera and I understand. But you know, I don't I don't see it that way. You know, I see this as a way of for me it was a revelation when I first came across it because it was, you know, this is back in the day when you go to the bookstore and I was in there and I was kind of, you know, figure my way through the bookshelf and I was looking for something and I wound up on this book, The highly sensitive person, how to thrive when the world overwhelmed So, I think that's the full title by dr. Elaine Aaron, and I picked it up and I just started to pay certain us.

14:47 I was like, well, that's me, you know, that's me. I've never seen anything like that before. I just thought, I thought I was defective and I thought something was wrong with me. And I thought I needed to keep trying to change it because the way I was didn't seem to fit. And so that was an important moment in my life to see that somebody had actually studied this and done it in a systematic way. Could actually reflect myself back to me in a way that was positive and supportive and, and not, not, not judgmental, and not in a way that was distressing and made me feel like I'm just not doing myself the right way here. So, growing up you weren't you weren't embracing your sensitivity and until he discovered this, this research, and, and these terms.

15:37 Yeah, I was in my mid 40s. I think when I finally found that, Which is about right. It's like mid to late 90s that this work started to come out. So yeah, I you know, I grew up with the same sort of I guess in Century context that a lot of boys and then grow up, you know, be tough be resilient and I'm not against that, that's all good, you know. But I like to see us broaden that out. So that I'd like to see us broaden things out so that all men can Be comfortable with and embrace and express their sensitivity, to whatever degree is right for them.

16:19 I am not on a campaign to make all men, highly sensitive. It's not possible, it's not physiologically possible and it's not desirable. But yeah, I mean the kind of and it was the, you know, I had a father who was just like very abusive and a lot of that abuse was around, you throw like a girl, you I run like a girl. You know, those kind of things stop crying or I'll give you something to cry for. I'm not doing thing, fat things fast enough. So it was, I, I received almost completely negative reinforcement about my masculine identity as a child for my father from coaches from other boys.

17:02 And from other girls, you know, not other girls, I'm not a girl. But for this round is what I need and I can feel like that, it can feel like you're one of the girls. Yeah. I mean it was like there was really a space for me with the boys or the girls to be honest with you. And so I spent a lot of time by myself and, you know, recess, I would, you know, go around the corner and sit by myself and just, you know, imagine things or whatever because I did not, it was difficult for me to, especially physical activities, is difficult for me to pick things up and to move as fast, And again, I was processing everything that was going on around me and it seemed like it seemed like it was not a good thing, you know.

17:52 And so I learned more and more to hide it, especially got in the teenagers and so forth to just hide it, more and more and more. And I became very alienated from myself, which caused problems in my 20s that I had to begin to address. So, you know, there's something about giving up a primary three aspect of who you are. That is extremely extremely self-destructive. And unfortunately, we're talking about this particular topic is sensitivity and men and particularly highly sensitive man. I think a lot of highly sensitive men have experienced this sort of thing because they are in a minority, they are not the typical case.

18:35 And there's not a lot of there. Hasn't been a lot of room for the, a typical case I guess. Yeah. It's not something that's celebrated. Actually, it was a review of real men feel that this show last year, someone wrote a finally, there's a home for sensitive men. And when I read that, I recoiled like, oh, I'd like, I still, like, it's gonna comes from China, like, I don't like being called sensitive, but, but, I know I am and, and it's like, I can say it, but if someone else says it about me, it feels like an insult. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's running. It's often used as an insult. So I even, I mean, I'll admit this So on my LinkedIn page which is for this kind of work, and it's also for the work, I've done in Information Technology because LinkedIn doesn't allow you to have two separate pages for different career branches and stuff like that.

19:25 When I list my articles that I've done you know, in this realm of man and masculine psychology and so forth I don't even put I am a highly sensitive man, I'm a list because I'm concerned that an IT recruiter might look at and go oh this guy's trouble, you know. It's kind of sad. Yeah, it goes back to the notion of nice guys finish last and don't be a wuss and, you know, it don't be a girl. All those kind of things are, are wrapped into the, the negative outlook of sensitivity. But you mentioned pros and cons. So what are some of the pros of being a highly sensitive? Well, I think one of them is, you know, if you're looking at, if you're looking at an organization being a member of an organization, what I found with my Myself is if I start if I start a job at the same time, somebody else does and I find for the first, maybe a couple of months there, just racing ahead of me and it looks like I'm not doing much and I start to feel like you know maybe I'm not too good at this.

20:29 Maybe I'm not the right person but I've learned that what's going on with me is I'm processing. A lot of information, really deeply and I building a really thorough internal model of what's going on there and Who the people are and all that kind of stuff. And once I've got that in place, then I start to move pretty efficiently through work and I start getting things pulling things together, pretty rapidly. And I also find that and I think this is true as a rule for highly sensitive people. They tend to be detail-oriented oriented. They tend to be thorough and they tend to get things right the first time and the outcome tends to be pretty solid because they're tenancy is to do all that all that processing work on the front end. Now sometimes that means that it takes a little longer to get things together and get them out but week and is highly sensitive people to prepare well and be ready and not step into something until we're actually ready to handle it and master it.

21:37 And what about emotionally or in relationships where they, that emotional, sensitivity Rises up? Where does that help? Well, for me, it's helpful in terms of understanding other people because because and again, I speak about myself a lot of the time. I'm not a clinician and I'm not a psycho therapy professionals, I speak about myself and my own experience, and also observation of others and reading, I think that in general, highly sensitive people have a pretty available capacity, whether they're men or women to Be empathetic and to listen and to take their time with another person, and actually taking what the person's saying, and to some extent, kind of feel their way through it with them.

22:32 And so, I think highly sensitive people can be really great friends and, and really great in Intimate Relationships, but there is also, I think the Cuz of the, how can I put this? Because of the volume of emotional information that a highly sensitive person is dealing with at any given time. It might take them some time to master that so that they don't get overwhelmed by somebody else's emotions and overwhelm is a big sort of Pitfall for highly sensitive people. Because again there's we just naturally taken so much information Nation and frequently I found myself and I think this is true for other. Highly sensitive people.

23:24 Highly sensitive man included. It's necessary to step back away from overload and pull back in your own space, and actually have some time to process through things. So that you actually understand what you're feeling, what the other person is feeling how to put words to it. And of course, how to put words to feelings is a challenge in general for men. As opposed to women tend to have a quicker capacity. A greater accessibility two words to put words to feelings. Some of that is physiological, some of that is cultural. But one of the I think if if I were going to advise a woman who is going to be in a relationship with a highly sensitive man, it's the it's the say he's going to need some space and it's not about you and it's not not about him being unhappy with you, he's just likely to reach a point where he can't give you anything because he's basically his circuit breakers have started to go off, because he's getting overloaded by what's coming in from the outside and what's coming from the inside as well at the same time and it's overwhelmed not due to weakness or defectiveness, it's overwhelmed due to a heightened ability to Taking more information, I would say that's a very good way to put it.

24:50 Yeah. And it's not just an ability, it's a, it's your nature. So that's one of the things that highly sensitive. People tend to have to learn to do in a kind of culture that were in where there, where everything is very extroverted and everything is happening. All at once all the time and we're all supposed to be busy and we're all supposed to be, you know, surrounded by an IMAX screen all the time. You know, is that highly Two people, highly sensitive men, have to learn how to buffer the information around them. Have to make some selections about what sorts of situations, they're going to put themselves in and learn to realize that certain types of situations are going to be more overwhelming than others.

25:36 So I'm curious about the things that you mentioned though, extra-virgin extraversion and so forth. Are the studies that you looked at really dive into any game. Want to any sort of like granular bubble as far as how many, what percentage of those highly sensitive men, identify as being introverted or extroverted at all. That is such a great question and I'm so glad you brought that up now. I don't have those numbers for you but the distinction is important. In other words, highly sensitive person does not automatically equate to an introvert. There are highly sensitive extroverts. Which sounds a little counterintuitive at first, but it's really not because we're talking about two different personality traits.

26:25 Now, I think in the main, the majority of highly sensitive people, a chess pieces are called are probably going to correlate to introversion as well, but I have based on the reading that I've seen in dr. Aaron makes a makes a point of this to say, this is not the same as being introverted, right? Yeah, that that definitely makes sense because I'm sitting here processing all this I felt right now and I'm thinking because at times I see myself as being introverted all the time to see myself as being highly extroverted, it just really depends on the circumstances. But there's always that had processing and processing processing times. It's almost overwhelming but she could be extroverted at the same time.

27:11 Yeah, you know, and the other, the other thing about this and I'm not really well-versed in this but there's another train. Rate of called HS s HS s, which is high sensation seeking. So you could be a highly sensitive person HSP. And you can also be high sensation seeking. So, in other words, you're sort of wired to get over to overwhelm yourself or talk about. Well, yeah. I mean, you can literally be a highly sensitive person and high sensation seeking. So you might be highly sensitive and also want to ride Roller coasters? Which sounds again counterintuitive. But these are different traits.

27:52 There you go. Yeah. So these are different traits that can that can co-exist. And so it's not just a simple kind of cookie cutter, you know. Well if you're highly sensitive then you want to stay home all the time and you know you never go rock climbing. It's like no it's not like that. She could be a daredevil that's easily overwhelmed. Yes. Yes. Which sounds like a difficult life. Yeah. It's like, I'm moving. I'm moving hell. It's a great. Yeah. Yeah, I have, I would say that I have a bit of high sensation seeking myself. So, I have some, I have some experience with that and, you know, I'm not, I'm not comfortable to stay in what would be my safe Zone.

28:37 I need to get out of it and when I get out of it, I have to be aware that I may get overloaded but overwhelmed And I may have to pull that sooner than I want to. But the awareness of those trades is what helps you navigate them. Well, exactly. When you're not aware, it's you're just you're just driving blind and worse than that. I mean, I think you're, you're not just driving blind, you're driving in sort of a virtual reality. That's not yours. You know, this been imposed on you, there's so much, you know, so much of my life is like, you know, I shouldn't be like this, you know, I should be more like that guy, right?

29:19 You know, I should be you know again I got it a lot. It's like, why are you so sensitive? Don't be so sensitive. I heard that so many so many times. Like, that's just not helpful, you know, it's like water. Why are you a biped? Why are you not a quadruped in? It's like, it doesn't do any good. I'm not going. I could walk around on my hands and, you know, I'll force all day long. It doesn't make me a pot or bet you know. It's like you have to be what you are and you have to understand what you are. So that so that you can actually have an authentic life and you can have, most of all the most important thing to have a good relationship with yourself that's built from that's that's founded on self-understanding as opposed to some kind of externally. Imposed idea of what you should be like as a man or what you should be like as a woman in the people that you come across or in your own experiences.

30:12 Do you see highly sensitive men, try to lower their sensitivity, or hide it or, you know, push that trade away somehow? Ow. Yeah, absolutely. I mean a lot of men who are highly sensitive kind of alluding back to what you said earlier handy. A lot of men who are highly sensitive would be Horrified to be called that because again, you know, culturally especially when it comes to men, you know, we have this there's sort of an association there that sensitive equals week, you know, sensitive equals fragile and you know I my one of the statements I made in the in the blog article that you talked about before.

30:53 Was that, you know, I came to the conclusion that if you're going to be highly sensitive as particularly is a man in the sort of culture that we're in, you have to pre pretty damn strong. You have to be very strong to be who you are. And hold, that sense in that identity of who you are, is a highly sensitive man in the kind of culture that we have. Just because there is so much that tells you that you shouldn't be like that. Mmm, I love putting it that way getting and I've shared this story multiple shows to when I when I've spoken in front of military audiences and you know, the bravest guys in the world and risking their lives day in and day out but when it comes to crying in front of their, their fellow Warriors, that's horrifying, they can go there and yeah.

31:42 So the notion of owning your sensitivity and being proud to display it as this sense of being this Brave courageous, man. You know, I like that. Well, it's something you have to do day-to-day, you know, you and moment-to-moment. It's like if you're highly sensitive man you you you get to or you have to make that decision moment to moment about how much of that you're going to show, you know, whether it's in the workplace, whether it's in a family setting, whether it's in a social setting, whether it's in a relationship and it can be it can be a very tricky thing. I think for a woman to who, especially a while put it this way, you might think. Think that if you put a highly sensitive and highly sensitive woman together in a relationship, that would work great.

32:32 We're all shaking our hands People getting overwhelmed in each other's presence at the same time and if they are not aware that they have the trait. And if they have not begun to learn the skill, set was necessary to manage it successfully and effectively. Then, you know, you can have a couple of people that are just like, you know, a couple of raw edges rubbing against each other and it's, you know, it's not a good situation again. I'm not saying that, you know, it's not possible for that to work.

33:23 Work. But even if you have a highly sensitive man, one out of five in a relationship with a woman or another man who is in the four out of five. Both parties have to do some work to understand each other because I think it's difficult. I can't know this because you know, the body. I mean is highly sensitive. But I could imagine that it would be difficult for someone who's not in a highly sensitive body with a highly sensitive physiology to. And the experience of the person who is, why does it takes? And I'm, I'm in a relationship with a wonderful woman right now. And I confound her all the time because of the depth that I have to go into to understand things when I get triggered or when I get, you know, when there's any kind of friction or whatever.

34:13 It's like I really want to understand what's going on here, you know, and whereas a lot of people might go. Oh yeah, you know, we had we had that thing again, you know, and then there's carry on. But, you know, for me, every life is just deep for me. It just is by its nature and I come to realize that not everybody experiences life that way, which is not to say again. There's no better or worse here. It's just a matter of different types of experiences, a human being Lori, dropped a common into the into the chat. When we were talking about highly sensitive man, plus highly sensitive Woman and The crazy s come out of that.

34:55 And I mean I love her common because it's, it really goes to the essence of that particular Dynamic but even more. So just relationships in general which is that you have to be in your Core Essence, to make a type of relationship work, otherwise you end up dropping into victim mindset or poor me conversations. All right, right. And that and that, you know, the thought that brings up for me too is that, you know, I think we talked about this during my Last appearance, we talked about the difficulty that some men have establishing boundaries and knowing what they are and keeping them. And so you know that's another one of those things that for highly sensitive people is just critically. You know, crucially important is your ability to understand. What about Andre is when you need to set it, how you need to go about it, what it takes to keep it because if, if you're, if you're on the If you're at risk of getting overloaded getting overwhelmed by your environment, and I say risk, that's a strong word.

35:59 But I think you guys know what I mean. You know, if you have that potential at all times then just imagine how important it is to be able to set boundaries and be skillful with that and keep them and also how difficult it can be because again you know, we're talking about almost a, you know, An exponential difference between the four out of five and the one in five in terms of how important boundaries are and and how, in some ways sophisticated, they need to be for someone who's highly sensitive who's just on the verge of being flooded with information all the time, and it's not. And again, it's not just about crying, it's not just about feelings. It's just not just about emotional, it's about like a whole whole body is a physical experience. It's a psychological experience.

36:46 It's emotional. It's all of that too. Those four out of five that are highly sensitive. Are they all the same level of sensitivity or are there low sensitivity men as well? How does what's their the for? You know, I would, I don't know this for a fact, but I would suspect that there were talking about some kind of spectrum here because I think the way that the one out of five was determined was dr. Aaron developed the test with a set of questions and she she tested her test over and over again. And I believe she just sort of she drew the line at 20% and said okay? Anybody that takes the test and falls in this 20% I want to classify as highly sensitive. I doubt that that means that the four out of five are a monolith you know in the other 80% where they're all at the same level. I would doubt that that probably doesn't make too much sense to me, but I don't know if that answers your question or not but that's that was that's what I would expect. That there will continue to be very Creation, right. Yeah.

37:53 And what is so is there a secret to I think you used the word that you embraced your sensitivity? I'd say I'm embracing it. Yeah it is. It's a it's a you know it's a process as much as it's in advance. Certainly there was that moment when I came across dr. Aaron's work. And there was a moment, a moment being over the course of how many days or weeks. I was taking it in but there was a moment. Even when I open the book right now I just kind of ha ha, you know? And so I guess I've had several embrace Events around being highly sensitive. But, you know, in the, I guess, from a day-to-day situation. It's something that I have to embrace on an ongoing basis. Because again, there are still all sorts of voices and impulses in me that would just like not to be like this, you know, sometimes because it can be, you know, it can be difficult and the world feels hostile, a lot of the time. Feels less hostile when I understand myself and I'm not sort of enslaved by conditioning and patterns that were imposed upon me, but I'm still aware that it's in order to take care of myself.

39:16 I do need to be aware of the different degrees of safety, in terms of what I reveal and who I reveal it to in terms of how I behave you know I'm not going to walk around like a clam without a shell, all the time. Because that's not a good idea. Mmm. So it's a combination of self knowledge, awareness and boundaries hoping to help help highly sensitive man, navigate life and and stead of overwhelm as much as possible. Mmm. Yeah. And and also, you have to do have to develop some resiliency. I mean, you do because there's a lot of Cruelty out in the world, and as nice as it might be, to think that, if I share my whole self with everybody, that they're going to be respectful. They're going to be kind and they're going to make an effort to understand that's just not the case. And even the most well-intentioned people and especially if you're an intimate relationship, she's going to get hurt and it's going to be unintentional, a lot of the time, and I think that, you know, part of my process now is to it is possible.

40:23 I think, based on my own experience for highly sensitive people to get better at dealing with behaviors, that they find injuries. Their sensitivity and I think it's necessary to continue to work with that and look at it and ask yourself a lot of my process has been like this guy's like for me. If somebody does something to be that's hurtful, I would interpret it as well. If I did that, it would mean such and such you know, in other words, if I did that, I would, I must really not like them, you know, and it's been part of myself, education has been to realize that we're not all Wired and put together the same way.

41:06 I mean, some people will just throw off the meanest comment and it's very much a transient thing. There's not a lot of emotional weight behind it, but for me, it's like, well, if I said that it would mean, you know, I was about to, you know, drop a 16-ton, wait on you, like it's not like that for everybody, you know? So, and I think that that's actually something that it can start out as a. It's a disadvantage in the and the respect. You're highly sensitive, you know, you can get hurt emotionally, fairly easy because of the, the level of openness in the depth to which everything comes in. But at the same time, if you decide that you want to work with that and get more resilient and develop some more skillful discretion about how you interpret things, then you have a full palette to work with when it comes to your emotional intelligence.

42:04 And so you can really use that to your advantage to get more resilient without having to sacrifice your innate nature because if a highly sensitive person is going to feel hurt easier deeper more often. Might they also be easier and more often feeling positive emotions and you know I'll be the first to feel Joy. The first to feel Like a relationship is going really well. And you know, does it, does it go both ways? The sensitivity emotionally. I think that's fair to say and I guess the way I would put it is that you know, and I think this is true in common for highly sensitive.

42:48 People is true and comment for me. Everything is so deeply meaningful so that when you feel her it feels deeply meaningfully hurtful and when you feel joy and peace and closeness and connection and satisfaction and all those things, those are also deeply meaningful. Hmm, yeah. Yeah. It's funny. How many people say they want more meaning in life yet? If you said, oh do you want to be highly sensitive? They probably say no, well, again, it's there are so many negative connotations with it and, you know, I don't know what we do about that other than to keep having conversations like this, because I don't think you can, I don't think it's possible to really beat down a negative kind Nation until it goes away. I think what you do is you broaden the conversation, you know, often enough and in, you know, as many ways as you can. So that you begin to get a situation where there's, there's a positive, the sits alongside the - and then people can start to see the contrast and, of course, you know, the more conversations we have like this, the more somebody can watch this and go all the sensitive, guys, what a bunch of wimps, man? I don't know if I can sit through this whole thing, you know, and Then they watch it they go. Well, these guys are all right, you know, they're not sitting there, you know, complaining and

44:18 whining. And you know, coming across is weak, you know, it's just like, well, yeah, these are kind of like regular guys but they're just talking about this thing that I'm a little uncomfortable with and, you know, maybe it's not that bad, you know. And again, I think it's so important not to like, bring out the heavy stick and go, everybody must be as sensitive as I am. Is like no, I don't want that. Ha, ha ha, that's boring. We don't need that. You know, we don't need that. And I mean, we need a mix of people that are going to just like rush into the breach, you know, and just start swinging and because that's a way to get things done.

44:59 Another way to get things done, this proceed more carefully and have a, you know, and have a fuller deeper understanding and have a have have something fully conceptualized. We need those things to co-exist together, you know, and It's one of the things I've said before to that I really want to see is I want to see I want to see highly sensitive man coexist and more than that partner, with the four out of five men, we need each other because we have things that we can learn from each other. I learned a lot from Friends throughout high school and college, that we're not highly sensitive at all. They did a lot of things that honestly, horrified me, I couldn't believe it, you know, some of the stuff they And it's kind of led me along with them, but that was good for me because it built out my base of experience and it allowed me to kind of find out where my edges were. And that is something that I believe is very strongly is necessary and important for highly sensitive people men and women is to not just stay inside the boundaries of, you know, how you see yourself.

46:10 You have you want to take care of yourself? And you want to keep yourself safe and you don't want to get overwhelmed blown out because it's very easy for Highway says, some people to just get their nervous systems in their bodies. All blown out. You know, if you try to act like everybody else, the metaphor I've used is like it's like trying to pound nails of the microscope, you know, you're going to break the thing, you know, and you're not going to pound a whole lot of nails with it either. So, yeah, I think it's, I think it's useful to get out there and test yourself. And test your edges in ways that are reasonable. And again that's another way to build resiliency, you know. One of the things I find myself and I think this is true. Also one of the downsides of all the preparation and processing stuff is sometimes, it's highly sensitive people. We just hang back you know, because we want to get it all sussed out we want to get it.

47:04 All right? And that's not the best way to grow a lot of the time. A lot of the times to get out there and I learned that in Corporate environments. You know I would I would work on working on Project was a schedule or a technical paper or whatever. I always wanted to get it right. I don't want to see anybody any to see it until it and I thought I had the whole thing. Well, I couldn't get the whole thing until somebody else saw it, you know, I would just spin my wheels forever and I learned that it's better to put something out and I'm still working with us in myself. It's better to put something out and have it. Not be Flawless and get some feedback and rework it and keep putting it out and keep moving. And I don't know if that's just me or maybe that's a thing with hsps you know, that you can get gridlocked, trying to get it, all right. And so it's in that and just kind of loop back around what I was talking about, that's why it's good. I think for highly sensitive men to be intermixed with the four and five who are not highly sensitive because we help each other, you know, being around you know the the other four and five for me led me into territory. I never would have gone into otherwise myself. Because I would have been hanging back hanging back and hang back, while it was good for me. It helped me expand and grow.

48:17 And again, build resiliency, on the other hand, if you have organizations, that are teams or whatever that are completely built out of the four out of five, you going to have a lot of rockets blowing up on the path, you know. Yeah, that's that's so true. That's a sprocket pulling up on the pad going to have bombs going off in the room as well. Yeah, yeah, it's so it's a, you know, it's so I think a lot of the time, the highly sensitive person is sort of almost like the works as an advisor. You know, to basically and there's tension and I've always had that in organizations, to there's tension between the people of want, to Surge ahead, you know, and the people that are saying, hold up a minute.

49:06 Might be better if we just spent a week doing this and then we go. But again, that's what again, that's why I say highly sensitive. Now men who are not in that 20%, we need each other because we're incomplete without each other. And you know, the the four out of five, sometimes need to be reminded that hey, we can slow this down, you know, and the one out of five need to be reminded the like look, let's move forward so that we can make some progress. Dress and then we'll make adjustments as we go. No more paralysis by analysis, right? Right. Yeah. You know, one of the things that that's been kind of the back of my head during this conversation is I've been sitting here thinking about my own experience is not just in this culture, but in different cultures around the world, I mean, the two cultures I'm most familiar with other Latin culture because my own family background and of course this culture because again it's part of my family, back on it where I've grown up The city of wondering what other what cultures if there are any cultures out there that we know of that might actually value and appreciate the, what the highly sensitive people bring to the table.

50:23 Especially, highly sensitive men. I would guess that it would be typically, it would be subcultures within cultures that have that kind of appreciation. So I don't know. I guess the thing that comes to mind for me is like in, you know, in Middle Ages, Europe. The monasteries, you know, where you had, you know, you had a little population of people that I don't know if they're highly sensitive or not. I'm just extrapolating and guessing, but if you think about, you know, all the very intricate work, that was done. The very A painstaking work of copying these scripts and manage strips and all this kind of stuff in that whole lifestyle that strikes me as maybe kind of a highly sensitive person type of subculture.

51:07 And I think that, you know, I think again if you look at the Arts probably a lot of hsts in the Arts, if you look at some of the helping professions, probably a lot of hsps and helping professions. So I think, you know, in a sense of abroad culture, I'm not aware of one sense of, right? And sense of subcultures within a broader culture, I think that, you know, those might be some examples. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense is and I was just thinking just not even like for instance tribal cultures, where the shaman, you know, the tribe Shaman could in fact be, you know what HSV I would, I would suspect as much. Yeah, because again we're talking about someone who has the capacity and is built to process a Lot of information at once take it in, I think it'll add information once a lot of different levels process. It deeply go into that Retreat space. Go deep into that inner space and that emerge with something that's strikes.

52:11 Me as a typical HST kind of thing. Yeah, I'm packed Lori just shared something in the chat that she's being said, you may very well loved taking of an assessment for that without light. If purpose profiles because where you, you've been describing this whole time, is the emotional intelligence specialist. Yeah. That's a good point. Exactly yeah. Certainly that's a creator that yeah you've mentioned the hsps a disorder. But do you think there's many highly sensitive people that are mistakenly labeled with disorders? Again I'm not a clinician but I wouldn't be surprised to find that there were especially you know in preceding decades because if you don't know what you are and you don't know why you're behaving the way you are and you go to somebody and you say I need help with us and they don't know what you are either. There's a good chance they're going to try to put some kind of label on you that they understand. Right.

53:19 Right. Because even even this nothing disorder it. It is a label as well. And any trait is labeling. Exactly. Yeah, and prior to prior, to this label for lack of a better word, existing. All you had was a carrot was a set of behaviors and experiences and those could be mapped into all kinds of other things. If somebody doesn't know what to do with them, do you think it's easier or more difficult to grow up as a sensitive man today? Boy, that's a hard one to answer. I think I'll just go off the top of my head. What came to me was?

54:02 I think it's just as hard but for different reasons in some ways than what I experienced, some different reasons, I mean there's overlap but certainly the culture that a boy is growing up in today is different than the culture that I grew up in the 1960s, but I still don't, I think some progress has been made. In terms of sensitivity and men being acceptable. I'm going to say this though. I feel like we've regressed a bit in the sense that I see a lot of pressure and a lot of Demands on meant to be sensitive and I don't think either one of those ends of the spectrum is actually very healthy and very functional.

54:49 Yes, it sounds like, and it's almost like now there's a, it's almost like there's a section of the cost. This the the takes the position that if men are not all equally sensitive than theirs, they're doing it wrong, right? If if so if anyone, anything pressuring a man to be more or less sensitive than they naturally are creates problems. That's perfectly stated. Yeah, and I, I am absolutely militantly against that. Yeah, because I think that there's seemed, there's generally more openness for men to be feeling, but especially for for kids. There's, there's way more ways to be bullied, and Used and then there were when I was growing up as room. Yeah, yeah. And I think that it's, I guess the make another half crazy statement, perhaps, I guess the thing I could say about, you know, the time, the state of the culture when I grow up is like there wasn't any confusion about how I thought I was supposed to be, you know, in terms of what was being externally, imposed, it was very clear.

55:49 Now, what I see is a lack of clarity and I'm not saying that one's better than the other. But sometimes having you know, an infinite number of options can be crippling and and so I think that that's a challenge. Now to the that I didn't have it's like I knew exactly. You know what the criteria were? I didn't need them a lot of the time and that was a problem. Now I feel like, you know, it could be like an overabundance of possibilities can also be almost oppressive in some ways for Some kids. Yeah, well actually, there's plenty of studies out there that show that, you know, when we have fewer choices available to us, were much more likely to not only feel happier but also more likely to make decisions and yeah, yeah, yeah. And one other point, I want to make sure that I make is that being a highly sensitive person and I kind of alluded to it before a couple times being a highly sensitive person doesn't mean you're better than other people. It doesn't mean that That's your own somehow, automatically more advanced more mature.

57:00 It doesn't mean that you won't do things that are hurtful to other people. It doesn't mean that you're somehow High a higher evolved being and it doesn't mean that you don't have to do your own work to develop your to develop the emotional intelligence that's available to you. It doesn't automatically. Ali confer, exalted status on a person to say that they're highly sensitive. Yeah. That's that to be the case that the Prejudice to go that way. Yeah. Oh exalted highly sensitive one. How are you today? Right. Right. But that's one of those that's one of those Impressions that I like to try to dispel up front, you know, I like to go after that one proactively because you know, yeah, I'm a highly sensitive person and because of the damage that I sustained growing up I was pretty passive aggressive when I was younger.

57:57 So, it's, like, guess what? You can be. Highly sensitive and passive aggressive at the same time. Gosh, so important for guys are getting hammered from every direction. Are we driving itself? As you have to own your wife, you know, and it doesn't it doesn't matter. You know what your innate nature is, you have to own your wife, you know, and of that. Even if there's a highly sensitive man. Oh, maybe there's a guy that's hearing this term for the first time right now. Listening to us, talk about it, rick it and not be as well. What, what's one piece of advice for the foreperson discovering that they are highly sensitive and not sure what to do with it. I would say go and find that Elaine Aaron book, The highly sensitive person.

58:48 How to thrive, when wife overwhelms, you Or if you don't want to get the book, go to her website and you can Google it, you can find it easily. She has a self test on there. Take the self tests. I know, self-test, people go, oh my God. What is this Cosmo or something? It's like, no. This is the test that she's been using that. She's that she's been using diagnostically. And at least just take it and see where is score on the thing. But I would say, you know, to indirect answer your question, get her book and read it because that Is the starting point as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, I love that. And I would say, yeah, do that. And then no practice what you learn, but it's to use and, you know, become aware and know when it's appropriate to share that sensitivity and when you needs to just learn the circumstances in which he might be highly sensitive and others.

59:47 When it's like, okay, you know what, I'm still aware but I'm not Not going to display it, right? Right. Yeah. It's about learning how to live strategically, you know? Yeah, yeah. And of course, the other thing I would have to say Andy is that like, you know, if you're a man who's listening to the or a woman either, if you're listening to this and you think, oh, I might be highly sensitive, and I'd like to get some help learning how I can make the most of this and learn about myself. You know, you can contact me. I've coached highly sensitive people and I offer a free one hour Discovery session. We can have a conversation about it and you can decide if that's something you want to pursue with me or not. Super.

1:00:28 So what's the best way for people to reach you Rick? My website is Rick Belden coaching.com and if you go there you'll see everything that you need. If you want to explore further with cool and I'll be sure wherever you may be listening. This visit the real men field or blog and we'll have links to Rick site. Will have links to Elaine's book will have links to the self tests and maybe in the next show will Reporter results. Good idea. See where our scheduling you for the next one. That's all right.

1:01:16 So anytime you guys want to have you back, I think we can cook up something. Do they overlap it all is, what a highly sensitive person. Be more likely to have wounds or would the wounds create a highly sensitive person? Is there a correlation? I think that's a really great question and the way I look at it is this if you take two children and you put them in the same situation and one is highly sensitive. And the other is not. And we're talking about a situation where there's this function. There's neglect there's abuse in the family. I would believe that the highwomen Highly sensitive child would come out of that situation with more damage and the reason is because again we're talking about someone who physiologically psychologically emotionally takes in more information than the other child does and takes it in more deeply and everything feels much more meaningful. Everything is invested with tremendous meaning and so the wounding I would say, has to go deeper it, tends to be broader. It tends to have deeper roots.

1:02:21 It and everything tends to sink a little farther in and and because of the innate need to process things, it's going to require some deeper processing to work that through it. But again the the results of that are going to be very profound in terms of healing in terms of improvement and and that's not to say that the other child wouldn't sustain damage that has to be dealt with to but I We're talking about you know to use kind of I don't know, kind of a like really high level metaphor. It's almost like you got a small sponge in a big sponge you know and just and you soak them both with water. Well you know your the small ones going to get rung out and drive faster than the big one does. Cool.

1:03:10 It's nice when you're looking at it if you're raised by sponges. Yeah. Well you don't know who's listening. Well and actually that SpongeBob SquarePants, he's hiding something. Yeah, I think you're right a good example. Yeah. Schools. Well, this is again, it's been a fascinating subject and I feel like you keep going forever on this one, especially as you discover and open up to your to our own Sensitivity. I think we're all kind of self-identified as highly sensitive people here. But you know, one thing to realize if people are discovering this with the first time that, that you're not alone, you know, you're at least one in five. Right?

1:03:50 Right. So yeah, yeah, I know. And again that To me that amplifies the need for understanding this because we're talking about a fairly again, we're talking about men specifically. This is a large number of men that were talking about, you know, if these numbers are correct. It's a very large number of men. And that means that even if you're not, you know, somebody who is, you know, several men who are they may not know they are but they're around you. So even if you're not 15 reading, the book did learning more about this can help, you know about your friends better too. Well, sure, I think it would and I think, you know, again, if we're talking about relationships and Partnerships, if you're in, you know, a partnership with someone who knows that he or she is highly sensitive. You know, you might want to take a look at the book because it might help you understand some of the behaviors that are just confounding to.

1:04:40 You want to thanks again for another great conversation and I bet there's going to be a third and everyone can can get in touch with you at Rick Belden coaching.com and Other links everything we discussed. I will track down the links and post them at real men. Feel that org, and and thanks for joining us. Hey, thanks for having me on again. This is another great conversation, really, enjoyed it flew right by awesome. All right, have a good night. Everybody have a good night, guys. All right, thank you for listening to real men field. Until next week, visit real men field dot org or the real men, feel Facebook group and share what you thought of this episode.

1:05:22 Please give this podcast. A review on iTunes, Google play, or wherever you are discovering real men field reach out to us at real men field at gmail.com show us some love by visiting real men. Feel dot org, slash swag, or digital tip jar.com /. Real men field. Learn more about Auntie Grant at the and Grant.com and I feel Hunter a top pro hunter.com. A review on iTunes, Google play, or wherever you are discovering real men field reach out to us at real men field at gmail.com show us some love by visiting real men. Feel dot org, slash swag, or digital tip jar.com /. Real men field. Learn more about Auntie Grant at the and Grant.com and I feel Hunter a top pro hunter.com.