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Practical Strategies for Empowering Highly Sensitive Children with Melissa Schwartz · The Spiritual Parent: Mindful Tools for Raising Spiritual and Conscious Kids

• 0:00
  Melissa: every day, every moment, every breath is really an opportunity to start fresh.
• 0:04
  Melissa: There's this spirituality, too.
• 0:05
  Melissa: Right Is that the only constant is change, right?
• 0:08
  Melissa: There are endless opportunities to readjust.
• 0:11
  Melissa: And I want to add something in here about HSP is that that really goes back to the science and the research, which is that, as HSP is, while we might have had more trouble in childhood and so we may have kind of struggled, hsps actually do really really really well in therapy.
• 0:30
  Melissa: We do really really well when we take course corrective measures.
• 0:34
  Melissa: It's part of, I think, our deep processing, it's our ability to reflect and really go internal.
• 0:40
  Melissa: And so if you're an HSP who's feeling like you messed up whether it's with your children or yourself be gentle on yourself.
• 0:49
  Melissa: Shift your inner talk and get clear about what it is that you're wanting, because you can always readjust the direction that you're going in.
• 0:57
  Carrie: Welcome to Heart to Heart Parents.
• 0:58
  Carrie: Let's connect with our kids and learn together.
• 1:01
  Carrie: I'm Keri.
• 1:02
  Carrie: I was a former teacher and speech therapist.
• 1:04
  Carrie: I'm also a parent of two spirited, gifted, highly sensitive kids.
• 1:09
  Carrie: I was quickly brought to my knees as a parent when I thought that I would see a rosy lens version of parenting, just as they present on Instagram, but I quickly learned that's not real life.
• 1:20
  Carrie: I will provide real life experiences and transform them into moments for connections and change for you to use in your house.
• 1:30
  Carrie: Hi there, conscious parents, before we start today's episode, it's Keri here and I wanted to reach out to ask you guys for a quick favor.
• 1:36
  Carrie: As a follower of our show, we would love for you to give us a five-star rating and leave us a review.
• 1:43
  Carrie: It can be just a few words, that's it, and it really goes a long way with us with the podcasting community on Apple or Spotify.
• 1:51
  Carrie: So thanks so much for tuning in and I'm so excited for you to hear today's message.
• 1:56
  Carrie: Happy listening, hi there, and welcome back.
• 1:59
  Carrie: I'm Keri and I'm here with a very special guest today.
• 2:03
  Carrie: We have Melissa Schwartz here today and she specializes in highly sensitive people, which I love.
• 2:11
  Carrie: That is a huge part of our lives.
• 2:13
  Carrie: Everybody in our house is sensitive.
• 2:15
  Carrie: My husband and I we're always checking with each other like, how are you doing today, how are you feeling?
• 2:20
  Carrie: And we're just a big ball of loving energy in our house.
• 2:24
  Carrie: So, melissa, thank you so much for being here with us.
• 2:27
  Melissa: Thanks for having me, Carrie.
• 2:28
  Carrie: Happy to be here with you, yes, and I love that you.
• 2:32
  Carrie: Your main jam and bread and butter is highly sensitive people.
• 2:37
  Carrie: I feel like this is become such a popular area and we're learning so much about kids and adults.
• 2:45
  Carrie: And are kids a big piece of the puzzle for you or a primary focus?
• 2:51
  Melissa: Yeah, so primarily I work with parents and their children, although I also do work with highly sensitive adults, but for me it's all sort of one big basket, because most of us that are highly sensitive adults didn't really get what we needed in childhood, and so a lot of us are kind of struggling as adults to regulate our emotions and set healthy boundaries and not be people pleasers, not absorb the energy of other people around us, and so I love helping adults with it.
• 3:18
  Melissa: But I also really love helping kids to grow up into adults who don't need my work in adulthood.
• 3:24
  Melissa: Sometimes I joke that I want to raise a generation of kids who don't have to go to therapy, which isn't really possible, but it's kind of a lofty goal, that um, because my belief is really that when sensitive kids get their needs met in a really authentic, um like holistic way in childhood, then they grow up as adults who are just sort of confidently walking through life.
• 3:46
  Melissa: They don't have the same challenges that most of us as sensitive adults have, because when we were growing up people didn't know about high sensitivity, so they did their best with us, but now we just know more.
• 3:57
  Melissa: So I love helping parents and adults and children and anyone anywhere along that spectrum.
• 4:04
  Carrie: Yeah, I love it and I have met so many adults that have come up to me recently.
• 4:09
  Carrie: I just did a speaking event last weekend with adults and there were so many people grandparents ages and parents ages coming up and saying this is amazing.
• 4:20
  Carrie: We needed this two eras ago, one era ago, and I'm so happy that we know this for our kids now so I can imagine, when these kids grow up, what they're going to be like in their generation.
• 4:33
  Melissa: That's my hope is that they are just more well-adjusted and more able to handle life and all of the complexities and intensities.
• 4:40
  Melissa: You know, the world is also a lot more intense and overstimulating than it was when I grew up, and so sensitive kids today are kind of dealing with a more challenging world, even though their parents might be more equipped to be able to help them.
• 4:53
  Carrie: Yeah.
• 4:53
  Carrie: Yeah, that's wonderful.
• 4:54
  Carrie: I'm so happy we have people like you and I out there.
• 4:57
  Carrie: It was so fun to connect.
• 4:59
  Carrie: We just overlapped with our messages.
• 5:01
  Carrie: It's really cool, so I wanted to check with you.
• 5:06
  Carrie: I recently found out that you also have the spirituality piece that you bring in.
• 5:09
  Carrie: Do you bring that in with families?
• 5:10
  Carrie: Do you bring that in with children?
• 5:12
  Carrie: What does that look like for you?
• 5:14
  Carrie: What have you found?
• 5:16
  Melissa: Yeah.
• 5:16
  Melissa: So for me, spirituality is it's sort of in everything that I do.
• 5:21
  Melissa: It's really hard to get away from it Right.
• 5:23
  Melissa: And I also have this belief that a lot of sensitive people struggle because they don't have spirituality in their life, because they feel like they're doing things on their own.
• 5:34
  Melissa: They might not feel connected to a bigger experience than their own individual perspective.
• 5:40
  Melissa: And so I think I just sort of infused spirituality into everything, even if it's not deliberate or intentional.
• 5:47
  Melissa: It's sort of like the background for all of the work that I do, especially when I work with parents.
• 5:54
  Melissa: I always say to parents when I start working with them again it's my belief that parents and children choose each other to have a life experience.
• 6:02
  Melissa: And so when parents come to me and they are really distraught and kind of hysterical that their children are struggling or behaving in ways that are really concerning or challenging, what I remind them is the two of you chose this from a non-physical perspective so that you could have your growth, they could have their growth, and you haven't messed up and you haven't gone wrong and you're not the wrong parent for them and you didn't take on too much.
• 6:27
  Melissa: Because a lot of times parents of intense, sensitive kids feel like this was a bad choice.
• 6:34
  Melissa: You know, I'm not equipped for this right, because it can feel so overwhelming, especially when you're dealing with a child who's really strong-willed, pushes back a lot or just has huge breakdowns and tantrums and can't really get through a day managing their emotions.
• 6:49
  Melissa: And so I like to talk about the spiritual journey between parent and child, because that is, from from my perspective, what the work I do is really about.
• 6:59
  Melissa: It's not just about changing a child's behavior.
• 7:00
  Melissa: It's about helping parents grow into who they really wanted to be when they decided to have this child, and it's also about helping this parent and child grow together so that in adulthood they have a really beautiful relationship.
• 7:15
  Melissa: I actually came to do this work because of my mom.
• 7:18
  Melissa: My mom and I wrote a book together.
• 7:20
  Melissa: We've been coaching, we share a practice for over 15 years now, and so it's not just what I believe for my clients, it's what I've seen in my own life.
• 7:30
  Melissa: You know, my mom and I have a really beautiful, unique, loving, healed relationship that came from this kind of core belief that we showed up for each other to catalyze growth and to heal wounds and to expand who we are into these best versions of ourselves.
• 7:50
  Melissa: So it really is infused into every aspect of the work that I do.
• 7:54
  Carrie: Yes, I love that so much.
• 7:56
  Carrie: My mom and I also grew up together.
• 7:59
  Carrie: My mom was a single mom for a little while and just that spiritual peace really helped us.
• 8:04
  Carrie: So I love that it's beautiful and I love that you guys work together.
• 8:08
  Carrie: That's so wonderful.
• 8:09
  Carrie: What a neat connection I love you mentioned.
• 8:14
  Carrie: I feel like as a parent of highly sensitive kids and not knowing that when I first started and trying to fit into this box of perfect parenting or all of the parenting books that you read, because you're not given the highly sensitive child when you're pregnant, you're not given these different pieces of hear your heart.
• 8:35
  Carrie: And is there any pieces that you would share with parents about intuition or reading parenting books?
• 8:42
  Carrie: What would you say for a parent as they're going through this?
• 8:46
  Melissa: Yeah, so I this might be a little bit of a controversial perspective, but I actually think a lot of parenting books are not for parents of highly sensitive children, and I'd love to use a metaphor of talking about highly sensitive people and kids sort of like a Porsche and the non highly sensitive ones like a Prius, and I actually wrote children's book based on this metaphor.
• 9:09
  Melissa: We didn't use a Porsche and a Prius because I didn't want to get sued, but we used a race car and a van as our, as our differentiating vehicles, but the idea is that highly sensitive people are more high maintenance.
• 9:25
  Melissa: We are more high needs.
• 9:26
  Melissa: We are more demanding in the way that we need to be serviced right.
• 9:31
  Melissa: We need the same things as a Porsche that we would need as a Prius, but we need them more nuanced.
• 9:38
  Melissa: We need gasoline, but we might need the premium gasoline.
• 9:42
  Melissa: We need an oil change, but we might need an oil change every 2000 miles instead of every 5,000 miles.
• 9:47
  Melissa: We want our car to be clean and shiny and look pristine.
• 9:51
  Melissa: We care about those kinds of things, and most parenting books are written for Priuses, and so when you have a highly sensitive child and you're reading the wrong manual to understand your child's needs, you're going to feel frustrated.
• 10:08
  Melissa: You're going to feel like something's wrong with my child, that this manual isn't working, and so that's why I'm saying it's a little controversial, because most parenting stuff is not for parents of highly sensitive children.
• 10:21
  Melissa: If you have two children that are hardwired differently which was me and my brother, by the way, which is really how my mom and I came to this work my older brother is like a Prius and I am a Porsche, with all the bells and whistles, every souped up option on the planet, Right, and both of my parents were educators.
• 10:39
  Melissa: My mom was actually an early childhood educator, and so when my brother was born, everything worked with him all of the traditional wisdom.
• 10:46
  Melissa: But when I was born, nothing worked with me, and so her belief was something must be wrong with this child, because what I'm doing isn't working, and it worked over here, and I think a lot of parents of sensitive kids feel that way.
• 10:57
  Melissa: They try the traditional wisdom, they try timeouts, they try taking things away, they try, you know, maybe yelling or getting stern or listen to me, they might even try like spanking or you know these kind of traditional approaches that work with a lot of kids, but they don't work with sensitive kids, because our needs are broader and more nuanced, and so we need child specific strategies that are for the highly sensitive child, which is why I focus in this area.
• 11:28
  Melissa: There are actually we didn't really talk about the statistic, but it's thought that somewhere between 20 and 30 percent of the population is highly sensitive, which is like a quarter to a third of the population.
• 11:41
  Melissa: There are a lot of highly sensitive children, and I also think a lot of them are being diagnosed with other things.
• 11:46
  Melissa: So they're being given, you know, sort of diagnostic labels and and and parents are using traditional stuff with them and that's not working and and so the more we talk about high sensitivity and help the masses understand it and and come to understand what these children need, which is just slightly different.
• 12:03
  Melissa: It's not a huge difference.
• 12:05
  Melissa: You know, taking care of a Porsche is not a completely different experience than taking care of a Prius.
• 12:10
  Melissa: It's just a little more specific, a little more maintenance, a little more frequency in terms of taking care of it.
• 12:18
  Melissa: Right, it's the same concepts, it's just it's just upped a little bit.
• 12:22
  Melissa: And so that's why most traditional parenting stuff just doesn't work for sensitive kids.
• 12:27
  Carrie: And we'll be right back after this message.
• 12:29
  Carrie: Hi there, changemaker moms and dads.
• 12:32
  Carrie: It's Keri here.
• 12:33
  Carrie: I hope you're enjoying today's episode.
• 12:35
  Carrie: If there's any pieces of this episode that resonate with you, we would love for you to share it with a friend.
• 12:41
  Carrie: A little helping hand goes a long way.
• 12:43
  Carrie: We appreciate you tuning in, and here's more.
• 12:46
  Carrie: Yes, for sure.
• 12:47
  Carrie: I was just speaking with somebody recently from the UK and she was asking for ideas of places to go and one of the things that really helped us was an OT that specialized in somatic therapy and really knew the sensory system.
• 13:04
  Carrie: So I was telling her those two pieces in an OT, if you can find that, are really helpful.
• 13:09
  Carrie: And she mentioned highly sensitive children.
• 13:12
  Carrie: Isn't as popular in the UK.
• 13:15
  Carrie: So what would you say to somebody that's maybe overseas and listening it's?
• 13:19
  Carrie: I know it's a little bit trickier.
• 13:22
  Melissa: Yeah, so I you know, the beauty of the world that we're living in now is that so much is available online, and so there are lots of summits and conferences for parents of highly sensitive children.
• 13:33
  Melissa: I speak in a lot of them.
• 13:33
  Melissa: I also actually speak at a lot of occupational therapy conferences because a lot of OTs often treat kids for sensory processing disorder, when kids actually are highly sensitive, and so I love helping occupational therapists sort out the nuance between the two and what I.
• 13:51
  Melissa: What I actually find that's amazing with OTs is so many of them are HSPs.
• 13:55
  Melissa: You know, as I'm giving a talk for occupational therapists, I'll often ask them raise your hand if this sounds like you and it's like 80% of the room because a lot of them went into OT trying to figure out who they were, how to meet their own needs, how to help kids that were just like them, and so a lot of sensitive kids do end up being sort of moved into OT, which is great.
• 14:14
  Melissa: I kids do you end up being sort of moved into OT, which is great.
• 14:17
  Melissa: I think OT is good for all kids.
• 14:20
  Melissa: It's really really really good for kids that have sensory processing differences.
• 14:23
  Melissa: You know some highly sensitive kids do really well in OT too.
• 14:27
  Melissa: But for parents who are looking for resources, get online, do it, do a search around high sensitivity.
• 14:30
  Melissa: There are so many free resources online and there are other coaches like me.
• 14:35
  Melissa: I'm certainly not the only expert in the field, you know working with parents of highly sensitive children, but there are a lot of coaches now who work online, who can support and provide one-on-one support or offer courses and things like that.
• 14:48
  Carrie: Yeah, I love that.
• 14:49
  Carrie: And when I was raising my kids they were both HSP, so I did not ever have the what was.
• 14:56
  Carrie: I don't remember the Prius.
• 14:57
  Carrie: I did not ever have a Prius.
• 14:59
  Carrie: I did not get that route which we were.
• 15:02
  Carrie: We weren't sure if we were going to have a second kiddo, cause it was.
• 15:04
  Carrie: It was hard at times and, yeah, we didn't know how to help our Porsche.
• 15:09
  Carrie: But you know, knowing having the two HSP kids, it's helpful for me because I know, hey, your brother went through this and it was a phase and we could help him through it.
• 15:19
  Carrie: And I know this is possibly a phase for you that you will be able to learn how to go with it and you will adjust to this and we can teach you tools too.
• 15:29
  Carrie: So it was kind of nice to know, but I can't imagine going from a Prius and then jumping into the Porsche.
• 15:35
  Carrie: It would be a little different, for sure.
• 15:38
  Melissa: Some parents have the other experience, right when they have a really intense high needs baby and then they get a really easygoing one.
• 15:49
  Melissa: But a lot of families that I work with what I find is either they're one-off you know they have one and it's more than enough or they had a really easy one, and then the second one came along and they're like what is going on here?
• 15:56
  Melissa: This is so different from the first one and so they, you know it's.
• 15:59
  Melissa: I think it's normal and natural to think something's wrong.
• 16:02
  Melissa: Right, because as parents we want the best for them and so we worry if something seems amiss or like it's not typical.
• 16:10
  Melissa: But once we come to understand what's typical for high sensitivity, then we can kind of relax a little bit more, because we know that this is them adjusting to life in a physical body, into a world that feels over, stimulating for them right from the very beginning and helping them learn how to manage their emotions from an early age and, yeah, setting them up for success.
• 16:32
  Melissa: But it does really take a more refined approach.
• 16:36
  Melissa: And and here's the other, the other piece, carrie, is fortunately, high sensitivity is a genetic temperament trait, so typically at least one parent is highly sensitive, and you're, it sounds like in your home both of you are highly sensitive, and so when a parent is highly sensitive, they usually have an understanding of what's going on for their child.
• 16:54
  Melissa: I've actually found it's really interesting.
• 16:57
  Melissa: In my practice I work with a lot of families of adopted children, because what tends to happen is when two parents are not highly sensitive and they adopt a child who's not biologically theirs, who is highly sensitive, there can be a really big learning curve to understanding what's going on and they might think it's like adoption trauma or something else that's going on for this child, when in fact they're highly sensitive and and neither parent can really put themselves into the experience of the child.
• 17:23
  Melissa: But in a family with biological children, it tends to be that at least one parent themselves is highly sensitive, and so there's usually an um, an easier understanding of what's going on, because as a child we experienced some of that, and as an adult we still experience some of it, and so we can usually really relate to them.
• 17:42
  Carrie: Yeah, do you have any tips?
• 17:44
  Carrie: So if we are a highly sensitive parent and sometimes, like this week, I'm on my own, my husband is working, he had to take a work trip and so, yeah, so you're just trying to hold it together to make it through the three days without having my backup Do you have any tips for the highly sensitive parent reading the two highly sensitive kids?
• 18:03
  Melissa: Yeah, I love your question.
• 18:04
  Melissa: So, especially because both of your kids are highly sensitive, I would, and I'm sorry, just remind me how old your kids are.
• 18:10
  Melissa: They're school age right.
• 18:11
  Carrie: I have a nine-year-old son and a six-year-old daughter.
• 18:14
  Melissa: Got it, so they're really like a beautiful age for you to model for them.
• 18:19
  Melissa: Some of these strategies take care of themselves, so my suggestion would be you know we're in the summer right now and they're probably in camp for the day I would.
• 18:26
  Melissa: I would think, yeah, they're, is that where?
• 18:27
  Carrie: they get to go to golf this morning.
• 18:29
  Melissa: They're really living it up with grandpa, right now, cool Okay, it up with grandpa right now.
• 18:33
  Melissa: Cool Okay, great.
• 18:34
  Melissa: So they're grandpa camp this morning, which is even more fun.
• 18:36
  Melissa: So when they get back, I would probably say something to them like Ooh, so tell me about what was fun, what was the most exciting part about what happened.
• 18:43
  Melissa: Give them a little bit of time to process.
• 18:44
  Melissa: You might even ask them if, if either of them look a little downtrodden like is, anything funky happened while you were out, anything that didn't feel great, and let them kind of vent a little bit.
• 18:54
  Melissa: And then I would say to them something like oh so while you were out, I was really busy, I was working and I did an interview and I had all these things going on and, oh, I'm feeling really full.
• 19:03
  Melissa: How about if we all take a little bit of a break just to decompress from what we had going on what feels like it would work best for you?
• 19:11
  Melissa: Do you want to sit in the same room with me and read?
• 19:14
  Melissa: Should we put on some quiet music?
• 19:17
  Melissa: Do you want to do some yoga and stretching?
• 19:19
  Melissa: Should we go outside and take a walk?
• 19:20
  Melissa: Offer them a couple of options that would feel good to you and see if they want to join you in any of them.
• 19:25
  Melissa: And that way, essentially, what you're doing is you're modeling for them that, after a really stimulating up kind of experience, now we want to give ourselves a little bit of downtime to rest and recuperate, to process anything that came up for us during that experience and to prepare for whatever it is that's coming next.
• 19:42
  Carrie: I love that.
• 19:43
  Carrie: I love that so much modeling it and I've been definitely trying to use it like oh, mom's feeling a little overstimulated, she's going to put her headphones in while she washes dishes right now.
• 19:52
  Carrie: Yup, yup, things like that too.
• 19:56
  Melissa: I think that's the key, because so many parents that I've worked with over the years who are sensitive, try to protect their children from their emotions, like, like.
• 20:04
  Melissa: They think that hiding their dysregulation from their kids is doing their kids a service, and I'm often reminding them, I'm like no, no, no, you want it in an age appropriate way to let them know what's going on.
• 20:15
  Melissa: You know, at six and nine your kids are absolutely old enough to hear you say I'm feeling really flustered with everything I have to do in the kitchen before I can start preparing dinner.
• 20:25
  Melissa: So I'm going to ask for 15 minutes of alone time while I tidy up and prepare and get things going, and then if you want to come in and help me, you can, or if you want to sit in here quietly with me, that would be okay.
• 20:36
  Melissa: But now it's really not a time for me to have conversation because my brain is already feeling really overwhelmed with all the things I'm thinking about.
• 20:43
  Melissa: It is absolutely appropriate and it's beneficial when you can model that for them, because most of us kind of hold it in, we don't want them to know it and then we either explode or we implode and and they don't really understand what's happening, but when we walk them through, it's almost like we become an inner monologue for them, in a way, so that they can learn how to process what they're feeling in this appropriate language and have these really appropriate strategies to deal with the intensity of whatever they're feeling.
• 21:14
  Carrie: Right.
• 21:14
  Carrie: I love that.
• 21:15
  Carrie: That's so appropriate.
• 21:16
  Carrie: And definitely, as they get older, it's it's easier to chat with them about it.
• 21:20
  Carrie: I even did it when they were two, you know like, oh, mom's having a hard time, let me have a breath, let me take a deep breath, breathe with me.
• 21:27
  Carrie: Things like that.
• 21:28
  Carrie: Yeah, for sure, yeah, yeah.
• 21:45
  Melissa: Because they learn from what we do.
• 21:46
  Melissa: They don't learn from what we say to them.
• 21:47
  Melissa: You know, and, and a lot of times when kids are struggling to have these coping skills.
• 21:52
  Melissa: Again, this is a spirituality piece.
• 21:53
  Melissa: I'll say to parents don't want to show it to them, and what I often say to them is well then, your kids are learning to do that with their feelings and you're wanting them to do it more appropriately, but we're not showing them how to do it.
• 22:04
  Melissa: And so I love that you've been modeling this for your kids from a young age, because even at the age of two, they're there, you know.
• 22:11
  Melissa: That's why little little ones hit and pinch and spit, because they don't know what else to do and the emotion feels so big.
• 22:18
  Melissa: And so when we model for them, I'm feeling really frustrated.
• 22:21
  Melissa: Okay, I feel a little bit better, but not a lot better.
• 22:25
  Melissa: I'm going to stop my feet and we show them what to do with their emotions.
• 22:28
  Melissa: Then they learn how to do it and it becomes a natural part of their growing up.
• 22:33
  Melissa: You're raising kids that aren't going to need therapy when they grow up, because you're showing them.
• 22:37
  Melissa: You are you're showing them from an early age what to do with those emotions, so they're not left alone with them, for them Just otherwise, it's like the emotions just kind of run ragged through their body and then kids feel badly that they're feeling them, because they think they're inappropriate, because they've never learned what to do with them in an appropriate way.
• 22:54
  Melissa: So I want to just celebrate that you've been doing this with your kids for so long.
• 22:58
  Melissa: It's it's it's a shift.
• 23:00
  Melissa: It's deviating from what most of us grew up with and what most of us do in our own lives.
• 23:05
  Melissa: You know, we really have to be on with them.
• 23:08
  Melissa: Personally, I have a stepdaughter.
• 23:10
  Melissa: I don't have any of my own biological children, but my husband had a daughter before we got married and so she's with us only part time and I got to tell you he and I often talk about how, when she's with us, we are on our a game in the way that we're modeling things and when she's not with us.
• 23:27
  Melissa: sometimes we slack off a little bit and so I am.
• 23:30
  Melissa: You know, I really get to like kind of waffle in and out of that and I and I and I feel the real challenge of being on it with her because I want her to learn from me appropriate things, not inappropriate things, right, the behaviors that I really want her to learn.
• 23:45
  Melissa: And it's a little bit easier when we don't have kids around us to fall, fall into our old stuff.
• 23:50
  Melissa: But that's the real spiritual growth that comes from being a parent, is being that model for them, because we so want them to see that from us.
• 23:58
  Carrie: Yes, and I love.
• 23:59
  Carrie: I love what you say about the therapy.
• 24:01
  Carrie: I always joke that I know they're probably going to have to go at some point for something.
• 24:06
  Carrie: I just want to reduce the amount they have to do.
• 24:09
  Carrie: I know that I'll call something at some point.
• 24:11
  Melissa: Absolutely.
• 24:12
  Melissa: And I think it's wonderful that you have that perspective because none of us are perfect and also life happens with them when they're not with us, and so there are, you know.
• 24:20
  Melissa: There are things that happen in friendships or other experiences in life that can be difficult for them, and so we can try our best to protect them and shield them and give them these really lovely, healthy childhoods.
• 24:34
  Melissa: And and then, you know, life also happens, and so we just do the best that we can.
• 24:39
  Carrie: Yep, just doing our best.
• 24:40
  Carrie: And it's interesting.
• 24:42
  Carrie: You mentioned how we didn't grow up with these pieces.
• 24:45
  Carrie: It's very true, and when I first started and my husband and I both started, I said, hon, I want to try talking to our kids like this.
• 24:52
  Carrie: This is how we're going to parent these pieces.
• 24:54
  Carrie: Our kids need this.
• 24:55
  Carrie: To try talking to our kids like this, this is how we're going to parent these pieces.
• 24:57
  Carrie: Our kids need this.
• 24:57
  Carrie: You know, went into all the explanations and all of it.
• 24:59
  Carrie: It felt like we were speaking a different language at first.
• 25:01
  Carrie: It was so challenging.
• 25:03
  Carrie: Yeah, you get really caught up in what you're saying.
• 25:08
  Melissa: I think so too, because so many of us didn't have that model to work from.
• 25:13
  Melissa: And what I also see sometimes is parents will really swing the total opposite direction.
• 25:19
  Melissa: So if they grew up in a family that was really perhaps strict and and and and you know, maybe we grew up not feeling like we had a lot of choices.
• 25:26
  Melissa: Maybe we become over-permissive or we give our kids too many choices and we, like, lose that middle ground.
• 25:33
  Melissa: And so I am personally a real fan of finding this middle path, of not really parenting from one extreme or the other.
• 25:40
  Melissa: Yes, and here's the other piece is you can have two highly sensitive children who also have different kinds of needs, who have different styles, who who have different.
• 25:51
  Melissa: I talk sometimes about subtypes of high sensitivity you know, being an HSP doesn't always look the same.
• 25:58
  Melissa: There are all of these different nuances.
• 26:00
  Melissa: You know it's like a Porsche you can have this kind, you can have that kind, this color, this sport package, right.
• 26:06
  Melissa: There's nuance in the way that we are growing and experiencing the world, and so there's sometimes even nuance in the way that we parent two different, sensitive children.
• 26:16
  Melissa: But I love that you and your husband were so deliberate about it and really took the time to plan how you wanted to speak to them, what kind of relationship it sounds like you wanted to have with your kids, how, what kind of environment you wanted them to grow up in.
• 26:31
  Melissa: I think that is something that most people don't think about in when they're when they're becoming parents.
• 26:37
  Melissa: they think about the cute outfits and the parties and the name and the vacations and and it's like I think about, it's like the Instagram life, like what are those snapshots, and those are always going to happen.
• 26:51
  Melissa: Those are going to be easy to make happen, but it's the hard moments, it's the ones that we don't want to put on Instagram.
• 26:55
  Melissa: It's the ones that we don't want our neighbors to hear.
• 26:57
  Melissa: Those are the moments that we really want to be deliberate about.
• 27:00
  Melissa: How are we going to handle those tough things?
• 27:03
  Melissa: Because that's life and they're going to happen, right, and so having a plan with our partner is such a wonderful approach to it, and so, yeah, it sounds like you and your husband really took time to think about it, which is fabulous.
• 27:16
  Carrie: Yes, and it wasn't before my son was born.
• 27:19
  Carrie: It was like in the heat of it, right, like Carrie put, I had my spiritual friends that said put down the put down the baby book, burn the baby books, burn the parenting book.
• 27:28
  Carrie: It's not for you.
• 27:29
  Carrie: Listen, you know what your son needs, you know how to connect with him.
• 27:32
  Carrie: And so we kind of had like this reassessment of ourselves, which was really nice.
• 27:38
  Carrie: When we had our daughter, we had already changed everything.
• 27:41
  Carrie: So I didn't have the picture perfect baby shower like I did the first time.
• 27:47
  Carrie: I had a mother's blessing where I had all the moms come together and give me all of these powerful ideas and pieces of like you're going to get through this and you're going to do awesome, and just these empowering ideas.
• 28:01
  Carrie: And this necklace that I wore, which was so beautiful because my daughter ended up coming a month early and we were really nervous about it because she was going to have to go into the NICU and it even stopped my contractions, because she was going to have to go into the NICU and it even stopped my contractions.
• 28:17
  Carrie: But I had this powerful necklace and I, this mindset connecting with others, that ended up helping me through the labor and she was ended up fine.
• 28:24
  Carrie: But just these, these pieces of you're not always perfect the first time.
• 28:28
  Carrie: You still can make a change there.
• 28:30
  Carrie: It's not a set in stone.
• 28:31
  Carrie: You can still make adjustments now.
• 28:35
  Melissa: Yes, yes, and I think we can always make adjustments as sensitive people.
• 28:39
  Melissa: A lot of times I hear from a lot of sensitive adults like, well, this is who I am, and life has been really hard and I had this trauma or this terrible relationship, and so here's where I am.
• 28:49
  Melissa: We can always readjust, we can always course correct, we can always start anew.
• 28:55
  Melissa: I mean, every day, every moment, every breath is really an opportunity to start fresh.
• 29:00
  Melissa: There's this spirituality too.
• 29:01
  Melissa: Right Is that the only constant is change?
• 29:04
  Melissa: Right, there are endless opportunities to to readjust.
• 29:07
  Melissa: And I want to add something in here about HSP is that that really goes back to the science and the research, which is that, as HSPs, while we might have had more trouble in childhood and so we may have kind of struggled, hsps actually do really, really, really well in therapy.
• 29:26
  Melissa: We do really really well when we take course corrective measures.
• 29:30
  Melissa: It's part of, I think, our deep processing, it's our ability to reflect and really go internal.
• 29:36
  Melissa: And so if you're an HSP who's feeling like you, messed up, whether it's with your children or yourself, be gentle on yourself, shift your inner talk and get clear about what it is that you're wanting, because you can always readjust the direction that you're going in.
• 29:53
  Melissa: If you just yelled at your child or you had a really hard moment, go in and apologize.
• 29:58
  Melissa: I had to do that.
• 29:58
  Melissa: Last week I snapped at my stepdaughter over something and I felt really bad about it and it took me a little while to really sit with myself and get clear about what happened and why was it so triggering for me?
• 30:10
  Melissa: And I went into her and I said sweetie, I want to say something.
• 30:13
  Melissa: I I'm sorry for snapping at you, I, I, here's what happened for me and I really want to apologize and I want you to know that you weren't responsible.
• 30:21
  Melissa: It was what was going on and we had this really beautiful talk and she's like it's okay, no problem, she's even at 11, so forgiving.
• 30:27
  Melissa: You know, kids are so forgiving.
• 30:29
  Melissa: They want to have a loving relationship with us.
• 30:31
  Melissa: So sometimes it's like our own inner child too that we're fighting with right it's like our own.
• 30:37
  Melissa: it's like the little one in us that didn't get everything that they needed.
• 30:40
  Melissa: Who's kind of running the show in adulthood?
• 30:42
  Melissa: So, whether it's your own child, your own inner child, your own adult voice, getting still and turning internally and really getting clear about, like, what is it that I'm needing here?
• 30:53
  Melissa: It's a gift.
• 30:54
  Melissa: It's a gift for yourself.
• 30:55
  Melissa: There's always an opportunity to try it again.
• 30:58
  Carrie: Yes, yes, and I love how you're talking.
• 31:01
  Carrie: Also, you had kind of alluded to the superpower pieces of HSP, because I feel like we might all see terms of negativity with HSP.
• 31:12
  Carrie: It's not often accepted by society or people in society.
• 31:16
  Carrie: The workplace can be really hard, I'm sure, for a lot of HSP people.
• 31:21
  Carrie: Do you?
• 31:22
  Carrie: What would you say?
• 31:23
  Carrie: Your superpower is Melissa.
• 31:53
  Melissa: So I would say that for me, being an empath has sort of turned into a superpower, because a lot of people who are empath really elevated my ability to support people, and so I want to say that I don't always love using the term superpower, because it almost seems like like we're better.
• 32:07
  Carrie: There's an elite piece to it.
• 32:09
  Carrie: I've been trying to think in my mind of a way to rephrase superpower.
• 32:12
  Carrie: I'm trying to empower my kids with it.
• 32:15
  Carrie: Yes, so I'm trying to.
• 32:17
  Carrie: There's a.
• 32:18
  Carrie: There's a balance.
• 32:19
  Carrie: I'm trying to figure it out.
• 32:20
  Melissa: Yes, and I love.
• 32:21
  Melissa: I love the idea of empowering right, because I think that even a Prius has has empowerment right, even though it's sort of like lower performance.
• 32:31
  Melissa: Part of its empowerment is it's kind of low needs and it doesn't ask a whole lot and it still functions really well, it's easy.
• 32:38
  Melissa: but being easy isn't necessarily a superpower right it's.
• 32:41
  Melissa: It's like it's just part of who they are.
• 32:44
  Melissa: I think with HSP is, what's really important is to see who we are as being neutral, because when we're struggling in an aspect of our sensitivity, it doesn't mean that we're lacking a superpower.
• 32:57
  Melissa: It just means that maybe we're lacking some tools, or we're really overwhelmed, or life has been challenging lately, or we're experiencing a major transition, and so when, when we're feeling like we're in our superpower, it's really, I think, more about feeling like we're owning that aspect of ourselves, we're utilizing it to its highest benefit, we're integrating it into our life in a way that it's really feeling useful and powerful.
• 33:23
  Melissa: Other, the other piece to always keep in mind is that, as HSPs, there's a, I believe, a biological reason that we make up a third of the population.
• 33:35
  Melissa: If everybody was highly sensitive, it wouldn't be highly sensitive, it would just be this is who everybody is, you know.
• 33:42
  Melissa: It's like how the whole herd is functioning, and if there were fewer of us, then we probably wouldn't have enough of an impact.
• 33:49
  Melissa: There wouldn't be enough of our, of, of our, of our you know kind of collectiveness in the population to have an impact.
• 33:56
  Melissa: So I like to think that we are exactly right.
• 33:59
  Melissa: We are showing up in the right numbers, we're showing up in the right positions.
• 34:03
  Melissa: You know, sensitive people have actually tremendous leadership qualities.
• 34:08
  Melissa: We're creative, we're innovative, we can see big picture.
• 34:11
  Melissa: We often care about how things are impacting other people.
• 34:14
  Melissa: We do really well in positions of leadership and roles as directors and things like that.
• 34:21
  Melissa: And so if you're an HSP listening to this and you're struggling in your workplace or even in your family or your community, you know, for all of these different places where we can be leaders, I think the real key is to step back and say what about?
• 34:33
  Melissa: This isn't working for me?
• 34:34
  Melissa: Where, where in this situation, am I feeling like I'm not able to show up as the highest and best version of myself?
• 34:41
  Melissa: What's keeping me from doing that?
• 34:43
  Melissa: And sometimes there are some wounds that are in the way or some trauma that we haven't worked out.
• 34:47
  Melissa: Or we're working with people that don't really honor who we are, or we're working in a in a particular system or a particular role that isn't really honoring our sensitivities.
• 34:58
  Melissa: You know, sometimes I meet HSPs who are nurses and doctors and I think, whoa, I could never do that.
• 35:03
  Melissa: That is not for me.
• 35:04
  Melissa: But then I meet people who say, oh, you run your own business.
• 35:08
  Melissa: I could never do that.
• 35:09
  Melissa: That's not for me.
• 35:09
  Melissa: And so, as HSP is, I don't think we're really pigeonholed into a particular experience.
• 35:15
  Melissa: It's really about getting in touch with yourself and asking yourself what lights my soul up, what makes me want to get out of the bed in the morning, what, what really feels good for me.
• 35:25
  Melissa: And if you're in a role that isn't doing that, get get curious about what could shift.
• 35:30
  Melissa: And if not, what would the the the more nurturing role look like for you?
• 35:35
  Carrie: Yes, I love that.
• 35:36
  Carrie: And I was thinking in my mind if there was a kiddo that was that had this feeling like I'm different, what would you say to that kiddo?
• 35:46
  Melissa: Depending on how old they were.
• 35:47
  Melissa: You are different.
• 35:49
  Melissa: We're all different.
• 35:50
  Melissa: What, what?
• 35:51
  Melissa: What's special about you?
• 35:53
  Melissa: What's unique about you?
• 35:54
  Melissa: You know what?
• 35:56
  Melissa: What?
• 35:56
  Melissa: What feels different about you that feels shameful, you know?
• 36:01
  Melissa: I would ask them, um, because sometimes, whatever it is that's going on, you know when, when they feel different, it's usually coming from that shame piece.
• 36:10
  Melissa: Like something, something about me is weird or not cool, and maybe they just haven't learned how to utilize it yet.
• 36:20
  Melissa: Or maybe there's a way that we can help them turn it into feeling like more of an empowerment than than like an Achilles heel for them.
• 36:28
  Melissa: And a lot of times, kids don't want to talk about that stuff because it's embarrassing, or you, a lot of times, kids don't want to talk about that stuff because it's embarrassing, or, you know, just like adults don't want to talk about that stuff.
• 36:37
  Melissa: That's why we don't put the hard things on Instagram, right?
• 36:40
  Melissa: We just want to talk about the stuff that feels good and easy.
• 36:43
  Melissa: And and so, you know, depending on the age of the kid, if they were really young, I would keep my language really, really simple, but with kids around around the ages of your son and daughter, I wouldn't say to them like what, what feels different and weird, or what feels different and embarrassing, or what feels different that you wish you could change.
• 37:03
  Melissa: I actually I keep a magic wand on my desk because I use it when I work with kids, and so I would say to them if I could wave a magic wand and make it be different, what would we make different and what would it look like instead?
• 37:14
  Melissa: Because a lot of times with kids, we want to get out of this like real linear thinking with them.
• 37:19
  Melissa: Their brains just aren't developed enough in the way that adults can say you know, this is different about me and I want it to change.
• 37:26
  Melissa: With kids, sometimes we want to get a little more playful and creative with them.
• 37:29
  Melissa: And then I would wonder with them, like what would it feel like?
• 37:33
  Melissa: How would it feel if that's what it was?
• 37:34
  Melissa: You know, we talk about the emotions with them and see what comes up.
• 37:42
  Melissa: A lot of times, kids really want someone to talk about this stuff with.
• 37:44
  Melissa: They just don't know how to do it, and so we wanted to take a more creative route into getting in there with them.
• 37:48
  Carrie: I love that.
• 37:48
  Carrie: I love your magic wand.
• 37:49
  Carrie: I'm going to have to borrow that.
• 37:50
  Carrie: I wanted to ask you.
• 37:57
  Carrie: You mentioned empath.
• 37:57
  Carrie: Do you and I feel like that's a buzzword as well right?
• 37:59
  Carrie: Do you feel like there's an overlap with highly sensitive?
• 38:01
  Carrie: What are, what are your thoughts on it?
• 38:03
  Melissa: Yeah, so my again, this is my personal belief.
• 38:06
  Melissa: Um, you know, the the science of high sensitivity has been researched, but it's really hard to research empaths.
• 38:12
  Carrie: Yeah, and that's more spiritual.
• 38:14
  Melissa: Yeah, my belief is that all empaths are HSPs, but all HSPs are not necessarily empaths.
• 38:21
  Melissa: I do think all HSPs have more empathy than you know, the greater population Empathy meaning the ability to put ourselves in someone's shoes and to care about them and to want to be of service and help them.
• 38:34
  Melissa: But an empath is really somebody who can feel the emotions of other people around them, who can feel the energy, and so having empathy and being an empath are not the same thing.
• 38:46
  Melissa: So I always like to really kind of qualify that and so all highly sensitive people are not empaths, but those who are might one not even know it, and also they probably really struggled when they were younger with feeling overwhelmed by the emotions of other people around them.
• 39:02
  Melissa: So one thing for empaths that can be really helpful is to get quiet with yourself and ask yourself is this mine when you're feeling something?
• 39:11
  Melissa: Is this mine?
• 39:12
  Melissa: You know, because often we'll, we'll say no.
• 39:14
  Melissa: Actually, maybe it's not my, maybe it's my husband's, maybe it's my daughter's, maybe it's my coworkers, maybe it's my mom's, you know, but we just tend to absorb, absorb, absorb and pick up, and and so what's ours is sort of like running away in the background, and so I really like to help empaths learn how to differentiate between what's theirs and other people's, how to clear their own energetic fields, how to protect their energy, so that they can go walk through Costco and not feel bombarded by everybody that's around them.
• 39:44
  Carrie: That can happen for a lot of us.
• 39:46
  Carrie: I love that and I've actually talked to my son, my nine-year-old son, about it, because he mentioned something about helping people with their energy and such, and so we discuss that and we use sometimes is this your energy or is this somebody else's energy that you're feeling?
• 40:01
  Carrie: So I think, even with kids, yeah, you can use it with the nine-year-old.
• 40:05
  Carrie: Well, it's been such a pleasure chatting with you today, melissa.
• 40:10
  Carrie: Love to let our, our listeners know where they can find you yeah, thanks, carrie.
• 40:15
  Melissa: It's so lovely chatting with you too.
• 40:17
  Melissa: Thank you so much um.
• 40:18
  Melissa: Listeners can find me at melissashwartzcom or leadingedgeparentingcom, which is the business that my mom and I run together um.
• 40:27
  Melissa: The books that I wrote are available on Amazon, and I'm on Facebook Instagram at Melissa Schwartz.
• 40:33
  Carrie: Perfect, and we can include those in the show notes today.
• 40:36
  Carrie: Great, thanks so much for being here.
• 40:39
  Melissa: Really appreciate it.
• 40:40
  Melissa: Lovely talking with you, carrie, thank you too.
• 40:43
  Carrie: Well, that's a wrap.
• 40:44
  Carrie: Thanks so much for tuning in.
• 40:45
  Carrie: Change makers.
• 40:46
  Carrie: This is Carrie, and I just wanted to send one more reminder.
• 40:49
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• 40:58
  Carrie: One other thing if you guys would like to ever message me, I would love any questions you have or any feedback at info at heart to heart lifecom, we also have a brand new website which we're super excited to share it's heart to heartlifecom.
• 41:11
  Carrie: We also have a brand new website which we're super excited to share it's hearttoheartlifecom.
• 41:15
  Carrie: Thanks so much for tuning in and happy life, happy times.
• 41:19
  Carrie: Changemaker families.