HSPs: Navigating Divorce When You’re a Highly Sensitive Person with Chris Lyon
Dealing With Divorce When You’re a Highly Sensitive Person
Nearly 30% of us are highly sensitive people – or HSPs – and if you count yourself in that group, it makes divorce a materially different experience. Today on the show, we welcome Chris Lyon, a relationship author and facilitator. She is a coach, board certified hypnotist, certified in Applied Neuroscience and Brain Health and she’s been helping people with relationships with themselves and others in her practice for 23 years. Chris talks with us about the challenges of going through a divorce when you’re an HSP.
Chris explains what HSPs are and why it’s valuable for everyone to understand what it means to be one. The divorce process can be particularly challenging for HSPs, who tend to internalize and look at everything through only their perspective. She says it’s a process of learning to move out of internal focus and into external focus – which could help before, during, and after divorce. That external focus could be shifted even by moving the conversation out of emotional thinking and into logical thinking, ie. focusing on the math side of things for a while. This helps get them out of their fear center.
Chris talks about the importance of empathy with HSPs, which can be hard to come by, particularly when rejection is distorting their view. How do you find that empathy then? It can be a challenge, but it can take the HSP out of crisis immediately.
We talk a bit about the difference between sympathy and cognitive empathy, or learning to understand what your ex wants. We also talk about why being defensive is the weakest position, and why therapy can be an incredibly valuable tool to help get through this difficult time.
It’s a wide-ranging conversation full of great information for everyone – not just HSPs. Tune in!
Links & Notes
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Pete Wright:
Welcome to How to Split a Toaster, a Divorce Podcast about saving your relationships from TruStory FM. Today, take care, your toaster might be running a bit sensitive.
Seth Nelson:
Welcome to show, everybody. I'm Seth Nelson. As always, I'm here with my good friend, Pete Wright. Nearly 30% of us are highly sensitive people or HSPs. If you count yourself in that group, it makes divorce a materially different experience. Today on the show, we welcome Chris Lyon, a relationship author and facilitator. She is a coach, board certified hypnotist, certified in applied neuroscience and brain health, and she's helping people with relationships with themselves and others in her practice of 23 years. Chris, welcome to the Toaster.
Chris Lyon:
Thank you very much. I'm excited to be here.
Pete Wright:
Chris, I love your background and I'm excited to have you teach us some things, because I think we use the word sensitivity, oh, you're so sensitive, probably insensitively. I think we should start from your perspective around highly sensitive people. What is an HSP?
Chris Lyon:
Well, I think the way that you explain it, yes, I think that's a big problem that a lot of highly sensitive people have is that not only do other people misunderstand them, but I think they don't understand their sensitivity all that well, just because they weren't probably raised to be a non-highly sensitive person. It doesn't really fit.
Seth Nelson:
I want to know what high sensitivity is. I know you're about to, because here's my question. I know we have listeners, they have their own questions. They write in about questions. I feel like this show is for me because I like to perceive myself and put out the big, tough divorce attorney, bring it on in court. Right, Pete?
Pete Wright:
Yeah, that's why you shaved your head. It looks like Lex Luther.
Seth Nelson:
There you go. Here's the problem, I will cry at a puppy commercial during the Super Bowl. I want to know whether I'm an HSP or not.
Chris Lyon:
Okay, you just may be, but I don't know. We'll see. As far as a highly sensitive person is concerned, it's really somebody who has a difference in their central nervous system. It causes a lot of issues in the autonomic nervous system, but it is a difference in the central nervous system that causes them to have differences about the way they experience things. They're able to take in a lot of information and energy at once more than the average person. They're also able to feel it more deeply and process it more deeply. They're able to notice subtle nuances in the room or within their environment.
There are a lot of different things to this. They can be super creative, super intuitive, artistic, and also have a ton of empathy and understanding for things. That could be a problem because that empathy can be very invasive into their world. This is big, guys, because they used to say it's one out of every five, like 15 to 20% of us, but recent research in the last few years has shown that it's up to 30%. It could be one out of every three or four of us who experience our life like this.
Pete Wright:
Talk a little bit more about the lived experience of being highly sensitive. I'm curious a number of different ways, but maybe start with the somatic experience. What do you feel in your body when you're experiencing life as a highly sensitive person?
Chris Lyon:
I have never heard that question. It is such an awesome question. Thank you for that. A lot of us are more...
Seth Nelson:
See, hold on Chris, hold on, hold on.
Pete Wright:
I didn't even fish for that, Seth. Just shut up, man. Let me have this one thing.
Seth Nelson:
There's a couple rules we need to lay on the groundwork that obviously Andy, our producer, has not given to you is I'm the only one that gets compliments from the guest. Pete hates it. In fact, we've been doing this show a long time. I think this is the first compliment Pete got. It just makes me squirm a little bit.
Pete Wright:
Finish the question because my mind is officially emoji mind-blowing right now. I have follow on already queued up.
Chris Lyon:
Well, some highly sensitive people are affected more with as far as physically oriented. You were saying, you were talking about somatically. They're more physically sensitive, and some are more emotionally sensitive as Seth was talking about. It really just depends. You could have sensitivity on both parts, but some of them are like, oh, the crowds, because of the noise, because of the lights, because of all everything. Other people are like all the crowds, all the energy, the overwhelm to think, but you can get overwhelmed either way. And that's another hallmark of being highly sensitive is being easily overwhelmed.
Seth Nelson:
Chris, is this misdiagnosed, if that's the right word, where people say, "I'm just anxious in large crowds?" Could it be that they're just a highly sensitive person and they don't like being in large crowds because they're bringing it all in?
Chris Lyon:
I don't know as far as the diagnosis part, because there can be people literally with anxiety and they may not be highly sensitive. They may be sensitive but not highly sensitive. Also, I mean, I was in the entertainment industry for years. I actually managed a radio station. I was on MTV and all the things, and I was at plenty of concerts. I was not anxious at all. I was very comfortable and safe during those. However, it was overwhelming, of course, which afterwards I would need to do some recharge. We're not all anxious with all the same things. It's interesting.
Pete Wright:
It feels like we use a lot of these terms interchangeably and I think at a high level, you hear a lot of people say... For me, I spend all day on a microphone and yet call myself very deeply an introvert. I think in some ways I'm a sensitive. Particularly, this was the follow on question, the relationship with RSD, rejection sensitive dysphoria. Are you familiar with the term? Is that a space that you truck in?
Chris Lyon:
Yes. RSD, and then there's also ASD.
Pete Wright:
Can you talk a little bit about that, because I feel like it's something that fits and particularly as we transition into this experience of divorce?
Chris Lyon:
Sure. A lot of those things are what highly sensitive people experience, but not all of them have them. You see what I'm saying? It could be different things that they have. A lot of them have a very serious experience with complex trauma. That's from developmental stages, having trauma repeatedly and/or in subsequent relationships as well. They can feel that trauma and experience it very deeply, which means it lives in their nervous system. There's that. You could have RSD, BPD, ASD and be highly sensitive. I don't have any of those and I'm highly sensitive. I'm CPTSD. There's so many differences that we can have.
Pete Wright:
Acronym soup. Well, that gets me to probe a little bit on the recovery from divorce. So much of what we talk about on the show is just the idea of trying to save relationships and much of that is saving a relationship with yourself, trying to figure out how you can be a whole person after the traumatic experience of losing a relationship like this.
Chris Lyon:
True. With HSPs, they tend to be, and I don't mean to say something super offensive, but I'm probably going to, they tend to be... Well, they're very internally focused. We're very internally focused people, which means that we're self-centered. That doesn't mean narcissistic and it doesn't mean selfish, but the self-centered part is we make so many things about us. The narratives are about, I could have fixed this relationship. I should have done this. I could have fixed it. I'm responsible for everybody. I need to clean up that mess.
They said this to me, so they must not like me. That means I'm a horrible person. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. A lot of my work is just helping them kindly, gently to get over their damn selves and realizing the world is not all about just them. If they would do more than the internal focus and step out into the external focus, it would sure give them a big advantage before, during, and after divorce.
Pete Wright:
Seth, it sounds like personal responsibility time.
Seth Nelson:
That's exactly what I was thinking, Pete. When I'm dealing with clients and it's all about me, me, me, me, me and we're dealing with the kid issue, I'm like, hmm, it's not about you. It's about the kids. When we're dealing with financial issues, if I'm representing the person that's going to have to pay alimony and the one receiving alimony is saying, "I need, I need, I need," and the person I'm representing is like, "I'm just so tired about hearing what she needs. I'm like, I don't care what she needs." You don't care what she needs. You only care how much you're going to pay and for how long. I try to just reframe it to get away from this interpersonal battle that they're in and just do some math.
When you use that math part of your brain, it eliminates the emotional part or limits it and I can get stuff done. I mean, Pete, we've talked about it. In a mediation, my client's getting very riled up and very emotional. I'll stop and say, "Look, let's not talk about the kids right now. We still have to figure out some of these mathematical stuff. I know you hate doing math, but just do some basic math with me. Let's run some child support guidelines." All math. Let's look at this Excel spreadsheet, which people hate to do, but do some numbers. I will make them do math. They don't realize I'm making them.
Pete Wright:
Math as a save for complex emotions.
Seth Nelson:
Yes, exactly.
Chris Lyon:
It's good. It gets them out of their fear stem in their brain too, and it helps the cognitive function. I think one thing, there's the number one thing I think that people need to keep their... Actually what I've required, and this is tangential right now, but I've required this of clients who come to me to do facilitation when they're in crisis. I have helped save relationships of 20, 30, 40 years doing this. There's one thing I need, trust is great, communication is great, all that's great and lovely, but there's one thing I need, and I need empathy.
I need them to understand where the other person's coming from or at least be willing to do so. If they can't do that, there's a breakdown. There's really not much chance. If they can, great, but empathy is also the advantage and it takes it out of crisis immediately. There's a moment you see between the two of them where they know that they understand the other person.
Pete Wright:
But is it the act of calling it out like that? Is the act of saying, "I need you to turn on your empathetic vibe," are people capable of doing that?
Chris Lyon:
They usually don't hear that. I have to actually walk them through it. I actually have to literally tell them step by step with you. And when they can't do it, I back them right on up and we start over.
Seth Nelson:
How do you do that?
Pete Wright:
That's what I was wondering, because I feel like there are a lot of people who might come to this and have no idea, no idea how in this context empathy is the thing that they're going to need to work through.
Chris Lyon:
Oh yeah, it's huge. We start out by agreeing beginning that they're there for the same purpose to do everything they can to get this to work out. We start out with that intention. If they have that intention, then they're going to go through what I'm asking them to go through because they know what my intention is and they have said what their intention is. They've agreed that we all have the same intention. I make them go through this over and over. There's a lot of acknowledgement and clarity and understanding. But you can see when the tears start and they're looking at each other other, and they're not looking at me anymore.
They're looking at each other. They're not looking down. And then it's done. The crisis is over. I love those moments. They're the most amazing moments, but there's also moments where it doesn't happen and you know that the crisis is the breakdown and that's it. Well, empathy is also a benefit going through the divorce. No one talks about this, but it's what I've used. I used this with somebody who was going through a five-year divorce with millions and millions and millions of dollars. It was on the largest settlements that...
Seth Nelson:
This sounds great. I can't wait to hear this story.
Chris Lyon:
She got a half a million dollars paid to her lawyer's fees after this. Half a million dollars paid back from the other side. There was a child involved. It was a mess. It was horrific. It was all the things. There was about 12 or 13 attorneys that I personally worked with in different types of law just for this one case.
Seth Nelson:
How did the empathy play in?
Chris Lyon:
The empathy played in is that I understood the other side. I understood what they wanted, and I understood what they were doing to get it. I understood that, and I understood that it's never about you. Oh, they're doing this. They said this about me. They send us that. You've heard that noise. You have a special type of therapy stuff, Seth, where you need to turn that stuff down and you need to shut that stuff up.
Seth Nelson:
There's two things I have here, Chris, because it's interesting. Certainly when they're saying, "Well, he said this about me, he said this about me, or he said, she said," I said, "Why do you care?" I said, "They say bad things about me all the time. I don't care."
Chris Lyon:
You know what I say? You don't care.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, right. And that's what I'm leading them to, right?
Chris Lyon:
100%. Because you're like, why? Let me explain to you why that doesn't matter. I know that you do that and I think it's a powerful, powerful therapy that you do. Trust me, big props.
Seth Nelson:
But the other thing, and I'm going to push back on you a little bit because I want to make sure our listeners understand this and tell you how I practice what I do. Everybody, almost everybody, when they come talk to me at initial consultation and even throughout the process, they will spend an enormous amount of time talking to me about their spouse. I say, "I don't care about your spouse. I represent you. I care about you and what your goals are and figure out whether I can achieve those goals through the legal process."
I tell them at mediation, when I meet with them, when we talk about a parenting plan, when we talk about alimony or division of assets, I said, "I want you to do something that I don't think you've done in a long time. I want you to focus on you." I don't want them talking to me about the other spouse because I'm not going to get them to empathy to say, "Look, he's been working really hard for 15 years. I know you've been raising the children, but he's gone to work every day and we should understand that and have empathy." They don't want to hear it. If I start with that, I'm going to lose them. We're never going to sell the case. They're going to end up in a trial. They're going to waste a lot of money.
Chris Lyon:
Okay, and I'll respond to that. That's called sympathy. I'm talking about cognitive empathy.
Seth Nelson:
What is that then, because I want to learn?
Chris Lyon:
It's understanding what they want. A lot of the times, even if there's a narcissist involved, even if there's an abusive relationship, the person who's acting like the victim or maybe the victim, it's not about them. The reason this person is doing these things to them, it's not about them. It's because somebody wants to move on with someone else. It's because somebody wants to get away from them and get all the things and act like they won. It's about what their objective is. It's not about the person. It's not about your client.
Whatever the other side is doing is for them and to get something that they want or need to make their life better, to make them feel better about themselves, to get them away and have a full, fresh new start, to look good or any of that, have all the toys, any of that. It's never about the other person. That's the problem with the relationship is that one or two people didn't really care about what the other one wanted or needed anymore at all. They were becoming more and more individuals who were trying to get whatever they needed.
This person is saying, they're doing this to me and they're doing that. I heard somebody say to me today, "Oh, I took our pictures and they told me they were horrible." I'm thinking, you guys have been broken up now for years. Really? I tell them. I used to start with, why do you want to know? Why do you care? I don't ask that anymore. You know what I tell them? You are being defensive and that's the weakest position. That's what I tell them. You need to stop being defensive.
They hear when I say that, and then when I start telling them things that I know just intuitively about the other side based on what they've told me, they're like, "You're right. That happened. They did that. That's the thing. They're trying to do that." I'm like, yeah, but it's not about you. That helps them get on the offense.
Seth Nelson:
Oh, Chris, I'm with you on that. I had a client, and I hear this stuff all the time really, not just one client, about how awful their spouse has been to them during the divorce. I said, "How many times has your spouse been divorced?" They'll say two times. I'm their third spouse. I said, "Did he tell you all the bad things the other spouses did?" He's like, yeah, after we were married, he would say it, not before." Like okay.
Pete Wright:
Because it was still showroom time.
Seth Nelson:
Right. It's not about you. It's about whoever he happened to be married to at the time. It's not like he's saying anything specific to you. He said the same thing about the other two people he got divorced from. That cannot just be about you. You guys don't all have the same traits.
Chris Lyon:
It's not, and that's what I tell everybody. You want the biggest advantage? Do you want to have the best advantage of this situation to get what you need? And then they'll listen to me. I'll tell just them, don't be in defensive mode. Don't be, oh, I'm a victim and look what they're doing to me. They're trying to take me. Even the case I told you about, seriously, this person had fed off of the other person for many, many years, trying to look like the better person, look really good, didn't care about what happened to the children, all that kind of stuff. Because some people don't because what's going on with their ego.
Even if there's a narcissist involved, I will understand if somebody's being narcissistic, which I don't even like to say narcissist because they're not diagnosed. Even if they're being narcissistic, stop being able to feed on this person and make them look good and all the things. They just are trying to move on with more power or try to have some control over the things in their life. It's not about the other person. It just isn't. Once people have empathy before the divorce would be great. They could have empathy for where the other one's coming from.
But really during the divorce, it's your biggest advantage, having empathy to understand where the other side's coming from because it makes it less personal. And then it helps you decide how to get what you need if you can help them get what they're needing to get, if you have a good understanding what they really want.
Pete Wright:
Even if what they're needing to get is I need to go have this relationship with this other person and take the dog,
Chris Lyon:
Stop obsessing on them with this other person. You're going to continue to lose. Just know they're trying to get away from you. Unfortunately, some of them try to get away with the kid.
Pete Wright:
That's what I was getting at talking about rejection sensitivity because I know and I happen to be a part of a significant community of people who live with RSD and I know that the experience of living with a higher than average response to rejection can throw you into a whole sea of anger and fear and anxiety and grief that many people who are not on the spectrum of higher sensitivity don't have to deal with. It's easier for them to distance themselves from the other person's actions and respond instead, as you say, with empathy to the other person's objectives.
And that feels like a way to reframe actions versus objectives. Let's not focus on the other person that the other person is with, but let's focus instead on just empathizing with the desire to separate. But once you are in a space of rejection yourself, it's really hard to shake the specifics that are constantly needling at you, right? I'm curious how you walk through that in the context of divorce.
Chris Lyon:
I'd love to address that because the rejection is it really keeps you from saying things clearly. You're right, Pete. It really distorts your view. People do make everything about them. Oh, they did this to me. They wouldn't do this with me, but they'll do this with someone else. You start to obsess on that. What I do is I say, okay, when did the rejection sensitivity, when did this start? Where did it come from? We'll go right to where it came from the very first time. It's usually a main caregiver, and then I will make that caregiver human again verifies. I don't know if you've looked the ACE quiz and first childhood experiences.
The higher those scores are, the more you have a chance of having horrible mental illness, physical disease, awful things. One out of 10, from four up, even hundreds of times more chance of being suicidal, et cetera, et cetera, all the things. I'm a nine out of 10, so I get it. I had to go back and I had to humanize my parents in order to not only recover, but to keep sane. I had to humanize them and see what they went through and what happened to them, and I realized that the way they treated me or how they were with me was not about me. Sometimes they've never grown up. Sometimes they couldn't. Sometimes they needed things and they weren't getting them.
They were hurting horribly. They had horrible childhood, whatever. There's a lot of generational trauma. I don't even like to use that word, but it's true for all of us. Once you see that it's not about you, it's empowering. Then you realize, okay, what have I done after that? I've attracted the same type of situation, it's the same type of people, because it looks familiar to me and I would make it better, and I got rejected by them too. The answer is that what I've learned as a board certified hypnotist just over 23 years is the mind loves the mind. What do you do with that, because it's going to grab onto the familiar? You're creating the familiar.
Pete Wright:
This is what you mean. You're recreating that original experience of a caregiver that traumatized you in order to face it, combat it.
Chris Lyon:
You take all that old conditioning that you were so good to condition yourself with, with all that emotion and all those beliefs and everything, you take all that and you recondition it based on your truth now, based on you being your caregiver now. I see so many people that are the same shitty caregiver as their original caregivers were.
Pete Wright:
Well, those are the models that we've learned. Those are the role models that we grew up with.
Chris Lyon:
Right, not as adults though.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's what I'm going to talk about is as I'm hearing you say all this, I'm like, how do I present this in court? In court, I'm not looking to blame anybody. This is the hard work you have to do for yourself outside of court, outside of talking to your lawyer. Now, it can help you to understand these things as you're going through the divorce process to get to a resolution and a settlement. These are not conversations we have when we're prepping for trial.
Pete Wright:
But Seth, do you see... You're sitting across from a client and you see somebody, do you pick up on the things on the work that they need to do on themselves in the divorce process? Clearly you're not going to be doing that work for them, but what role do you have as their attorney and counselor that you're going to help guide them?
Chris Lyon:
He does a special kind of therapy.
Seth Nelson:
Well, I wouldn't call it therapy. I appreciate that, Chris. I just don't want to confuse people. I call it counselor at law and I help counsel them through the divorce process. The answer to your question, Pete, is yes, I couldn't say I could clinically diagnose anybody, but I've been dealing with people going through one of the worst times in their lives solid now for 15 years. You see patterns develop. You see how you can help people through the process. We all think we're individuals, we all think we're unique, but we have so many similarities that I know when I say certain things that I will get certain responses.
Now, I might have to say them differently, but the core of the messaging is the same. It's not any different than a very successful coach of an athletic team that has to bring a team together. They have things that they do that they know work with the human mind and body to make individuals work as a team. I have things and things that we do at our office that we truly believe helps people get through the divorce process based upon years of experience working with people going through this, seeing good outcomes and bad outcomes, whatever you want to put quotes on, good and bad.
There are some clients that I will tell you, "I will not represent you unless you are actively in counseling. I can't say that it's going to work for you, but I think it will help you through this process. That's what they need to help you focus on, so when we're here, we can try to spend as much time as we can getting you through the legal process."
Pete Wright:
Well, that's what I was thinking about, Seth. As you say, this is a game of pattern recognition. Whatever patterns you see, sometimes somebody who's stuck in a loop, and Chris, I mean, check me when I start lying, sometimes somebody who's stuck in a loop just needs someone to interrupt the pattern with observation to help start the work. And that might be a therapist, that might be your hypnotist, that might be your attorney.
Chris Lyon:
Right. Seth, I'm sure, had many clients who are fast with having been rejected. That puts his client at a disadvantage and he's sitting there watching them. He can't be their therapist, but what he has to do is he has to work that... You know what? It's interesting. He's got to compartmentalize that out away from them and pick the part that will do the logic and have that sit with him. And that's going to give them the best advantage, period.
I told people before, you're really obsessing on this person. You're obsessing on them, and that's all you see and that's all you're going to know. You've got to see it another way. I try all kinds of ways to help them see it differently. A lot of times it's a trauma bond and the reject that's going to happen.
Pete Wright:
Wait, wait, wait, what is a trauma bond?
Chris Lyon:
Are you starting to relate?
Pete Wright:
That's a term, and if I don't understand it intuitively, then I wonder if others listening might not understand it intuitively as well.
Chris Lyon:
Right. Trauma bond, I mean, is that you come together with somebody who's probably not good for you based on your trauma. And sometimes both people do at the same time. But a lot of times people are like love bombed and things like that, and then the person drops them or ghost them or whatever. Sometimes it could be a trauma bond, but some people think, oh, they're my everything. They're my twin flame, or whatever. Sometimes it was just a trauma bond and that's rough, but this person's obsessing on what the other person's doing with that person because of their strong rejection, which is a trauma.
Seth's right. The answer to that is you go and you work with a therapist. That is absolutely the answer to it, and they should listen to him when he says it. It's important for the divorce process and after. It's super responsible to do that. But there are certain things that they'll fixate on for sure, because a lot of times people have been injured or they've been abused.
Pete Wright:
Seth, according to the National Institute on the Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 10% of children live with a parent with an alcohol use disorder. If that hits your office and what do you do?
Seth Nelson:
Soberlink, independent third party verification to make sure in real time that the parent that has the children in their care custody and control is not drinking. That's how I deal with it. Here's why. It's a little device. You blow into it. It has facial recognition. The picture that it takes of you can only be used for court purposes. You want to put that in your agreements. Check with your local jurisdiction and your lawyers. It will give real time emails, graphs, check marks, green little round thing saying "yes, I am sober and I have not been drinking, and therefore I should be spending quality time with my kids."
Pete Wright:
This is one of the things I love so much about listening to you talk about how you handle moving yourself forward when there is an allegation of alcohol abuse. You collect the data. That's what Soberlink is all about is collecting the data. It has helped more than 500,000 people prove their sobriety and provide peace of mind during parenting time when it's most important. When you have the kids, are you safe? You can sign up and get 50 bucks off when you get started. Just visit soberlink.com/toaster. That's soberlink.com/toaster. Thank you to Soberlink for sponsoring this show.
Seth Nelson:
Chris, if you're an HSP, highly sensitive people or person, is there a little checklist that you could say, "Look out for this. Be aware of that," or is it very specific where if you give a checklist, everyone could think, well, it's so broad, I'm going to fall into that?
Chris Lyon:
There actually is a test. Dr. Elaine Aron actually wrote the book, The Highly Sensitive Person, in the '90s, and she's written on the book since then. She's done a lot of research with other people. There's other people who've done research as well on this. The clinical term is sensory processing sensitivity. There is a simple test. I think it's 25 questions. When you take this test asking about your experience in life, you learn a lot about yourself and you can see if you feel that you're a highly sensitive person or not. But it really is if you get really easily overwhelmed in situations or with people and you get really overwhelmed, even emotionally, physically, any of that, quite often you're probably highly sensitive.
If you're having a bunch of people over at your house for a few days like your family and you enjoy it and it's great when they leave and you're cool, you're not a highly sensitive person most likely. If you try to make everything just right for everyone and you are making sure everyone has the best experience, they have a great time, and then they're gone and you feel like you can go get fetal, you're probably a highly sensitive person. If you go into a room and there's an event and there's a centerpiece on the table and you notice instead of that, you notice even more if these two people are mad at each other, you're probably a highly sensitive person.
There are so many things, but I'll just give you an analogy that will really help you understand. Imagine a PVC pipe. Non-highly sensitive people, let's say they take information in a PVC pipe, I don't know, branches or something, maybe two inch PVC pipe, and they're taking all their information in through that pipe all the time. HSPs, imagine a giant lamp shape. They're taking in information that way all the time. They're going to experience more. They're going to notice more. They're going to get overwhelmed more quickly. You can look for clients like that. When you get clients and and like that, they're going to be self-centered.
They're going to be internally focused. They're going to be really hurt. They're going to take things personally. They're going to look to you also. They're going to take their relationship with you more personally too and they're probably going to parentify you even more easily.
Pete Wright:
Parentify you, Seth.
Seth Nelson:
I didn't even want to ask what that term meant. I know we like to always explain terms. That one seemed a little scary.
Pete Wright:
That feels important, right? That feels really, really important.
Chris Lyon:
There's looking at you as, of course, an authority figure, which I think people should not look at their doctors or lawyers or professionals or therapists or coaches as authority. I had somebody tell me, "Hey, I'm really sorry that I didn't talk with you very much on our session. I'm really weird with authority figures." I'm like, I'm not your authority.
Pete Wright:
I'm not an authority figure.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, right. 100%.
Chris Lyon:
Seth, you want a hack? Establish that upfront. Hey, I'm your teammate.
Seth Nelson:
Well, I always tell people, you don't hire me, you hire a legal team. I'm not your friend, I'm your lawyer. My job as your lawyer is to give you legal advice and counsel, but ultimately you're the decision maker. I will have people frequently say, "Well, which one should I do? Or whatever you think, Seth, let's do that." I'm like, nope, this is a client decision.
Chris Lyon:
Love that. Love that.
Seth Nelson:
There are legal decisions I get to make. If we're sitting in court, I get to make the decision whether I'm going to object to a question. I get to make the decision on what evidence I'm going to try to get in front of the judge. I get to make the decision on what questions I asked and whether I have a follow-up question. There's all sorts of legal decisions I get to make that the client doesn't get to make. But when it comes time to give an ask to the court or give an ask to the other side at a mediation or a settlement offer, those are client decisions. I will give my advice and counsel. They will know where I stand because I'm very clear.
When I go to a mediation, I bring my computer. I have a form that says, "You are entering into this deal against the advice of counsel," that I will have them sign before they sign the deal. Because I think from a legal perspective that it is a bad deal. I could get them more in court. This is beyond the court's power on what to do. However, I respect them to make their own client decision. When I got divorced 16 years ago, not only did my lawyer have me sign a similar document, she put it in the marital settlement agreement that this was against the advice of counsel. Because legally and financially, I made a horrible deal according to the law.
I didn't care. I wanted to make sure that my kids were in the house. If financially I had to do X, Y, and Z to make that, to keep him in a good school district, then that's what I was going to do. I didn't give a shit what the law said.
Pete Wright:
But all of that served to elevate you, Seth, client of another divorce attorney, as the position of authority.
Seth Nelson:
Correct.
Chris Lyon:
The client runs their case. I tell them, it's your case. It's not your attorney's case. It's yours.
Seth Nelson:
That's right.
Chris Lyon:
They're on your team.
Seth Nelson:
100%.
Chris Lyon:
They come in there and they're like, "Oh, I don't want them to be mad at me, or I want to go make sure they're happy with me, or I want to make sure that I do what they tell me to do," that kind of thing. It could be a super sensitive person going in and doing that. It's not the rule, they are, but there are different things to look out for, if they're taking things personally, if they're overwhelmed. Sometimes there's a lot of conflict avoidance that leads to divorce. You have conflict avoidant people that work with an attorney, and they're not going to speak up for what they really want and need, and that's heartbreaking to state.
Seth Nelson:
Well, that's why I start every initial consult that I ever have is, what are your goals for this conversation? Well, I want to get divorced. I'm like, that's not going to happen in this conversation. I'm not the judge. We're not there yet. We're at the very beginning part of this legal process, assuming they haven't filed yet. And most of them don't know the answer, which is fine. And then I said, okay, well, let me tell you what I can do for you today. Does that sound like something you want to do? Yes. Okay. Now we have our goals for today, and we move forward?
Pete Wright:
Chris, this is really helpful. We're talking about a population I think that we might not have been talking about perhaps as sensitively as we should have. Let's take it as written that there are people listening to this show who fit in this category of HSP and they want to learn more. Where would you send them to learn more about themselves?
Chris Lyon:
Well, either people are in HSP or they love someone who is, it's important. There is the book that I recommend, The Highly Sensitive Person. I also recommend the HSP test that's in that book. I also have it in my website as well. I believe it's on my homepage at coachlyon.com, L-Y-O-N. I say take the test, read the book, and get someone to help you work on two things. Number one, managing your life not as a non-highly sensitive person, how you were taught to do, and then you weren't able to do it and it didn't feel right, and you compared yourself to everyone else, all that early stuff.
Manage your life as a highly sensitive person. Learn how to do that because it's a different type of life management. The other thing is to get into complex trauma recovery as soon as you can, because you probably have experienced trauma at very, very deep, intense levels and you're probably still carrying it around in your nervous system.
Pete Wright:
And thus, impacting your current and future relationships.
Chris Lyon:
100%. It's affecting your emotions in those relationships. It's affecting decisions. It's affecting how you attract later, all the things. It affects your relationship with you and others big time.
Seth Nelson:
Well, I look forward to the next Super Bowl commercial with puppies.
Pete Wright:
Yes, you should. Thank you so much, Chris. We'll put all the links in the show notes, coachlyon, L-Y-O-N, dot com, if you want to jump there right now. Otherwise, just swipe up on your podcast player and look at the notes. There's lots of stuff in there for you to go check out. Chris, we sure appreciate your wisdom and your insights today. Thank you so much.
Chris Lyon:
Thank you, guys. I had a great time.
Pete Wright:
Thank you everybody for downloading and listening to this show. Don't forget, if you have a question, just visit howtosplitatoaster.com and hit the submit a question button and we'll get it to Seth and he'll answer it. It can be about the law and all of your check your local jurisdiction questions apply. On behalf of Chris Lyon and Seth Nelson, America's favorite divorce attorney, I'm Pete Wright. We'll catch you next week right here on How to Split a Toaster, a Divorce Podcast about saving your relationships.
Disclosure:
Seth Nelson is an attorney with NLG Divorce and Family Law with offices in Tampa, Florida. While we may be discussing family law topics, How to Split a Toaster is not intended to, nor is it providing legal advice. Every situation is different. If you have specific questions regarding your situation, please seek your own legal counsel with an attorney licensed to practice law in your jurisdiction. Pete Wright is not an attorney or employee of NLG Divorce and Family Law. Seth Nelson is licensed to practice law in Florida.
