December 16, 2025 • 58 mins
Are you burning out trying to do all the things you’re supposed to? In this episode, I talked with Maegan Megginson, LMFT, LPC about unhooking from expectations and finding new ways to be of service to yourself and:
• Grieving the life you imagined you would have before discovering that you’re highly sensitive
• Experimenting with changes to feel more comfortable with yourself, in your relationships, and at work
• Setting boundaries around giving and receiving empathy
• Tending to yourself first by asking the questions, “have I been invited?” and “do I have the energy to offer support?”
• Finding new ways of being of service to yourself and unhooking from overgiving and overfunctioning
• Shifting the rules of how you work at the first sign of burnout
• Integrating the personal and professional parts of yourself to find more balance and healing
Maegan Megginson is a Licensed Therapist and Business Mentor on a mission to help business owners recover from burnout and reignite their vision for their work and their lives by blending the emotional, psychological, and spiritual elements we need to become deeply rested and wildly successful.
Keep in touch with Maegan:
• Website: https://maeganmegginson.com
Resources Mentioned:
• Recover From Burnout is a free 10-day email series that will help you feel better without adding tasks to your to-do list or buying another helpful tool you'll never use. Sign up here: https://maeganmegginson.com/recover-from-burnout
• Free Sabbatical Toolkit walks you through how to plan a month-long sabbatical with care, clarity, and realistic preparation. Includes an audio mini-course, planning roadmap, financial worksheet, and sabbatical blueprints to help you design time off that’s genuinely restorative. Get started here: http://www.youneedasabbatical.com/toolkit
Thanks for listening! You can read the full show notes and sign up for my email list to get new episode announcements and other resources at:
https://www.sensitivestories.com
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And for more support, attend a Sensitive Sessions monthly workshop: https://www.sensitivesessions.com. Use code PODCAST for 25% off.
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This episode is for educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for treatment with a mental health or medical professional.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Maegan Megginson (00:20):
I started getting more curious about what
I needed to change in my homeenvironment and my work
environment to really turn thevolume down on all of the
sensory inputs that I wasexposed to.
I just started experimentingwith all of the ways I could
change.
I learned so much about myselfand what really helped settle my
(00:43):
nervous system.
April Snow (00:51):
Welcome to Sensitive Stories, the podcast for the
people who live with hearts andeyes wide open.
I'm your host, psychotherapistand author April Snow.
I invite you to join me as Ideep dive into rich
conversations with fellow highlysensitive people that will
inspire you to live a morefulfilling life as an HSP
(01:13):
without all the overwhelm.
In this episode, I talk withMegan about unhooking from
overgiving and overfunctioning,finding new ways to be a service
to yourself, and grieving thelife you imagined you would have
before discovering that you'rehighly sensitive.
Megan is a licensed therapistand business mentor on a mission
(01:36):
to help business owners recoverfrom burnout and reignite their
vision for their work and theirlives by blending the
emotional, psychological, andspiritual elements we need to
become deeply rested and wildlysuccessful.
For more HSP resources and tosee behind the scenes video from
the podcast, join me onInstagram, TikTok, or YouTube at
(01:59):
Sensitive Strengths, or sign upfor my email list.
Links are in the show notes andat sensitivestories.com.
And just a reminder that thisepisode is for educational
purposes only and is notintended as a substitute for
treatment with a mental healthor medical professional.
Let's dive in.
Maegan Megginson (02:45):
That is such a great question, April.
And what's immediately comingto mind is the way, like how
that really feels like anevolving question.
But I think every year Idiscover new things about what
it means to be highly sensitivein my own experience.
So I'm gonna try to answer thatquestion in a linear way.
(03:08):
But I also just want to namethat it feels like such a gift
to be in the flow ofsensitivity.
And I've learned so much aboutmyself as a sensitive person
over the last 10-ish years.
And I have a feeling that willcontinue happening for me in my
life.
But going back to the scene ofthe crime, if you will, like
when did I first discover I wasa highly sensitive person?
(03:31):
The origin story feelsimportant for me to share.
So I actually had no ideagrowing up that I was a
sensitive person.
Like I take highly sensitiveout of it.
I didn't even know that therewas such a thing as like being a
sensitive person.
That whole schema or frameworkwas unavailable to me in the
(03:53):
culture that I grew up in.
And when I was in graduateschool, and in the early days of
being a therapist, I startedstruggling with chronic pain in
my body.
And long story short, I wasseeing doctor after doctor after
doctor trying to figure out thesource of this pain.
I just had this like terriblejoint pain, and it was, it would
(04:15):
move, and nobody could like oneday it'd be in my elbow, and
the next day it'd be in myknees, and I had headaches, and
nobody could figure out what wasgoing on.
And finally I ended up in thisrheumatologist's office and they
were running all of these teststhinking I might have had some
like strange form of rheumatoidarthritis, and they were putting
me on these like medications,like really serious medications,
(04:35):
because they were worried thatterrible things were happening
in my joints.
And around that time, likemagic, of course, I found an
article on the internet aboutthe highly sensitive person
trait.
And I read it and I was like,whoa, holy shit, this is me.
This is describing like everypart of my lived experience.
(04:55):
And I decided that day, I'mlike, I'm done with the doctors,
I'm done with the drugs, I'mjust gonna explore this.
And I'm going to see if I canchange things about the way I'm
operating in the world and seeif that solves the problems that
I'm having.
Miraculously, it solved so manyof the problems I was having.
Of course, not all of theproblems I was having, but the
(05:17):
pain disappeared as I startedmaking these changes to my life
to like really honor mysensitivity, my sensory
sensitivity, my energeticsensitivities.
And ever since then, I feellike I have just been on this
journey of really discovering inwhat ways I am sensitive and in
what ways do I need todeprogram from what I was taught
(05:41):
to believe about life and howI'm supposed to live life.
And how can I curate myenvironment specifically to
really tend to the differentsensitivities that I've noticed
within myself?
So April, that's like a verybig answer to your really
specific question.
So hit me with some follow-ups.
April Snow (06:00):
It is, it's that this is a complicated question
because sensitivity touchesevery part of our lives, yeah,
every part of our experiences.
And often we don't know thathigh sensitivity is a
possibility.
You said I didn't even knowsensitivity was a possibility.
So I'm curious.
Obviously, you get to thatpoint where our bodies tell us
(06:20):
something needs to change, showsup as pain or some other type
of discomfort or ailments.
But I'm curious if you lookback before that started, now
that you have this framework,could you see the sensitivity
showing up?
Maegan Megginson (06:34):
Oh my God, I had shingles when I was 14 years
old.
So, yes, is the short answer tothat question.
In hindsight, I can see all ofthe ways that I was a sensitive
child.
And just to clarify one thing,I misspoke earlier.
Of course, being sensitive wasa thing in the place where I
grew up, but it was a bad thing.
(06:55):
It was like, oh, you're sosensitive.
It was a judgment, it was acriticism.
Um, there wasn't sensitive asum a group of people who had
different sensory needs ordifferent energetic needs.
So I was holding, like so manyof us, a lot of shame about the
(07:15):
ways in which I was sensitive.
And the looking back processwhen I finally identified that I
was a highly sensitive personwas so powerful.
It was so powerful to look backat getting shingles at 14 years
old and being like, oh my God,like that was my body telling me
like this is too much.
(07:36):
Like you're doing too much,you're exposed to too much, your
stress is so high that we we'regiving you shingles as a way to
try to like get your attention.
But I could look back in insmaller, less dramatic ways too,
and see how socially I wasalways a little bit more
reserved than other people, andnot because I was shy.
(07:57):
In fact, I wasn't shy.
I grew up in the theater, I waslike a performer.
I was not shy at all, but Iwould burn out a lot faster than
other people.
I would run out of juice a lotfaster than other people.
And I also know in hindsightthat I have so I have quite a
lot of sensory sensitivities.
(08:18):
For example, like loud noises,bright lights, air blowing on my
skin.
And when I look back at thefamily that I grew up in, I'm
just like, wow, not a good fit,not a good match.
When I go back to visit myfamily now as an adult, and it's
like lights on everywhere, andevery TV is on and the radio's
(08:39):
on and people are yelling, andit's just so much.
So, yeah, big and small ways Ican track back to being a
sensitive person.
April Snow (08:47):
And it's it's hard being in that environment, big,
loud, bright when you don't knowwhat's going on.
I feel like that's a commontheme in a lot of the stories
that I've heard is that here Iam, the sensitive, um,
perceptive, spongy little kid inan environment where being
sensitive is a liability, is aweakness, or it just isn't
(09:10):
understood at all.
There's no idea what that evenlooks like or what it is.
Um it's funny that you said yougot shingles at I got shingles
at 32, so later, but stillpretty early in the when people
typically get shingles.
And you know, I think a lot ofsensitive folks can resonate
with that.
And when I was in my in highschool, I got headaches
(09:30):
chronically.
So like the body is telling usthere's too much going on,
there's too much coming in,there's not enough quiet,
downtime, time to process.
Unless you grow up in a familythat also has a someone who
knows they're highly sensitiveor knows what that is, most
likely you're not getting thosebasic needs met for balance.
Right, right.
The trade has only been on themap, at least in the complexity
(09:53):
that we know it of now, for thelast 30 years.
So most of us grew up pre thatinformation coming out.
And even still to this day,it's not widely accepted.
Maegan Megginson (10:02):
Yeah, or understood.
Like you said, like my family,they're just not sensitive.
And so this even if it, even ifthe trait was widely known,
they wouldn't know it.
It wouldn't be on their radar.
And I'm so happy for them.
I look at the way they livetheir lives, the way they
interact with their environment,and they're great, they're
thriving.
So it's, I think a big part ofmy journey with sensitivity has
(10:26):
also been releasing judgmentsabout myself, but also of my
family, of my friends, and andrealizing nobody's better or
worse or right or wrong thananybody else.
We just have differentenvironmental needs and
different energetic needs.
But to this day, communicatingthat to my family is so
challenging because they reallydo struggle to understand this
(10:47):
paradigm of sensitivity.
April Snow (10:50):
Right.
They're not living it.
They, their nervous system,their brains are not wired with
the trait.
And you mentioned a good point.
We should all get to thrive.
I love that you celebrate themthriving and their big loudness,
whatever it is, however itshows up.
But then you also need to beable to thrive.
Maegan Megginson (11:07):
Yes.
April Snow (11:08):
I'm curious when you started to make changes.
You spoke of this a littlewhile ago.
You had this epiphany.
Okay, I'm I'm having all theserheumatoid arthritic issues,
this pain showing my body.
I discover I'm highlysensitive.
And then what changes afterthat?
Were you able to help yourselfrebalance?
What did you do?
Maegan Megginson (11:26):
Yeah, so the first thing I did was really
turned the volume down on socialinteractions.
That was the first big change,is I realized that I had already
made friends with myintroverted part.
I knew I was an introvert.
I talked a lot in to my to myfamily, to my friends about
(11:47):
being introverted, what thatmeant, what I needed.
But when I discovered thehighly sensitive piece and wove
that thread into the tapestry ofmy life, I realized that I
wasn't doing enough.
I actually wasn't doing enoughto really spend less time around
the energy of other people andmore time really deeply tending
(12:09):
to myself and calming my ownnervous system.
So a couple of specific thingsI remember doing at the time was
sharing with the people that Iwas, you know, really
interacting with regularly that,oh, I've discovered this thing,
highly, I think I've discoveredI'm a highly sensitive person.
Here's what it means.
I'm gonna be a little lessavailable for a little while
(12:29):
while I figure this out.
So I spent less time around theenergies of other people and
spent more time with myself.
But when I was with myself,this is where things really
started changing for me.
I started getting more curiousabout what I needed to do when I
was alone, what I needed tochange in my home environment
(12:51):
and my work environment toreally turn the volume down on
all of the sensory inputs that Iwas exposed to.
So it became life for a whilewas really experimental and
exploratory.
You know, I was like, oh, is itare uh do I need to change my
light bulbs?
Do I need to put more lamps andless overheads?
And oh, how can I do ambientheating instead of having a
(13:14):
heater blowing on my body?
And I just startedexperimenting with all of the
ways I could change what I wasexposed to in my environment.
And it was fascinating becauseI learned so much about myself
and I learned so much about whattype of environment really
helped settle my nervous systemand recharge my batteries.
(13:36):
And as I figured that out, Iwas able to move back into
social relationships with moreintention and more like gusto
than I had before because I wastending to myself the way I
needed to tend to myself at homein my personal time.
And then I would say, justacross the board, I realized I
(13:56):
needed to work less, that I washolding myself to too high of
standards in terms of how much Icould accomplish, how fast I
could accomplish it.
So I really started my journeywith working less and doing
less.
That's an ongoing journey, ofcourse, but it really did start
during that chapter of my life.
April Snow (14:17):
I appreciate that you're talking about the
different pillars, the sensoryneeds, the emotional needs, the
socializing less, resting more.
And it this is a hard processas you start to integrate this
realization about yourself.
I say you, generally speaking.
And it is a time ofexperimentation.
I love how you phrase thatbecause it's a lot of trial and
error.
(14:37):
What works, what doesn't work.
What do I need?
And then how can I give myself?
Yeah.
How can I meet those needs?
That can be the hardest part.
Maegan Megginson (14:46):
And grieving what we have to stop doing
because it's an exchange.
It's not you have to give a lotup when you're starting this
journey with sensitivity ofrealizing, oh, I can't do that
thing that I like to do, or Ican't spend time with all of
these people that I want tospend time with.
So yeah, there's a lot of griefin the process too.
April Snow (15:06):
It's an incredible amount of grief.
You really have to rewrite thestory of what you thought your
life would be.
And there there is grief inclosing some chapters, but there
can also then hopefully be joyin opening others.
Right.
Imagine coming from a familythat was maybe more boisterous
or more active, social.
I'm just putting some wordshere.
(15:27):
You can let me know if they'rewrong.
Maegan Megginson (15:29):
Yeah, no, you're you got it.
April Snow (15:30):
Um, can you speak to that grief?
What were you letting go of?
Maegan Megginson (15:36):
Oh, with my family specifically.
Oh, let's start there.
How much time do you have?
No, I'm kidding.
I think the biggest themearound grief for me and my
family has been the grieving thefantasy that one day I would
fit in.
(15:56):
That one day, if I could justfigure it out, I would not be
the black sheep.
And I use black sheep looselybecause I my family loves me.
They just don't understand me.
And they're kind to me, but wedon't connect.
And I really wanted that not tobe true in this time in my life
(16:17):
when I was understandingsensitivity.
I really was still vacationingwith my family at the time.
I still lived close to myfamily.
Like I really wanted to figureout like what can I change about
myself so that we are all abetter fit together.
And the more I settled into mysensitivity, the more I started
(16:39):
to acknowledge and grieve thatwas never going to happen, that
there was never going to be ascenario where I could integrate
into their way of being.
And yeah, that was a painfultime.
It was that was a painfulrealization.
But like you said, on the otherside of that grief was
tremendous joy.
(17:00):
And so many doors startedopening, so many possibilities.
Like maybe this one way ofenvisioning your life won't be
true.
But now that you've grievedthat, hey, Megan, look at all of
the things that are possiblefor you.
Yes.
And when that started, whenthose doors started to open, was
around the time that my husbandand I got the bug to move from
(17:22):
Southeast Texas to the WestCoast.
I was like, oh, I can just dowhatever I want with my life.
What?
So yeah, the grief was big.
And there are still times whenI feel that grief.
And also moving through thatgrief helped illuminate for me
really expansive choices that Icould make for myself that I
(17:43):
know have never regretted for asingle moment.
April Snow (17:47):
Yeah.
There's other ways to get someof those needs met around
connection, being seen, having adeeply rich, purposeful life,
which could come from family,but it doesn't always have to.
You said something about I hadto let go of not integrating
into the family.
Of course, your family'ssupportive, sounds like they
(18:07):
really love you and accept youas you are, which is really
beautiful.
And also, they don't understandyour lived experience fully as
being non-HSPs, which makessense.
So you found other ways to feelnourished and nurture yourself.
Maegan Megginson (18:23):
Right.
Correct.
Yeah, I feel like for me, a bigpart of the sensitivity journey
has been grieving therealization that other people
aren't going to be able to meetmy needs.
Grieving that, like you saidearlier, the path I envisioned
for myself, maybe likeprofessionally or in school or
(18:44):
what have you.
Oh, it's not gonna go quitelike that.
My path, my journey isn't gonnalook like this person that I've
held on this pedestal overhere.
We grieve.
And then on the other side ofthat is this deep learning about
how I can actually meet all ofthese needs for myself.
That I don't need these modelsor these roadmaps of how other
(19:09):
people have done it.
I'm totally capable of craftingsomething unique to me.
And it's gonna be great.
April Snow (19:18):
It's gonna be great, exactly.
And this I think is the mostimportant thing any HSP can do
is I'm always saying, turn yourgaze back inward, follow your
own compass.
That's how you're gonna feelfulfilled and balanced.
However, we get really caughtbecause we're so empathetic and
focus on others' needs.
We get so caught on peoplepleasing, sacrificing ourselves
(19:42):
to be what we're supposed to be.
Sounds like you've been able tounhook from that, not live the
life that you thought you wouldcoming from the family you did,
allowing yourself to create adifferent way of being.
How do we start to unhook fromthose expectations, especially
if we are chronic peoplepleasers or high achievers and
we want to do all the things andwe want to do them perfectly?
(20:03):
Which I think we both, if I cansay, have gotten caught up into
from time to time.
How do you unhook and start tocome back home again?
Maegan Megginson (20:13):
Oh, such a beautiful question, April.
And yes, like guilty ascharged.
I used to joke and say I'm arecovering people pleaser, but
then I was like, I don't know.
I think I'm always going to bea people pleaser.
I don't actually think likewhat you said a moment ago
that's setting off so many lightbulbs for me, that the people
pleasing is born out of ourinnate sensitivity and empathic
(20:37):
abilities, our deep empathicabilities.
And there is something sopowerful about not pathologizing
our quote, people pleasingtendencies, which gets such a
bad rap, right?
That we need to stop peoplepleasing.
We need to like kick that partto the curb.
And the way you're approachingit right now lands so
differently in my body.
(20:57):
Being like, no, my peoplepleasing is actually an
extension of my deep capacityfor empathy.
And I never want to lose that.
That's one of the things aboutmyself that I cherish the most.
I think a better question forme has been how do I set
boundaries around the way I giveand receive empathy in my life?
(21:18):
How do I set boundaries aroundthe way I interact with others,
the way I give my energy?
For me, it's really all aboutboundaries.
And it's this ongoing processin my life of learning how to
pathologizing thispeople-pleaser part of who I am.
So this might seem a littleunclear.
(21:38):
If so, it's because I'mactively figuring this out in my
own process.
April Snow (21:43):
Does that make sense?
Oh, it does.
It's it is a process ofuntangling, and I really
appreciate you're saying wedon't have to disavow this part
completely.
Maegan Megginson (21:52):
Yeah, we can't.
April Snow (21:53):
We can't.
It's part of us.
We care for others so much.
We want them to be okay.
And yeah, when they're okay,we're okay.
Right.
But can we look at itdifferently?
How do we unhook?
But also, you're saying it'snot unhooking, it's maybe just
having it's reorienting.
Maegan Megginson (22:09):
And yes, and and maybe the unhooking is
really the hooking, I think,comes in the pause.
So we can look at this in ablack or white way, right?
This two, the dichotomous twoends of the spectrum.
We're either people pleasing orwe're not people pleasing.
And if those are our twooptions, let's be honest, we're
(22:29):
gonna keep people pleasing,right?
We can't, it's not gonna do it.
We're gonna it's not actually,it's impossible.
It's an illusion to think thatwe can remove our empathic
nature, not gonna happen.
So I'm much more interested inlooking at what options exist
for me in the middle of thosetwo extremes.
And when I give myselfpermission to get curious about
(22:51):
what exists in the middle, whatactually opens up are an
infinite number of possibilitiesfor how I can show up in the
world and engage inrelationships.
And then I get excited becauseI'm like, okay, now we can play,
now we can explore.
That for me is when the pausebecomes so important.
Can I notice?
Do I know in my own body whatthis beginning of a
(23:15):
people-pleasing behavior feelslike?
Right?
Can I feel it?
Because it is a hook, isn't it?
It's we feel something gethooked inside, and then there's
a tug.
April Snow (23:23):
Yep.
It's true.
We get pulled right in.
Maegan Megginson (23:25):
We get pulled in.
And I so I think somatically,can we learn individually what
does the tug feel like in ourbodies?
And can we, using somethinglike say mindfulness, can we get
better at noticing the tug andthen pausing, breathing, asking
myself, okay, what is happeningright now?
(23:47):
Am I consciously choosing inthis moment to give some of
myself to this other person?
Have I been invited to give bythis other person?
Or is this a default patternthat, like, maybe now isn't the
time or place for this behavior?
And for me, I think theunhooking process really has
involved a lot of self-inquiryaround both of those pieces.
(24:09):
Have I actually been invited toshare my gifts or my energy or
my empathic abilities?
Have I been invited?
Often, no, I haven't.
But also, is this a moment if Ihave or haven't been invited,
regardless?
Do I have the energy to giveright now?
Do I have the emotionalfortitude to give right now?
(24:29):
Or do I actually need to set aboundary, unhook, and tend to
myself?
And if you're if someone, ifyou're listening to this right
now and you're like, man, thatsounds like a lot of work.
Um, it is a lot of work.
It is a lot of work.
I feel like the gift and theburden of being a sensitive,
empathic person on the planet isthat there's no way we can go
(24:52):
through life without doing a lotof work on ourselves and our
process.
But yeah, I would say that ishow I would recommend unlooking.
April Snow (25:01):
I love it.
Like first off, pausing, askingyourself, do I have the energy
to engage with this caretaking?
Also, this is an important one.
Have I actually been invited?
Maegan Megginson (25:14):
Yeah.
April Snow (25:14):
That is not a question I usually think about,
but it's so true because a lotof times I assume this person
needs me.
Maegan Megginson (25:22):
Right.
April Snow (25:23):
They will not be okay without me.
Thinking about my siblings, forinstance, or people that I
really care about who maybe Ihave, you know, gotten
accustomed to taking care of andsupporting, or I love so much.
I can't imagine not steppingin.
But it's an important questionto ask.
Because they might not wantthat support.
Maegan Megginson (25:41):
They might not want the support, but I think
this is where we have to own upto like the consequences of
that.
Maybe that's a harsh word.
It's the only one I can thinkof in the moment.
Like the consequences of thesepatterns that we have reinforced
throughout our life.
Many relationships, when I wasreally going through this
(26:01):
process, it's ongoing, but whenI was in the thick of it, what I
started to see was that weteach people how to treat us.
We teach people how to respondto us.
And we have to takeresponsibility for the fact that
when we are engaging in theseoverly empathic, caretaking,
overfunctioning, people-pleasingbehaviors, we're teaching the
(26:22):
people that we love that we areavailable for them 24-7.
And hey, guess what?
They love it.
That feels great, right?
They love it.
April Snow (26:32):
It's true.
Maegan Megginson (26:32):
They're we like they we are like the most
popular kid at the party at thatpoint because like they get so
many needs met from us.
But then we start feelingresentful.
We start feeling invisible, westart feeling like our no our
own needs aren't being met.
And so much of my own healinghas been recognizing how I've
perpetuated that pattern.
(26:53):
Yeah, it's when I startedpausing and going, wait, did
so-and-so ask me to do that justnow?
Or did they just assume Iwould?
And then I did.
Oh God, I have to talk to themabout this.
I have to really own withApril, okay, April.
I know historically in ourrelationship, I've often
(27:13):
responded to you in this way.
Or let's use a specificexample.
A pattern that often comes upin all my own life is that I'm
loyal to a fault.
And I love caretaking and Ilove supporting people
emotionally.
I love having empathy for myfriends who need it, who are
struggling.
So I will respond to textmessages.
I will drop everything and Iwill respond to text messages
(27:36):
and I will engage you in anhours-long text conversation
about a struggle you're havingat work.
I'm gonna give you everythingand you're gonna fucking love it
because it's gonna make youfeel so good.
And there are times still thatI will realize I'm doing that.
Often it's when I start feelingresentful or I start feeling
like a little bit burnt out.
(27:57):
And that's when I know that inorder to unhook, I have to say
to a friend, hey, April, Irealize that I have been giving
a lot of support to you throughour texts these last couple of
weeks, and I haven't asked formuch in return.
And I'm realizing that I'mneeding to balance the scales a
(28:17):
little bit.
Can you support me by doing Xand Y?
And for a little while, I'mgonna back up a bit in our
communication.
I probably wouldn't say it likethat clinically, but in
process, it is awkward, but it'slike it has to be made
explicit.
April Snow (28:32):
It really does.
You really need to break itdown in that way.
I'm curious, have you been ableto practice that in real life
where you're saying I have shownup quite a lot, and now I'm
realizing I need something inreturn, which is so important to
do, right?
It helps us preserve thoserelationships, keep the
resentment at bay, yeah, uh, andmake sure that we're not
(28:54):
overgiving or getting caught inthe empathy draw.
Maegan Megginson (28:58):
Yeah, and like all the time.
April Snow (29:00):
All the time, yeah.
Maegan Megginson (29:02):
This is like a common occurrence for me.
Yes.
And I think just toover-generalize, I would put
these moments in two categories.
There are the moments when Icatch myself defaulting to
giving a lot of support when itwasn't explicitly requested.
And when I catch myself doingthat, I'll try to backpedal a
(29:22):
bit with a friend, for example,and be like, hey, I realize I
just jumped into like deepprocessing mode.
And maybe you were just tellingme you had a bad day.
What do you actually need fromme as your friend right now?
With my closest friends, I havesaid things to them like, hey,
if you notice meoverfunctioning, can you tell me
(29:43):
that?
Can you reflect?
I would love for you to setboundaries with me around that.
I love making it acollaborative process.
This is like a huge part of myrelationship with my husband.
When he at this point has noproblem being like, Megan, back
off.
Like I didn't ask.
I'd be like, oh great, thankyou.
So there's that category of thework I'm doing in
relationships.
And then, yeah, the othercategory I would say is oh, it's
(30:06):
so hard, April.
But it's I'm trying to getbetter at telling people that
surprise, like I also haveneeds.
And surprise, surprise.
And they're like, Yeah, ofcourse you do.
Why are you being weird aboutit?
And I'm just Like, because it'sa whole lifetime of
conditioning of me not havingneeds, and it's hard.
It's like, ooh, it feels likecreepy crawlies in my body when
(30:28):
I have to be like, oh, okay,Megan.
Like, you gotta ask people forwhat you need.
You have to ask people to showup for you.
Yeah, it's a whole thing.
April Snow (30:37):
It is a learning process to default to being able
to take up space.
And I think use the wordcollaborate potentially, but
it's rebalancing the scales inrelationships.
I'm giving, but I'm alsoreceiving and making sure
overall that averages out to beequal.
So important.
And it can be hard to do ifyou've been an overfunction or
an overgiver for so long, foryour whole life.
(30:59):
Exactly.
Your condition for that.
Maegan Megginson (31:01):
And I don't know about just one more thing
about that.
Because I'm curious if this istrue for you too, April.
But the more I do this in myrelationships, the more feedback
I get from people I love sayingthings like, I've always wanted
to support you more.
You just always seem like youhave it so together.
I didn't think there wasanything I had to give to you.
(31:22):
I didn't think there was anyvalue I had to add, which is
crazy to me, but it also makesperfect sense.
April Snow (31:28):
It does because you're presenting as highly
functioning, high achieving.
I'm the person that supportsyou.
I don't need anything.
At least I'll speak for myselfwhen I say that.
So yeah, people they get usedto not stepping up.
Maegan Megginson (31:44):
Right.
April Snow (31:44):
And then they've been waiting potentially.
Oh, now I get to give.
Yeah.
Maegan Megginson (31:48):
And they love it.
April Snow (31:49):
They're excited.
Exactly.
They love it because it feelsgood to give.
I remember my grandmother saidto me many years ago, if someone
offers you a gift, say thankyou.
Because it's that process ismeaningful to them that they are
offering this gift to you.
Do not deny them that joy.
And it made me really stop andhave to rethink how much I was
(32:13):
always the one wanting to be thegiver.
Because I thought that meant Iwas strong or impacting the
other person.
Maegan Megginson (32:21):
Like your grandmother said, in a way, it's
a little selfish.
April Snow (32:25):
Selfish to deny that person that opportunity to
receive joy and to think of youand to carry that joy through in
some tangible way.
Maegan Megginson (32:34):
That's a real paradigm shift.
Thanks, April's grandma.
That's really great.
And it's a real paradigm shiftbecause so much of the murder
narrative that so many of uscarry as these highly sensitive,
overfunctioning people, it'slike, oh, I'm just giving,
giving, I'm just giving all thetime.
But in reality, it's like we'realso taking, we're taking other
people's opportunity to connectwith us, to contribute to the
(32:57):
relationship.
It's selfless and it's selfish.
And I think we all have to doour own personal work to really
discover our own inner balancebetween those two states.
Yeah, I'm gonna keep thinkingabout that one.
It's good.
April Snow (33:12):
Yeah, it's a big component, right, in the sense
of experience is how to take upspace, be comfortable in
receiving, not have to thinkabout other people's emotions
and needs all the time.
Like it will be okay if you letthem take care of it, take care
of it themselves.
I'm curious how this over whenwe're talking about
(33:33):
overfunctioning relationships,caregiving relationships, and
you can set boundaries, comeback to self.
Can we talk about how thisshows up at work?
Because I know that's a bigpart of your journey recently is
bringing some of that balance,bringing more of you know
awareness of your needs into thework realm.
Maegan Megginson (33:49):
Yeah.
April Snow (33:50):
I'm curious if you could share how you've been able
to maybe rebalance at work andnot just in relationships
personally.
Maegan Megginson (33:56):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
All right.
What door do we want to enterin through for this part of the
conversation?
So I will say, philosophicallyspeaking, first, I'll start big
picture and then I'll dial inwith some like specific personal
examples.
I think that we, I'm using theme and you and the collective we
(34:17):
of the sensitive empathicpeople listening to this
conversation.
We often become healers in ourwork.
Like we often go intobusinesses, service-oriented
businesses, serving otherpeople, helping other people
heal.
Of course, we're the best atit.
So obviously that's right.
April Snow (34:35):
We are.
It's natural.
Maegan Megginson (34:36):
Yeah, it's natural.
Like people need us.
That's true.
But it doesn't help usdifferentiate, right?
It doesn't help usdifferentiate from these parts
that we're over-identified within any way, shape, or form.
And I think often what happensis we create these businesses
that are parallel reflections ofthe overfunctioning,
(35:00):
people-pleasing, overly empathicchildren that we were in our
childhoods.
Yeah.
And it's first of all, I thinkit's really helpful to think
about your business.
Let's externalize and personifyyour business.
Your business is something thatexists outside of you, and you
can think of it as another partif you want.
You can think about it as aperson.
(35:21):
And when you do that, you canstart to see the ways in which
you've created a businessentity.
You've created this part thatis, again, playing out all of
the patterns that you might betrying to heal or change in your
personal life.
And I think burnout is often anindicator that this might be
(35:45):
happening, that you're startingto heal and change some things
personally.
But the business that you'rerunning, it's like operating on
an old operating system.
Like your personal operatingsystem is getting updated as you
do your own healing work, butyour business isn't changing.
And then you start to resentit.
And then you start gettingburnt out in your work because
the rules you're operating byinside of your business still
(36:08):
play by all of those oldscripts.
So a lot of the work that I dopersonally, but also in my work
with other business owners, isreally looking at how do we
integrate these parts?
How do we integrate ourpersonal self with our
professional self?
How do we make our business anextension of the healing work
that we're doing as people?
(36:30):
And when we do that, we startto shift the rules.
We start to shift theboundaries that we have with
clients.
We start to shift theexpectations that we have for
ourselves inside of ourbusiness.
Really, we startdeconstructing.
This is gonna, we're goingreally big for a second, but we
(36:51):
start deconstructing the entirecolonial capitalist paradigm.
And it's it's really big work.
So let me just pause there,April, and hear from you if this
is tracking.
April Snow (37:02):
No, it totally is.
It's really hitting mepersonally, and you're right.
I think about okay, we're doingour personal work, and then we
go, let's say, to family, and werealize, oh, we're still
running the same scripts.
Let me update.
Well, now I'm going into thework realm.
Oh, I'm still running the samescripts of people pleasing,
overfunctioning, ignoring myneeds.
(37:23):
Okay, let me do that.
And you're right, burnout, itreminds me of when you're
talking about, okay, I'mexperiencing pain in my body.
Something is not working.
Same with burnout.
Something is not working.
We're not meeting our sensitiveneeds in some way.
Because you're right, work isjust another type of
(37:44):
relationship.
And are we applying the sameinsights and awareness to that
part of our experiences as weare to ourselves?
Oftentimes not.
Showing up in the workspace ina completely outdated way.
I definitely struggle with thatfor sure.
Oh, I'm doing the same thingagain.
It's familiar.
Can I bring that change overhere to this part of myself?
(38:05):
It's hard.
It's because the work part iswhere we get a lot of our
accolades, our your feedback,our esteem.
So it can be the hardest partto unhook from.
And our money, exactly.
Maegan Megginson (38:17):
And I want to name with the work part too that
we're not just fighting againstourselves, right?
That inside of our businesses,we're also operating inside of
these really big oppressivesystems of colonialism and
capitalism and patriarchy, bigscary words, but it's true.
I think that it is the hardestto unhook from these patterns
(38:41):
inside of our businesses becauseit's not just the personal
relationships that are at stake.
It's also all of theconditioning about how we're
supposed to run our businesses.
And that conditioning, itreinforces that it's correct for
us to overgive.
It's correct for us to becaretakers, it's correct for us
to have no boundaries.
The client is always right.
(39:02):
Make money at all costs, bookmore clients, book more
business.
It all plays together in anincredibly dysfunctional way.
So it's no wonder we are all soexhausted and overwhelmed and
burnt out.
Because look at all of thethings that we are trying to
untangle at one time.
April Snow (39:20):
So much to untangle there.
And you're right, we get hookedinto these bigger systems.
This is what you're supposed todo.
This is how you have value.
And if we go even deeper, moreprimal, this is how you get to
have value and get to stayaround in the community.
Maegan Megginson (39:36):
Yeah.
April Snow (39:36):
Right?
Follow these rules.
Here's how you have value isdoing more work, making more
money.
And that's really antitheticalto what an HSP really needs,
which is slowing down,oftentimes having a simpler but
more fulfilling life.
More, more, more is not alwaysbest for us.
Rarely.
Yeah.
(39:56):
Exactly.
And we talked about a littlebit about our relationship just
showing up, and there's no oneright way.
You can show up more or less asan HSP.
It's not about that.
It's more about what brings mefulfillment and purpose.
And oftentimes just focusing onthe dollars, the hours work,
the titles, that doesn't do it.
There's more unhooking to haveto do.
Maegan Megginson (40:18):
Yeah.
And I think I'm coming toaccept that the unhooking never
ends, the deprogramming neverends.
And that's okay.
That's the beauty of life thatwe're here to learn.
We're here to discover whatworks for us.
We're here to model new waysand new choices for other
people.
One really important beliefthat was born for me out of many
(40:43):
episodes of burnout, many darknights of the soul, is the
belief that my business is forme first, my clients second.
So I say to my clients all thetime, your business is for you,
not your clients, yourcommunity, your audience are all
beneficiaries of your business,right?
So many people are going tobenefit from your business, from
(41:05):
the work that you do in theworld.
But the business itself existsto help you tend to your needs
as a highly sensitive person.
Almost every person you ask,oh, why did you open your own
business will tell you somethingabout freedom.
The answer will have somethingto do with I wanted more
freedom.
I wanted to be my own boss.
I wanted to fill in the blank.
I wanted to have control inthis way or that way.
(41:27):
But then we step into thestructure of our businesses and
we just start playing by therules of all of these external
systems.
And we have less freedom andless control and less happiness
and joy than we ever had before.
It's wild.
So I think that as a sensitiveperson, if you can really work
on embodying this belief thatyour business is for you and not
(41:50):
your clients, you can start tocreate some space to make
different choices, choices thathonor your boundaries, that
honor your energetic needs.
That's where the journey reallybegins.
This is edgy, Megan.
Welcome to my world.
I like to live on the edge.
April Snow (42:08):
Right.
It's important work though tosay this could be for me.
Whether you own a business ornot, can you allow your work to
be in support of you, which willgreatly inform what kinds of
decisions you make aroundboundaries and just those
day-to-day choices around howyou take care of yourself and
how, or maybe you don't takecare of yourself, you sacrifice
(42:30):
for your boss, for yourcoworkers, whatever it is.
Maegan Megginson (42:32):
And if you're really struggling with this
reframe, obviously I spend a lotof time in this conversation.
So I'm I've gotten morecomfortable with it over the
years.
But if you're hearing this forthe first time and you feel the
edginess and you're like, mm-mm,I can't, that's too much.
Zoom out for a moment and thinkof your life as a whole.
And I just would ask you, doyou believe that your life is
(42:55):
for you?
Like your whole life?
Do you believe that your lifeis for you?
Or do you believe that yourlife is for someone else?
That's a good question.
Sit with that question for alittle while.
Also uncomfortable, but atleast we can get out of the
capitalist business.
I'm here to serve and makemoney.
We can get out of thatparadigm.
And let's just sit moreglobally, more broadly with
(43:17):
business as a whole or your lifeas a whole.
April Snow (43:20):
Yeah, it's an important question.
I think every HSP needs to askthemselves is my life for me in
general?
Is this work for me?
Is this relationship for me?
Maegan Megginson (43:31):
Yeah.
April Snow (43:31):
It's how I'm spending my time for me.
Yeah.
Or am I constantly over andover giving and performing for
someone else?
So important to do.
Maegan Megginson (43:40):
Huge questions.
April Snow (43:41):
Huge questions, but important questions.
And something we talk about inthese conversations often, a
thread that I've seen is startone step at a time.
You don't need to, I'm sure youdidn't get here overnight.
I didn't get to where I amovernight.
One step at a time.
Allow yourself to lean ontothat edge of can I turn that
(44:02):
gaze back inward?
Just a little.
Just for a moment.
Maegan Megginson (44:06):
I'm so glad for you to give that.
I need to hear that reminder athousand times a day.
One step at a time, one microshift at a time.
I love the turning the gazeback inward.
And for me, it comes back tothe pause.
Everything for me is about thepause.
The pause is the moment that Ichoose to turn to myself.
(44:28):
It's the moment that I chooseto stop the flow or the momentum
of the day, which the flow orthe momentum of the day is often
connected to a momentum ofserving in some way.
It's a pause.
It's not a hard stop.
I don't have time to hard stopin the middle of the day.
I have appointments, I haveinterviews, I have people
(44:49):
counting on me, I have dogs thatneed to be fed.
We can't hard stop, but we canalways pause two seconds, a
minute, 90 seconds.
It's just it doesn't have to behuge, but if we can pause and
turn that gaze inward and justchoose like a micro something to
shift right then in service ofourselves, that's how success
(45:12):
happens.
Those are the moments that ledyou and I to this point in time
right here.
These small micro shifts.
I just I'm so glad that you'rebringing us back to that April
because it feels so, so deeplytrue.
April Snow (45:28):
It's incredibly true that it's the moment to moment
because we're we're so easilyoverwhelmed, even more important
to slow everything down.
I know we're gonna hold the bigpicture in mind.
That's that makes sense.
We need to do that.
That's how we're wired.
But also, can we just focus onthis moment right now?
What do I need right now?
And asking that question (45:48):
where am I?
What do I need?
How can I support myself?
Even a little bit.
It doesn't take a lot.
Maegan Megginson (45:56):
And it's right at the risk of sounding cliche,
like this moment is the onlything that's real.
Past isn't real, future isn'treal.
The only thing I can do is makea choice for myself in this
moment.
And maybe it's a boundary, butmaybe it's a boundary with
someone else, a boundary withyourself, or maybe it's just a
sensory need.
(46:17):
What do I need in this moment?
I need to turn the light off.
I need to take a breath.
Yeah, I need to like putcontact, I need to touch myself.
I need to rub something in mybody.
It's I don't care what it is,no matter how I meet myself in
the moment, if I meet myself,something magical happens as a
(46:37):
result.
April Snow (46:38):
Exactly.
And as a sensitive person, youknow, because of that
differential susceptibility wehave, we soak up every small
moment of support, self-care,connection, like a sponge.
So we are so much more impactedby the positive.
It does not take a lot.
So if you're saying, I onlyhave a moment, I only have a
(47:00):
second to take a breath or tooffer myself some self-soothing
touch, that will have an impact.
It's not for nothing.
That's the beauty of being anHSP.
Maegan Megginson (47:11):
Oh my God, it is.
It's I'm sitting here thinking,April, that oh, I'm so glad
that our conversation today tookus into this territory of
talking about relationships andhaving needs in relationship and
having to advocate for thoseneeds to be met.
I think that's such animportant conversation that we
need to be having more togetheras a sensitive community.
(47:33):
But adding this piece into themix that like so many of us are
feeling resentful and bitter.
And I'm laughing right now,just thinking about all of those
people in my life.
They're not listening topodcasts about self-reflection.
They're not listening topodcasts that where people are
(47:53):
talking about like how to be inhealthier relationships and how
to get your needs met.
They're not doing this work,they're not doing this deep
reflection.
We're doing it.
And I can really easily slideinto the territory of feeling
really bitter about that andfeeling really just, I'm so
fucking over being the one who'slike doing all the labor, doing
all the personal growth workand doing all the shifting, and
(48:16):
I can go down that rabbit hole.
But when I'm actually doing thework you're describing, of
turning inward, attending tomyself in small moments,
advocating for what I need inrelationships, I feel nothing
but gratitude and joy andprofound privilege that in this
(48:38):
life I get to be one of thepeople who is always working and
always thinking and alwaysexploring.
And the depth that this bringsto our life, the depth of
conversations that you and Ihave together, it just brings me
so much joy and fulfillment aslong as I'm tending to my needs
(48:58):
and all of those other ways.
April Snow (49:00):
As long as you're finding that balance, because
there is so much to take awayfrom the sense of experience,
the depth and the inspirationand the joy.
We get to feel that so deeplymore than others.
That is a gift.
It can also feel like a burdenwhen you're not taking care of
yourself.
But as you do start to pause tolook more inward, to find more
(49:25):
of what's important for you,that all starts to open up more
and more, which is incredible.
It's it's such a gift.
And if you have a mess, do youhave a message for someone who's
just starting this journey ofturning back inward, who's just
learning how to pause and checkin to prioritize rest more than
(49:47):
productivity, what would thatmessage be?
Maegan Megginson (49:49):
Twofold, I think.
First is just saying to youthat everything in our society
reinforces this idea thatproductivity and success are
productivity and success are theways that we have value in the
world.
The more productive you are,the more successful you are, the
(50:11):
more the world sees you assomeone who has merit, as
someone who is worthy, assomeone who has value.
So I just want you to hear thatyou're up against so many
powerful forces that are askingyou to be someone you're not at
your core.
And if the mountain feels bigand tall and hard to climb,
(50:33):
we're right there with you.
We feel that too.
It is big, it is tall, it ishard to climb.
And what you need more thananything is community.
You need people who get it.
You need people who areclimbing the same mountain who
can say, Hey, I did that part ofthe trail a couple of years
ago.
Here's a shortcut, here's a protip.
Like you need to be with peoplewho can support you on this
(50:56):
journey so you don't feel sooverwhelmed by how big it all
feels.
So I would say that first andforemost.
And the other thing that Iwould say thinking about rest
specifically is a reminder thatrest can look like a hundred
different things.
And if you as a highlysensitive person are trying to
(51:19):
rest in the same ways you sawanother highly sensitive person
rest, or you saw your mom anddad rest, and it's not working
for you.
Let's say, for example, you'relike, maybe I just need more
sleep.
Maybe I just need to lay downand be quiet and take a nap,
which is what most of us thinkresting is, but that's not
meeting the need for you.
I just want you to know thatyou can do anything you want to
(51:41):
rest.
As long as it recharges yourbatteries and calms your nervous
system, it's rest.
Maybe it's intense exercise,right?
Maybe it's art, maybe it'swriting poetry, maybe it's
spiritual practice, maybe it isconnecting with friends, having
deep conversation.
The opportunities for you torest are endless and they're
(52:01):
available to you all the time.
Yes, this journey is hard.
Make sure you find communityand know that opportunities to
rest are available to you everymoment of every day.
April Snow (52:13):
It's so beautiful.
There are so many versions ofrestorative practice, and it's
so important to remember thatit's not a one-size-fits-all
approach.
And I appreciate that you saidnot even with another HSP are we
gonna have the same practice.
Yeah, we're all unique.
Maegan Megginson (52:32):
It's the danger sometimes of HSP
communities in particular.
Like I know I'm saying you needcommunity of sensitive people,
and I believe that, butsometimes the HSP communities
can become a bit homogenous, youknow.
April Snow (52:45):
Absolutely.
And it's large.
We talk about HSPs.
There are billions of HSPs onthe planet.
Maegan Megginson (52:49):
Right.
30% we don't all need the samethings.
April Snow (52:53):
Exactly.
Important to offer that becauseI've seen this.
A lot of folks get caught intoI don't look like this, the
majority of the community.
This doesn't work for mebecause maybe you're an
extroverted HSP.
You need more sensationseeking, or you're highly
introverted, you're an outlierin the community.
You start to feel like I don'tfit in, I don't understand what
(53:13):
I need.
Just look back inward.
It's okay.
Maegan Megginson (53:16):
That's right.
Yeah, that's right.
And those are the for me, thosethe communities that I love to
be in and that I seek out arethe communities where we are
saying, How am I different thanyou?
How are you different than me?
How can we experiment together?
Coming back to the idea ofexperimenting.
Yeah, you have to experimentbecause the unique makeup that
(53:37):
you need to be well as asensitive person will not look
the same as my makeup.
It will not look the same asApril's.
Exactly.
So experiment and find supporton the journey.
That's that's what makes itmagical.
April Snow (53:50):
It's true.
I love that.
Thank you so much for sharingall of that, Megan, for the
inspiration and the permissionto come back to self, to pause,
to listen to our needs, to takeour time in figuring it out, and
to permission to be imperfectalong the way.
I think that's so important.
Maegan Megginson (54:07):
There's no other way to be.
April Snow (54:09):
There's no other way to be.
Exactly.
So I'll link your website andthen you also have a resource
recover from burnout.
I'll put that all in the shownotes.
Can you tell folks a little bitmore about what that is?
Maegan Megginson (54:20):
Yeah, I would love to.
First of all, April and I metin a business group way back in
like 2016, 2017.
And ever since then, you havebeen such an inspiration to me.
You've been such a pillar oflight as I was navigating my own
sensitive journey.
And I'm so grateful to you andso thrilled that you have this
(54:41):
show, and just so honored tohave this conversation with you
today.
So thank you so much for doingthis, for having me.
Um, so grateful the work you'redoing in the world is it really
just is like a beacon of lightfor those of us who grow up
without any understanding ofwhat any of this is.
You are so important.
Um, thank you.
April Snow (55:00):
I appreciate that.
Maegan Megginson (55:02):
And this was so fun.
So, yes, what I have to say, ifif you want to step into a
world where we get a little edgyand talk about things like deep
rest and recovering fromburnout and being highly
sensitive as a business owner inparticular, I would love to
have you in my community, whichlives in your inbox.
So there are two ways to dothat.
(55:22):
You can just jump on mynewsletter.
It's called the Deeply RestedNewsletter.
You can sign up on my website.
Or if you are struggling withburnout right now, if you're
deep in it, I have a 10-dayemail series called Recover from
Burnout Without Doing Anythingor Buying Anything.
And it's an email a day for 10days.
(55:43):
There's also a private podcastfeed if you'd rather listen to
it as audio.
And I walk you through littleways that we can unhook and
deprogram and begin to shift thetide in our lives so that we
can feel better while we'redoing really good work in the
world.
So that's what I have to offer.
April Snow (56:01):
Beautiful.
And I must say, Megan, you'vebeen such a companion for me
over the last eight years or so.
I think we've shared indifferent parts of our journey,
unhooking from needing to showup like everyone else, unhooking
from the expectation ofhyperproductivity and
achievement and just comingback, what's meaningful and
(56:23):
important to us.
And I love that you saidleaning into burnout recovery
without needing to do anything.
It sounds perfect.
Maegan Megginson (56:32):
Yes.
April Snow (56:33):
Yeah, and I appreciate the work you're doing
around honoring rest and in allits forms, because I think that
is something we really need.
So thank you for doing that.
Maegan Megginson (56:42):
It is my delight and my pleasure, and
just one of the great benefitsof being a sensitive person in
the world that we get to do ourwork, we get to explore the
depths of our souls, and then weget to bring what we're
discovering to other people.
And it's such an honor, it'ssuch a pleasure.
Thank you so much for lettingme talk about it here on your
(57:04):
lovely show.
April Snow (57:05):
Yes.
Thank you for being here.
Thanks so much for joining meand Megan for today's
conversation.
The message I hope you'rewalking away with is that it's
okay to set down theexpectations of others to honor
(57:25):
your sensitive needs.
And as you reconnect withyourself, allow time to
experiment with what feels mostsupportive.
If you enjoyed this episode,subscribe to the Sensitive
Stories podcast so you don'tmiss our upcoming conversations.
Reviews and ratings are alsohelpful and appreciated.
For behind the scenes contentand more HSP resources, you can
(57:47):
sign up for my email list orfollow Sensitive Strengths on
Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
Check out the show notes orsensitivestories.com for all the
resources from today's episode.
Thanks for listening.
I started getting more curious about what
I needed to change in my homeenvironment and my work
environment to really turn thevolume down on all of the
sensory inputs that I wasexposed to.
I just started experimentingwith all of the ways I could
change.
I learned so much about myselfand what really helped settle my
(00:43):
nervous system.
April Snow (00:51):
Welcome to Sensitive Stories, the podcast for the
people who live with hearts andeyes wide open.
I'm your host, psychotherapistand author April Snow.
I invite you to join me as Ideep dive into rich
conversations with fellow highlysensitive people that will
inspire you to live a morefulfilling life as an HSP
(01:13):
without all the overwhelm.
In this episode, I talk withMegan about unhooking from
overgiving and overfunctioning,finding new ways to be a service
to yourself, and grieving thelife you imagined you would have
before discovering that you'rehighly sensitive.
Megan is a licensed therapistand business mentor on a mission
(01:36):
to help business owners recoverfrom burnout and reignite their
vision for their work and theirlives by blending the
emotional, psychological, andspiritual elements we need to
become deeply rested and wildlysuccessful.
For more HSP resources and tosee behind the scenes video from
the podcast, join me onInstagram, TikTok, or YouTube at
(01:59):
Sensitive Strengths, or sign upfor my email list.
Links are in the show notes andat sensitivestories.com.
And just a reminder that thisepisode is for educational
purposes only and is notintended as a substitute for
treatment with a mental healthor medical professional.
Let's dive in.
Maegan Megginson (02:45):
That is such a great question, April.
And what's immediately comingto mind is the way, like how
that really feels like anevolving question.
But I think every year Idiscover new things about what
it means to be highly sensitivein my own experience.
So I'm gonna try to answer thatquestion in a linear way.
(03:08):
But I also just want to namethat it feels like such a gift
to be in the flow ofsensitivity.
And I've learned so much aboutmyself as a sensitive person
over the last 10-ish years.
And I have a feeling that willcontinue happening for me in my
life.
But going back to the scene ofthe crime, if you will, like
when did I first discover I wasa highly sensitive person?
(03:31):
The origin story feelsimportant for me to share.
So I actually had no ideagrowing up that I was a
sensitive person.
Like I take highly sensitiveout of it.
I didn't even know that therewas such a thing as like being a
sensitive person.
That whole schema or frameworkwas unavailable to me in the
(03:53):
culture that I grew up in.
And when I was in graduateschool, and in the early days of
being a therapist, I startedstruggling with chronic pain in
my body.
And long story short, I wasseeing doctor after doctor after
doctor trying to figure out thesource of this pain.
I just had this like terriblejoint pain, and it was, it would
(04:15):
move, and nobody could like oneday it'd be in my elbow, and
the next day it'd be in myknees, and I had headaches, and
nobody could figure out what wasgoing on.
And finally I ended up in thisrheumatologist's office and they
were running all of these teststhinking I might have had some
like strange form of rheumatoidarthritis, and they were putting
me on these like medications,like really serious medications,
(04:35):
because they were worried thatterrible things were happening
in my joints.
And around that time, likemagic, of course, I found an
article on the internet aboutthe highly sensitive person
trait.
And I read it and I was like,whoa, holy shit, this is me.
This is describing like everypart of my lived experience.
(04:55):
And I decided that day, I'mlike, I'm done with the doctors,
I'm done with the drugs, I'mjust gonna explore this.
And I'm going to see if I canchange things about the way I'm
operating in the world and seeif that solves the problems that
I'm having.
Miraculously, it solved so manyof the problems I was having.
Of course, not all of theproblems I was having, but the
(05:17):
pain disappeared as I startedmaking these changes to my life
to like really honor mysensitivity, my sensory
sensitivity, my energeticsensitivities.
And ever since then, I feellike I have just been on this
journey of really discovering inwhat ways I am sensitive and in
what ways do I need todeprogram from what I was taught
(05:41):
to believe about life and howI'm supposed to live life.
And how can I curate myenvironment specifically to
really tend to the differentsensitivities that I've noticed
within myself?
So April, that's like a verybig answer to your really
specific question.
So hit me with some follow-ups.
April Snow (06:00):
It is, it's that this is a complicated question
because sensitivity touchesevery part of our lives, yeah,
every part of our experiences.
And often we don't know thathigh sensitivity is a
possibility.
You said I didn't even knowsensitivity was a possibility.
So I'm curious.
Obviously, you get to thatpoint where our bodies tell us
(06:20):
something needs to change, showsup as pain or some other type
of discomfort or ailments.
But I'm curious if you lookback before that started, now
that you have this framework,could you see the sensitivity
showing up?
Maegan Megginson (06:34):
Oh my God, I had shingles when I was 14 years
old.
So, yes, is the short answer tothat question.
In hindsight, I can see all ofthe ways that I was a sensitive
child.
And just to clarify one thing,I misspoke earlier.
Of course, being sensitive wasa thing in the place where I
grew up, but it was a bad thing.
(06:55):
It was like, oh, you're sosensitive.
It was a judgment, it was acriticism.
Um, there wasn't sensitive asum a group of people who had
different sensory needs ordifferent energetic needs.
So I was holding, like so manyof us, a lot of shame about the
(07:15):
ways in which I was sensitive.
And the looking back processwhen I finally identified that I
was a highly sensitive personwas so powerful.
It was so powerful to look backat getting shingles at 14 years
old and being like, oh my God,like that was my body telling me
like this is too much.
(07:36):
Like you're doing too much,you're exposed to too much, your
stress is so high that we we'regiving you shingles as a way to
try to like get your attention.
But I could look back in insmaller, less dramatic ways too,
and see how socially I wasalways a little bit more
reserved than other people, andnot because I was shy.
(07:57):
In fact, I wasn't shy.
I grew up in the theater, I waslike a performer.
I was not shy at all, but Iwould burn out a lot faster than
other people.
I would run out of juice a lotfaster than other people.
And I also know in hindsightthat I have so I have quite a
lot of sensory sensitivities.
(08:18):
For example, like loud noises,bright lights, air blowing on my
skin.
And when I look back at thefamily that I grew up in, I'm
just like, wow, not a good fit,not a good match.
When I go back to visit myfamily now as an adult, and it's
like lights on everywhere, andevery TV is on and the radio's
(08:39):
on and people are yelling, andit's just so much.
So, yeah, big and small ways Ican track back to being a
sensitive person.
April Snow (08:47):
And it's it's hard being in that environment, big,
loud, bright when you don't knowwhat's going on.
I feel like that's a commontheme in a lot of the stories
that I've heard is that here Iam, the sensitive, um,
perceptive, spongy little kid inan environment where being
sensitive is a liability, is aweakness, or it just isn't
(09:10):
understood at all.
There's no idea what that evenlooks like or what it is.
Um it's funny that you said yougot shingles at I got shingles
at 32, so later, but stillpretty early in the when people
typically get shingles.
And you know, I think a lot ofsensitive folks can resonate
with that.
And when I was in my in highschool, I got headaches
(09:30):
chronically.
So like the body is telling usthere's too much going on,
there's too much coming in,there's not enough quiet,
downtime, time to process.
Unless you grow up in a familythat also has a someone who
knows they're highly sensitiveor knows what that is, most
likely you're not getting thosebasic needs met for balance.
Right, right.
The trade has only been on themap, at least in the complexity
(09:53):
that we know it of now, for thelast 30 years.
So most of us grew up pre thatinformation coming out.
And even still to this day,it's not widely accepted.
Maegan Megginson (10:02):
Yeah, or understood.
Like you said, like my family,they're just not sensitive.
And so this even if it, even ifthe trait was widely known,
they wouldn't know it.
It wouldn't be on their radar.
And I'm so happy for them.
I look at the way they livetheir lives, the way they
interact with their environment,and they're great, they're
thriving.
So it's, I think a big part ofmy journey with sensitivity has
(10:26):
also been releasing judgmentsabout myself, but also of my
family, of my friends, and andrealizing nobody's better or
worse or right or wrong thananybody else.
We just have differentenvironmental needs and
different energetic needs.
But to this day, communicatingthat to my family is so
challenging because they reallydo struggle to understand this
(10:47):
paradigm of sensitivity.
April Snow (10:50):
Right.
They're not living it.
They, their nervous system,their brains are not wired with
the trait.
And you mentioned a good point.
We should all get to thrive.
I love that you celebrate themthriving and their big loudness,
whatever it is, however itshows up.
But then you also need to beable to thrive.
Maegan Megginson (11:07):
Yes.
April Snow (11:08):
I'm curious when you started to make changes.
You spoke of this a littlewhile ago.
You had this epiphany.
Okay, I'm I'm having all theserheumatoid arthritic issues,
this pain showing my body.
I discover I'm highlysensitive.
And then what changes afterthat?
Were you able to help yourselfrebalance?
What did you do?
Maegan Megginson (11:26):
Yeah, so the first thing I did was really
turned the volume down on socialinteractions.
That was the first big change,is I realized that I had already
made friends with myintroverted part.
I knew I was an introvert.
I talked a lot in to my to myfamily, to my friends about
(11:47):
being introverted, what thatmeant, what I needed.
But when I discovered thehighly sensitive piece and wove
that thread into the tapestry ofmy life, I realized that I
wasn't doing enough.
I actually wasn't doing enoughto really spend less time around
the energy of other people andmore time really deeply tending
(12:09):
to myself and calming my ownnervous system.
So a couple of specific thingsI remember doing at the time was
sharing with the people that Iwas, you know, really
interacting with regularly that,oh, I've discovered this thing,
highly, I think I've discoveredI'm a highly sensitive person.
Here's what it means.
I'm gonna be a little lessavailable for a little while
(12:29):
while I figure this out.
So I spent less time around theenergies of other people and
spent more time with myself.
But when I was with myself,this is where things really
started changing for me.
I started getting more curiousabout what I needed to do when I
was alone, what I needed tochange in my home environment
(12:51):
and my work environment toreally turn the volume down on
all of the sensory inputs that Iwas exposed to.
So it became life for a whilewas really experimental and
exploratory.
You know, I was like, oh, is itare uh do I need to change my
light bulbs?
Do I need to put more lamps andless overheads?
And oh, how can I do ambientheating instead of having a
(13:14):
heater blowing on my body?
And I just startedexperimenting with all of the
ways I could change what I wasexposed to in my environment.
And it was fascinating becauseI learned so much about myself
and I learned so much about whattype of environment really
helped settle my nervous systemand recharge my batteries.
(13:36):
And as I figured that out, Iwas able to move back into
social relationships with moreintention and more like gusto
than I had before because I wastending to myself the way I
needed to tend to myself at homein my personal time.
And then I would say, justacross the board, I realized I
(13:56):
needed to work less, that I washolding myself to too high of
standards in terms of how much Icould accomplish, how fast I
could accomplish it.
So I really started my journeywith working less and doing
less.
That's an ongoing journey, ofcourse, but it really did start
during that chapter of my life.
April Snow (14:17):
I appreciate that you're talking about the
different pillars, the sensoryneeds, the emotional needs, the
socializing less, resting more.
And it this is a hard processas you start to integrate this
realization about yourself.
I say you, generally speaking.
And it is a time ofexperimentation.
I love how you phrase thatbecause it's a lot of trial and
error.
(14:37):
What works, what doesn't work.
What do I need?
And then how can I give myself?
Yeah.
How can I meet those needs?
That can be the hardest part.
Maegan Megginson (14:46):
And grieving what we have to stop doing
because it's an exchange.
It's not you have to give a lotup when you're starting this
journey with sensitivity ofrealizing, oh, I can't do that
thing that I like to do, or Ican't spend time with all of
these people that I want tospend time with.
So yeah, there's a lot of griefin the process too.
April Snow (15:06):
It's an incredible amount of grief.
You really have to rewrite thestory of what you thought your
life would be.
And there there is grief inclosing some chapters, but there
can also then hopefully be joyin opening others.
Right.
Imagine coming from a familythat was maybe more boisterous
or more active, social.
I'm just putting some wordshere.
(15:27):
You can let me know if they'rewrong.
Maegan Megginson (15:29):
Yeah, no, you're you got it.
April Snow (15:30):
Um, can you speak to that grief?
What were you letting go of?
Maegan Megginson (15:36):
Oh, with my family specifically.
Oh, let's start there.
How much time do you have?
No, I'm kidding.
I think the biggest themearound grief for me and my
family has been the grieving thefantasy that one day I would
fit in.
(15:56):
That one day, if I could justfigure it out, I would not be
the black sheep.
And I use black sheep looselybecause I my family loves me.
They just don't understand me.
And they're kind to me, but wedon't connect.
And I really wanted that not tobe true in this time in my life
(16:17):
when I was understandingsensitivity.
I really was still vacationingwith my family at the time.
I still lived close to myfamily.
Like I really wanted to figureout like what can I change about
myself so that we are all abetter fit together.
And the more I settled into mysensitivity, the more I started
(16:39):
to acknowledge and grieve thatwas never going to happen, that
there was never going to be ascenario where I could integrate
into their way of being.
And yeah, that was a painfultime.
It was that was a painfulrealization.
But like you said, on the otherside of that grief was
tremendous joy.
(17:00):
And so many doors startedopening, so many possibilities.
Like maybe this one way ofenvisioning your life won't be
true.
But now that you've grievedthat, hey, Megan, look at all of
the things that are possiblefor you.
Yes.
And when that started, whenthose doors started to open, was
around the time that my husbandand I got the bug to move from
(17:22):
Southeast Texas to the WestCoast.
I was like, oh, I can just dowhatever I want with my life.
What?
So yeah, the grief was big.
And there are still times whenI feel that grief.
And also moving through thatgrief helped illuminate for me
really expansive choices that Icould make for myself that I
(17:43):
know have never regretted for asingle moment.
April Snow (17:47):
Yeah.
There's other ways to get someof those needs met around
connection, being seen, having adeeply rich, purposeful life,
which could come from family,but it doesn't always have to.
You said something about I hadto let go of not integrating
into the family.
Of course, your family'ssupportive, sounds like they
(18:07):
really love you and accept youas you are, which is really
beautiful.
And also, they don't understandyour lived experience fully as
being non-HSPs, which makessense.
So you found other ways to feelnourished and nurture yourself.
Maegan Megginson (18:23):
Right.
Correct.
Yeah, I feel like for me, a bigpart of the sensitivity journey
has been grieving therealization that other people
aren't going to be able to meetmy needs.
Grieving that, like you saidearlier, the path I envisioned
for myself, maybe likeprofessionally or in school or
(18:44):
what have you.
Oh, it's not gonna go quitelike that.
My path, my journey isn't gonnalook like this person that I've
held on this pedestal overhere.
We grieve.
And then on the other side ofthat is this deep learning about
how I can actually meet all ofthese needs for myself.
That I don't need these modelsor these roadmaps of how other
(19:09):
people have done it.
I'm totally capable of craftingsomething unique to me.
And it's gonna be great.
April Snow (19:18):
It's gonna be great, exactly.
And this I think is the mostimportant thing any HSP can do
is I'm always saying, turn yourgaze back inward, follow your
own compass.
That's how you're gonna feelfulfilled and balanced.
However, we get really caughtbecause we're so empathetic and
focus on others' needs.
We get so caught on peoplepleasing, sacrificing ourselves
(19:42):
to be what we're supposed to be.
Sounds like you've been able tounhook from that, not live the
life that you thought you wouldcoming from the family you did,
allowing yourself to create adifferent way of being.
How do we start to unhook fromthose expectations, especially
if we are chronic peoplepleasers or high achievers and
we want to do all the things andwe want to do them perfectly?
(20:03):
Which I think we both, if I cansay, have gotten caught up into
from time to time.
How do you unhook and start tocome back home again?
Maegan Megginson (20:13):
Oh, such a beautiful question, April.
And yes, like guilty ascharged.
I used to joke and say I'm arecovering people pleaser, but
then I was like, I don't know.
I think I'm always going to bea people pleaser.
I don't actually think likewhat you said a moment ago
that's setting off so many lightbulbs for me, that the people
pleasing is born out of ourinnate sensitivity and empathic
(20:37):
abilities, our deep empathicabilities.
And there is something sopowerful about not pathologizing
our quote, people pleasingtendencies, which gets such a
bad rap, right?
That we need to stop peoplepleasing.
We need to like kick that partto the curb.
And the way you're approachingit right now lands so
differently in my body.
(20:57):
Being like, no, my peoplepleasing is actually an
extension of my deep capacityfor empathy.
And I never want to lose that.
That's one of the things aboutmyself that I cherish the most.
I think a better question forme has been how do I set
boundaries around the way I giveand receive empathy in my life?
(21:18):
How do I set boundaries aroundthe way I interact with others,
the way I give my energy?
For me, it's really all aboutboundaries.
And it's this ongoing processin my life of learning how to
pathologizing thispeople-pleaser part of who I am.
So this might seem a littleunclear.
(21:38):
If so, it's because I'mactively figuring this out in my
own process.
April Snow (21:43):
Does that make sense?
Oh, it does.
It's it is a process ofuntangling, and I really
appreciate you're saying wedon't have to disavow this part
completely.
Maegan Megginson (21:52):
Yeah, we can't.
April Snow (21:53):
We can't.
It's part of us.
We care for others so much.
We want them to be okay.
And yeah, when they're okay,we're okay.
Right.
But can we look at itdifferently?
How do we unhook?
But also, you're saying it'snot unhooking, it's maybe just
having it's reorienting.
Maegan Megginson (22:09):
And yes, and and maybe the unhooking is
really the hooking, I think,comes in the pause.
So we can look at this in ablack or white way, right?
This two, the dichotomous twoends of the spectrum.
We're either people pleasing orwe're not people pleasing.
And if those are our twooptions, let's be honest, we're
(22:29):
gonna keep people pleasing,right?
We can't, it's not gonna do it.
We're gonna it's not actually,it's impossible.
It's an illusion to think thatwe can remove our empathic
nature, not gonna happen.
So I'm much more interested inlooking at what options exist
for me in the middle of thosetwo extremes.
And when I give myselfpermission to get curious about
(22:51):
what exists in the middle, whatactually opens up are an
infinite number of possibilitiesfor how I can show up in the
world and engage inrelationships.
And then I get excited becauseI'm like, okay, now we can play,
now we can explore.
That for me is when the pausebecomes so important.
Can I notice?
Do I know in my own body whatthis beginning of a
(23:15):
people-pleasing behavior feelslike?
Right?
Can I feel it?
Because it is a hook, isn't it?
It's we feel something gethooked inside, and then there's
a tug.
April Snow (23:23):
Yep.
It's true.
We get pulled right in.
Maegan Megginson (23:25):
We get pulled in.
And I so I think somatically,can we learn individually what
does the tug feel like in ourbodies?
And can we, using somethinglike say mindfulness, can we get
better at noticing the tug andthen pausing, breathing, asking
myself, okay, what is happeningright now?
(23:47):
Am I consciously choosing inthis moment to give some of
myself to this other person?
Have I been invited to give bythis other person?
Or is this a default patternthat, like, maybe now isn't the
time or place for this behavior?
And for me, I think theunhooking process really has
involved a lot of self-inquiryaround both of those pieces.
(24:09):
Have I actually been invited toshare my gifts or my energy or
my empathic abilities?
Have I been invited?
Often, no, I haven't.
But also, is this a moment if Ihave or haven't been invited,
regardless?
Do I have the energy to giveright now?
Do I have the emotionalfortitude to give right now?
(24:29):
Or do I actually need to set aboundary, unhook, and tend to
myself?
And if you're if someone, ifyou're listening to this right
now and you're like, man, thatsounds like a lot of work.
Um, it is a lot of work.
It is a lot of work.
I feel like the gift and theburden of being a sensitive,
empathic person on the planet isthat there's no way we can go
(24:52):
through life without doing a lotof work on ourselves and our
process.
But yeah, I would say that ishow I would recommend unlooking.
April Snow (25:01):
I love it.
Like first off, pausing, askingyourself, do I have the energy
to engage with this caretaking?
Also, this is an important one.
Have I actually been invited?
Maegan Megginson (25:14):
Yeah.
April Snow (25:14):
That is not a question I usually think about,
but it's so true because a lotof times I assume this person
needs me.
Maegan Megginson (25:22):
Right.
April Snow (25:23):
They will not be okay without me.
Thinking about my siblings, forinstance, or people that I
really care about who maybe Ihave, you know, gotten
accustomed to taking care of andsupporting, or I love so much.
I can't imagine not steppingin.
But it's an important questionto ask.
Because they might not wantthat support.
Maegan Megginson (25:41):
They might not want the support, but I think
this is where we have to own upto like the consequences of
that.
Maybe that's a harsh word.
It's the only one I can thinkof in the moment.
Like the consequences of thesepatterns that we have reinforced
throughout our life.
Many relationships, when I wasreally going through this
(26:01):
process, it's ongoing, but whenI was in the thick of it, what I
started to see was that weteach people how to treat us.
We teach people how to respondto us.
And we have to takeresponsibility for the fact that
when we are engaging in theseoverly empathic, caretaking,
overfunctioning, people-pleasingbehaviors, we're teaching the
(26:22):
people that we love that we areavailable for them 24-7.
And hey, guess what?
They love it.
That feels great, right?
They love it.
April Snow (26:32):
It's true.
Maegan Megginson (26:32):
They're we like they we are like the most
popular kid at the party at thatpoint because like they get so
many needs met from us.
But then we start feelingresentful.
We start feeling invisible, westart feeling like our no our
own needs aren't being met.
And so much of my own healinghas been recognizing how I've
perpetuated that pattern.
(26:53):
Yeah, it's when I startedpausing and going, wait, did
so-and-so ask me to do that justnow?
Or did they just assume Iwould?
And then I did.
Oh God, I have to talk to themabout this.
I have to really own withApril, okay, April.
I know historically in ourrelationship, I've often
(27:13):
responded to you in this way.
Or let's use a specificexample.
A pattern that often comes upin all my own life is that I'm
loyal to a fault.
And I love caretaking and Ilove supporting people
emotionally.
I love having empathy for myfriends who need it, who are
struggling.
So I will respond to textmessages.
I will drop everything and Iwill respond to text messages
(27:36):
and I will engage you in anhours-long text conversation
about a struggle you're havingat work.
I'm gonna give you everythingand you're gonna fucking love it
because it's gonna make youfeel so good.
And there are times still thatI will realize I'm doing that.
Often it's when I start feelingresentful or I start feeling
like a little bit burnt out.
(27:57):
And that's when I know that inorder to unhook, I have to say
to a friend, hey, April, Irealize that I have been giving
a lot of support to you throughour texts these last couple of
weeks, and I haven't asked formuch in return.
And I'm realizing that I'mneeding to balance the scales a
(28:17):
little bit.
Can you support me by doing Xand Y?
And for a little while, I'mgonna back up a bit in our
communication.
I probably wouldn't say it likethat clinically, but in
process, it is awkward, but it'slike it has to be made
explicit.
April Snow (28:32):
It really does.
You really need to break itdown in that way.
I'm curious, have you been ableto practice that in real life
where you're saying I have shownup quite a lot, and now I'm
realizing I need something inreturn, which is so important to
do, right?
It helps us preserve thoserelationships, keep the
resentment at bay, yeah, uh, andmake sure that we're not
(28:54):
overgiving or getting caught inthe empathy draw.
Maegan Megginson (28:58):
Yeah, and like all the time.
April Snow (29:00):
All the time, yeah.
Maegan Megginson (29:02):
This is like a common occurrence for me.
Yes.
And I think just toover-generalize, I would put
these moments in two categories.
There are the moments when Icatch myself defaulting to
giving a lot of support when itwasn't explicitly requested.
And when I catch myself doingthat, I'll try to backpedal a
(29:22):
bit with a friend, for example,and be like, hey, I realize I
just jumped into like deepprocessing mode.
And maybe you were just tellingme you had a bad day.
What do you actually need fromme as your friend right now?
With my closest friends, I havesaid things to them like, hey,
if you notice meoverfunctioning, can you tell me
(29:43):
that?
Can you reflect?
I would love for you to setboundaries with me around that.
I love making it acollaborative process.
This is like a huge part of myrelationship with my husband.
When he at this point has noproblem being like, Megan, back
off.
Like I didn't ask.
I'd be like, oh great, thankyou.
So there's that category of thework I'm doing in
relationships.
And then, yeah, the othercategory I would say is oh, it's
(30:06):
so hard, April.
But it's I'm trying to getbetter at telling people that
surprise, like I also haveneeds.
And surprise, surprise.
And they're like, Yeah, ofcourse you do.
Why are you being weird aboutit?
And I'm just Like, because it'sa whole lifetime of
conditioning of me not havingneeds, and it's hard.
It's like, ooh, it feels likecreepy crawlies in my body when
(30:28):
I have to be like, oh, okay,Megan.
Like, you gotta ask people forwhat you need.
You have to ask people to showup for you.
Yeah, it's a whole thing.
April Snow (30:37):
It is a learning process to default to being able
to take up space.
And I think use the wordcollaborate potentially, but
it's rebalancing the scales inrelationships.
I'm giving, but I'm alsoreceiving and making sure
overall that averages out to beequal.
So important.
And it can be hard to do ifyou've been an overfunction or
an overgiver for so long, foryour whole life.
(30:59):
Exactly.
Your condition for that.
Maegan Megginson (31:01):
And I don't know about just one more thing
about that.
Because I'm curious if this istrue for you too, April.
But the more I do this in myrelationships, the more feedback
I get from people I love sayingthings like, I've always wanted
to support you more.
You just always seem like youhave it so together.
I didn't think there wasanything I had to give to you.
(31:22):
I didn't think there was anyvalue I had to add, which is
crazy to me, but it also makesperfect sense.
April Snow (31:28):
It does because you're presenting as highly
functioning, high achieving.
I'm the person that supportsyou.
I don't need anything.
At least I'll speak for myselfwhen I say that.
So yeah, people they get usedto not stepping up.
Maegan Megginson (31:44):
Right.
April Snow (31:44):
And then they've been waiting potentially.
Oh, now I get to give.
Yeah.
Maegan Megginson (31:48):
And they love it.
April Snow (31:49):
They're excited.
Exactly.
They love it because it feelsgood to give.
I remember my grandmother saidto me many years ago, if someone
offers you a gift, say thankyou.
Because it's that process ismeaningful to them that they are
offering this gift to you.
Do not deny them that joy.
And it made me really stop andhave to rethink how much I was
(32:13):
always the one wanting to be thegiver.
Because I thought that meant Iwas strong or impacting the
other person.
Maegan Megginson (32:21):
Like your grandmother said, in a way, it's
a little selfish.
April Snow (32:25):
Selfish to deny that person that opportunity to
receive joy and to think of youand to carry that joy through in
some tangible way.
Maegan Megginson (32:34):
That's a real paradigm shift.
Thanks, April's grandma.
That's really great.
And it's a real paradigm shiftbecause so much of the murder
narrative that so many of uscarry as these highly sensitive,
overfunctioning people, it'slike, oh, I'm just giving,
giving, I'm just giving all thetime.
But in reality, it's like we'realso taking, we're taking other
people's opportunity to connectwith us, to contribute to the
(32:57):
relationship.
It's selfless and it's selfish.
And I think we all have to doour own personal work to really
discover our own inner balancebetween those two states.
Yeah, I'm gonna keep thinkingabout that one.
It's good.
April Snow (33:12):
Yeah, it's a big component, right, in the sense
of experience is how to take upspace, be comfortable in
receiving, not have to thinkabout other people's emotions
and needs all the time.
Like it will be okay if you letthem take care of it, take care
of it themselves.
I'm curious how this over whenwe're talking about
(33:33):
overfunctioning relationships,caregiving relationships, and
you can set boundaries, comeback to self.
Can we talk about how thisshows up at work?
Because I know that's a bigpart of your journey recently is
bringing some of that balance,bringing more of you know
awareness of your needs into thework realm.
Maegan Megginson (33:49):
Yeah.
April Snow (33:50):
I'm curious if you could share how you've been able
to maybe rebalance at work andnot just in relationships
personally.
Maegan Megginson (33:56):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
All right.
What door do we want to enterin through for this part of the
conversation?
So I will say, philosophicallyspeaking, first, I'll start big
picture and then I'll dial inwith some like specific personal
examples.
I think that we, I'm using theme and you and the collective we
(34:17):
of the sensitive empathicpeople listening to this
conversation.
We often become healers in ourwork.
Like we often go intobusinesses, service-oriented
businesses, serving otherpeople, helping other people
heal.
Of course, we're the best atit.
So obviously that's right.
April Snow (34:35):
We are.
It's natural.
Maegan Megginson (34:36):
Yeah, it's natural.
Like people need us.
That's true.
But it doesn't help usdifferentiate, right?
It doesn't help usdifferentiate from these parts
that we're over-identified within any way, shape, or form.
And I think often what happensis we create these businesses
that are parallel reflections ofthe overfunctioning,
(35:00):
people-pleasing, overly empathicchildren that we were in our
childhoods.
Yeah.
And it's first of all, I thinkit's really helpful to think
about your business.
Let's externalize and personifyyour business.
Your business is something thatexists outside of you, and you
can think of it as another partif you want.
You can think about it as aperson.
(35:21):
And when you do that, you canstart to see the ways in which
you've created a businessentity.
You've created this part thatis, again, playing out all of
the patterns that you might betrying to heal or change in your
personal life.
And I think burnout is often anindicator that this might be
(35:45):
happening, that you're startingto heal and change some things
personally.
But the business that you'rerunning, it's like operating on
an old operating system.
Like your personal operatingsystem is getting updated as you
do your own healing work, butyour business isn't changing.
And then you start to resentit.
And then you start gettingburnt out in your work because
the rules you're operating byinside of your business still
(36:08):
play by all of those oldscripts.
So a lot of the work that I dopersonally, but also in my work
with other business owners, isreally looking at how do we
integrate these parts?
How do we integrate ourpersonal self with our
professional self?
How do we make our business anextension of the healing work
that we're doing as people?
(36:30):
And when we do that, we startto shift the rules.
We start to shift theboundaries that we have with
clients.
We start to shift theexpectations that we have for
ourselves inside of ourbusiness.
Really, we startdeconstructing.
This is gonna, we're goingreally big for a second, but we
(36:51):
start deconstructing the entirecolonial capitalist paradigm.
And it's it's really big work.
So let me just pause there,April, and hear from you if this
is tracking.
April Snow (37:02):
No, it totally is.
It's really hitting mepersonally, and you're right.
I think about okay, we're doingour personal work, and then we
go, let's say, to family, and werealize, oh, we're still
running the same scripts.
Let me update.
Well, now I'm going into thework realm.
Oh, I'm still running the samescripts of people pleasing,
overfunctioning, ignoring myneeds.
(37:23):
Okay, let me do that.
And you're right, burnout, itreminds me of when you're
talking about, okay, I'mexperiencing pain in my body.
Something is not working.
Same with burnout.
Something is not working.
We're not meeting our sensitiveneeds in some way.
Because you're right, work isjust another type of
(37:44):
relationship.
And are we applying the sameinsights and awareness to that
part of our experiences as weare to ourselves?
Oftentimes not.
Showing up in the workspace ina completely outdated way.
I definitely struggle with thatfor sure.
Oh, I'm doing the same thingagain.
It's familiar.
Can I bring that change overhere to this part of myself?
(38:05):
It's hard.
It's because the work part iswhere we get a lot of our
accolades, our your feedback,our esteem.
So it can be the hardest partto unhook from.
And our money, exactly.
Maegan Megginson (38:17):
And I want to name with the work part too that
we're not just fighting againstourselves, right?
That inside of our businesses,we're also operating inside of
these really big oppressivesystems of colonialism and
capitalism and patriarchy, bigscary words, but it's true.
I think that it is the hardestto unhook from these patterns
(38:41):
inside of our businesses becauseit's not just the personal
relationships that are at stake.
It's also all of theconditioning about how we're
supposed to run our businesses.
And that conditioning, itreinforces that it's correct for
us to overgive.
It's correct for us to becaretakers, it's correct for us
to have no boundaries.
The client is always right.
(39:02):
Make money at all costs, bookmore clients, book more
business.
It all plays together in anincredibly dysfunctional way.
So it's no wonder we are all soexhausted and overwhelmed and
burnt out.
Because look at all of thethings that we are trying to
untangle at one time.
April Snow (39:20):
So much to untangle there.
And you're right, we get hookedinto these bigger systems.
This is what you're supposed todo.
This is how you have value.
And if we go even deeper, moreprimal, this is how you get to
have value and get to stayaround in the community.
Maegan Megginson (39:36):
Yeah.
April Snow (39:36):
Right?
Follow these rules.
Here's how you have value isdoing more work, making more
money.
And that's really antitheticalto what an HSP really needs,
which is slowing down,oftentimes having a simpler but
more fulfilling life.
More, more, more is not alwaysbest for us.
Rarely.
Yeah.
(39:56):
Exactly.
And we talked about a littlebit about our relationship just
showing up, and there's no oneright way.
You can show up more or less asan HSP.
It's not about that.
It's more about what brings mefulfillment and purpose.
And oftentimes just focusing onthe dollars, the hours work,
the titles, that doesn't do it.
There's more unhooking to haveto do.
Maegan Megginson (40:18):
Yeah.
And I think I'm coming toaccept that the unhooking never
ends, the deprogramming neverends.
And that's okay.
That's the beauty of life thatwe're here to learn.
We're here to discover whatworks for us.
We're here to model new waysand new choices for other
people.
One really important beliefthat was born for me out of many
(40:43):
episodes of burnout, many darknights of the soul, is the
belief that my business is forme first, my clients second.
So I say to my clients all thetime, your business is for you,
not your clients, yourcommunity, your audience are all
beneficiaries of your business,right?
So many people are going tobenefit from your business, from
(41:05):
the work that you do in theworld.
But the business itself existsto help you tend to your needs
as a highly sensitive person.
Almost every person you ask,oh, why did you open your own
business will tell you somethingabout freedom.
The answer will have somethingto do with I wanted more
freedom.
I wanted to be my own boss.
I wanted to fill in the blank.
I wanted to have control inthis way or that way.
(41:27):
But then we step into thestructure of our businesses and
we just start playing by therules of all of these external
systems.
And we have less freedom andless control and less happiness
and joy than we ever had before.
It's wild.
So I think that as a sensitiveperson, if you can really work
on embodying this belief thatyour business is for you and not
(41:50):
your clients, you can start tocreate some space to make
different choices, choices thathonor your boundaries, that
honor your energetic needs.
That's where the journey reallybegins.
This is edgy, Megan.
Welcome to my world.
I like to live on the edge.
April Snow (42:08):
Right.
It's important work though tosay this could be for me.
Whether you own a business ornot, can you allow your work to
be in support of you, which willgreatly inform what kinds of
decisions you make aroundboundaries and just those
day-to-day choices around howyou take care of yourself and
how, or maybe you don't takecare of yourself, you sacrifice
(42:30):
for your boss, for yourcoworkers, whatever it is.
Maegan Megginson (42:32):
And if you're really struggling with this
reframe, obviously I spend a lotof time in this conversation.
So I'm I've gotten morecomfortable with it over the
years.
But if you're hearing this forthe first time and you feel the
edginess and you're like, mm-mm,I can't, that's too much.
Zoom out for a moment and thinkof your life as a whole.
And I just would ask you, doyou believe that your life is
(42:55):
for you?
Like your whole life?
Do you believe that your lifeis for you?
Or do you believe that yourlife is for someone else?
That's a good question.
Sit with that question for alittle while.
Also uncomfortable, but atleast we can get out of the
capitalist business.
I'm here to serve and makemoney.
We can get out of thatparadigm.
And let's just sit moreglobally, more broadly with
(43:17):
business as a whole or your lifeas a whole.
April Snow (43:20):
Yeah, it's an important question.
I think every HSP needs to askthemselves is my life for me in
general?
Is this work for me?
Is this relationship for me?
Maegan Megginson (43:31):
Yeah.
April Snow (43:31):
It's how I'm spending my time for me.
Yeah.
Or am I constantly over andover giving and performing for
someone else?
So important to do.
Maegan Megginson (43:40):
Huge questions.
April Snow (43:41):
Huge questions, but important questions.
And something we talk about inthese conversations often, a
thread that I've seen is startone step at a time.
You don't need to, I'm sure youdidn't get here overnight.
I didn't get to where I amovernight.
One step at a time.
Allow yourself to lean ontothat edge of can I turn that
(44:02):
gaze back inward?
Just a little.
Just for a moment.
Maegan Megginson (44:06):
I'm so glad for you to give that.
I need to hear that reminder athousand times a day.
One step at a time, one microshift at a time.
I love the turning the gazeback inward.
And for me, it comes back tothe pause.
Everything for me is about thepause.
The pause is the moment that Ichoose to turn to myself.
(44:28):
It's the moment that I chooseto stop the flow or the momentum
of the day, which the flow orthe momentum of the day is often
connected to a momentum ofserving in some way.
It's a pause.
It's not a hard stop.
I don't have time to hard stopin the middle of the day.
I have appointments, I haveinterviews, I have people
(44:49):
counting on me, I have dogs thatneed to be fed.
We can't hard stop, but we canalways pause two seconds, a
minute, 90 seconds.
It's just it doesn't have to behuge, but if we can pause and
turn that gaze inward and justchoose like a micro something to
shift right then in service ofourselves, that's how success
(45:12):
happens.
Those are the moments that ledyou and I to this point in time
right here.
These small micro shifts.
I just I'm so glad that you'rebringing us back to that April
because it feels so, so deeplytrue.
April Snow (45:28):
It's incredibly true that it's the moment to moment
because we're we're so easilyoverwhelmed, even more important
to slow everything down.
I know we're gonna hold the bigpicture in mind.
That's that makes sense.
We need to do that.
That's how we're wired.
But also, can we just focus onthis moment right now?
What do I need right now?
And asking that question (45:48):
where am I?
What do I need?
How can I support myself?
Even a little bit.
It doesn't take a lot.
Maegan Megginson (45:56):
And it's right at the risk of sounding cliche,
like this moment is the onlything that's real.
Past isn't real, future isn'treal.
The only thing I can do is makea choice for myself in this
moment.
And maybe it's a boundary, butmaybe it's a boundary with
someone else, a boundary withyourself, or maybe it's just a
sensory need.
(46:17):
What do I need in this moment?
I need to turn the light off.
I need to take a breath.
Yeah, I need to like putcontact, I need to touch myself.
I need to rub something in mybody.
It's I don't care what it is,no matter how I meet myself in
the moment, if I meet myself,something magical happens as a
(46:37):
result.
April Snow (46:38):
Exactly.
And as a sensitive person, youknow, because of that
differential susceptibility wehave, we soak up every small
moment of support, self-care,connection, like a sponge.
So we are so much more impactedby the positive.
It does not take a lot.
So if you're saying, I onlyhave a moment, I only have a
(47:00):
second to take a breath or tooffer myself some self-soothing
touch, that will have an impact.
It's not for nothing.
That's the beauty of being anHSP.
Maegan Megginson (47:11):
Oh my God, it is.
It's I'm sitting here thinking,April, that oh, I'm so glad
that our conversation today tookus into this territory of
talking about relationships andhaving needs in relationship and
having to advocate for thoseneeds to be met.
I think that's such animportant conversation that we
need to be having more togetheras a sensitive community.
(47:33):
But adding this piece into themix that like so many of us are
feeling resentful and bitter.
And I'm laughing right now,just thinking about all of those
people in my life.
They're not listening topodcasts about self-reflection.
They're not listening topodcasts that where people are
(47:53):
talking about like how to be inhealthier relationships and how
to get your needs met.
They're not doing this work,they're not doing this deep
reflection.
We're doing it.
And I can really easily slideinto the territory of feeling
really bitter about that andfeeling really just, I'm so
fucking over being the one who'slike doing all the labor, doing
all the personal growth workand doing all the shifting, and
(48:16):
I can go down that rabbit hole.
But when I'm actually doing thework you're describing, of
turning inward, attending tomyself in small moments,
advocating for what I need inrelationships, I feel nothing
but gratitude and joy andprofound privilege that in this
(48:38):
life I get to be one of thepeople who is always working and
always thinking and alwaysexploring.
And the depth that this bringsto our life, the depth of
conversations that you and Ihave together, it just brings me
so much joy and fulfillment aslong as I'm tending to my needs
(48:58):
and all of those other ways.
April Snow (49:00):
As long as you're finding that balance, because
there is so much to take awayfrom the sense of experience,
the depth and the inspirationand the joy.
We get to feel that so deeplymore than others.
That is a gift.
It can also feel like a burdenwhen you're not taking care of
yourself.
But as you do start to pause tolook more inward, to find more
(49:25):
of what's important for you,that all starts to open up more
and more, which is incredible.
It's it's such a gift.
And if you have a mess, do youhave a message for someone who's
just starting this journey ofturning back inward, who's just
learning how to pause and checkin to prioritize rest more than
(49:47):
productivity, what would thatmessage be?
Maegan Megginson (49:49):
Twofold, I think.
First is just saying to youthat everything in our society
reinforces this idea thatproductivity and success are
productivity and success are theways that we have value in the
world.
The more productive you are,the more successful you are, the
(50:11):
more the world sees you assomeone who has merit, as
someone who is worthy, assomeone who has value.
So I just want you to hear thatyou're up against so many
powerful forces that are askingyou to be someone you're not at
your core.
And if the mountain feels bigand tall and hard to climb,
(50:33):
we're right there with you.
We feel that too.
It is big, it is tall, it ishard to climb.
And what you need more thananything is community.
You need people who get it.
You need people who areclimbing the same mountain who
can say, Hey, I did that part ofthe trail a couple of years
ago.
Here's a shortcut, here's a protip.
Like you need to be with peoplewho can support you on this
(50:56):
journey so you don't feel sooverwhelmed by how big it all
feels.
So I would say that first andforemost.
And the other thing that Iwould say thinking about rest
specifically is a reminder thatrest can look like a hundred
different things.
And if you as a highlysensitive person are trying to
(51:19):
rest in the same ways you sawanother highly sensitive person
rest, or you saw your mom anddad rest, and it's not working
for you.
Let's say, for example, you'relike, maybe I just need more
sleep.
Maybe I just need to lay downand be quiet and take a nap,
which is what most of us thinkresting is, but that's not
meeting the need for you.
I just want you to know thatyou can do anything you want to
(51:41):
rest.
As long as it recharges yourbatteries and calms your nervous
system, it's rest.
Maybe it's intense exercise,right?
Maybe it's art, maybe it'swriting poetry, maybe it's
spiritual practice, maybe it isconnecting with friends, having
deep conversation.
The opportunities for you torest are endless and they're
(52:01):
available to you all the time.
Yes, this journey is hard.
Make sure you find communityand know that opportunities to
rest are available to you everymoment of every day.
April Snow (52:13):
It's so beautiful.
There are so many versions ofrestorative practice, and it's
so important to remember thatit's not a one-size-fits-all
approach.
And I appreciate that you saidnot even with another HSP are we
gonna have the same practice.
Yeah, we're all unique.
Maegan Megginson (52:32):
It's the danger sometimes of HSP
communities in particular.
Like I know I'm saying you needcommunity of sensitive people,
and I believe that, butsometimes the HSP communities
can become a bit homogenous, youknow.
April Snow (52:45):
Absolutely.
And it's large.
We talk about HSPs.
There are billions of HSPs onthe planet.
Maegan Megginson (52:49):
Right.
30% we don't all need the samethings.
April Snow (52:53):
Exactly.
Important to offer that becauseI've seen this.
A lot of folks get caught intoI don't look like this, the
majority of the community.
This doesn't work for mebecause maybe you're an
extroverted HSP.
You need more sensationseeking, or you're highly
introverted, you're an outlierin the community.
You start to feel like I don'tfit in, I don't understand what
(53:13):
I need.
Just look back inward.
It's okay.
Maegan Megginson (53:16):
That's right.
Yeah, that's right.
And those are the for me, thosethe communities that I love to
be in and that I seek out arethe communities where we are
saying, How am I different thanyou?
How are you different than me?
How can we experiment together?
Coming back to the idea ofexperimenting.
Yeah, you have to experimentbecause the unique makeup that
(53:37):
you need to be well as asensitive person will not look
the same as my makeup.
It will not look the same asApril's.
Exactly.
So experiment and find supporton the journey.
That's that's what makes itmagical.
April Snow (53:50):
It's true.
I love that.
Thank you so much for sharingall of that, Megan, for the
inspiration and the permissionto come back to self, to pause,
to listen to our needs, to takeour time in figuring it out, and
to permission to be imperfectalong the way.
I think that's so important.
Maegan Megginson (54:07):
There's no other way to be.
April Snow (54:09):
There's no other way to be.
Exactly.
So I'll link your website andthen you also have a resource
recover from burnout.
I'll put that all in the shownotes.
Can you tell folks a little bitmore about what that is?
Maegan Megginson (54:20):
Yeah, I would love to.
First of all, April and I metin a business group way back in
like 2016, 2017.
And ever since then, you havebeen such an inspiration to me.
You've been such a pillar oflight as I was navigating my own
sensitive journey.
And I'm so grateful to you andso thrilled that you have this
(54:41):
show, and just so honored tohave this conversation with you
today.
So thank you so much for doingthis, for having me.
Um, so grateful the work you'redoing in the world is it really
just is like a beacon of lightfor those of us who grow up
without any understanding ofwhat any of this is.
You are so important.
Um, thank you.
April Snow (55:00):
I appreciate that.
Maegan Megginson (55:02):
And this was so fun.
So, yes, what I have to say, ifif you want to step into a
world where we get a little edgyand talk about things like deep
rest and recovering fromburnout and being highly
sensitive as a business owner inparticular, I would love to
have you in my community, whichlives in your inbox.
So there are two ways to dothat.
(55:22):
You can just jump on mynewsletter.
It's called the Deeply RestedNewsletter.
You can sign up on my website.
Or if you are struggling withburnout right now, if you're
deep in it, I have a 10-dayemail series called Recover from
Burnout Without Doing Anythingor Buying Anything.
And it's an email a day for 10days.
(55:43):
There's also a private podcastfeed if you'd rather listen to
it as audio.
And I walk you through littleways that we can unhook and
deprogram and begin to shift thetide in our lives so that we
can feel better while we'redoing really good work in the
world.
So that's what I have to offer.
April Snow (56:01):
Beautiful.
And I must say, Megan, you'vebeen such a companion for me
over the last eight years or so.
I think we've shared indifferent parts of our journey,
unhooking from needing to showup like everyone else, unhooking
from the expectation ofhyperproductivity and
achievement and just comingback, what's meaningful and
(56:23):
important to us.
And I love that you saidleaning into burnout recovery
without needing to do anything.
It sounds perfect.
Maegan Megginson (56:32):
Yes.
April Snow (56:33):
Yeah, and I appreciate the work you're doing
around honoring rest and in allits forms, because I think that
is something we really need.
So thank you for doing that.
Maegan Megginson (56:42):
It is my delight and my pleasure, and
just one of the great benefitsof being a sensitive person in
the world that we get to do ourwork, we get to explore the
depths of our souls, and then weget to bring what we're
discovering to other people.
And it's such an honor, it'ssuch a pleasure.
Thank you so much for lettingme talk about it here on your
(57:04):
lovely show.
April Snow (57:05):
Yes.
Thank you for being here.
Thanks so much for joining meand Megan for today's
conversation.
The message I hope you'rewalking away with is that it's
okay to set down theexpectations of others to honor
(57:25):
your sensitive needs.
And as you reconnect withyourself, allow time to
experiment with what feels mostsupportive.
If you enjoyed this episode,subscribe to the Sensitive
Stories podcast so you don'tmiss our upcoming conversations.
Reviews and ratings are alsohelpful and appreciated.
For behind the scenes contentand more HSP resources, you can
(57:47):
sign up for my email list orfollow Sensitive Strengths on
Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
Check out the show notes orsensitivestories.com for all the
resources from today's episode.
Thanks for listening.
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