Stress During the Holidays with Todd Smith

Feeling drained after holiday gatherings and wondering why you’re carrying everyone else’s emotions? 

In this episode of Call It In With Dar, I’m joined by Todd Smith, creator of a leading podcast for Highly Sensitive People. Todd shares gentle, practical tools to help you stop absorbing stress that isn’t yours, release what you can’t control, and find peace—without needing anyone else to change. If you’re sensitive, thoughtful, and craving calm this holiday season… this conversation is for you. 

This episode is a beautiful reminder that peace doesn’t come from managing everyone else—it comes from coming home to yourself. So take a breath, get comfortable, and let’s call in clarity, calm, and emotional freedom… even during the holidays. Call IT in With Dar 

The LoveTuner
The Lovetuner is a simple flute is considered to be the vibration of love and compassion.

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Transcript

Feeling drained after holiday gatherings and wondering why you’re carrying everyone else’s emotions? 

In this episode of Call It In With Dar, I’m joined by Todd Smith, creator of a leading podcast for Highly Sensitive People. Todd shares gentle, practical tools to help you stop absorbing stress that isn’t yours, release what you can’t control, and find peace—without needing anyone else to change. If you’re sensitive, thoughtful, and craving calm this holiday season… this conversation is for you. 

This episode is a beautiful reminder that peace doesn’t come from managing everyone else—it comes from coming home to yourself. So take a breath, get comfortable, and let’s call in clarity, calm, and emotional freedom… even during the holidays. Call IT in With Dar 

Speaker Dar 

Welcome Todd, I'm excited to talk with you today about highly sensitive people and the stress that many of us go through with the holidays. But before we jump into that, how about telling us a little bit about yourself and how you got to this point of doing this work. 

Speaker Todd   

Thank you, Darla, it's great to be here with you. I have been a lifelong seeker and lifelong meditator. I learned to meditate when I was six, and I've been doing it steadily now for basically 50 years. I lived in an ashram for about 10 years. I then ended up in a relationship, and didn't know how to deal with that, and I had to learn some new skills. I learned the Work of Byron Katie, and I got trained in that eventually, and only later in the last few years did I learn that I'm a highly sensitive person, and it's like all the pieces sort of fit together. So I serve highly sensitive people in dealing with stress and trying to reduce stress, while accepting our sensitivity that it's not something we need to change or correct. 

Speaker Dar 

Well, you and I are mutual fans of Byron Katie's work. So how about defining our terms for this discussion? Sounds good? 

Speaker Todd 

So yeah, let's talk about stress at the holiday time. I think it's something that all of us face as human beings and as highly sensitive people. We pick up on stress more easily. We notice when things are off more acutely, and we dial into that feeling of unease or stress. Sometimes in social interactions, many of us are introverted. Not everyone who's highly sensitive, about 30% are extroverts, but most are introvert as well. So that adds another layer of stress to the holidays.  

Speaker Dar 

Could you get maybe a little bit more specific about how different people react to different stressors? 

Speaker Todd 

Okay, yeah, so each of us is unique, but we all experience stress as something, usually something that we can't change, or we don't think we can change, and we feel powerless in some regard. And so when we're wanting something to be different than the way it is, that's when stress begins. And this can happen in relationships; this can happen in work situations. This can happen with our health. Can happen in so many different ways, but it's how you see the stressful situation that makes all the difference in whether your experience is extremely stressful or even possibly neutral or even not stressful at all. 

Speaker Dar 

Yes, and the word that came into my mind when you're saying, how we label it is, how about the emotion of overwhelm? 

Speaker Todd 

Oh, my goodness, yeah, this is one of the defining characteristics of being a highly sensitive person. We are overwhelmed sooner than other people. It's the way we're built. We process things deeply. We're super emotional and intuitive, and we are empathetic, and we also take in all of the sensory information that other people miss. And so as a result, when that comes into our nervous system, we have a lot to process, and as a result, we reach that state of overwhelm much quicker than normal, normal, quote, unquote, people who are not highly sensitive. 

Speaker 1 Dar 

Yes, and as you were speaking, I was thinking of, I think it was empathic, is the word that probably triggered it. But I was thinking about how I knew I needed to. I'm just going to speak for myself. I know I needed to determine what was mine and what wasn't I. Yeah, because that contributes so largely to my over my personal overwhelm and being intuitive and being empathic and feeling what other people are feeling, and not knowing whether it was my own or not, I've kind of been there, done that. So would you address that a little bit? 

Speaker Todd 

Yeah, that's a really, really important factor. I think sometimes people mistakenly think that sensitivity is the same as stress, because we can get stressed easily. We can get overwhelmed easily, but the real cause of stress is just what you say is getting confused into what is mine and what is someone else's. And if you can tease that apart and see more clearly this is their business and this is my business, then you can stay more easily in your lane, even while you're being empathetic, even while you're understanding, even while you're being loving to another person, but you're not taking on what is theirs, and therefore you're staying clear, centered and you can you can move on after that conversation, or you don't Get extra involved more than you need to be. So this is something that is essential for staying sane in any kind of relationship. And it's, I think, something that comes up especially for us as sensitive people. The main difference between my business and someone else's business is what I can control. If I can control it, then that's my business to some degree. If it's something, I can't control how they think, what they feel, how their life should be going like that's not my business. I can't control it. And so if I'm trying to control something, I can't control it's a formula for stress. Absolutely. 

Speaker Dar 

I love how clear you made that it's a formula for stress. So I also like the way you talked about being clear centered and in your life. Could you give us an example, a practical example of that? 

Speaker Todd 

Yeah, you know, I had a little mini argument with my partner maybe a couple three weeks ago, and it was while I was resting, getting ready for bed. I do a kind of wind down routine. And my partner came in with something about the car, like it's electric cars, chargers not working, or something, and I took it as this is he's telling me to go out and take care of it. And I immediately took this servant attitude, and I was angry about it internally, but I didn't show anything, and I kind of stormed out and did it. And then it didn't get me that badly, but it did get me. So I went back and did some work on it, did The Work of Byron Katie on it, and I started seeing where I'd gotten out of my lane. I was assuming that he was commanding me to do something, and he wasn't. I was taking that on myself. I was assuming that it was something more like top down, whereas I think he was actually coming as an equal, wanting to talk about what are the possibilities? And so when you start to see what's mine and what's the other person's, you start to have this clarity of, okay, I can actually engage with that and ask and even vouch for myself, say, Can we do that in a few more minutes? Or what, you know, talk about it as an equal, rather than going into this hierarchical kind of setup, 

Speaker Dar  

Yes, and, and, I think that example can be transferred to multiple situations for all of us humans. That just sounds human to me, yes, so could you keep client confidentiality and yet tell us a client transformation? 

Speaker Todd  

Yeah, I have a client that has been working with me for probably about a year and a half, and she has had ongoing, you know, since childhood, just misunderstanding and difficulty with her mother and it was to the point where she just didn't want to. Want to go home for visits at the holidays, and so she resisted that and got stressed when she eventually did. And I spoke with her not that long ago, and she had recently visited after doing a lot of her own inner work, and she said it was amazing. It was like, I had never met that mother before. It was like the same experience was not there, like the mother was still commanding. The mother was still impatient, all of the things that triggered her, but because she had done so much of her inner work, she was able to see options around that so that it didn't go right into the pattern that she had always been in. I love seeing those kinds of stories. My whole life is kind of examples of that when I first got in to relationship with my partner over 20 years ago was very challenging for me, and what happened as I did my inner work, is that the same relationship just got easier and lighter, and I started having the ability to navigate and take up space in it and be An equal in it, instead of being a victim. Yeah, Speaker Dar beautiful, thank you for the personal example too. Could you lead us through an activity? Here we are going into the holidays and going into the new year, and it'd be wonderful to just have a little bit more awareness, just like your client did, 

Speaker Todd  

absolutely, yeah, So I invite you, if you're listening, close your eyes and imagine what kind of things are coming up for you at the holiday time. Maybe you're getting together with family, maybe you're getting together with friends, maybe you're alone. But imagine what's coming up for you. And imagine if there's any part of that that feels a little stressful, maybe there's a little something anxiety producing, or something you're a little worried about, or you're remembering some past incidents, think a little bit about what could be possibly stressful coming up. And as you zoom in on a situation, pay attention to your internal to your emotions. Those are the guides. They are showing you where the stress is, and so pay attention. Is there a little anxiety? Do you feel something in your belly or your heart or your throat? Notice and be there in your imagination, in that future situation, what are the people saying? What are they doing? 

Where are you? What's your experience? Now, if you find something specific that you're worried about, what is that? What are you most afraid of? And what I'd love you to do is see if you can translate that emotion into a thought like mind and body are intimately connected, and so if you feel an emotion, there will be a corresponding thought going along with that. So what is that? What are you actually afraid of? Can you name it like I'm not going to be accepted, or I don't belong here, or I need to do a really good job. What is it for you? Connect the emotion to something thought, whatever that thought is, and notice just in your imagination what it would be like if you're believing that thought versus what it would be like if you're not believing that thought, compare imagine with the thought. I don't belong here. 

Feel the stress. Notice how you react, and imagine yourself in the same situation without that thought, who would you be? Imagine this imagination is powerful, and it leads you to get a taste of what it's like when you are a little more separated from the thoughts that are running and. 

Speaker Dar 

Okay, so thank you. Wonderful. What a great activity, getting us all the more ready for that special time of year. Because, you know, everybody says the lines from the music that it's the most wonderful time of year, but there are people that are having trouble with acclimating. There are people who maybe have gone through some heavy grief right now. There's all different reasons for feeling stress during the holiday season, and I just want to acknowledge that, could you tell everyone about the gift you have for them? It's the season to give gifts. 

Speaker Todd 

True enough. Yes. So my gift to you is a little test that can show you where your sensitivity is and where your stress levels are, and the difference between the two. I think a lot of times we get confused thinking that we're sensitive and therefore stressed, but sensitivity and stress are two different things. So I have a little quiz that you can take on my website at true inner freedom.com and it's called the HSP stress test, and it's probably 40 or 50 questions, and you will answer them quickly, and you will get an idea of where you are on the level of sensitivity and where you are on the level of different areas of stress. 

Speaker Dar  

Beautiful gift. Thank you. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Before we wrap up, is there anything else that comes up for you that you feel that you want our audience to know going into this new year? 

Speaker Todd 

Yeah, I think the feeling that I want to convey is that our stress is a gift to us. We tend to think of it as wanting to get rid of our stress, and while that's true, stress serves a beautiful role. It gives us information, and when we feel stress, it's just a little alarm clock saying, Hey, check it out. There's something going on, something's off. So look a little closer. And I think our instincts are to run away from stress, but my invitation to you is to move closer to stress. Get curious about stress, find out what it is that's causing that stress, and then, as you do, you may find that the stress itself begins to become clearer and may even dissolve just through attention alone. 

Speaker Dar 

Yes, thank you, Todd, pay attention and get curious. Great recommendation. Thank you for being with us today. I appreciate you so much.  

Speaker Todd You're so welcome. 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai