How Highly Sensitive People can Thrive in Their Careers with Dr. Tracy Cooper

Have you ever felt like you're just "too sensitive for work" and experienced frequent burnout? This episode, featuring a leading expert on highly sensitive person and their careers, helps you identify if your job is quietly damaging your nervous system. Learn what steps to take next to address career misalignment and improve your overall work life balance, and how to deal with burnout. 

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 Why HSPs keep burning out at work
02:30 The biggest mistake sensitive people make with careers
05:17 What a highly sensitive nervous system is really like
07:33 Early warning signs your job is draining you
10:16 Why boredom can be just as exhausting as overwhelm
12:07 A simple “system check” for your energy this week
14:22 How to tell if your work actually fits you
19:10 Why HSPs change careers more often
22:32 Can boredom actually be a good thing?
24:06 High Sensation Seeking HSPs (and why you get restless)
25:54 What a good career fit feels like vs. a bad one
28:10 Why meaning and autonomy matter so much
29:29 Signs your job is quietly draining your nervous system
30:59 Key questions to ask if something feels “off”
34:39 Why things stop working in your 30s & 40s
40:48 Why women think they are the problem
44:06 Burnout vs. misalignment (crucial difference)
47:11 Stop pushing through: working with your sensitivity
49:28 Small changes that make a big difference
51:40 What to say to your boss (realistic scripts)
54:49 How to say no without guilt
56:30 Talking to your partner about needing change
59:45 Sensitive men & work (what’s different)
01:03:30 If you’re at rock bottom — what to remember
 
🔗 Resources

• 📘 Thrive: The Highly Sensitive Person and Career – Dr. Tracy Cooper
https://drtracycooper.org/

• ▶️ Watch my earlier video on HSP careers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRiyceSlUgY

Transcript

Have you ever had this thought? I must just be too sensitive for work because every job I've ever had has eventually burned me out. If this applies to you, this episode may completely transform your work life. Today, I'm talking with one of the world's leading experts on highly sensitive people and careers. And by the end of this conversation, you'll have a simple way to tell whether your job is quietly damaging your nervous system and what to do next. One of my most watched videos has been about careers for people with a sensitive nervous system. Check it out if you haven't already. And so many of you told me you finally felt seen in your struggles at work. So today we're going deeper. I'm honored to be joined by Dr. Tracy Cooper, author of Thrive: The Highly Sensitive Person and Career. He's done extensive research on how sensitive nervous systems interact with modern workplaces and how we can move from just surviving our jobs to thriving. Dr. Cooper, thank you so much for being here. Well, thank you, Esther. I'm delighted to join you on this podcast. I'd love to dive right in with the pain point my audience feels the most. What is the biggest mistake highly sensitive people make when it comes to careers? When someone tells you, "Every job I take eventually burns me out," what do you hear underneath that? And what's really going wrong in the system? Well, what I hear underneath that is perhaps that the person didn't know themselves very well as a sensitive person. And that's pretty common amongst HSPs, that we don't know ourselves very well either growing up or in our early adult lives. So I believe that it's a matter of coming to an awareness of the fact that we're highly sensitive if we are and then understanding what that implies as far as the workforce is concerned. So when I hear somebody has burned out repeatedly or has not worked out repeatedly it can be a complex picture but I think at the root of it is that they don't know themselves very well and they perhaps haven't chosen very well the type of career that they've gotten into or the type of positions that they accept. So when that can come into focus that you're a highly sensitive person and that means certain things for you then you'll choose maybe careers that are more appropriate for you that may work with your sensitive nervous system even better than you have in the past. But we all have to learn somehow and I think there's a certain amount of trial and error on the on that journey. So perhaps that's also part of what we're hearing at the same time. So on this channel I talk about sensitive nervous systems almost like finely tuned engines. incredible when used properly but very easy to overheat. So from your research which is extensive how would you describe the highly sensitive nervous system in a workplace context if we think of it like an engine or a biological system right so I think of our dear Dr. Ted Zev who passed a few years ago used to say that that we had a finely tuned nervous system we HSPs and that we are geared towards you know not only picking up more from the environment the external environment but we're more aware of our internal environment what's happening with our bodies and how we're feeling and how we're processing everything that happens that we're taking in. So, we know when we're feeling exhausted. We know we in fact we know when other people through the interpersonal relationships when there's tension, when there's conflict, when there's about to be. We know maybe perhaps when other people aren't feeling well. But within the workforce, bringing that temperament into focus and applying it in some practical way tends to be the real challenge for highly sensitive people. And we work in all career fields. It's one of the first things we should acknowledge is that we're in all career fields. One of the biggest groupings though is what I like to call the helping professions. We tend to be grouped within those helping professions. Whether it's the healthc care field, education, creativity, even business management. Those kinds of fields tend to attract people because they impact more lives one-on-one. We have that ability to improve the lives of other people in very measurable and quantifiable ways. Those tend to be very gratifying. So when we apply it in the right way or in a sustainable way, our sensitive nervous systems can really play to our advantage in that way to other people's advantage as well. I'm definitely one of those psychotherapist is one of the top careers for HSPs and you're an educator, professor. I think that's pretty high up there as well. What happens when that engine is pushed to its limits every single day at work? What are the early warning signs people often ignore, especially when someone's not in the right career as an HSP? Oh my gosh, when someone is not in the right career or the right job, and we should separate the two because someone could have a job and that not be their career necessarily if they're still finding their way and that's perfectly fine. But when you're pushed to the wall and you feel like, wow, my system is crashing. You know, you know, you have chosen the wrong job, the wrong position, you're in the wrong career possibly. And it depends on, it's such a complex picture. Depends on where you're at within that career. You know, have you just started? Is this a new position for you? Is this something that you will get used to in time? Or is this something that really you are burned out? You know, you're out of energy. You're out of ideas. Your creativity has has drained out of you. There's nothing left. At that point, I don't know. Maybe it's time to think about really doing something else. If you burned yourself out in that way, you need a rest. You need to be able to recuperate and refresh and restore. So when that happens, the sensitive nervous system, you know, it's a heck of a thing to possess at the same time when it crashes in that way because you can crash not only physically but emotionally as well. And it can take quite a while to recover from that. So we really want to be somewhat precious about protecting our nervous systems, protecting our bodies, and understanding how they're going to interact with this what is in fact an insane world out there of work with people who generally are not like us. They're generally more built to handle the stress and the chaos. So, we tend to encounter more of that in the workplace and not do as well. So, when we're in a good environment, a positive environment, supportive, we tend to do better. We tend to do really better than other people. But we're when we're in a chaotic environment or a negative environment or a draining environment, we tend to do worse than other people. So, we really want to avoid those environments that are particularly chaotic or draining or manipulative or exploited in some way or that don't hold practical meaning for our lives or whatever the case. And the important point is it doesn't need to be 100% perfect. In fact, you are not going to find that 100% perfect career or job. It just needs to be more often than not. So it will always be a compromise between does this largely fulfill most of my needs and then the rest of your needs may be filled outside of career. So that's kind of an important distinction that we are looking at career here but understanding that hey there's also the rest of our lives outside of career where we can seek fulfillment. I think that's a very good point. Yes. also to have things that give we need purpose and meaning and we need yeah depth and you know things that give us a lot of meaning and purpose and satisfaction. So on the flip side what happens when that engine is idling when the work is boring, meaningless or under stimulating for a sensitive person that is a good segue talking about how we need meaning. Exactly. I've had a few of those positions, believe it or not, that were repetitious and boring and meaningless other than providing a paycheck. And can you tell us the worst ones? Oh my gosh. When I got out of the military I got out of the military service in 1986. My first job, believe it or not, was working at a slaughter house. You're kidding. Processing pigs. My goodness. I only lasted a few days, but I still count that as probably one of my absolute worst experiences. And believe it or not, it wasn't just the sight of the carcasses going by on a on a track, but it was the boredom and the sheer monotony of having to do the same task over and over and over and over. I those kinds of positions before I actually ended life went back and did something better with my time. But unriving that repetition and that boredom is something that can completely drain you, completely sap your creativity, completely sap your energy. And those types of positions are to be survived. But hopefully you learn from those as well at the same time. Too often have to go on that journey a little bit to understand that this doesn't work for me so well. But you may have very practical implications to why you're there such as you need a paycheck and you need to eat, you need to pay for your bills and that kind of thing. So we're not disparaging that and saying, "Hey, it always has to be perfect for you." It does not. It just needs to be more supportive more often than not. Yeah. So sometimes we need we learn what we do want by doing what we don't want to be doing. Yeah. I've had many. Yeah. I can relate. So if someone watching is constantly exhausted after work, what quick system check would you have them run this week? Maybe two or three questions they can ask themselves. I would think first in terms of how well are they in touch with their own bodies? Are they getting enough sleep? Are they hydrating correctly? Are they really stressed? What is their home life like? And then I would think about career because if that support system isn't good when you're going into work in the morning, you're you're exhausted from the start. So, you know, considering what may be going on at work, is it a particularly busy time of year for you at work? Are they asking too much of you? Are you the kind of person that can't say no to extra task? Those kinds of things can overload you. So, check in with yourself periodically. And we neglect the basics. And I'm sorry, but the basics are you need to get enough sleep and it needs to be quality sleep. You need to get enough hydration, which means water. You need to get good social interactions. You need to get a good varied diet. And if you don't have all these things in place, you're going to be exhausted going in because your body isn't feeling well. If you're not feeling well, you can't function well. So just the very fundamental basics first and then think about what is the job asking of you at the same time. then I think you'll begin to pick apart that complexity. Yeah, I like those. I I would add to that maybe exercise um and and time to be alone because we really need our time alone, don't we? As HSPs, time to restore and sometimes that happens concurrently with exercise. If you're someone who takes a walk like I do, um that gives you some alone time and some solitude time. And solitude is not a bad thing. We need that time to recharge sometimes to process when we're not taking in stimulation, when we're not in front of whatever is happening in the world. We need that quiet time. Sometimes that's during exercise. So, absolutely, exercise is a key thing. Your body must move in order to function correctly. Yeah. No, wonderful. So, a lot of highly sensitive people don't realize that it's not just what they do, it's whether their work is compatible with how they're wired. So, in your wonderful book, Thrive, you talk about the shift from surviving to thriving, which I love. I'd love to make that practical for people listening, especially when it comes to their work. So, if someone is trying to figure out whether their work truly supports them as an HSP, where would you suggest they begin? What are the most important things to start paying attention to? I would say first, if your work supports you as an HSP, I would ask the question rather, are you supporting yourself as an HSP going into it? Are you aligned with your values? Do you know what your values are? Do you understand correctly and accurately what high sensitivity is? Because I found that many people do not. They have preconceptions about it, misconceptions about it, and they confuse it with other things. You know, sensitivity is a is a neutral trait in and of itself. So, it doesn't mean one thing or another. So, many people confuse that and misconceive of what the trait actually is. So, but if you understand yourself going into it, I think you're going to be better off. Then you can begin to ask those questions of what kind of career would work for me the best given that I'm highly sensitive but also a highly sensitive person that's reasonably in balance going into it. So if you need meaning and autonomy and relatedness and you need to feel competent in your work then what kinds of careers work for you? We already said the helping careers helping professions tend to work really well for us. Now they have their vagaries they have their tough days like a psychotherapist. I mean maybe you see too many clients in a day and you're exhausted by it. I know that feeling for me working in higher education. I I work with doctoral students, so I read a lot of dissertations. I'm not going to say that's exciting. Reading is part of the work, right? And I plan for that. I know I'm going to be physically tired afterwards. It's going to take a toll on me energetically. So, it's a matter of considering. And I think you got to experiment. I don't know what age your audience is. They could be anywhere. It could be maybe teenagers or 20s or 30s or 40s or up. To mid-4s, 20s to mid-40s. You've got people that are just building their career. You got people that are perhaps established. And you got people now that are are retrospectively reflecting on where they want to go next in midlife. So each one of those passages uh is a different time in life. So if you're just starting out and you're considering what career should I take or what career should I get into, that's a different answer, a different ask than someone that's already had a career in their 30s or somebody that's looking back after 20 years in a career in their 40s. So, what you should think about is a starter career. When you're in your 20s, hopefully you went to college, you got some training, even if it was vocational training, and you could do something that's fairly skilled, and you should do something that's fairly skilled as a sensitive person because you have a lot of capacities, and you shouldn't be working in an unskilled labor position very long. So, get some training and do something that you can at least make some decent money with to support yourself. That could be the stepping stone to greater things. So, and that may not be the best thing going in, but make sure it's sustainable. Make sure it works for you. And there's a lot of things within the vocational field that could work really well for a sensitive person. Some things that would not work very well, but there are definitely things starting out that you could do that would work well enough for that age group going forward into your 30s. Yeah, definitely. How do you move up? Do you want to move up? Are you happy where you're at? Depends on your background again. Where did you have a firm foundation growing up? So you don't experience a lot of anxiety and depression and you're not fearful of things. But on the other hand, if you did, well, you may be primarily concerned with safety and security. That's maybe your primary focus throughout life, no matter which phase you're in. So depending on that complexity and where you fall within any of that, what is prominent for you as a sensitive person? Consider, do I like working with people one-on-one? Do I like working with groups of people? Do I like working with the general public? Probably not. Um, do I like working with other professional people? You know, do I prefer working with vocationally trained people? All of these things. Do I prefer to be self-employed? I think everyone should work for a small business at some time or another or have a small business of their own because I believe it can provide a lot of autonomy and opportunity that you couldn't get otherwise. So, if you're someone that's later, say in your 40s and you're reflecting back, perhaps you've had a good career already. What do I want to do next? Well, it may be a matter of building on that. Maybe you could do something that's related. Maybe you do consulting work. Maybe you decide I want to be a counselor and I now I want to shift gears and start helping people in some way. Perhaps you had a successful business career and now you want to train other people in a more holistic management style. Right? Maybe you want to get into education field. You wanted to be a teacher and you couldn't do it early on. Maybe you do that going back. So I think the encouraging thing is you can always bring your trait to bear on skills for the workforce and you can get new skills for the workforce and you can integrate quite successfully. So I think you've also got to know the landscape and the terrain of what's happening in the 21st century. How technology is changing things particularly AI right and how that's going to affect certain career fields. Don't get into a career field that's going to be obsolete in 10 years. So there's an awful lot I think that HSPs with our intuition, with our ability to take in everything from the environment should be utilizing that to feel it out so we know what feels correct for us. But also talk to other people, network with other people, particularly talk with people who are already doing something you think you'd like to do. Make friends with them, get to know them, interview them. What's good about your career and what sucks about it? Should I do this? And will they mentor you along the way? Everybody needs a good mentor. So I think there's a number of steps you can take and it depends on what phase of life you're at but you always can reinvent yourself and there are many ways many opportunities where you can fit into the workforce even working for yourself as an HSP. Yeah. No wonderful wonderful advice. I I think that there's so much there. It's very very rich. And I think they say that the average person has five careers or five kind of types of jobs in their life. I wonder if it's higher for HSPs. I think what I see for HSPs, I've been working as an HSP therapist for 29 years. I've just seen we bounce around a lot and we get bored so easily. It seems to me, you know, and we do so many different types of things. I don't know if you see that, Dr. Cooper, but depends on the person, right? We're we're very different from each other and it's always, I think, not great to paint with a broad brush when we say highly sensitive people because we're all very different from each other. We mentioned that we can have very different kinds of backgrounds early on. Other words, those people who experienced a positive supportive background, those who did not. That's going to color life dramatically, but also socioeconomic background. What kind of family did you come from? What social class were you from? Come from, what is your social location, right? What is your geographic location? All those things have an impact in what kinds of careers you can take on and what you will even think of taking on. So, yes, we can bounce around a lot. I'm living proof of that. Here's my second act. Yeah. Tell tell us about your career journey. My career journey is, as I said, I had a number of different kinds of I would not say career, but jobs early on. And uh it wasn't until my early 40s that I went back and finished some higher education and then followed it on through because I never I never hit a wall to where I couldn't get over it and decided finally I was going to go for the doctorate. And I did that in midlife and finished that by 47. I would have preferred to have done that by 37 or earlier, but uh you know, this is where I'm at. And I reinvented myself and did found something that was more fulfilling and rewarding and meaningful. And I've been able to work with people one-on-one. And I've also been able to get into higher education. So that's been rewarding in its own way because I literally now um am able to help people who are going to be aspire to be higher education leaders. So these individuals go on to become university presidents, vice presidents, chancellors, registars, people who impact the lives of literally thousands of students. So that's kind of a cool feature of what I do. At the same time, I have this dual life going on, but you never would have expected from me in those early days when I went in the military at 17 years old. That's not what you would expected I would have done. So you could reinvent yourself quite dramatically and boredom can become part of that fuel that keeps you going. Sup boredom is not necessarily a bad thing. It can be something that can lead you to new opportunities. It's interesting, Dr. Cooper. I often tell people like as a psychotherapist that anger is fuel. That we can use anger as fuel to make change in our lives. But I like that idea that boredom can be fuel, too. We don't want to get stuck, you know, we don't get get complacent. And maybe if we're bored enough, that can spark some different journey going in a different direction. I love that. And your your story is so fascinating. Wow. It's uh you know, boredom is really a symptom of being under stimulated. If you're a sensitive person, you're feeling under stimulated. I almost guarantee you're bored, right? Your capacities are not being brought to bear in ways that are really useful or meaningful for you. So, you're going to feel bored if it's repetitious. If you've done that work before, if it doesn't hold any challenge for you, if you're not having flow experiences regularly and you're not in that flow state where where your challenges are being brought to or your capacity is being brought to bear on something that is a challenge and then you sort of lose track of time and you go with the work itself and it becomes self-rewarding. If you're not having those experiences on a regular basis, you're probably bored and there's a good reason for that. Your work doesn't offer that for you or your life doesn't offer that for you. I think now is a good juncture to add in um Dr. Cooper is also an expert on uh HSPs that are also high sensation seekers. So I'm just wondering if we can blend that piece into it around career. If an highly sensitive person is also a high sensation seeker, how does that apply to their career? Oh, right. This is a whole another flavor of highly sensitive person is the high sensation seeker as I like to call the sensitive sensation seeker. So you know and we're a significant percentage of highly sensitive people. So this is a very salient and relevant aspect to discuss. So within the highly sensitive population if you are high in sensation seek or even moderately high in sensation seeking you're going to love novelty. You're going to be a very curious person. You're probably going to be a creative person. You're going to be somebody that likes adventure. Doesn't necessarily mean physical adventure. It could mean curiosity. It means you follow new paths, new journeys. So you can see then how that becomes a real fuel in and of itself. But sensation seeking is geared towards expression in the world, outward expression. Sensitivity is geared towards taking in stimulation. So when you have both of these happening, you have stimulation coming in. The sensitive side is processing it, looking for an output. Well, the sensation seeking side is say, what can I do with this? I'm going to create something. my curiosity and my boredom susceptibility is going to fuel me to create new things whether it's a business or I'm going to do a new position or I'm going to do this other degree program or whatever the case. So you have quite a dynamically charged individual if you are high sensation seeking and highly sensitive at the same time. Wow. So for those of you who don't know I also did an interview with two people who are HSB high sensation seekers or as you say sensitive sensation seekers. I love that. Yeah. So you can watch that video here. So moving on, one piece I see come up repeatedly is the actual nature of the work itself. How it fits with how a sensitive person processes, thinks, and interacts. So can you talk a little bit about what it looks like in real life when it it's a good fit and when it's not? Oh, right. Yeah. When it's a good fit, you're highly sensitive and you have a good fit as far as career is concerned. Yeah. So those capacities for deep reflection, for deeper processing, for using your intuition, for using your empathy, those things when they're in alignment with your position, whether you're working say as a counselor for instance, or you're working as some kind of customer service role, when those things are in alignment, that's an incredible sort of feeling because you're literally in those flow experiences. You're probably having those very frequently. In other words, you're losing track of time and you're just doing the work itself and it feels effortless almost that you're getting a a real satisfaction from that. When you're in a position where it aligns and it is aligned with your work and there's meaning and purpose and you feel like it's it's uh you're competent at your work and it's you're able to grow within that capacity. I think it does feel really wonderful when it's not aligned. I think you can sense that pretty easily too. when it's not feeling challenging anymore, when the people that you're working with are not the right kind of people for you to be working with, you can tell pretty quickly because that that spark is gone for you. Particularly if you are a high sensation seeker, that spark is gone pretty quick and the boredom sets in. If you are a sensitive sensation seeker, you are not geared towards one long-term career. You're geared towards shorter term projects. That's a wrinkle that is quite a difficult one. If you're a sensitive person that perhaps is much lower in sensation seeking, then maybe you're geared towards something that is longer term, but you need to think about how does that support you? How does that sustain you? Because when it does not, again, it becomes an environment that doesn't support you. And we do far worse in those environments. And if you're a sensitive person, you're in that kind of environment, we tend to stay in that environment for too long. Sometimes for fear of a change, sometimes because we're stuck at it because of economics, financial need, whatever the case, but there can be a lot of fear around change. And sensitive people are no strangers to fear. Yes. Unfortunately, I know all about that. Yeah. So, you alluded very strongly to the fact that it's important to feel like what you're actually doing matters to you and gives your work meaning. So, how does this show up for highly sensitive people? And what tends to happen when that piece is missing? Yeah, that sense of meaning. In the original study that I did for Thrive, that was one of the strongest aspects that was communicated to me by my study participants was that need for personal meaning. That need for meaning connected with their work, whether it was a career or a job, and the need for autonomy within that. So, autonomy is a huge piece for sensitive people. We don't do well when being tightly controlled. We do better when we're empowered to work on our own and have somebody available to ask a question or some guidance, but we do far better when we're given some space. We don't do well on a short leash. So, we need to have that autonomy to work with. But when we have that, it works really well for us. When we don't have that, it tends to burn us out. We t we can become really burned out with it. Or another concept called bore out. So, we can become so bored with our job, with our position that we we really have the same kind of breakdown. But within that, that's fine. You'll encounter those things. And even in a good career, the important thing is to restore from that and understand how to move forward. Something I know so many of my listeners struggle with is their energy. How their nervous system feels over time and the work that they're doing. So, what are some of the signs that someone's work is quietly draining them versus supporting them? Right. I think for sensitive persons, it is a matter of interception, understanding what's happening within your body. If you're very good at sensing what's happening with other people and presumably you can also understand what's happening with your own body and being able to sense energetically that my energy is being sucked out of me daily by this particular job. I think it's pretty evident at the end of the day when you feel more exhausted than you do feel fulfilled or or happy about what you've accomplished that day. And so when that's happening day by day and week by week I think that it's a drain and you can tell that it's a drain then eventually you know that paycheck isn't enough for you anymore. It's not enough of a of an incentive to return. You know, the strongest incentive is is intrinsic incentive. So when you have motivation that is intrinsic for you, in other words, it means something for you. Whether it's working in the healthc care field or working in the education field or whatever field you choose, if it holds meaning for you, that provides you with an additional invisible paycheck, if you will. And it's important to put that part in the in your personal bank because you need to fill that part that account up as much as you do your financial account. I love that answer. For someone watching or listening who might be starting to question things a little bit, what would be a simple way for them to begin checking in with themselves around all of this? Right. Yeah. Uh so if this resonates with you with you and you you've had positions that perhaps didn't work out so well if you've had a career that didn't work out so well or if you're feeling like hey I don't know if I want to keep doing this for another 10 years or another 20 years you're probably in very good company because a lot of sensitive people go through the same kind of thing. Now the question is how do we reinvent ourselves? Are we able to reinvent ourselves? What kinds of things can we ask ourselves about this? So you can ask yourself very simple questions. Does the reasons that I accepted this position still hold? Is it still valid? Has something changed about the position or the people that I work with or work for? Because that often happens in today's world. Whoever is beside you at work tomorrow is probably going to be gone next week. There's very little loyalty on the part of employees or employers. People are laid off by the tens of thousands at times. So, it creates a lot of fear, a lot of uncertainty. What you can ask yourself as a sensitive person is how adaptable am I? What are my are my skill sets really applicable widely in the world today? Can I do something to enhance those skill sets? Can I build on that? Can I build a small business on the side? Can I do something else that is a generating a revenue stream and lots of ideas for those things? And you as a sensitive person can begin to um not only check into those experiences and what's possible for you, but then to begin to dip your toes into it and see what's possible, what's happening for you. But those questions about, you know, is this still working for me? Is this why I got into this in the first place? A lot of people tend to stay in careers again because now they have a mortgage, now they have a car payment, now they have increased costs like we all have, and so they feel tied to their positions. And that may be true for a time, but it's important if it's really bogging you down and draining your energy to think about, you know, do I know myself well enough as a sensitive person? If this is new for you, there's plenty of information to help you understand yourself. There's plenty of help as well, plenty of professionals working in the field now that weren't just 10 or 15 years ago. Plenty of communities that exist. If you don't know one other sensitive person, you should because it can be a great help for you. You need to be you need that support from another person to process your experiences through them and they need to to be able to process what's happening with them through you as a sensitive person. So you're in good company if you're starting to ask these questions because lots of people are and there's more awareness around this and this is why we're speaking today. Yeah. And there's I think it's almost two billion sensitive highly sensitive people across the world. Is that a statistic that you've come across? Two billion sensitive people. Right. If there if we are 20% of the population, there's around 7 billion people. You can see how that's a pretty significant number of people. Exactly. And that's why I like saying two billion. Wow. You know that we're not alone. And I'm trying to build a community for for HSP so that we can support each other, learn from each other, grow together. And I love the fact that you keep saying that we're so different. It's so true. We're such a diverse group of people. I mean, we have this genetic trait, high sensitivity, but we are so unique and and individual as well. So, a lot of the women in my audience, it's mostly women that that watch my videos, listen to my podcast, they are incredibly capable. They built careers, handled a lot, and for years, they've been the ones who manage. But lately, something isn't working the way it used to. Things feel heavier, more overwhelming, or just off. What do you see happening for highly sensitive women in their late 30s and early 40s when the strategies that used to work suddenly don't anymore? Oh yeah, exactly. And this hearkens back to our earlier conversation about different phases of life. So if you're a woman that's in your 30s, perhaps the reasons why you got into a certain career field in your 20s don't hold quite as much weight as they do today in your 30s. You're thinking about different issues as your body begins to change in your 30s, right? uh as you have different concerns as maybe you're a parent or maybe you're still thinking about being a parent or maybe you're a single person, you're still thinking, should I be in a relationship or should I not? You're still wrestling with some of those issues. If you're in your 40s and you're a woman, your body is definitely beginning to change some and you're noticing those things, right? Maybe you're becoming a caregiver for parents that are a bit older than you or for a sibling or whatever the case. Um and so, you know, it's going to be different for you in each decade of life. Each phase of life is going to be a bit different for a sensitive person and beginning to ask those questions about you know what do I want from this life you know we only go around one time so it's a matter of thinking a little bit selfishly you know what do I want from this life what can I not what can I get but what can I do in this lifetime how do I want to serve other people that that's really your focus if your focus is your own safety and security that's understandable perfectly understandable but how can you do so in a way that's really sustainable for If if it doesn't hold water for you again in your 30s and 40s, maybe you're at a growth point. You're at a point where things aren't working, it's maybe a signal that you need to grow beyond where you are currently. Sometimes it means a change of local. Maybe you need to move to different surroundings. Maybe you've been in surroundings and you didn't really choose those surroundings so much, but now you have an opportunity to do so. Um, and that certainly can make a huge difference in the quality of life for a sensitive person is if you're living in a highly urban area. Wow. You know, perhaps a quieter area might work for you better. It doesn't necessarily mean the rural countryside, but maybe it does. Maybe you need to live along the coastline. I was just at the coast for three weeks uh very very recently and enjoyed walking along the boardwalk and watching the sunset over the ocean. I two blocks from the ocean. Oh yeah, absolutely. You know what it's like. Yeah. I couldn't live anywhere else if there was an ocean right by me. Right. I I think it soothes the sensitive nervous system in a way that almost nothing else can. So, and there are plenty of people that live in other conditions that have I'm sure are in touch with nature in ways that really help soothe them that hopefully they visit nature frequently. you know that you're actually out in nature and you're not afraid of the bugs and you know the wind and the cold or the hot or whatever the case but you actually get out in and spend some time because it reconnects you with the fact that you are a living being on planet earth at this time and you have a finite time in this life and you need to start beginning to think about you know how am I plugged in what kinds of connections have I made what kind of community am I a part of and what kind of community do I want to be a part of do I do I want to be around other people my own age or other creatives or other sensitive people or other high sensation seeeking people or whatever the case and then begin to reach out and start making those plans for yourself if you can. Um, and I think it helps to travel, right? It really helps to travel and see how other people live because we do absorb so much when we are when we're out and about as sensitive people. That's what we do is we absorb. We're taking in everything that's happening and it might be overloading but it at the same time you're gathering information and with that information you begin to make new plans for yourself. So if you live long enough to make it into your 40s then you hopefully have some perspective on who you are as a human being not just as a sensitive person but as a human being you know what do you want from life and what can you what can you arrange for yourself to be really sustainable? What's going to be fulfilling for you? You know are you having frequent flow experiences? you know, do those matter to you? Do you have really good friends? Do you have people you can talk to? Those kinds of things are really important because too many of us, I feel like, don't have those really good friends, don't have those great conversations. And we're seeking those opportunities for those deep conversations and they they're infrequent. In fact, can be scarce, unfortunately. So I think we become very can become very skilled at valuing other people and the fact that whether we're introverted or not you know 70% of sensitive people are more introverted and 30% of us are more extroverted but if you're so you're more than likely to be an introverted highly sensitive person you know it may be a little more difficult for you to reach out or to get out into public and for me I mean I'm an introverted person myself believe it or not I can play this role really well of being of being an extrovert when I'm in public doing I'm on stage right now, but afterwards I'll be backstage. It's a different role. Um, so we learn to play roles really well. And so it's a matter of choosing which role do you want to play next. That was so much to think about, Dr. Cooper. I just love what you're saying and I'm just in agreement with all of it. It was the age of 45 when I just had to shake it up and my husband and I were living in a very small town, very rural. It was too Yeah. just not enough stimulation for us. So we moved to the biggest city on the island that we live on and it it just changed everything and we've become more involved in a highly sensitive communities. My husband is part of a highly sensitive men's group community and he leads a pod of um well you know Bill Allen it's through his yeah he leads one of the pods for the Northwest Coast in the US and Canada and loving it and yeah and just finding those friends it's so important. So just getting back to uh the women in this phase sort of 30s, early 40s. So why do so many women in this phase assume that they are the problem that they've become less capable rather than recognizing that something deeper is shifting? Yeah. I think women tend to process internally and tend to attribute what they consider to be failings as to their own their own self when in fact maybe they're within a system that is not supportive of them to begin with. You know, maybe they got into we're talking about careers. So maybe they got into something that was pretty harsh to begin with. You know, I've worked with a lot of people that worked within the corporate world and that's a literally a dog eat dog world. And many women in the corporate world will uh espouse the idea that, you know, somebody's always looking to knife you in the back. Somebody's always looking to sabotage you in the corporate world. So, they always have their blinders up, right? They're always kind of looking and watching and feeling. But unfortunately, that's survival mode. That's not a mode that really is going to work for you when you're later in your 50s and 60s. Oh my gosh. You know, so you should think if you made your money early on in corporate America or in the corporate world, perhaps then changing gears if you're late in your 40s or 50s because again, you have the one shot at life and you know have to decide how you want to spend it and what you value the most. And whatever you were told when you were early on in life, you'll find probably isn't so true. And maybe you would love live nearing a big city and enjoying all the opportunities. Maybe vice versa. Maybe you would love being near the coast or in some quiet area in the mountains or or is this somewhere that really works for you that speaks to you in some way that's in harmony and alignment with kind of your natural proclivities? You know, maybe you love quiet, but maybe you also love a little bit of noise. You know, maybe you love community, but you also love your solitude. You know, maybe you love to work in sporadic burst like a high sensation secret might. Then you like to rest in between. So depending on how well you know yourself, you know, you can begin to see that it's really about you and adapting your life to meet your needs. And probably when you started, you adapted yourself to life. Now it's flipping the script and saying, "I need to adapt life to my own needs now and not just attributed to what I think are my own failings." All any of us can do is go forward each day. We can never go backwards. We can only go forward. So wherever you're at, but don't attribute any failings to your own self. Maybe you made some poor choices. Fine. Learn from those and move forward. Be mentored by people who make really good choices and decisions. And you can learn to reparent and repattern yourself. So there's always an opportunity for you to reinvent to change a little bit. And it doesn't always have to be giant changes either. Sometimes it could be just a little shakeup that can change things quite a bit in your life. And it helps a lot to know other sensitive people if you do not. As you can see, we're all sort of dealing with some of the same struggles to varying degrees. and we've had different approaches to solving some of the problems. So, this is the value in knowing other sensitive people. If you haven't seen the first sensitive movie, it's called sensitive the untold story. If you haven't seen the movie that Will Harper and I made called uh sensitive men rising and you're a man, you probably need to see that one. That will help to the traits. Excellent. So, how can women in this situation distinguish between burnout and being misaligned with their nervous system? We hear a lot about this word burnout. You know, burnout, you know, can happen when you're literally that engine that's being pushed too hard. I think of it as like a literally like a a nice little engine that runs really well and a little one cylinder engine, but it's finely tuned. You know, it does a really good job at what it's supposed to do, but you're trying to use it on a drag strip, you know, so you're running it full open all the time. It can't last very long before it pops a cylinder and blows pistons out the side. So, you really have to think about that. Are you burning yourself out? And you know you are because you're feeling really tired and irritable. You know, whatever reasons you got into the position that you're in, they don't hold water anymore. They really don't hold the same kind of value for you. And you also don't have the same kind of motivation. If you were motivated before, maybe now because of all of the things that you've had to do in your position, all the things you've taken on, maybe you don't know how to say no, don't have boundaries, you've taken on too much, and now it's overwhelmed you. It's flooded you. absolutely it flooded you as a sensitive person. So now you're literally drowning in this burnout phase. It's possible to come back from this and it happens all the time. But you got to understand when you're burned out and when you're simply misaligned with your sensitive nervous system. So if you can detect early on when you're feeling burned out, when you're feeling tired, feel like I don't really want to go do this anymore, you know, and you've been doing this for a while. It's not just when you first start because it's common when you first start a position to say, "Oh, this feels like too much." But you can get used to it pretty quick, whatever it is generally, but you can also sense misalignment. Are the people I'm working with, are they the kind of people who share my values to at least a certain extent? You know, can I relate to them and can they relate to me? You know, is am I doing something that really has some meaning? Does it have some autonomy? Do I feel competent in it? All of these things matter to human beings, not just sensitive people. So when we're out of alignment though, you can feel that and it becomes evident after a while. And as a sensitive person, you really need to think about is this a good environment kind of in big picture. Is this a good environment for me to be in? And if it's not, you need to think about transitioning out. I wouldn't say necessarily jump up and leave, but definitely think about I don't know if this going to work long term. Maybe I can make some changes in this environment. Maybe I can talk with my employers. Can I do something slightly different? Can I alter the way I do it? Can I perhaps work from home certain days? So there might be some accommodations. There might be some changes you could make within your current position or could be a reframe. You know, is there meaning in my job that I haven't thought about? So you can work through all of these different um sort of mental gymnastics to understand, you know, am I really truly burned out or am I simply bogged down and I'm not thinking correctly about how I I may be aligned, but I'm maybe just flooded at the moment. Excellent. Wonderful. For women who have real responsibilities, so let's talk careers, families, expectations. What are some doable ways that they can start working with their sensitivity instead of constantly pushing through it? Oh my gosh, that's such a huge one, isn't it? Pushing through sensitivity to accomplish the task, whether it's at work or at home or working with children or working with a spouse or with family members. Too often, everyone winds up pushing through, you know, just pushing through to get the job done. that sensitive people are no exception to that rule. How to work more closely with your sensitivity? I think again comes back to understanding what sensitivity is in the first place. So are you using your intuition you know at your work at within your career within your family within your relationships? Are you actually uh bringing those capacities to bear? You know capacities beg to be engaged and if they're not engaged then we feel you know really that there is a lack of meaning to life. there's a lack of luster, lack of spark to it. So, bringing it back into alignment really is understanding sensitivity and how I'm applying it in my life. How am I applying it at work? You know, there's always differences between the way you can manage your home life and your relationships and your your parenting world with your working world. It can be different worlds altogether, for sure, but I think it's about, you know, understanding what sensitivity is and what its requirements are for you as a unique individual because they're not all the same. So understanding that getting to know yourself very well and having some other people that are sensitive people again that community is such a key piece. Creativity is a relational thing. You can't create a new life for yourself if you really don't have exposure to other people who are also maybe doing the same thing or who have done the same thing already. So it helps to have peer mentors. It helps to have you know those elder sages that are willing to share. So seek out those people that know more than you that have experienced more than you. And don't be afraid to be a beginner, you know, to be have beginner mind and not know. It's okay to not know things. And I think that's the pressure in today's world is to be the expert, to be the one with the fast answer. But it's okay to have beginner mind and not know because you have to be a student sometimes in order to learn a new skill and then to put that into action and then maybe at some point you become the mentor. H so I'm wondering along those lines if you can share a brief example of someone who didn't overhaul their whole life but made key shifts that changed how everything felt dayto-day. I have worked with a lot of people over the years and and learned a lot of stories that people have told me and uh been friends with a lot of people that were highly sensitive and or high sensation seeking. Sometimes it's a matter of not overhauling their entire lives. Sometimes it's a matter of more self-care. Usually that sometimes it's a matter of boundaries. They have no boundaries. need to say yes to everything and they can be taken advantage of very very easily. Sometimes it's an easy fix like that like learning some skills about how to set a boundary and how to how to say no and have that be okay and not feel guilty about it. Very hard thing to do for a sensitive person to say no but the essential skill at the same time. So sometimes it's um I think of one person that literally was one of those people who just pushed through, pushed through and pushed through and pushed through no matter what to the point to where literally she would drop. She would work until she physically would just collapse practically and then be out for weeks, you know, and it was it wasn't good for career because you can't sustain that kind of thing. So, she made small tweaks which were huge which basically was prioritizing her body, you know, allowing for rest and recuperation and thinking about, oh my gosh, and then wound up tight as a spring for years working in corporate America and now I'm going to do it in a different way. And that's made all the difference. It seems like a monumental shift, but it's really not. It's simply acknowledging that you're a human body. You're living inside a human body and it has its frailties. It has its problems and it has an energy budget and how you spend that energy budget on a daily basis determines how much you get done, but also how sustainable you are. Yeah. Reconfiguring it helps to work sometimes with a life coach or with a counselor, someone who can help with helping you objectively take a look at your life. Sometimes we need that reframe from somebody who's objective. Excellent. Yeah. So, let's get very practical now because this is where so many people get stuck. They realize something has to change, but they don't know how to ask for what they need at work. So, for someone who is realizing, my job is running my nervous system into the ground. What is one sentence they could say to their boss this week to start a healthier conversation? You know, I thought about this one. I think the very first thing that popped to my mind is the best thing you could say to your employer when you're in that situation is quit. But that may not be practical. So it may be I think it's best to approach an employer or a boss or a supervisor whoever you work with and just be very direct. You know, let's have a conversation about, you know, my position and the responsibilities that I have versus what this is costing me. And that may be a hard conversation that may not work well. And I want to acknowledge that we can't give generic uh prompts and scripts because your situation may be quite different. I don't know who you work for. I don't know what that personality is like and what kind of relationship you have with that person. So I would say you need to learn how to finesse them gently so that they can understand that whatever your ask is, it's to their benefit as a as a company, as a department, as an institution to help you be more sustainable. Sometimes it's better if you can frame it in terms of I've noticed this with the team that I work with, you know, that hey, we're all having some problems here. I've noticed a number of problems with Bill and Jane and Bob over here that they seem to be troubled by these super bright fluorescent lights. Maybe we could do something about those. And number one, number one issue I hear from HSPs at work is fluorescent lighting. Fluorescent lighting, right? or you know, hey, you know, this I've noticed that this team tends to be too close together. We don't really prefer to be in this open office environment. That's the second one. Open office environment. Terrible for ASP. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, sometimes it's a matter of framing it that, you know, this whole team would be more productive and more sustainable and could get more done if we didn't have these obstacles in our way. Now, if it's a nocost fix, I think that any good leader or manager would say, "Yes, let's do it." Um, if it's a harder fix, then that's a diff more different conversation. But I just want to acknowledge that it depends on the people you're talking to because there are a lot of literally difficult people out there, as we should say, that are in leadership positions that aren't going to care how you're being affected. And that happens, unfortunately, whether you're in the corporate world or a small business. It depends on the people you work with. And again, your environment hopefully is one that you have chosen and you can you can gently shape and form the longer you're there. Not only to benefit you as a sensitive person, but the byproduct of this is if you're shaping and molding this environment to be more positive and sustaining, it's going to help other people as well. Whether they know it or not, you're improving the quality in the environment for everyone because you are the early warning system as the sensitive person. A good point. Yes. So, I'm wondering about a boundary script for an HSP who keeps saying yes. You said this a lot when you were talking earlier. Do you take on too much? Do you say yes all the time? So, a boundary script for an HSP who keeps saying yes to extra tasks and they're drowning. How might they say no in a way that still feels professional? I think there's a couple approaches to that. Again, I think it can help to be direct sometimes. If you're not the kind of person who can be direct, I think being indirect and framing it in terms of, hey, you know, me and my co-workers are way overloaded with work and we need we need some kind of fix for this that will allow us to be more sustainable and accomplish what you want us to accomplish or we're happy to accomplish this work, but we need XYZ. Sometimes you can make those negotiations and those asks, but again depends on the kind of people who you work for and they're emotional intelligence because not everybody is emotional intelligent out there. But a script really depends on the person you're in front of and what you know will work with them. So bring your sensitivity to bear, bring your empathy to bear so you can read what's going to work with them. You know, sometimes it's small changes that you work up to, but I think in framing it in terms of a positive that's not necessarily going to cost him anything is a huge incentive. So, depending on the ask, you know, frame it in terms of this will help me to be more efficient or the team to be more efficient if we have this particular maybe we need a fan because there's no air movement or, you know, whatever the case. I think that's a reasonable ask. I think most employers will accommodate, but it varies. Wow. It varies nowadays. Yeah. No, it's very true to what I hear from clients. Excellent ideas and advice. So, then there's the partner piece. Many of my viewers are in relationships where money and security are big concerns. How could someone gently tell their partner, "I can't keep doing this job without it turning into a huge conflict." Yeah, that's a huge one as well where it depends on your partner, depends on if they're emotionally intelligent. Hopefully, they are. Hopefully, you chose a partner. Well, often it happens with sensitive people that they do not choose the right partner. They have the wrong career. They have the wrong partner. They literally have the wrong life. And they only learn through burning out repeatedly and unfortunately going through relationships to find someone that actually is supportive. And you know, the question to ask is, how does your partner conflict? Do they conflict? Well, do you conflict? Well, that's going to depend on the way you frame this conversation. that what I'm doing is burning me out completely because the partner may be like, "Well, what I do burns me out as well. What do we do about it?" Depends on how you conflict. If they're an open and reasonable human being, maybe you can have that conversation. Sometimes I I imagine I can well imagine that quite a difficult conversation depending if you're really dependent on that income and that position can be quite a hard conversation to have. So, I would say if you can develop something in addition to whatever you're doing, it helps to have multiple income streams. Maybe you have an Etsy shop and you're doing things on the side. You know, you have some other things that you're doing to build up. You're trying some other avenues. I think the more the more avenues you have going in life, the more you can effectively say, I want to transition out of this or I want to reduce what I'm doing. You know, I want fewer hours, but I'm going to make it up by doing this. So it depends on who you're a partner with and and how open they are and how supportive they are. So you need to be very careful in managing that and approaching that conversation. And it may not be just one conversation. It may be several conversations that are gentler conversations, you know, and you lead up to this. But I think it's different if you're coming to them already burned out, you know, and you're at a crisis point than it is if you're coming to them prior to that crisis point and say, "I'm thinking about reducing a couple of hours a week or I'm thinking about working remotely more, you know, working at home one day a week or several days a week to work better with my sensitive nervous system." You know, and if you're HSV, they probably know you are. They probably already know these things already. Hopefully, they support you and you've chosen well for a partner. That can be a wonderful thing if you have that. If you don't have that, it's a different conversation. But I think that if you need that income and you have that conversation with a partner, I think that you have to finesse it. Use your sensitive skills. Use your empathy. You know, don't go in with guns blazing. You know, learn how to conflict well so that it's productive for both people. It's not destructive, but it's productive in the end. And that's actually a very hard thing to do with conflict. So, a difficult thing to do, but the more you can work it out before the more you have a plan going into it that you can present, maybe the more buyin you can get from that partner. Yeah, I love it. Do you conflict? Well, I'm going to start saying that. That's fantastic. Uh, before we wrap up, I want to know from your perspective, how does this all end? I know we've talked mostly at women, but how does all this land differently for highly sensitive men in the workplace? Oh, right. Sensitive men, right? Such a huge topic. Again, we're 50% of the sensitive population. You know, literally a billion sensitive men in the world. You wouldn't imagine it, but it's so it is true. How this impact how is it different for sensitive men? Well, we learn to mask really well sometimes depending again on where you are in the country. You know, what part of the country are you in or what country particular are you in? It's we could be talking to anyone from around the world at this point, but what country, what culture are you from? What is your socioeconomic background? What is your education level? What kind of support system do you have? All those things impact the way a man experiences high sensitivity. It can be a wonderful thing if he's in alignment, if he is working in a profession or a career that really is aligned with his sensitivity and his his ability to to be empathetic towards other people to sense their experiences and to help heal them or to help them on their growth journeys or whatever the case. Um, it can be a wonderful thing when it's in alignment. It can be really bad when it's not in alignment. That being said, sensitive men can be quite resilient at the same time. And that's such an important thing for all sensitive people, whether whether male or not, that we become more resilient, that we learn those skills of resilience. We're not asking you to all of a sudden become adept at being in chaotic environments, but learn to learn from those experiences. And sensitive men, I think, learn to unfortunately hide their sensitivity too much. And I think that's a real travesty because like a sensitive boy, if you ever been around sensitive boys, they can be the most charming individuals there are. You know, very highly creative, very empathetic, they only learn later to not be so empathetic, you know, to be harder individuals. But if you want a man to be hard and harsh, that's what you're going to have. You know, that's what you can expect from him if you expect him to do that in the world. And so it's a catch 22 at the same time. If you want a sensitive man to retain his best qualities, then he not only needs to be in alignment and have the self-care piece in place, but he needs to be able to do it in a way that feels right for him as a man. And it's distinctly different than it is for a woman, right? Masculinity and manhood and all of these things are deeply tied into culture and rooted into certain ideas. At this particular time in history, difficult time to be a sensitive man in our western culture and given our political situation, difficult time to understand how to navigate it, but yet we are at the same time. We're leading and we're creating and we're educating, we're healing people, we're working, we're doing all the same the things that we've always done, right? Right? We're just in a particular time and I think human humanity goes through cycles and we'll see things change over time and it's up to people to remember what are the best parts of humanity. Sensitive men are part of that. You know, we need to remember the mythology. What are the stories of people? How we survived things in the past. Remember what's good about connecting with other people and community. What is the value for us to continue going forward? So sensitive men experience it quite differently, but it's not all that different in the end because we're still human beings at our base and our core. We're still fundamentally those sensitive little boys that have simply grown up. Excellent. Wonderful. For everyone watching who feels seen right now, I want you to hear this. You were never too sensitive for work. You were sensitive in environments that didn't honor your wiring. So, Dr. Cooper, if someone is at rock bottom with their job, exhausted, maybe hopeless, what is one compassionate, hopeful thought you'd like to leave with them today? I would say that your sensitivity is something that can be a great gift for you and for the world. You don't need to think of it in terms of I'm not my highest and best self at the moment, but rather I can move forward. And if I can move forward, I can continue to learn from whatever I've encountered. If I'm burned out, maybe I need to take a rest. And then I'll come back at it again when I'm fresher, when I'm when I've gathered my strength and my energies again. I can set new goals for myself. Maybe I'm more sustainable because of this because of this experience of burning out. So, it's always possible for you to reinvent. Burnout is natural. Breakdown is a natural process. The point is we want to grow from those experiences. We want to come back hopefully more resilient than we were before. Sometimes it means working with a counselor to explore some of those things about why we burned out. Maybe we need some boundaries. Maybe we don't understand self-care. Maybe so many factors that we could we could fix or we could help somebody to learn skills in. But the hopeful part is that you're not in bad company. You know, there's two billion other sensitive people. We're not all suffering. You know, a lot of us are doing very, very well in life. You know, we've come through some hard times occasionally. Uh we've found our way though, and there's more help for you today in terms of support and other people that are aware of their sensitivity than ever before. And it's amazing time to be a sensitive person because of all these resources and these people who are willing to back you up. So you're in very good company. So don't ever feel like I'm alone and I'm isolated and you know at rock bottom. Well maybe you are. Lots of people have been there been there myself. But you can work your way to another place. And I think that's really encouraging. Wonderful. If this conversation stirred something in you, your next step is to learn more about how your sensitive nervous system works at work. First, click here to watch my earlier video on careers for sensitive nervous systems. Start there if you haven't seen it. Second, I absolutely recommend Dr. Cooper's book, Thrive: The Highly Sensitive Person and Career. I'll put a link down below so you can explore his work more deeply. If you found this helpful, please give this video a like. so more highly sensitive people can find it and subscribe for more compassionate conversations about living well as an HSP. Thank you so much for being here and thank you Dr. Cooper for sharing your wisdom with us today. Absolutely delighted.