[00:00:00] Welcome to the Business Miracles podcast. I'm Heather Dominick, founder of www.businessmiracles.com and author of the book Different: The Highly Sensitive Leadership Revolution found at www.differentthebook.com. Since 2010, I've been training Highly Sensitive Entrepreneurs and Leaders from around the globe to work less while making more impact and income by doing things differently. I'm so glad you joined me. Listen in and get ready. Get ready for a shift in the way you view yourself, your work, your life. A business miracle.
[00:00:39] This is A Course in Business Miracles podcast episode 179 Reduce Overwhelm With the Science of Containment. In this podcast episode, I go deep into what containment is not, what containment is, and how we can shift from overwhelm and overprotection into focus and flow. All very important to be able to do as an HSP in business and leadership. I also discuss how the act of developing discomfort resilience is the opposite of overprotection and instead is about taking personal responsibility for your emotions, recognizing that they don't have to control you. It's not the automatic HSP response, but it is a doable, teachable, and important skill to master in spite of what's happening around you and in the world at large, especially as a highly sensitive in business and leadership. Let's get to it.
[00:01:45] We are here to focus in on building discomfort resilience through containment.
Building discomfort resilience through containment is the shift from overwhelm and overprotection into being able to focus and then into being able to flow. Overwhelm, overprotection, focus, flow.
Take a moment, place your hand or hands on your heart, close your eyes and bring into your mind and into your heart a moment where you felt overwhelmed. Go with the first thing that comes to mind or shows itself to you. No right, no wrong, no judgment, no attachment.
Now bring to mind a moment when you were in overprotection again. Go the first thing that shows itself to you.
Now a moment when you suddenly erupted in anger. Anger that you later regretted. First thing that comes to mind. First thing that shows itself to your heart. No right, no wrong, no judgment, no attachment.
Now bring to mind a moment when you allowed fear to talk you out of taking a risk. First thing that shows itself to you, mind and heart. No right, no wrong, no judgment, no attachment. Breath in and let it out.
Overwhelm, overprotection, eruption of anger that you later regretted. Fear, talking you out of taking a risk, speaking your mind. Allowing your eyes to gently come back on open. Perhaps leaving hand on heart if you feel unsettled or any other response to the kinesthetic learning where hand on heart calms our nervous system.
Our energy, our emotions is all about how you interact with other people. Our energy, our emotions tend to be felt more deeply by those of us who are highly sensitive.
So if our emotions are about how we interact with other people, and we as highly sensitives experience our emotions more deeply, than we most likely will experience our interactions with other people more deeply. For those of us who are highly sensitive entrepreneurs or leaders, we kind of can't get away without interacting with other people. So it becomes a call to learn how to be in discomfort, resilience through our interactions with other people by learning how to contain our emotions.
These are challenging times we are faced in any given moment with potentially having our nervous system hijacked. Yet developing discomfort resilience is the process of strengthening the skill of learning how to contain and control your emotions so that when you experience uncomfortable emotions, you don't stay stuck in them.
Developing discomfort resilience, strengthening the skill of controlling your emotions, containing your emotions, allows you to experience uncomfortable emotions without staying stuck in them. Now this gives you access to your highly sensitive strengths. This is the opposite of overwhelm. It is the opposite of overprotection. It is access through your highly sensitive strengths to focus and flow in spite of what's happening around you. Whether that be you faced with interacting with another person such as a selling conversation, or the need to have a difficult conversation - family, friends, colleagues, team - or whether it be with something on a global level with a global impact. Developing discomfort resilience through containment is a skill that is absolutely doable and teachable.
Now, very, very, very important. Here's what containment is not. Capital N-O-T, what containment is not. It is not suppressing, it is not ignoring, and it is not soothing. Suppressing your emotions, ignoring your emotions, soothing your emotions won't make those emotions go away. Suppressing, ignoring and soothing will very likely toss you into the highly sensitive coping cycle and your highly sensitive coping mechanism.
What containment is - capital I, capital S. Containment is acknowledging your feelings while recognizing that your emotions don't have to control you. So if you've heard me say feel your feelings without becoming them, that is part of the process of the skill of emotional containment. Emotional containment is taking personal responsibility and emotional containment is turning to the tools to shift your emotions and energy.
So emotional containment both gives validity to what you're feeling, yet not needing to default to shadows of overwhelm, overprotection or coping mechanisms of pushing, hiding or combo plattering. But instead, by taking personal responsibility, turning to the tools you can both acknowledge and feel your feelings while choosing to shift into a higher state of highly sensitive functioning. Again, it is a process that is doable and teachable and it is the key to being able to continue to create in the midst of discomfort. It's not either or, it's both/and.
I want to emphasize three elements to the process of containment. Three key elements. Those three key elements are name, reframe, elevate. To name equals to identify. Meaning to identify the emotion. To identify the feeling. Reframe is the flip of the switch. To reframe the thoughts attached to the feeling. Elevate is a shift in perception, otherwise known as a business miracle, a miracle, to see things differently.
Tools that will help you access these three key elements, supporting you to build discomfort resilience through the process of emotional containment.
OFTU, the OFTU gives you clarity on what you're actually feeling (identify).
RAINSit allows you to recognize (name), inquire (reframe), and nurture (elevate).
And most importantly, your intuitive plan. Your intuitive plan, which is created from your heart through a proprietary process that I now lead for our entire community every four months is intentionally designed for emotional containment.
Here's how. It comes from your heart's guidance. It is created through your intuition, directing you toward what you need in these upcoming four months to experience balance and sanity. It is its own frame, its own container to support you with each week consistently being in a process of naming, reframing and elevating.
This is the way that we are being called up through these continued exceptional times as highly sensitives to be able to master discomfort resilience through a process such as emotional containment rather than shutting down, going into overprotection, succumbing to overwhelm, burning out, closing our business doors, or worse. It is not the automatic highly sensitive response. We can and are capable of emotional containment, focus, flow, creating beyond socialized expectations and experiencing the realm of miracles in spite of. Breath in, and let it out.
[00:17:09] Thank you for being a part of this Business Miracles podcast episode and for beginning to dip your toe into the journey of highly sensitive leadership training. If you are ready to truly use your sensitivities as strengths in all parts of your work and life, I invite you to connect for a one on one chat. You will experience being deeply listened to and together we'll get a sense of whether the Highly Sensitive Leadership Training Programs are the best next step for you and your highly sensitive journey at this time. Just go to www.claritycall.com to schedule a conversation. We so look forward to connecting with you. Talk to you soon!
