[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to the Business Miracles Podcast. I'm Heather Dominick, founder of BusinessMiracles.com and author of the book the Highly Sensitive Leadership revolution
[email protected] 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.
This is a course in Business miracles podcast episode 207 understanding HSP, neurodiversity and executive Functioning in this week's episode, I begin an important discussion on whether highly sensitive people are actually neurodivergent or not. First, I revisit and share the definition of what it actually means to be a highly sensitive person. And then I follow that up with the definitions for neurodiversity, neurodivergent and executive functioning. Now these definitions are absolutely important to keep in mind as we consider this crucial topic. From there, I examine the research and how it relates to us as highly sensitives in business and leadership. Be sure you listen in until the end, because this is where I share five key points to bring it all together so that you can better understand yourself and your highly sensitive nature as possibly neurodivergent. Also, be sure to tune in to our next episode because this is where we're going to take the topic even further by discussing enhancing our hsp, Neurodiversity and executive functioning. But let's start with this episode first. Here we go.
[00:02:01] Speaker B: Today's topic is hsp, Neurodiversity and Executive Functioning.
The place that makes the most sense for us to start is with definitions.
So the first definition is what is the definition of what it means to be a highly sensitive person?
Always valuable to re return to that definition so that we're not making assumptions, right? And all the stories that our mind can make up in our heads about what it means to be hsp.
So according to Cleveland Health Clinic, a highly sensitive person or HSP is a personality trait.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: And that's valuable to write down if.
[00:02:48] Speaker B: For some reason you've forgotten that it's a personality trait that is used to describe someone with a deep sensitivity to the physical, the emotional or social situations and information around them.
I'm going to repeat some key pieces to that personality trait for someone with a deep sensitivity to the physical, emotional or social situations and information around them.
Also, according to Dr. Elaine Aaron and her theory, HSPs are a subset of the population, a subset of the population who are high in a personality trait known as Sensory Processing Sensitivity or sps.
Sensory Processing Sensitivity or sps those with high levels of SPS display increased emotional sensitivity, stronger reactivity to both external and internal stimuli, pain, hunger, light, noise and as a result of these personality traits, an HSP tends to have a complex inner life and on heart breath in and let it out.
Again valuable to revisit the actual research that identified what it is to be an hsp. One to counteract stories that may have continued to or formed in your head, your head brain not even realizing they were there.
And also because since I've been doing this work for over a decade, a lot of other people have entered into the arena of this work and there's a lot of different stuff out there on the Internet and a lot of it in my opinion, humbly is misinformed.
So helpful just to re return to the research and the definition. Next definition neurodivergent.
Neurodivergent.
So again, according to Cleveland Health Clinic, neurodivergent is a non medical term, a non medical term that describes people whose brains develop or work differently.
For some reason, this means the person has different strengths and struggles from people whose brains develop or work. More typically, while some people who are neurodivergent have medical conditions, it also happens to people where a medical condition or a diagnosis has not been identified.
I'll pause here, make a dot connect back to definition of HSP as a personality trait, not a medical condition.
Next definition neurodiversity.
This time according to Harvard Medical neurodiversity describes the idea that people experience and interact with the world around them in many different ways.
And that's a writer downer.
People experience and interact with the world around them in many different ways. There is no one right way of thinking, there is no one right way of learning, and there is no one right way of behaving.
And let's all prepare to take a deep breath on this next point.
Differences are not viewed as deficits.
Differences are not viewed as deficits according to the official definition of neurodiversity.
Next, Judy Singer, an Australian sociologist, coined the term neurodiversity to promote equality and inclusion of neurological minorities.
So love this.
Neurodiversity was originally developed primarily as a social justice movement and it's often used in the context of autism, Autism Spectrum Disorder, otherwise known as asd, as well as other neurological or developmental conditions such as ADHD for learning disabilities.
Now one thing that I find super cool is that the original HSP research and the neurodiversity development both took place at the same time in the mid-1990s. Dr. Elaine Aaron, as part of the original research group regarding highly sensitive persons, was working in California and as we just said, Judy Singer was working in Australia.
Butterfly Effect Same time, different sides of the planet A movement beginning which leads us to the definition of executive functioning. We're going to go back to Cleveland.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, Executive function refers to mental processes, AKA Executive functioning skills.
Mental processes that help you set and carry out goals.
You use these skills to solve problems, make plans and another big breath manage emotions.
Executive functioning includes managing emotions.
Executive functioning is also responsible for our ability to regulate our emotions, control our impulses and make decisions.
Executive functioning skills are essential for success in school, work and just personal life overall.
So how does this all fit together?
5 key points 1.
Human brains are all wired differently.
We all perceive, relate to and understand the world in different ways.
2.
How we interpret our world is based on both neurological wiring and our experiences.
That's nature and nurture.
3.
Due to 1 and 2, which we just covered, what the majority might consider to be the norm might not be so normal.
What the majority might consider to be pathological may in fact just be a variation in genetics making an individual unique.
Again, differences, not a deficit.
4. HSPs are born with a sensory processing sensitivity.
Highly sensitive people, you and me, exhibit increased blood flow to the regions of the brain that process our emotions, our awarenesses and empathy.
Therefore we are born with different wiring than most.
5.
A highly sensitive person perceives the world differently than most and therefore are among the neurologically diverse in our population.
Breath in and let it out.
[00:14:08] Speaker C: 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.
