And this is the other reason why the

normie solutions don't work for

sensitive people because they will say,

"Okay, if you lack confidence, do

something that'll bump you from a three

to an eight." A plus five works for

them. Plus five isn't enough for us,

right? We need something if we need to

go from five to 15 because the negative

inputs that we're getting are so much

higher. All right, chat. Today we're

going to talk about going through life

with a greater sensory capacity than the

average person. So, if we look at

different people, it turns out that

their experiences of life are

fundamentally different. And this kind

of makes sense, right? We sort of say in

some weird way that like, yeah, everyone

has their experience of life. Everyone

is entitled to their perspective. And

this took me a while to understand as a

psychiatrist. So, I worked with patients

who had things like borderline

personality disorder, social anxiety

disorder, um hypochondriasis or illness

anxiety disorder, irritable bowel

syndrome, fibromyalgia, um visceral

hypersensitivity,

misophonia, right? So, I worked with a

lot of these different patients. And it

took me a while to actually figure out

that their experience of life, the way

that they move life, is fundamentally

different from

the average person. And sure, everyone

has some variability in their

experience. But when we say statements

like that, I don't think we really

acknowledge that like, sure, two people

have experiences of going through

medical school, but if your brain is

wired a certain way, if your neurons are

wired a certain way, if your

nociceptors, which are your pain

receptors, are wired a certain way, your

experience of life is fundamentally

different. So, I'll give you all a

simple example. So, I did a lot of work

on chronic pain and people who have

opioid addiction. And we think that

people with opioid addiction like,

because they are addicted to opioids,

they they messes with their pain

receptors, and then they're like they

complain more about pain. Well, it turns

out that modern research shows that it's

actually the exact opposite. So, if I

get injured and I go to the emergency

room, someone will ask me, "What's your

pain on on of one to 10?" And I'll say,

"Okay, my pain is a 10 out of 10." And

then they can ask another person,

someone who has a predisposition for an

opioid addiction, "What is your pain on

a scale of 1 to 10?" They'll say, "I

have a pain 10 out of 10." Now, here's

the mistake that we make as a society

and as a medical system. We assume that

these two numbers are the same. What I

now understand as a psychiatrist is that

on my pain scale, I go from 1 to 10. But

if someone has a nociceptor sensitivity,

if they have a genetic predisposition

for an opioid addiction, their pain

scale actually goes up to 20. They're

capable of experiencing twice the pain

of a normal person, the average person.

And this isn't just with issues of pain.

If we look at people with borderline

personality disorder or social anxiety,

their experience of social situations or

breakups or arguments with friends or

loved ones is like fundamentally

different. It's like they they

experience the world with more with kind

of this this

distortion of color. Okay, so here's one

study that is is looking at brain scans

of people who are sensitive. And what we

see here is that their brains activate

in different ways. So, there's a lot of

common advice, right? So, like, "Oh, if

you're like feeling lonely, just like

put yourself out there." And this is the

real challenge with being a sensitive

person, which is that the common

solutions to problems that we all face

land differently. So, I'll share a

simple example of this. So, when I grew

up, I didn't really go to a whole lot of

theme parks, okay? I didn't go to

amusement parks, things like that. So, I

I I didn't like roller coasters. I

didn't enjoy roller coasters. Well,

after I went to India and you know,

trained to become a monk, and then I was

in medical school, and and my wife

wanted to go to

Universal Studios. So, I was like,

"Okay, fine. Like, now I'm like I'm a

big boy. I have all this yogic training,

and I just I haven't liked roller

coasters in the past, but I just need to

like try it, right? And I just need to

get used to it. And if I get used to it,

I will enjoy it." So, we went to

Universal Studios, and for 3 days I went

on lots of roller coasters. And what I

found was that like each and every

roller coaster was absolute torture. I

just did not like the way that I felt.

And no matter how much I went on it, I

remember kind of going in and like doing

my like yogic training, right? So, I was

like controlling my breathing and like

trying to enjoy it and all this kind of

stuff. And no matter what I did, I never

enjoyed it. At the end of day three, it

was just as torturous as the beginning

of day one. And that's when I sort of

realized like, "Oh, my physiology is

just wired in a way where when I am

hurtling downward at a particular speed,

it detects these changes, right? My

vestibular apparatus and and things like

that are active." I also found something

kind of random and interesting, which is

why screaming helps so much in roller

coasters. So, it turns out that

when you're plummeting, okay?

Your body understands that you're

falling primarily through your ears. So,

we have this thing called the vestibular

apparatus. This is where our sense of

motion and space comes from. But, when

you're on a roller coaster, you get

another signal that you're falling,

which is your internal organs. So, your

stomach and your intestines are not

supposed to be here. So, what I sort of

noticed is that when I'm plummeting on a

roller coaster or moving really fast or

whatever, like, "Oh, my visceral

internal organs are in places where they

don't belong." And then I started

screaming on roller coasters because

that's what you're supposed to do. And

then I realized something really cool

about screaming, which is

physiologically when you scream, you

increase intrathoracic pressure, right?

So, you like tighten and you scream. And

when you tighten and scream, your

diaphragm tightens and it actually keeps

your intestines in place, which helped

me a lot when I was on roller coasters.

But, back to the main point, which is

that my physiology is just not wired to

enjoy this stuff. And this is what I

found if we look at things like visceral

hypersensitivity with IBS. So, this is

where some people their capacity to

detect signals from inside their GI

system is actually higher, right? So,

they they detect small air bubbles, they

detect cramps more easily. So, they're

they're just receiving more data. And

here's the really fascinating thing.

Whether we're talking about social

anxiety, borderline personality

disorder, or visceral hypersensitivity,

not only is your brain more sensitive to

these things, there's something else

that keeps things balanced for the

average person. Like I've said, one of

the most frustrating things about OCD is

how often it gets misdiagnosed. People

can spend years trying to manage

anxiety, depression, or even something

else entirely without realizing that

underneath it all, it might actually be

OCD. And because it's so misunderstood,

it gets missed. Another study showed

something like 50% of people with OCD

get misdiagnosed at first, which means

they don't get the right kind of support

early on. And even when it is diagnosed,

not every therapist is trained in the

specific treatment that is effective for

OCD, like exposure and response

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And that is cognitive bias. So, I'll

give you guys an example, okay? We all

get signals from our internal gut,

right? So, like I feel a little cramp,

and if I have a hypersensitivity, you

know, it's not that I'm So, I I I feel

the cramp more, but the other thing

that's really interesting is that there

is a protective mechanism that some

people lack. So, one example of this is

a bias called illusory superiority. So,

if you ask most human beings, "Hey, are

you healthier than average?" Yeah. "Do

you eat fast food every day?"

Absolutely. "Do you drink alcohol?"

Sure. "Do you vape?" Yeah. "Are you

aware that these things cause problems?"

Yeah, I'm aware that they cause

problems, but they're not going to

happen to me. Yeah, like vaping is bad

for other people, but I'm going to be

fine. Look, my grandmother, she smoked

two packs a day and had a whiskey and

fried fish every day. She lived she till

she was 92. So, we have this thing

called illusory superiority, which like

we think bad things aren't going to

happen to us, unless maybe you're

sensitive, which we'll get to in a

second. Right? So, if if we look at what

keeps people in check, it isn't just

that our pain dial goes from 1 to 20

instead of 1 to 10. It's that we have

certain cognitive biases in place that

buffer the signals that we receive.

Right? So, when someone has illusory

superiority, they detect things in their

stomach, but some part of their brain is

like, "Hey, bro, it's going to be fine.

Ain't no thing. That pain in your

stomach, it's not appendicitis. There's

nothing wrong with you. Like, you're

going to be fine. It'll get better." And

on the flip side, if we look at things

like social anxiety or borderline

personality disorder, when someone gets

mad at you, right? You may react really

badly, and and this is what's really

fascinating. So,

Here's one study that was looking at the

social impact of positive and negative

emotion. And what they actually found is

that the the brain regions of someone

who's sensitive activate in a different

way. And here's what's really

interesting about that. Not only is your

sense of empathy increased, your sense

of like planning and and problem-solving

also activates. So, this is something

that I I think we don't realize is like

when you're a sensitive person, it's not

just that you feel more, it's the part

of your brain that tries to solve

problems also hyper activates when

someone is angry or sad or upset around

you. Right? This is why we get so

entangled with people who make us feel

so bad because the part of our brain

that says, "Oh, we have to fix this." is

also hyperactive. That's why we get

tangled into it. Now, let's look at the

cognitive bias that most people have. If

someone says, "Hey, bro, you did a bad

job." If you have a high sensory

perception, you're going to detect that,

you're going to feel all that, you're

going to absorb that negative energy,

and you're going to try to solve it.

But, the average person has a

narcissistic bias. "Oh, hey, I screwed

up. I didn't screw up. You screwed up.

It's not a me problem, it's a you

problem." And we know that the

narcissistic bias is a distortion,

right? Is it it is a removal from

reality. So, here's what like when I've

worked with a lot of these patients,

what I sort of realized is it's not just

about the neuroscience. It's not that

your pain scale is higher or your

empathy is higher or your visceral

hypersensitivity is higher. It's also

the absence of cognitive biases that

that normally buffer us. And the problem

with this is that we experience a lot of

these situations that everyone goes

through in life, but we feel more

and some of the protective buffers that

are actually cognitive biases are less

present in our minds. So, we have to

come up with our own solutions because a

neurotypical solution or an average

solution of just put yourself out there,

fake it till you make it, right? You

need to get acclimatized to it doesn't

work. And so, one of the reasons that

we've sort of developed our own systems

here at HG, like coaching program is a

good example, is we have a lot of

problems that are shared with everybody

else in the world, but what we found

here at HG is that when we draw from our

community, which is where a lot of our

coaches come from, they understand that

like normie solutions may not work for

you, right? Because they are also not

normies. Well, now we've got some

normies in there, but there's some

evidence-based approaches that we have

to help you find the solution that works

for you because your sensitivity, there

may be visceral hypersensitivity, there

may be like, you know, social

sensitivity. We're not sure, but there's

going to be a relatively unique pattern

and you need a customized solution.

There are one or two principles,

however, that I'm going to share with

you all today about how I approach this

as a psychiatrist. So, when I have a

patient who is more sensitive, what's

the general idea here? And what I found

is that we need to focus on that buffer,

okay? So, remember for the average

person, their pain scale is whatever,

but then they have these compensatory

biases, right? The narcissistic bias,

illusory superiority. And we don't have

those. So, that's what we need to build.

And when I work with my patients, what

the evidence shows, and we'll go through

a couple of clinical examples of this,

what the evidence shows is that we need

additional data. So, if I'm sensitive,

I'm receiving more data from the outside

world. I'm even receiving more data from

the inside of my body. And so, in order

to balance that, either I develop

narcissism, which works great, or what I

need to do is create a more stable

buffer, a more stable grounding so that

the data that I receive from my body or

the outside world doesn't like cause me

to like move away or like float off in

some direction or get swept away in a

particular direction. So, we're going to

give you guys a simple example of how to

build up this buffer, okay? And we're

going to use the example of chronic

pain. So, back in 2008, my first job at

Harvard Medical School was being a

research assistant in a somatosensory

cortex lab. The somatosensory cortex is

the part of our brain that maps onto our

body. So, when I like touch myself here

versus here and you ask me, "Hey, where

are you getting poked?" there's a part

of my brain that knows that okay, the

face has this much stuff and my arm has

this much stuff. It's basically a map of

your body. And normally what happens is

that map will be fluid based on what we

feel. So, if I go and get a massage,

normally the map is like let's say 100%

I'm aware of all of my body.

And then if I go and get a massage and

someone is working on a knot, like 90%

of my somatosensory cortex shifts to the

knot. Other examples of the fluidity of

the somatosensory cortex are like sexual

activity. So, when you're when you have

sexual activity, when you're

have sexual activity, your body is not

giving an equal amount of attention to

every portion of your body, right? So,

what happens in chronic pain is it loses

the ability to be flexible. That's

actually the source of the problem,

okay? So, what happens is like if I have

chronic pain, let's say I've got chronic

lower back pain, there is 40% of my RAM

in my brain is just always focused on my

back. So, even if I get a massage, 40%

is locked into my back and it hurts all

the time. So, what we sort of discovered

is that the mechanism through which Tai

Chi and yoga improve chronic pain is

when you do Tai Chi and yoga, you're

like doing all these postures and stuff,

right? And when you're doing those

postures, it demands the attention away

from your your back to whatever you're

doing in your somatosensory cortex. So,

it literally rewires the flexibility of

your somatosensory cortex. In yoga,

right? We're trying to pull the

attention away from one part of the body

to another part of the body. That's why

we do all the bendy poses. It's not to

improve flexibility. The key principle

here though is that we want some

additional information. So, in the case

of physical issues, what we'll end up

doing is a lot of body-oriented work,

right? So, and this is helpful for

things like fibromyalgia, yoga, things

like that. The key thing here is that if

you're sensitive, what you need is more

input, not less. We need to add good

input instead of bad input. The second

area that we're going to explore is

social sensitivity borderline

personality disorder and things like

that, okay? So, if you are sensitive to

the judgments of others, if someone

says, "Hey, you really let me down. You

really disappointed me." So, you're like

super sensitive to what your boss says,

what your friends say. How do you buffer

against that, right? Cuz you don't have

the narcissistic defense. And this is

where what I what I do with the people

that I work with is I try to develop a

sense of self-confidence, right? And

that's like kind of like that. Like,

"Oh, if you feel bad about yourself, if

someone says something, like you need to

develop self-confidence." But I I I want

y'all to understand this is a very

precise thing that we're doing. This is

an additional input about your worth.

That is the solution, right? It's not to

run away or try to convince people that

you're a good person. That doesn't work.

What you need is additional information

that substitutes for the cognitive bias

of illusory superiority or narcissism.

You're getting these bad inputs, which

by the way, you're able to detect a lot

more, right? So, you're You're able to

detect disapproval from other people at

15 instead of 10. And how do you buffer

against that? You need to develop inputs

from yourself that you are a good

person. We need to work on confidence

not from a sense of like just in general

self-esteem, but that you need to have

15 levels of self-confidence to deal

with the 15 levels of disapproval. And

this is what also makes things not work

for us, right? Which is that when people

take say, "Hey, you need to develop

confidence." They're talking about

moving from like three to eight. They're

not talking about moving from three to

15. So, how do you develop this

self-confidence? So, in the case of

physical things, we need additional

input. So, whether we're talking about

chronic pain, whether we're talking

about visceral hypersensitivity, IBS,

this is why numerous clinical trials

show that things like Tai Chi or or yoga

are effective at improving these

conditions. And the reason they work is

because we're not running away from the

body, we're leaning into the body. We

need additional inputs. Now, what about

from a social perspective? Let's say

that I have I'm a very a highly

sensitive person, I'm highly empathic,

maybe I borderline personality disorder,

maybe I have social anxiety disorder,

maybe I've got PTSD.

Quick aside about PTSD and sensitivity.

People think that after you become

traumatized, now you are hypersensitive

to something, right? Because there's

hypervigilance that happens after

trauma. What's actually really

interesting is if you were a highly

sensitive person, your risk for trauma

skyrockets. And why is that? If you have

a negative experience, let's say that

someone mugs me in an alley. If I am a

normal person, the amount of suffering I

experience, the malice that I read into

their face, the amount of pain that I

experience when they slug me in the

stomach is like let's say the malice I

detect is five, and then I also have the

narcissistic bias, right? Because I'm

like, who is this guy? How dare they try

to mug me? Do they know who I am? Right?

So, I detect five levels of malice and I

have five levels of narcissism. And then

the the punch that they go in my gut

hurts, but I'm like, [ __ ] I'mma get

you. You better run. Like you better Do

you know who I am? Right? So, this kind

of balances out. So, sure it's like

somewhat traumatic. Here's the really

scary thing. If you were a sensitive

person, the malice you detect in their

face is like a 10. When you detect that

level of malice, the fear that you

experience is a 10. When they punch you

in the gut, it hurts as a 10. And so

that is more likely to traumatize you.

Because when there is a negative

situation, you are literally collecting

more negative experience from a given

situation. So, a huge part of this work

that I've done is in people who have

been traumatized. And what do we do with

people who are traumatized? We don't

avoid, which is what the natural

inclination is, right? So, this is a

scary thing, let me move away from it.

What we actually have to do is increase

balancing sensory input. So, we've

talked a little bit about doing yoga and

tai chi, which which mediate that. But,

what about on the mental perspective?

What about from an empathic perspective?

What about from a social perspective?

So, let's say I'm in a social situation

where someone is upset with me, and I

experience some degree of disapproval.

And since I'm sensitive, my disapproval

isn't between 1 and 10. Disapproval goes

up to 15.

So, I experience 15 units of

disapproval. The right solution there is

for me to have 15 units of confidence.

And this is the other reason why the

normie solutions don't work for

sensitive people, because they will say,

"Okay, if you lack confidence, do

something that'll bump you from a three

to an eight." A plus five works for

them. Plus five isn't enough for us,

right? We need something if we need to

go from five to 15, because the negative

inputs that we're getting are so much

higher. So, in the case of

social anxiety or disapproval or

whatever, you need a self-esteem that is

quite robust. So, how do we develop that

internal sense of self-esteem? So, if we

look at self-esteem versus esteem from

other people, which by the way, people

who are highly sensitive are more likely

to have their esteem be dependent on the

opinions of others, because we don't

have that illusory superiority or

narcissistic bias. So, how do we develop

that additional information, right? We

need those inputs. We need that data

from ourselves, and it needs to be a at

a level of 15. So, how do we do that?

The core method that I tend to use with

my patients, that I did myself, was

challenge yourself in isolation where no

one can see. So, you have to do

something that's difficult, that you can

be proud of, that no one else will

witness. In my case, it's things like

climbing. That was big for me, right?

So, I'd go to a place, I'd see a I saw

12-foot boulder, and I was like, "I'mma

climb to the top of that." And you try,

and you fail, and you try, and you fail,

and you try, and you fail, and then

eventually you succeed. And then I did

that for several years, challenging

myself over and over and over again.

Even today, this week, despite all the

work that I have to do, I challenge

myself to write a thousand words of a

project that I'm passionate about. It's

fiction, and I went ahead and did it,

and no one [ __ ] knows. So, even now

I'm making a mistake, because now I'm

sharing it with you. And the moment that

I share it with you, you become proud of

me, and the or maybe, I don't know. You

or you judge me. You're like, "Look at

this arrogant arrogant guy telling me

that he's like solving all these

problems. He's doing all this [ __ ]

Like, look at him showing off." Right?

So, all right, my mind starts to think

about the response of your thing. So,

whatever challenges you have, whatever

victories you have, whatever failures

you have, you need to keep them

internal. And as you have that rich

internal source of data, it will help

you buffer against the disapproval and

judgment of others. Now, if you guys

want more information, we have a

three-hour deep dive into developing

resilience and improving that buffer.

So, be sure to check it out.