Why You Feel Everything So Deeply (and Other People Don’t): Childhood, Sensitivity & the Nervous System

Why do certain situations overwhelm you while someone you love seems completely unaffected? 

In this episode, Dr. Alison explores one of the most important questions we ask about ourselves: Why am I the way I am?

Using the image of a seed planted in soil, she explains how your God-given wiring, childhood environment, sensitivity, and nervous system all work together to shape the person you are today.

This conversation offers a compassionate framework for understanding yourself—and the people you love—in an honest, empowering way. (You’ll want to share this episode with your loved ones!)

You’ll learn:

• Why your brain is like a plant
• How childhood shapes your mental and emotional health
• The difference between your wiring and your wounding
• The research behind “orchid children” and “dandelion children”
• How different kinds of “soil” shape your nervous system, relationships, resilience, and sense of safety
• Why highly sensitive people may struggle more in hard environments—and thrive more in healthy ones
• Why healing begins when you understand both the seed you were given and the soil that shaped you

This episode will help you see your story—and your loved ones—with more clarity, compassion, and hope.

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More Resources:

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You can now preorder Dr. Alison’s newest book, The Secure Soul, and immediately receive the first 3 chapters as well as early access to the companion guide!

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Connect further with @dralisoncook on Instagram

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Curious what Family Role may have shaped you? Take the Family Role Quiz to learn how you may be showing up in your relationships with others.

Want to hear more like this? Start here:

Episode 143: Reparenting Your Younger Self—How to Stop Seeking Approval From Others & Find Inner Security

Episode 22: How to Build Trust with Yourself 

📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here

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While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.‍

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TRANSCRIPT

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Your brain is like a plant and every plant, if you think about it,

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starts with a seed. It's the wiring you came into this world with, the way you process the world

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around you. This is your seed. Now let's talk about the soil because you can have the most

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beautifully made seed in the world and if the soil is wrong, if it's depleted,

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if it's toxic, if it just doesn't have what that particular seed needs,

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the plant, is going to struggle. It might survive but it won't thrive.

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The seed and the soil don't operate in isolation. They're in constant relationship with each other

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and that relationship is where a lot of the story of your current life actually lives.

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Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week's Deep Dive episode of The Best of You. I'm Dr.

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Allison, and I'm really excited about today's episode because I want to share something with you

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that I learned recently that I couldn't wait to share with you here on the podcast. It's a

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metaphor. I heard it from my daughter who was recently home visiting us. She's in medical school.

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She was sharing it with my husband and I as we were driving up for a weekend getaway into the

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mountains. And honestly, it stopped all of us in our tracks. We couldn't stop thinking about it and

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how it applied to our own lives individually and the lives of people we love. Because I think this

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metaphor helps explain one of the most tender questions so many of us carry.

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Why am I the way that I am? Why do I get overwhelmed so easily?

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Why do I shut down when someone gets too close? Why do I feel anxious even when everything is

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technically okay? Why do I keep reacting in ways I don't want to react? Why does healing sometimes

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feel so hard? Why am I the way I am?

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And underneath those questions is so often an even deeper one. Is this just the way I'm wired or

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did something happen to me? And if so, what? In other words, how much of who I am is just my

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nature, my biology, my temperament, my nervous system, my genetics, and how much of who I am is

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nurture, the environment I grew up in, the relationships that shaped me,

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the stressors, the wounds, the messages I absorbed along. way.

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And here's where this gets tricky. When we put too much emphasis on nature, we can start to feel

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helpless. We think this is just my brain. This is just my personality. This is just how I'm wired.

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And while there may be truth there, it can leave us feeling stuck as if change isn't really

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possible. But when we put too much emphasis on nurture, especially on parents or childhood or

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family systems, we can end up feeling overwhelmed in a different way. We can start searching for

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someone to blame. we can feel crushed under the weight of trying to figure out exactly what

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happened and how to fix it. And if you're a parent yourself, that kind of nurture emphasis can also

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become terrifying because suddenly it feels like every mistake you make might permanently damage

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your own. child. Either of those extremes can leave us with a victim mentality,

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feeling helpless or stuck. We feel like we can't change ourselves or we can't change what happened

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to us. We need a better way to understand the relationship between how we're wired and how we've

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been shaped. A way that tells the truth without making us feel hopeless. A way that honors the

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impact of our environment without reducing us to our

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ourselves with compassion and still believe that growth and change and healing is possible.

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And this is why I love this metaphor. Here it is.

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Your brain is like a plant. And every plant, if you think about it,

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starts with a seed. That seed is your nature. It's your DNA,

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your temperament, the raw material that God put into you before you ever took your first breath.

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It's the wiring you came into this world with, the way you process the world around you,

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the things that come naturally to you, the things that cost you, that are hard for you. This is

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your seed, the seed of this plant. that is your brain. And that seed gets planted in soil.

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The soil is your nurture. It's your family of origin, your parents or step-parents,

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your grandparents, the town you grew up in, the culture and community that surrounded you.

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The soil is everything that was already there when you arrived. You didn't choose it.

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You were just planted in it. Now, here's the thing. Both make up who you are today.

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The seed cannot grow without the soil. And soil without a seed is just dirt.

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Both matter. Both shape who you become. And the relationship between them,

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between the seed you were given and the soil you were placed in, that relationship is,

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I would argue, one of the most important things you need to understand about yourself.

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In today's episode, we're going to dig into both of these elements. What kind of seed were you

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given? What uniquely makes you you that cannot be changed? And what kind of soil shaped you?

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We're going to go through some of the different types of soil that I see and how that impacts the

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way your brain, your nervous system, who you are today developed. Because I don't think you can do

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the real work of healing, of becoming the best, most whole version of yourself without getting

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honest about both. So I want to start with the seed because I think this is where a lot of us have

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some catching up to do in terms of our own understanding and self-awareness. Seeds are not all the

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same. I have this Christmas cactus sitting in my office. And this is a true story.

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I'm a little embarrassed to tell you this, but I have not watered it in over six weeks. I haven't

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touched it. My mom gave it to me and I was so excited. I do well with succulents. I am not a plant

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person. I don't have a green thumb. I'm a little too, let's say, scattered. I get distracted and I

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forget to take care of them. This hasn't been touched in six weeks and it still looks pretty good.

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It's a little droopy. The dirt this morning was just bone dry. I've watered it now,

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but it's a lot. it's still looking okay. And this is the thing about a cactus or any sort of

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succulent. But this is the thing about a cactus or any sort of succulent. The seed is just hardy by

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design. It can go without a lot of nutrients for a stretch of time and still be okay. It still

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suffers, but in a different sort of way. It was built differently. And then there are other kinds

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of seeds in the plant world. These are seeds that grow into some of our most beautiful flowers,

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the gardenias, the orchids, and flowers like those. And these types of plants,

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these flowers, these are not like my... cactus, they need regular watering.

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They cannot have too much direct sun. They need rich soil, careful tending,

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the right temperature, the right humidity. If they get neglected, they wilt or die on the vine.

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But here's the thing, when they're cared for well, they're extraordinary. There's nothing quite

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like a gardenia in bloom. I love both types of flowers. I love my succulents and I love my more

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delicate blooming gardenias. And here's where I think this gets interesting.

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This is supported in research in psychology. Researchers in psychology...

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childhood development have actually found something very similar in humans. There's a concept in

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developmental psychology called differential susceptibility. It's a term that was developed by Jay

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Belsky. And the shorthand version of Belsky's research, it's fascinating, is this.

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Some children are by nature more sensitive to their environment than others.

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Belsky used the metaphor of orchids. and dandelions. Dandelion children are the ones who can thrive

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almost anywhere, put them in a challenging environment and they survive, put them in a flourishing

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environment and they do well. hearty. They're resilient. You've seen these people,

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maybe in your own family, maybe in your friend group. Maybe you are this person. I like to think of

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them as wildflowers instead of dandelions, but these are the people that just seem to get up and

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get going no matter what soil they're planted in. And then there are the orchid children.

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They're more sensitive to their environment, to stress, to conflict, to the emotional temperature

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in a room. In difficult soil, they really struggle. But here's what the research also shows.

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When orchid children are placed in a supportive, nurturing environment, they don't just do okay.

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They flourish often more than their wildflower peers. The same sensitivity that makes them more

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vulnerable also makes them more responsive to goodness and nourishment.

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There's another framework that I think also speaks to what Belsky's research is getting at.

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And this is the well-established framework called the highly sensitive person. This is research

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that was originally developed by psychologist Elaine Aron. And if you've never heard this term

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before, it might be worth pausing here for a moment and checking this research out. About 15 to 20

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% of the population is wired with what she describes as a deeper processing of sensory information.

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Highly sensitive people notice more. They pick up on subtleties in a room,

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in relationships, in tone of voice, in the unspoken tension that other people might walk right

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past. They feel things more deeply. They tend to get overstimulated more easily.

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And I've worked with a lot of women in particular who have this designation. And sometimes we can

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shame ourselves for being too sensitive when in fact, this is a beautiful way that God has made us.

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I've always been highly aware of the emotional environment around me. Even a little bit of unhealth

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in a room registers in me. It always has. And for a long time, I didn't understand why other people

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seem to just be able to move. through the world and in and out of groups of people and not be

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affected by things that would have derailed me. And when I've come to understand that this is not a

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deficiency, it's the seed God gave me to steward. And that seed needs a very specific kind of soil.

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On the other side, I think of people I know. One of my closest friends, a roommate I had for years

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comes to mind. My mother-in-law comes to mind. These are people who grew up with very little,

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who've navigated enormous hardship. My mother-in-law ended up as a refugee in a resettlement camp

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for years. She then became an immigrant in this country where she spoke English as a second

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language. And she is just... She can just adapt. She just shows up in a certain kind of strength

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wherever she is planted. She's a wildflower. I see it in her.

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I just... Throughout the course of different seasons of her life where I've traveled with her, I'm

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just amazed at her ability to adapt to hard situations.

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We need people, friends, family members, loved ones, maybe it's you,

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people who can hold steady when things are hard. Now here's why this matters.

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Neither is right or wrong, good or bad, better or worse. Neither kind of seed is the problem.

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But if you don't, know what kind of seed you are or what kind of seed your loved one is,

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you will likely spend a lot of time either berating yourself or struggling with things that don't

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seem to bother other people, or you'll be completely blind to what it's costing you to keep pushing

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through without care. And both of those things will catch up with you eventually.

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So I want to pause here. for a moment and ask you as you're listening,

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where do you land? Are you more like a wildflower, like a dandelion where you can land almost

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anywhere and land on your feet? Or are you more like an orchid where you need the right kind of

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soil? You're sensitive, you're attuned. If something's off, it's going to get to you. Or are you

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somewhere in between? How much do you... understand about the raw material you came into this world

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with. The way God designed your nervous system, your brain, your psyche to work and move through

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the world with its unique gifts and unique challenges. Because that self-knowledge,

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that ability to understand yourself, this isn't just interesting. It isn't just good for cocktail

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conversation. This is foundational to how we see ourselves and how we become a healthier,

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more whole version of who God made us to be. Now let's talk about the soil for a minute.

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Because you can have the most beautifully made seed in the world. And if the soil is wrong, if

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it's... if it's toxic, if it just doesn't have what that particular seed needs,

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the plant is going to struggle. It might survive, but it won't thrive in the way it was meant to.

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And the thing about soil is you didn't choose it. None of us did. We were planted and we grew up in

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whatever was already there. I want to walk through a few different kinds of soil,

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and I'm going to be personal here because I think sometimes stories are the best way to make this

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real. In my own case, you already know I was given a highly sensitive disposition.

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I grew up in a small town. My parents were good, kind people. My grandparents lived down the

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street. Wherever I went in this town, people knew who I was. There was good and bad with that, but

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there was a stability and a rootedness to my childhood that I didn't fully understand until I left

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at 18. That soil had a lot of nutrients in it, genuine connection.

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consistency, the security of being held by a community. And I don't want to paint it as perfect.

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It wasn't. You'll read about some of the wounds I carried out of that childhood in my new book,

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The Secure Soul. They're there. We all have them. No soil is perfect.

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But looking back, that soil gave me a really strong root system.

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But here's the problem. When I left that soil as an adult,

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when I stepped into the real world with all of its complexity and hardship, I wasn't always

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equipped. There were rainy seasons. I didn't know how to navigate dark seasons,

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lonely seasons. I hadn't learned certain skills because my soil had been in many ways.

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sheltered. Good soil can sometimes mean you haven't been exposed to enough of the hard things that

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build resilience in a different way. So I struggled a lot in my early years as a young adult.

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Now, I want to contrast that with a different kind of soil, a soil that is also characterized with

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loving, good nutrients, but where hardship enters in young. And for this soil,

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I think of my own two stepchildren who came into my life having already navigated.

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profound loss. At a very young age, they lost their mother to a terminal illness.

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They had to adjust to the loss of their mom, to grief, to so much change,

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and then to me, eventually coming into their family and their family structure shifting.

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Now, there were a lot of really good, beautiful ingredients in this soil. They had a wonderful dad,

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an incredible grandmother, my mother-in-law, who I told you about who stepped in to that role in

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those couple of years. And then I came in and I think I understood because of my own disposition

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and my own wiring, I understood intuitively how to be a healthy presence as they began to slowly

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attach to me in new. So there was a lot of good in this soil,

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but it was still bumpy. It was still rocky. It was soil that required them to adapt and develop

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resilience. early on and these two kids i'm so proud of are some of the most resilient people i

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know now as young adults the soil they grew up in demanded something of them very young and they

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rose to meet that challenge cultivating skills at a level of maturity that i see in them as young

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adults that still is amazing to me and i'm so grateful for that you may relate to that kind of soil

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where there was a lot of good nutrients But there was heartache or suffering or sorrow introduced

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And then there's a third kind of soil. And this is the one I think about often in my work.

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And you may relate to this. There are people who grew up in soil that was in ways you may not have

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fully understood at the time, genuinely harmful, constant lying,

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deception. gaslighting, maybe bickering or fighting that never resolved,

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maybe walking on eggshells, maybe a home where love was conditional or unpredictable or chaotic or

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simply absence. And the painful thing about this kind of soil is that you don't always know it's

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toxic until you're out of it because it's the only soil you ever knew. Had a conversation about

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this with my guest, Melanie Schenkel. We'll link to that episode in the show notes.

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But she talks about her experience of getting to adulthood and looking back and realizing this

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childhood wasn't normal. The way my mother treated me wasn't okay. This soil wasn't just neutral or

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benign or filled with a certain kind of suffering. It was toxic. It wasn't only lacking certain

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essential ingredients. It was also poisonous. Now, I want to name here that as we talk about the

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soil you were planted in, this isn't about laying blame. I want to say that clearly because I know

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that a lot of people I encounter feel some resistance to this kind of looking back.

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It can feel disloyal. It can feel like you're reopening something that you'd rather just leave

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alone because you can't change it. here's what i've come to believe you cannot heal a wound you

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haven't named you can't tend a garden you've never actually looked at and naming what was real and

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hard in your soil, especially if there were toxins there. This isn't the same thing as blaming the

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people who were in it. Sometimes the harm was so pervasive and deep and profound that there's

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hardly any good that you can see in it. Sometimes it was otherwise good people who were wounded and

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as a result wounded you. Often it's somewhere in between.

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of these cases the work is the same you have to be able to see the soil clearly to understand how

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to heal the you that came out of it you have to be able to understand where were their nutrients

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where were their good things and where were their deficiencies where was their toxins or poison

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that was never actually named that i need to be able to name in order to move forward in healing

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Where was there too much shade where I was left alone too much and was neglected to where parts of

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me were never really seen? And where did the sun shine so harshly that maybe all of my achievements

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or all of my performance or all of my pleasing had a light shined on? But the other parts of me

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never got seen, the ones that were messy, the ones that needed care too.

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Where did things in my life and my soul not get watered or tended and they had to learn to go

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without? Where were you not taught how to survive the hard seasons, the droughts,

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the dry spells? Because nobody around you knew how to do that either. Here's the thing,

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if you can't look back at the soil in which you were shaped, it's really hard to steward the plant

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God has given you to steward now. It's hard to have those hard conversations with a spouse about

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why you sometimes do the things you do. It's hard to explain to your own kids, hey,

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I'm not making an excuse. for this behavior, but I want you to know this is something that happened

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to me that I'm trying to change when it comes to how I'm showing up for you.

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If you don't take the time to look back and understand that soil that shaped you,

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it's really hard to show up in healthy ways now. Again, this isn't to blame our past.

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This is to see it clearly, to name it. Honestly, and it's the root of what I think brings about the

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ability to heal. So now I want to bring these two things together because the seed and the soil

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don't operate in isolation. They're in constant relationship with each other. And that relationship

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is where a lot of the story of your current life actually lives. I want you to think about it this

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way. A hearty seed, a wildflower or dandelion, whichever you prefer. planted in difficult soil will

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probably survive, maybe even thrive in certain ways. But even that seed has limits.

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Even the most seemingly resilient person has a point where the soil has taken too much from them.

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And the thing is, they don't always. know it because they've spent their whole life being the one

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who's fine, who's getting by, who's being strong for others. I hear this a lot from couples,

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actually. One partner is more of a sensitive seed, more like the orchid,

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and they tend to know they're struggling because they feel it and they need something to change.

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And the other partner is more like that wildflower, dandelion, more blinders on. And they've been

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pushing through for so long without tending to themselves that they sometimes lack empathy for

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others or for themselves. They sometimes deny the reality that the soil could and should change.

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Sometimes these folks are resistant to change, right? Both. Types of people need to grow in self

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-awareness. Both people need to know what they're working with in their raw material to have that

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perspective, to see the other, to see outside of their own box, to see that the two together make

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something beautiful. And then there's another thing that happens that I think about a lot. A tender

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seed, an orchid, is planted early on as a child in depleted soil,

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you needed. This is where some of our deepest wounds come from. And here's what I want you to know.

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It also is where some of the most profound healing is possible. The research on highly sensitive

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people actually shows this, that when an orchid child or an orchid adult finally gets the right

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environment, the right support, the right nourishment, they don't just catch up.

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They often surpass what anyone expects. The sensitivity that makes you so vulnerable on one hand to

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hard things also makes you exquisitely responsive to the good things.

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So wherever you land in this conversation, whatever raw material you are getting, whatever soil you

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are planted in, neither one is a verdict. If you identify more with the orchid type of seed,

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it's an invitation to recognize that you can flourish, to look at the soil and begin to understand

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the nourishment that your soul needs to thrive. And if you identify or if one of your loved ones

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identifies more with that wildfire, you've just plowed through the soil and kind of stayed hardy

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without. ever really taking a look the invitation for you is to take a look is to recognize that

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that soil still matters just because you've survived doesn't mean You're thriving.

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And this kind of honesty, this kind of ability to name and to see is how we begin to heal and

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become the best version of who God made us to be. We do it for ourselves and we do it for our

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families, for our children, for our marriages. We do this work of honest naming in order to heal.

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Here's where I want to land today. Every single one of us carries something from the soil we were

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planted in. It's true for all of us. There is no person listening to this who came through

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childhood without some deficiency in the soil, some place where it was too dry,

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too harsh, too uncertain, or simply not enough. This isn't a flaw.

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This is just the condition of being human. And here's what I've seen over and over again in my own

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life and in the lives of the people I've worked with. Healing is possible. It's more than possible.

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It's one of the most amazing things that God has designed us to be able to do. Real,

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meaningful, lasting change is possible. You can't change the raw material,

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the seed you were given. You wouldn't want to. This is how God made you to be in this world who you

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are inherently. matters not only to you, but to the world around you. You are a part of this

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overall system, this ecosystem of humanity and who you are in your essence matters.

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But you can change the way you carry that essence forward. You can change the soil you create

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around yourself now as an adult with the awareness and the agency you didn't have as a child.

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And this work starts with two. things. Number one,

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knowing the kind of seed, the raw material, really understanding it without judgment.

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And number two, looking honestly at the soil that shaped you without blame, but without flinching

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either. Next week, part two, we're going to... about what that healing actually looks like as you

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do it, what it means to notice and name and tend the garden you're growing now with everything

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you've learned about the ground you started in. For today, I want you to... sit with a couple of

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questions first what do you really know and understand about the seed the essence the raw material

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god gave you this can come through looking at personality styles or tools we have a podcast episode

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on ocean the the personality traits we understand to be the most inherited the most in that nature

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category i'll link to that in today's show notes that could be a place to start understanding

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yourself as a orchid as highly sensitive, looking at patterns that have just been true your whole

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life. Make a list. Begin to talk to God about God. What are things that are just how you made me?

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Things I accept about myself, even am fond of in myself. Yes, there are things about it that

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sometimes drive me crazy. And also, I'm grateful, God, for the person you made me to be.

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And then number two, what have you been willing? to see and really look at about the soil that

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shaped you, what was good, but also hard at times,

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what was lacking, what was not there at all, and what maybe was toxic,

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poisonous even, that you haven't really fully wanted to name, which means that toxin still has some

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access to your own soul. I want you to get honest with yourself about these two dimensions of your

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own being. Let these questions sit with you. Pray over them. Talk to God about them. God,

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help me to see. Become a student of your own soul in partnership with God's spirit.

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And if you want to start going even deeper, a lot of what we're talking about today is at the heart

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of my new book, The Secure Soul. It's all about healing the wounds that form when the soil around

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us wasn't quite what we needed. You can actually start reading the first few chapters as well as

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the first few chapters of the companion guide workbook. Now, when you...

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-order. You can find the details about how to get that information emailed directly to you at

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thesecuresoulbook.com. I'll also link to all the other resources I mentioned in today's episode in

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the show notes, or you can head over to my website, drallisoncook.com backslash podcast.

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Thank you so much for being here. I can't wait to be with you for part two next Thursday.

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Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of The Best of You. It would mean so much if you

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take a moment to subscribe. You can go to Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen to or

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watch podcasts and click the plus or follow button. That'll ensure you don't miss an episode and it

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helps get the word out to others. While you're there, I'd love it if you leave a five-star review.

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Join us each weekday for the best of you every day, a brief daily reflection to help you start your

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mornings with a steady dose of wisdom. Remember, as you become the best of who you are, you honor

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God, you heal others, and you stay true to your God-given self.

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