Sensitivities

Do you have vivid dreams and a keen imagination?  

Is time alone each day essential to you?  

Do noise and confusion quickly overwhelm you?  

If your answers are yes, you may be a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP).

A couple of weeks ago a friend mentioned a book - The Highly Sensitive Person, by Elaine N. Aron - that I started reading a number of years ago and probably need to dive into again. With the holiday season upon us, and its many activities that can overstimulate some of us, this month’s 1^st Wednesday wellness talks about sensitivities, specifically HSP (the Highly Sensitive Person).

Being consumed with activity (we’re presently house remodeling!) and feeling overwhelmed (I think I have some highly sensitive characteristics), I’m defaulting to some lazy research this month – here’s a few words from Wikipedia about HSP:  NOTE: if you're not interested in this middle section (I realize long emails rarely get read); feel free to skip to the bottom to "A COUPLE OF RECOMMENDATIONS" - for a few timely suggestions that apply to us all.


Definition and brief overview
A highly sensitive person (HSP) is a person having the innate trait of high sensory processing sensitivity (or innate sensitiveness as Carl Jung originally coined it^[1][2]). According to Elaine N. Aron and colleagues as well as other researchers, highly sensitive people, who compose of about a fifth of the population (equal numbers in men and women), may process sensory data much more deeply and thoroughly due to a biological difference in their nervous systems.^[3]

Attributes and characteristics: can be remembered as DOES:
Depth of processing
Over aroused (easily compared to others)
Emotional reactivity and high empathy^[25]
Sensitivity to subtle stimuli.

More susceptible to influences, both negative and positive, especially as kids
”Research by Pluess & Belsky ^[22][23] has shown that children with difficult temperaments in infancy are more susceptible to the effects of parenting and child care quality in the first 5 years of life. Intriguingly, these children not only had more behavioral problems in response to low quality care, they also had the least problems of all children when having a history of high quality care. This suggests that children with difficult temperaments are highly susceptible rather than difficult and therefore able to benefit significantly more from positive experiences compared to other less susceptible children.”

In work situations
“HSPs can be great employees—good with details, thoughtful and loyal, vigilant about quality, but they do tend to work best when conditions are quiet and calm.^[28] Because HSPs perform less well when being watched, they may be overlooked for a promotion. HSPs tend to socialize less with others, often preferring to process experiences quietly by themselves.^[27][29]
From the book: “HSPs may be the first to be bothered by an unhealthy situation in the workplace, which could make them seem like a source of trouble. But other swill be affected in time, so their sensitivity can help you avoid problems later.”

"Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.” ― Wendell Berry

Contrast with introverts
“Elaine Aron responded to Susan Cain's 2012 book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking and its related Time cover story^[31] by stating that Cain was in fact describing highly sensitive persons (defined^[6] in terms of sensory processing sensitivity) and not introverts (which Aron says is recently becoming defined^[32] more narrowly in terms of social interaction).^[33] Though Aron wrote that Cain and others blurred the lines between sensitivity and introversion, Aron called the Time article "a huge, huge step" for understanding HSPs, and that as more is learned, the 30%^[32] of HSPs who are social extroverts will be better understood.^[33]“


A COUPLE OF RECOMMENDATIONS
*When you hear yourself internally say about another “What’s wrong with you?” consider that that other person might be an HSP, or just plain different that you. Please, we do well to all keep working at respecting differences – honestly and truly RESPECTING that the other is wired differently than you, has had ridiculously different experiences than you, and will not respond exactly like you. And that’s okay. Actually, that’s good (we don’t really all want to be the same, do we?) We have NO idea what life has been like or is like for the other.

*During the holidays, put on compassion. I recommend again to practice lovingkindness meditation (which some name prayer, or empathy, or love; be good to yourself by actively listening to this 13-minute link). Even if we can’t understand the other person, we can always wish them to be well, happy, peaceful, loved. Both the other and ourselves benefit from the positivity.

I write these emails mostly to remind myself of what’s important and good. It’s a bonus if you also might consider being good to yourself and others.

I wish for you all goodness, all the time. May supreme love be your this month and always.

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, Love Divine,
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and Angels gave the sign.

- Christina Rossetti

“So, friends, every day do something that won't compute...

Give your approval to all you cannot understand...

Ask the questions that have no answers. Put your faith in two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years...

Laugh. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts....

Practice resurrection.”
― Wendell Berry, The Country of Marriage