I am pleased to announce that my new book, Empowering the Sensitive Male Soul, is now available in paperback and eBook formats through Amazon, Smashwords, and their affiliates!

This book partly relates my personal story as a HSS/HS man, while exploring topics not previously covered in other books on HS men. Topics such as anger, perceptions, and a broader revisioning of creativity as creating one’s life to become a fuller realization of who and what one might be, find places in this new book on HS men.

One of the positive implications from the coronavirus pandemic may be that we HSPs are afforded what we’ve been in need of for many years: space. Now that it is abundantly clear that organizing office spaces in such a way as to put many employees side by side or otherwise in close and constant contact is a bad idea, it may be that companies and organization will remodel their previous open office plans to include, at the least, dividers and, at most, more private spaces.

This is theoretically good news for HSPs who prefer greater personal space and less noise so they can focus and concentrate on their work. It may be that many companies also have now seen the viability of having many employees simply working from home and choose to allow it in the future, as a simple matter of doing business. It may be, as well, as the article suggests, that companies allow fewer total numbers of employees in an office space and stagger days when teams meet in person.

Some HSPs, and HSS/HSPs, may see this and feel that they need to have at least some time in their office environments, especially these two groups. Zoom and other video conferencing are useful and now necessary tools but there is no replacement for physically being in the company of others, at least for some amount of time. We are prosocial beings and need to be in proximity with others to some extent. Research shows that it is the high performers who prefer to work from home as the autonomy provides them with the ability to schedule work when they are at their best each day and when they have time and space to think and work through complex issues. For the high performing HSP or HSS/HSP, this major shift in how we work may be a strong positive factor in an otherwise horrific time in our history.

Co-working spaces are the other variable that will likely shift to greater sanitation and reconfiguration of work spaces to provide more space between people and fewer total people overall in a space. If you find yourself working at home, you may be tempted to use co-working spaces, which are commercial spaces where you can pay a fee to work in a space that is wired and set up to bring people together, often from many different industries and companies, as they work. Co-working spaces are becoming increasingly popular and necessary as workers need the variety of being somewhere besides their own home all of the time.

There are a number of salient issues that will have to take shape even if home workers becomes the new reality. We shouldn’t assume that companies will not seek to find ways to squeeze more out of you being at home; indeed, they do and will assume that ALL of your time is company time and will gradually whittle away at your private life if you allow them to. Boundaries become an important factor here again as HSP often lack adequate boundaries and may allow themselves to be taken advantage of or exploited as a home worker.

My advice is to work out your hours when you are available to work and respond to emails and think of that as your dividing line between what you’re being paid to do and your private life. Time becomes your new boundary and it will be up to you to not allow encroachment on it or you may find yourself a slave in your own home answering emails at all hours and working more than you ever did while in an office. This may be especially true as we know people are generally more productive while working from home, probably due to less distractions, noise, and interruptions from others. That being said, working from home will carry it’s own burden of establishing and enforcing your “work” boundary with your loved ones, who may not truly appreciate that your work at home is “real work.”

Over time your family and friends will adjust to the new normal of you being at home and working certain hours and life will go on but be vigilant about maintaining a structured approach to your work that also keeps you focused on what you need to do. Not everyone is cut out for complete autonomy and setting up and maintaining their own structure. It takes a disciplined person with a disciplined mind to be able to utilize autonomy in a productive and sustainable way.

Time will tell how companies and organizations choose to respond to the way their physical environments need to shift to accommodate the health and well being of their work forces. Now is also the time for HSPs to speak up and communicate how they work best to their employers and take advantage of opportunities to work from home! This is a shift that is deeply in your favor!

drtracycooper.wordpress.com

Thrive: The Highly Sensitive Person and Career

Thrill: The High Sensation Seeking Highly Sensitive Person
(both books now in audiobook as well as e-book and paperback forms)

 

https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/14/21211789/coronavirus-office-space-work-from-home-design-architecture-real-estate?utm_source=pocket-newtab

The philosophy of the Stoics and the Taoists brings me great comfort in these times and reinforces for me what I already loosely practice. I was in the hospital for a week in 2019 and had lots of time to reflect on how when everything is taken away: our clothes, our external lives, our freedom to go as we please, even our name becomes a bracelet one wears and sees on a dry erase board with a condition, a doctor, and a plan, we are left with the core of who we are, our raw humanity and what we can make of it.

Stoicism in such times teaches us to let go of clinging to things and to be in the present moment. Indeed, Stoicism teaches us to love each moment and everything that happens in each moment (amori fati, or “love of fate” in the Latin), since each moment is all we truly ever have.

Many HSPs feel the sense of grief, tension, and anxiety in the world in these trying times of the pandemic. HSPs may or may not have lives where chasing external rewards is their focus but these times show us quite dramatically the prudence of planning ahead, being content with our rich inner worlds, and valuing those we hold dear. If this pandemic has any silver lining at all it’s that it has allowed many people a time to reflect on their lives and take stock of how their lifestyle and choices either reflect an alignment between one’s modest ambitions, desires, and wants versus the external world of conspicuous consumption, depletion, and a treadmill existence that is out of sync with fundamental happiness.

In this trying time, it seems altogether appropriate that we truly live in this moment, while appreciating that we need very little to be happy or content. When people’s lives have been culled back to a large degree, we are left to re-examine who we are at our cores, and forced to confront either our true depth or our true superficiality.

The Taoists and Stoics have much to teach us in this moment if we listen and let go of societal expectations. The more we are willing to let go, the more content we may become, with less anxiety, worry, or fear to trouble our minds. I was reminded very graphically of my relative impermanence last year and allowed an opportunity to deeply consider my core essence as a human being on this planet at this time. I discovered that trying times stripped away much of the external milieu we all embody, but revealed inner resources in abundance. I chose to view my time in isolation and no control as a time to re-frame my appreciation for all that I loved and would regain.

In the first day after release, I recall quite well my first walk on my familiar walking trail and how the sheer freedom to simply move, breathe, and take in the birds whistling, the sound of the river, and the feel of my body moving felt as if it were my first day on Earth. In any time of withdrawal, we can choose to use it as a chance to bemoan our circumstances, or to engage with our inner worlds of present moment, clarity about who we are at our depths, and to follow the Stoic’s advice in letting go…

drtracycooper.wordpress.com

Thrive: The Highly Sensitive Person and Career

Thrill: The High Sensation Seeking Highly Sensitive Person

“There are also those who swim against the stream. These are the biggest energy wasters in life.” Many highly sensitive people swim against the stream as they feel resistance from their societies to who they are. The smarter strategy is to let go and stop swimming against the stream and trust that your natural traits will lead you somewhere.

It’s often the case that the more we seek to control, the less we end up controlling. If we refer to the Tao, the Chinese philosophy of letting go, we should not seek to be anything other than what we already are and trust that we, as a part of nature, are also part of the system of things that ebb and flow. Taoism advocates for “letting” go in ways that we HSPs can benefit from in very specific ways. For one, our natural tendency to process information and input deeply is a form of seeking to control. The reflective capacity can be paralyzing in some HSPs as they become too consumed by the what-ifs and never make it past the anxieties and fears to actually engage with meaningful experiences in life. The result can often be that some HSPs almost intentionally become less than they are capable of by not cultivating a philosophy of letting go.