The need for meaningfulness in life is a well-known axiom among highly sensitive people.  As individuals who embody a broader range of potential behaviors and who naturally think in terms of complexity we often ponder whether we are spending our lives as well as we should, but the following article by Amy Morin, author of What Mentally Strong People Don’t Do (original post at https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-mentally-strong-people-dont-do/201605/is-the-one-question-you-have-ask-yourself), piqued my curiosity about the “one” question we should ask of ourselves.

Below is the article followed by my additional comments.

“After spending his entire career working his way up the corporate ladder, 48-year-old Andy finally reached the top. But almost as soon as he reached the pinnacle, he told his wife he wanted to quit.

Worried that he was having some sort of mental health problem, she told him to go to therapy before he made any major life changes. He happily agreed to do so. When he came into my office, he explained that he’d worked his entire life while thinking that a powerful job and a big salary would make him feel successful. But now that he had everything he had thought he wanted, he realized he was wrong.

He wanted to work for a nonprofit organization that helped at-risk youth. He thought putting his skills to use helping other people would be more rewarding—and more valuable—than what he had been doing.

Andy wasn’t experiencing any mental health problems. In fact, he was probably healthier than he’d ever been. He’d settled on his own definition of success and for the first time ever, he was going to live according to his values.

The Messages You Get About Success Every Day

If you don’t define success for yourself, other people will define it for you. Much like Andy, many people spend their whole lives working toward someone else’s definition of success.

Every day you’re bombarded with messages about what success means to others: The messages your parents sent you about success might still echo in your head. Advertisements telling you that successful people drive certain cars or use certain products might convince you that you’re not good enough until you have earned the money to obtain such things. Your social-media newsfeeds are filled with articles that tell you what successful people do. And your Facebook friends are showing you how successful they believe they are.

Unless you consciously create your own definition, these messages will shape how you evaluate yourself.

The Question That Defines What Success Means To You

To gain perspective on what is really important to you, ask yourself this question:

When I’m 100 years old and I look back over my life, what would make me think my time was well spent?

Will you feel like you spent your time wisely if you earned enough money to leave your family a large inheritance? Will you be happy with your life if you helped a lot of people along the way? Will you feel fulfilled if you explored all corners of the earth?

The answer to that question will give you your definition of success. Once you know what it is, write it down. Writing it down—or typing it on your smartphone—will help clarify your definition of a “life well lived.” Keep that definition with you, because there will be times you’ll want to refer back to it.

It’s easier to make tough decisions when you have a clear definition of success. Tempted to take a new job with longer hours? See how that fits with your definition. Considering a move to a new city? See if it aligns with your definition.

One of the 13 things mentally strong people don’t do is resent other people’s success. But when you don’t know your personal definition of success, it’s harder to avoid feelings of envy and resentment.

Don’t let other people’s lifestyles blur your definition of success. Perhaps your neighbor has a beautiful new car. Or a Facebook friend has lots of time to travel. It’s easy to think these people have a better life than you do.

Whenever you notice a twinge of resentment, read over your definition of success. Remind yourself that everyone has a unique journey, and that wishing your life were like someone else’s is like comparing apples and oranges.

Besides, every minute you spend resenting someone who seems to “have it all,” is another minute you aren’t working on your own goals. Keep your eyes on your own definition of success and you’ll fill your time with the things that matter most to you.”

The photo at the top of this article is one you might recognize, one Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning and originator of logotherapy espousing the view that what people lack in life is a sense of inherent meaning along with personal responsibility for their own happiness.  Frankl was no pie in the sky philosopher or academic with no basis in real-world experience.   During World War 2 Frankl was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, along with his parents, wife, brother, and sister.  Viktor and his sister, Stella, were the only two survivors.  Frankl endured hard labor at the hands of the Nazi’s for many months and observed that in such conditions there are only two types of people: those who are decent and those who are unprincipled. The decent people suffer, but do not yield their dignity.  The unprincipled yield their dignity to alleviate their situation, even if that means they become oppressors themselves.  The ones who fared the best were those people who were able to find meaning, even in suffering.

Viktor Frankl forged a form of psychotherapy (logotherapy, also known as the third Viennese school of psychotherapy) based in existentialism singling out a crisis of meaning as the most significant existential threat to personal happiness.  He is quoted as saying “What is to give light must endure burning.”  Why is this important to HSPs?  We sensitive people typically endure a great deal of societal mistreatment for not conforming to normative behaviors.  Each of us is unique in that we have idiosyncrasies that mark us as somehow “different.”  Some HSPs are very sensitive to noise levels and take great pains to avoid situations and circumstances that may be intolerable.  Other HSPs feel the energy of a crowd as overwhelming and retreat to the margins out of self-preservation.  Still other HSPs love being in the crowd, but tire of it before others and need to withdraw and recharge in quiet.  One might note these behaviors in any human being, but for HSPs more so.     

In a society that demands conformity to be less than conforming is to be thought of as antisocial, deficient, or deviant in some way.  In essence, to be different is to be nonconforming to a view of reality as seen through the lens of an arbitrarily contrived culturally specific set of worldviews, norms of behavior, and belief systems.  To subscribe to a view of success as extrinsic to the individual means we seek the outward manifestations of success (as defined by the local culture) even if we feel inside that that view of success is hollow and empty.  In Morin’s view it is when we attain culturally-imbued notions of  success that we realize its inherent meaninglessness and begin to reevaluate what success means personally defined (irrespective of culture). 

Morin stated “If you don’t define success for yourself, other people will define it for you.”  Each of our cultures, no matter where we are in the world, already defines success.  Moreover each culture has built into it methods and means to transmit that notion quite effectively whether it be through the school system, religion, or group affiliations.  Let’s call these “cultural persuaders,” and spend a moment examining the depth and breadth of their influence. 

Each society’s mechanisms for transmitting its accumulated “wisdom” are embedded in institutions that disseminate what the society believes to be most useful, true, and just.  As old knowledge this wisdom is viewed as extremely valuable and of utmost importance to be transmitted (taught) to children and reinforced in adults throughout life.  The pressures to conform in any society may be extremely strong with positive affirmations for holding close to the beliefs and negative sanctions for questioning or suggesting any alternatives.  

Having the courage to break with society and decide for oneself the set of beliefs one should hold requires the willingness and ability to withstand often intense criticism as the new views/beliefs are communicated to others.  More conforming members will meet new views with negative sanctions (ie., “we’ve ALWAYS done things this way, YOU aren’t qualified to change them!” “You’re a fool for following your own path!” or ” So what if you don’t believe it, I do!”).  They may also isolate the individual, which in a more communal society would be most severe to the individual.  In a more individualistic society (like the US) one might be met with apathy, disdain, or simple indifference.  In those cases when everyone seeks to do something different your choice to be different doesn’t necessarily register as a threat to society, but it does raise the issue of similar non-support from friends, relatives, co-workers.  The pressure to conform to group norms are immense and few people truly can make that break, unless it’s of such significance in their lives to outweigh the risks of group disdain.  For non-conforming types who have few group affiliations the pressures are less with more room for the person to decide on a highly unique, individualized life path.

I’ve long been an existentialist owing to a predilection for deep thinking and reflection perhaps emboldened by may father’s passing when I was 15.  Life, to me, has always been more about being a visitor here for a finite time than setting up camp for 500 years.  There are, however, problems that come with having such an orientation.  Namely, that society is set up for those who are most willing and able to ignore the existential reality of life and instead spend decades chasing their arbitrary (and exploitative) “dream.”  That being said, it certainly is easier to ponder meaningfulness and purpose in life once we are no longer on a scarcity footing.  To a certain extent we all must conform to the extent necessary to enable our day to day survival.  Beyond that, if we get to that point, we perhaps may face the types of questions raised by Morin, namely: “When I’m 100 years old and I look back over my life, what would make me think my time was well spent?”  

I submit that meaningfulness is time specific and changeable as we age.  What matters to each of us is directly proportional to where we are in life.  As a male at 49 years old my perspective is quite different than someone who is 19, 29, 39, or 69.  In my book Thrive: The Highly Sensitive Person and Career I wrote about the strong need for meaningfulness we HSPs seek in our careers and in our lives.  For us, even if we are on a scarcity footing (primarily focused on obtaining the basics of life) there is still a strong pull toward meaning.  I suggest that instead of the question being looking back when we are 100, it should be looking back ten years from where we are right now.  Thus, for me, it would be looking back at 59.  Projecting ourselves ahead by a decade is far easier than looking ahead 50 years or more and more realistic because we can each take steps that may result in real improvements in our lives appropriate for that decade of life.  I’m dubious about the utility of projecting out to 100 years old and thinking in grand, swooping terms about regrets.  Yes, I would love to do many things in life that I may not, but the reality is we all have certain obligations and responsibilities we must fulfill.  We also are not in life as a joy ride where all our dreams and fantasies can become a reality.  As delightful as it might be to have no regrets in life for what we didn’t do by 100 the nature of life is suffering and at best we each try to go through life experiencing key aspects we deem most desirable.  I do think it is necessary to indulge ourselves from time to time in travel, experiences, and activities that allow us to grow, develop, and provide contrast to our lives.  The Amish allow their adolescents a period of “rumspringen,” or time to run free trusting that exposure to the outside world will prove the utility of their worldviews from which their young adults will return wizened and more worldly.  I suggest a certain chaos, disorder, randomness, and messiness to life already exists even if we don’t wish to admit it and we all need a time of rumspringen from time to time.  

One way we can embrace the messiness of life is to view life itself as a creative act.  Highly sensitive people are creative (beyond merely producing an end product) in the sense of crafting unique lives with deeply personal meaning in every facet of life.  Viewing life as an inherently creative act opens up the possibilities for what it might be.  Much as the artist envisions what that blank canvas might be the individual sketches out a rough idea in the mind and through many permutations may arrive at something unique and enduring.  If not it’s always possible to scrape the whole mess off of the canvas and begin again.  The best paintings are those with failed paintings underneath that peek through.  Similarly, the best lives are those that have been reinvented many times over and show the layers of effort, countless trails and errors, and the burn marks from Frankl’s fire of the soul.

The making of meaning must, however, go beyond what the “mentally strong” do and include those times when we feel mentally weak, down, and broken.  It is a perpetual mistake on the part of Western society to overemphasize strength as avoiding chaos, pain, and suffering.  Indeed it is in those trying times when we find our characters forged the most, when our steel is hardened and we emerge twisted and distorted from the experience.  The most beautiful trees are those that cling to the harshest cliff sides where the least water falls, where the forces of nature have twisted and convoluted their trunks.  Though we may seek a perfect world where bad things do not happen the nature of life is just that unpredictable and arbitrarily cruel.  Finding meaning in the totality of our lives, regardless of circumstance or opportunity, is perhaps the best exercise of personal agency and that comes closest to embodiment of true complexity, the kind of complexity people who are deeply reflective, empathetic, and personally conscientious demand of themselves.

Tracy Cooper, Ph.D. is the author of Thrive: The Highly Sensitive Person and Career and the forthcoming book: Thrill: The High Sensation Seeking Highly Sensitive Person.

Have you ever felt that you just want to be invisible and not attract the slightest iota of attention to yourself?  What’s behind this urge?  Why do we highly sensitive people often feel that we are better off not attracting attention to ourselves?  In this brief post I offer some ideas put forth by Elaine Aron (in a blog post from 2014, available at http://hsperson.com/invisible-yet-definitive-part-of-yourself/) and add to them my views as a researcher and highly sensitive male.

On Having an Invisible yet Definitive Part of Yourself – Elaine Aron

“Have you ever felt invisible as an HSP? Of course you have. You are.

I have sometimes said that high sensitivity affects all aspects of life, social and otherwise, as much as one’s gender affects one’s life, but gender is visible and sensitivity is invisible. Other examples of fairly permanent characteristics that are largely invisible are high I.Q., being wealthy, being color blind, or having a prosthetic limb or breast reconstruction. These can give the people possessing the invisible characteristic the feeling that they carry a secret that eventually must be disclosed to intimates, but when? And what about the reaction?

Of course now and then we who are highly sensitive ourselves can tell when someone else is. However, people who are not highly sensitive have often asked me, “So how do I know if someone is highly sensitive?” They are finding us to be invisible.

I find that difficult to answer, since we really are not visible in the ordinary sense; but I try because I guess I do not want us to be so totally invisible any longer, at least to those who are interested in finding us. So I say that as you get to know someone better and better, the signs are clear. Highly sensitive people are typically good listeners, need more down time, are bothered by noisy or crowded places, may want to do novel things all day (they can be high sensation seekers) but then want to go rest in the evening, notice things that others miss, cry easily, are upset more than others by injustices, feel more joy and compassion, are conscientious and loyal, fussy too, tolerate caffeine poorly, feel pain more, are slow to make decisions, and see the larger consequences of plans and actions. None of this can be seen right on the surface, but it does not take long to find these qualities if you are looking.

Often, at least in the past, we have preferred to be invisible. Many parents have asked me if they should tell their highly sensitive child or his or her teachers or relatives that this child is highly sensitive. Others ask me if they should tell the person they are dating or even engaged to about their trait. Some people have read The Highly Sensitive Person with a brown paper bag book cover so that no one would know. Clearly we have felt we needed to be invisible.

Our invisibility may have some good evolutionary reasons. If highly sensitive animals, including humans, were always the ones to spot the good stuff, such as the most nutritious food, our going off to enjoy our cache required that we be invisible in the sense that the others did not notice us leaving. A mating strategy for sensitive males in some species is to mate with the choicest female while the other males are off fighting or recovering from fighting. That works better if the tough guys have hardly noticed you. Sensitive animals may generally feed in more hidden places, yielding the best dining spots to the pushy ones in order to avoid a fight and possible injury. However, during a food shortage these sensitive animals are the only ones who know the hidden spots where food can still be found. At those times it’s best to be invisible as you sneak off to eat.

Or there’s my favorite. We often know shortcuts to get around traffic jams, but those are not short cuts if everyone knows them. If your car had a red flag on it, signaling HSP Driver, you would have every car following you as soon as you made a turn off the main highway. In short, if all HSPs were taller, shorter, fatter, thinner, or had redder hair than others—or had any other sign of our trait—it would be less of an advantage.

Now, however, using all sorts of media, including the documentary under production that is appropriately titled Sensitive: The Untold Story, and in our day-to-day lives as well, we HSPs are choosing to tell the non-sensitive 80% of the world’s population that we exist, so that they actually can now follow our lead to the better things in life that we have noticed and they have not so far. The problem is that they cannot find us unless we continue telling them that we exist and who we are. We still have the choice, however, as to when and where to say we are highly sensitive and what good stuff we will tell about, and what we will keep our little secret!“

While evidence from animal studies indicates a similar percentage of highly sensitive individuals in over 100 other species the way sensitivity is expressed in the human population may be affected by unique factors like culture, childhood experiences, and life choices specific to each person.  No two HSPs are alike and, thus, as Elaine has articulated it is harder to “pick us out.”  Many of us do not wish to be labeled or to stand out in any way due to a number of factors:

• early rejections by family, friends, or authority figures leading to a sense of shame, denial, or repression.
• not wishing to be the center of attention (or in fact to attract any attention) because it is overstimulating.  Being excessively overstimulated, say, by being “put on the spot” may make some HSPs frazzled, anxious, and emotionally activated thereby hampering their ability to “be” the center of attention.
• we prefer to observe, collect information, and cognitively process the current events instead of being an active participant.
• being invisible may simply be more comfortable in negotiating the demands of life.

Within each of the above points lies a limitation.  This is especially true in terms of career where extraversion, enthusiasm, intense socialization, and being “out there” in a personal sense is expected and encouraged.  To be quiet in the workplace is to often be ignored and categorized as “too quiet,” “shy,” “distant,” or “aloof.”  Often people who do not speak up are passed over for promotions, interesting new projects, or social gatherings.  Very often the above assumptions are entirely wrong!  The reason they are wrong is because they can only be established in comparison to an arbitrarily established norm.  Thus, I am too quiet as compared to whom?  I am shy as compared to what standard?  I am distant or aloof by whose measure?

It is only through contrasting people’s behaviors against a range of behaviors that may exist in a given group that one is considered “normal.”  Does that mean that the group’s behaviors are, in fact, normal or acceptable?  Many corporations may be considered to be quite predatory and exploitative.  Why would we wish to fit that normal?

The observation has been made throughout my life, in many circumstances, that I am “too quiet.”  The fact is I was bored and chose to retreat inside my own mind where my rich inner life is entirely capable of occupying my time better than mindless babble about sports, politics, or other minutia I had no interest in.  My ability to alienate myself in boring circumstances is akin to a Ferrari: I can go from 0-60 (or in this case from present to checked-out) in 2.5 seconds if what’s facing me is boring.  This is, of course, problematic in the workplace where, let’s face it, A LOT of the things we have to do are boring.  Being invisible in that sense is not so much a choice as a defensive play to survive the boredom on a day to day basis.  I’ve been in positions where my major daily battle was chiefly to stay awake.  This was always especially true for computer-based work.  If I were up and about the battle to stay awake was much easier.

My unique struggle has been being a high sensation seeking highly sensitive person and the tug of war that is almost constantly ongoing between the more outgoing part of myself that wishes to have new experiences, avoid boredom, and find that sweet spot in my optimal range of stimulation and the sensitive side that often wishes to retreat, rest, and think things over.  In that sense being invisible is less of a viable option because the need for stimulation, to do interesting and novel things, outweighs the discomfort any situational anxiety might cause.  Being invisible might be more comfortable, but it does not necessarily satisfy us or help us to fulfill our potential.

For those of us who are highly sensitive males the issue of being invisible is taken to a whole other level with hegemonic expectations of masculine behavior often decrying even having an emotional life, expressions of empathy, or anything short of extreme extraversion and mastery of all things at all times.  Western culture, especially American culture is steeped in a masculinity that glorifies anger, aggressive behavior, domination over women, and winning at all costs.  In some regions of the US traditional notions of this rugged masculinity are giving way to the demands of the 21st century emphasizing cooperation, mentoring of others, inclusiveness, and empathy.  In others these traditional notions still prevail.  Invisibility as a highly sensitive male is often a way of creating a public persona or mask that may be more acceptable to other males, and indeed females who subscribe to and perpetuate culturally derived conceptualizations of what a “man” should be.  Curiously women do not statistically choose to be with violent, aggressive, emotionally unstable mates, though some find themselves with these types anyway.

The question seems to be: why would we choose to be invisible?  I suggest to you that many of us do not choose to be invisible at all.  It’s the society that has chosen to be so superficial as to attach a quick label to every person and that fails to dig deep enough to reveal the depths of people like HSPs.  It seems that in our age of fast and easy access to all the cumulative knowledge and wisdom of the ages we have largely lost our curiosity for each other.  For those of us who are old enough to have grown up in decades before the 1990s (when the internet and electronic distractions began to prevail) we know that all we had back then was each other.  Knowing other people was both a source of pleasure, stimulation, and bonding that held communities together and offered support in times of crisis.  In the 1970s I grew up in a neighborhood where we rode our bicycles near constantly, invented games to fill our time no matter the season, and enjoyed a familiarity with each others capabilities derived through the often ill-advised adventures we undertook.  Somehow no one was seriously injured and we survived to adulthood and reproductive capacity.  At least one of us went on to become a PhD.  Many adults were great storytellers and could spin out a tale with killer punchlines leaving everyone in stitches.  That ability to entertain others is largely gone now as people bury their faces in their phones, scurrying from place to place having secret (though public) conversations with unseen others on their earpieces.

We’ve moved from being a society where people had an instinctual knowledge of how other people were to a society where we are suspicious of others intentions (justifiably so in some cases), intentionally wall ourselves off from others, and then say we’re depressed, anxious, and unfulfilled!  It’s no wonder: we’re not evolved to be antisocial, we’re evolved to be social animals who interact with others.  Some of us (HSPs) may be lower on the sociability front than others, but that does not mean we don’t value our interactions or wish to spend time with others: we just have a daily energy budget that may be depleted in draining circumstances.  Does this mean we should all be as social as the dominant group?

Each of us is unique and possess a deeply individual set of lived experiences that color and inform our choices.  For some of us being invisible is a choice, perhaps a necessity, as we make our way through what may be a difficult life.  For others being invisible is not by choice and we find ourselves simply passed over by a society too superficial to notice our depths or care to engage those parts of ourselves not immediately apparent.  For yet others invisibility is a tug of war with a desire/need to be visible as we ride the seesaw of highs sensation seeking and high sensitivity.  The aspects of ourselves we choose to reveal at any given time and place are but mere shades of a much larger tapestry of potential personality.  Knowing when, how, and whether we should be more visible or less visible takes time, a certain amount of experimentation, and a willingness to tolerate some emotional discomfort and ambiguity.

In my life I moved from being invisible by choice to being visible by choice.  I now move between the two and, while I at times value not being the center of attention, I know I am entirely capable of sharing my inner depths and inviting others into that experience in ways that are non-threatening, authentic to my identity, and that honors my sense of ever-expanding potential.  Perhaps what the worlds needs from us as HSPs is a way to return to humanness, a way to retreat from personal attacks, dumbed down interactions devoid of substance, and emotional depth and complexity.  Finding ways to embody our depth of being requires of us that we first find a balance between visibility and invisibility, between conscious engagement and prudent self-preservation, and between love for ourselves and love for others.

Tracy Cooper, Ph.D. is the author of Thrive: The Highly Sensitive Person and Career (available now on his web site at a 25% discount), and a consultant helping HSPs and HSS/HSPs in career transition and crisis.  His web site is at drtracycooper.com

Growing our hearts to allow a deep understanding and space where love for another person can exist freely and joyfully is a task that has become very personal to me as I have become a caregiver for my aging mother.  I, of course, had a relationship with my mother prior to our current situation, but, like many people, our relationship was more diffused as I tended to the demands of raising four children, work, and other concerns in life.  My relationship with my mom was second tier for many years as it is for many people.

In the last few years, as my mom reached her late 60s and started to encounter serious issues with her health (diabetes chiefly), it became obvious that she needed help.  I sought to provide that help and, for a time, things were in balance.  Then my family and I moved two hours from her to a larger area with more opportunities for work and education (the area we had been in is destitute and poverty-stricken).  I knew her situation might decline, but there was hope that others might pitch in and absorb the slack: that did not happen and her situation deteriorated without consistent, reliable supervision of her healthcare.  Several impassioned calls from her new doctor convinced me of the necessity of moving her nearer to our new home so we could provide for her needs.  A plan was made and a living situation in a seniors-only apartment complex secured.  We moved my mom a few months ago and our relationship has been in renegotiation since.

In this post I offer to you some of the wisdom that I have gained as a result of reflecting on the necessity of expanding my heart to allow space for real empathy to exist, for love to replace superficial ego concerns, and for the gentle words of Thic Nhat Hanh (from a post by Maria Popova) to inform us.

“To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love.”

By Maria Popova (original post available at https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/03/31/how-to-love-thich-nhat-hanh/).

“What does love mean, exactly? We have applied to it our finest definitions; we have examined its psychology and outlined it in philosophical frameworks; we have even devised a mathematical formula for attaining it. And yet anyone who has ever taken this wholehearted leap of faith knows that love remains a mystery — perhaps the mystery of the human experience.

Learning to meet this mystery with the full realness of our being — to show up for it with absolute clarity of intention — is the dance of life.

That’s what legendary Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, teacher, and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh (b. October 11, 1926) explores in How to Love (public library) — a slim, simply worded collection of his immeasurably wise insights on the most complex and most rewarding human potentiality.

Indeed, in accordance with the general praxis of Buddhist teachings, Nhat Hanh delivers distilled infusions of clarity, using elementary language and metaphor to address the most elemental concerns of the soul. To receive his teachings one must make an active commitment not to succumb to the Western pathology of cynicism, our flawed self-protection mechanism that readily dismisses anything sincere and true as simplistic or naïve — even if, or precisely because, we know that all real truth and sincerity are simple by virtue of being true and sincere.

At the heart of Nhat Hanh’s teachings is the idea that “understanding is love’s other name” — that to love another means to fully understand his or her suffering. (“Suffering” sounds rather dramatic, but in Buddhism it refers to any source of profound dissatisfaction — be it physical or psychoemotional or spiritual.) Understanding, after all, is what everybody needs — but even if we grasp this on a theoretical level, we habitually get too caught in the smallness of our fixations to be able to offer such expansive understanding. He illustrates this mismatch of scales with an apt metaphor:

If you pour a handful of salt into a cup of water, the water becomes undrinkable. But if you pour the salt into a river, people can continue to draw the water to cook, wash, and drink. The river is immense, and it has the capacity to receive, embrace, and transform. When our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited, and we suffer. We can’t accept or tolerate others and their shortcomings, and we demand that they change. But when our hearts expand, these same things don’t make us suffer anymore. We have a lot of understanding and compassion and can embrace others. We accept others as they are, and then they have a chance to transform.

The question then becomes how to grow our own hearts, which begins with a commitment to understand and bear witness to our own suffering:

When we feed and support our own happiness, we are nourishing our ability to love. That’s why to love means to learn the art of nourishing our happiness.

Understanding someone’s suffering is the best gift you can give another person. Understanding is love’s other name. If you don’t understand, you can’t love.

And yet because love is a learned “dynamic interaction,” we form our patterns of understanding — and misunderstanding — early in life, by osmosis and imitation rather than conscious creation. Echoing what Western developmental psychology knows about the role of “positivity resonance” in learning love, Nhat Hanh writes:

If our parents didn’t love and understand each other, how are we to know what love looks like? … The most precious inheritance that parents can give their children is their own happiness. Our parents may be able to leave us money, houses, and land, but they may not be happy people. If we have happy parents, we have received the richest inheritance of all.

Nhat Hanh points out the crucial difference between infatuation, which replaces any real understanding of the other with a fantasy of who he or she can be for us, and true love:

Often, we get crushes on others not because we truly love and understand them, but to distract ourselves from our suffering. When we learn to love and understand ourselves and have true compassion for ourselves, then we can truly love and understand another person.

Out of this incomplete understanding of ourselves spring our illusory infatuations, which Nhat Hanh captures with equal parts wisdom and wit:

Sometimes we feel empty; we feel a vacuum, a great lack of something. We don’t know the cause; it’s very vague, but that feeling of being empty inside is very strong. We expect and hope for something much better so we’ll feel less alone, less empty. The desire to understand ourselves and to understand life is a deep thirst. There’s also the deep thirst to be loved and to love. We are ready to love and be loved. It’s very natural. But because we feel empty, we try to find an object of our love. Sometimes we haven’t had the time to understand ourselves, yet we’ve already found the object of our love. When we realize that all our hopes and expectations of course can’t be fulfilled by that person, we continue to feel empty. You want to find something, but you don’t know what to search for. In everyone there’s a continuous desire and expectation; deep inside, you still expect something better to happen. That is why you check your email many times a day!

Real, truthful love, he argues, is rooted in four elements — loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity — fostering which lends love “the element of holiness.” The first of them addresses this dialogic relationship between our own suffering and our capacity to fully understand our loved ones:

The essence of loving kindness is being able to offer happiness. You can be the sunshine for another person. You can’t offer happiness until you have it for yourself. So build a home inside by accepting yourself and learning to love and heal yourself. Learn how to practice mindfulness in such a way that you can create moments of happiness and joy for your own nourishment. Then you have something to offer the other person.

[…]

If you have enough understanding and love, then every moment — whether it’s spent making breakfast, driving the car, watering the garden, or doing anything else in your day — can be a moment of joy.

This interrelatedness of self and other is manifested in the fourth element as well, equanimity, the Sanskrit word for which — upeksha — is also translated as “inclusiveness” and “nondiscrimination”:

In a deep relationship, there’s no longer a boundary between you and the other person. You are her and she is you. Your suffering is her suffering. Your understanding of your own suffering helps your loved one to suffer less. Suffering and happiness are no longer individual matters. What happens to your loved one happens to you. What happens to you happens to your loved one.

[…]

In true love, there’s no more separation or discrimination. His happiness is your happiness. Your suffering is his suffering. You can no longer say, “That’s your problem.”

Supplementing the four core elements are also the subsidiary elements of trust and respect, the currency of love’s deep mutuality:

When you love someone, you have to have trust and confidence. Love without trust is not yet love. Of course, first you have to have trust, respect, and confidence in yourself. Trust that you have a good and compassionate nature. You are part of the universe; you are made of stars. When you look at your loved one, you see that he is also made of stars and carries eternity inside. Looking in this way, we naturally feel reverence. True love cannot be without trust and respect for oneself and for the other person.

The essential mechanism for establishing such trust and respect is listening — something so frequently extolled by Western psychologists, therapists, and sage grandparents that we’ve developed a special immunity to hearing it. And yet when Nhat Hanh reframes this obvious insight with the gentle elegance of his poetics, it somehow bypasses the rational cynicism of the jaded modern mind and registers directly in the soul:

To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love. To know how to love someone, we have to understand them. To understand, we need to listen.

[…]

When you love someone, you should have the capacity to bring relief and help him to suffer less. This is an art. If you don’t understand the roots of his suffering, you can’t help, just as a doctor can’t help heal your illness if she doesn’t know the cause. You need to understand the cause of your loved one’s suffering in order to help bring relief.

[…]

The more you understand, the more you love; the more you love, the more you understand. They are two sides of one reality. The mind of love and the mind of understanding are the same.

Echoing legendary Zen teacher D.T. Suzuki’s memorable aphorism that “the ego-shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow,” Nhat Hanh considers how the notion of the separate, egoic “I” interrupts the dialogic flow of understanding — the “interbeing,” to use his wonderfully poetic and wonderfully precise term, that is love:

Often, when we say, “I love you” we focus mostly on the idea of the “I” who is doing the loving and less on the quality of the love that’s being offered. This is because we are caught by the idea of self. We think we have a self. But there is no such thing as an individual separate self. A flower is made only of non-flower elements, such as chlorophyll, sunlight, and water. If we were to remove all the non-flower elements from the flower, there would be no flower left. A flower cannot be by herself alone. A flower can only inter-be with all of us… Humans are like this too. We can’t exist by ourselves alone. We can only inter-be. I am made only of non-me elements, such as the Earth, the sun, parents, and ancestors. In a relationship, if you can see the nature of interbeing between you and the other person, you can see that his suffering is your own suffering, and your happiness is his own happiness. With this way of seeing, you speak and act differently. This in itself can relieve so much suffering.”

As I came to know my mother’s suffering, which is rooted in many sources beyond moving to a new place not entirely of her choosing, I realized I could play a significant role in modeling a way of being that was less anxious, less egoic, and more attuned to valuing of her suffering.  By suffering here I mean not actual physical suffering, but more psycho-emotional.  Certainly her living situation and health have improved dramatically, I’m happy to report, but finding joy in living seems to remain elusive at best.  I have had to learn to know my mother all over again, this time as an individual for whom life has been fraught with anxiety.  She is a highly sensitive person who experienced a childhood permeated by abuse, trauma, and neglect, plus an adult life married to a domineering, at times cruel and manipulative husband.  Her education stopped at eighth grade, though she has remained curious about many things throughout life.  As I seek understanding of who she is as a person and not as it affects me I have found that this new understanding is more patient, compassionate, and not so different from my own.  

My ability to create spaces within myself that can extend to another person beyond my reality is partly rooted in a cultivation of my own happiness.  Happiness in this sense is more inclusive of the value of positive AND negative experiences.  In a fully formed realization of happiness one values both experiences equally and derives meaning from personal suffering.  Suffering here is universal as understanding of my Mom’s life reveals the interbeing that exists between us all.  My life isn’t so very different from your life, only in the details.  Deep listening has helped me form new conceptualizations of my Mom’s life as it retreats less from a place of fear of the unknown and begins to unfurl ever so slowly into a tentative embracing of possibility.  This is all aided by my experiences parenting my four children who are now nearly all adults.

There are moments of joy between us and I take those as they come.  I’ve also released any notions of intentionally trying to change my Mom’s perspective.  We all live in a time and place and are intensely shaped by our cultural conditioning, which varies from generation to generation.  Understanding that my mom inhabits a worldview informed by socioeconomic class, personal experiences, and a perceptual lens partly informed by those around her allows a space for her own understanding to grow and for her to venture forth in new surroundings with confidence that she is understood and loved.  

As we HSPs debate the role we should play in our world there is no more important role that we should fulfill than the role of healer.  Our world is surely rife with wounded and injured people who have been trampled underfoot by egoic individuals less interested in interbeing and more interested in “I” being.  Many of us have experienced emotional abuse as children AND adults and are still in the process of healing and finding wholeness.  Being an HSP MAY mean that we are capable of embodying love in ways that are unique to us if we are willing to release ego, nourish our own happiness, and grow our hearts.  Of course, not all HSPs will learn these lessons the same nor will every HSP be as capable of giving of themselves as others, but as individuals inherently predisposed toward high empathy, personal authenticity, and complexity we are in a position, much as shamans and healers in tribal societies, to serve in a capacity where our own personal struggles and suffering lead us to loving others in an expanded sense because we realize and subscribe to the interbeing of all living things.

If you are lost in the cares and concerns of the world and have lost your way as a highly sensitive person I encourage you to pull back from all of those worries and things you cannot control.  Take a walk, sit by the ocean and feel the waves; wander through the woods feeling the life force in the trees, the wind, the birds and forest dwellers; pull back from judgement and criticism (inner and outer) and build spaces within yourself where deeper understanding of others can exist, and where love can grow for those in your life who may so desperately need it.  There are many ways we may each express our sensitivity, our gifts, but learning to love by creating an expansive river within ourselves where the salt may disperse and not poison it may perhaps be one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves and others.

 

You’ve seen the movie, you’ve read the books, and now you’re feeling confident in your new found appreciation of sensory processing sensitivity.  You have embraced what it means to be a highly sensitive person within your own self and now feel you are comfortable enough in this identity to tell others.  Here’s the scene: you’re with a friend having lunch and the conversation is going well.  She seems to be hitting on several points that tie in closely with your personality trait.  You think she might even be an HSP!  What better time to tell another person your newfound “secret?”  You blurt out “I’m an HSP!”  Quickly following that up with “That means I’m a highly sensitive person,” as your friend assumes a puzzled look on her face you’ve never quite seen before.  “What does that mean?  Are you gonna cry every time I say something?”  “Are you easily offended?”  OOPs!  This has all gone sideways in ways you never imagined and you quickly try to explain how being a highly sensitive person simply means you have a specific personality trait that encompasses a depth of processing of all experience (you prefer to thoroughly process all stimuli before acting); a tendency toward overstimulation in certain, highly individualized situations; you may be deeply empathetic and emotionally responsive (more so than those without the trait); and you notice subtleties others may overlook.  Your friend now seems a bit more interested, but you realize there may be a problem in divulging this “secret” to others.

To better examine this phenomena let’s look at a few of the complexities that may be causing us to misinterpret how revealing such an intimate aspect of our personality may be perceived.

When we divulge a major detail about ourselves to others we are separating ourselves from them.  This is especially true if the person we reveal our trait to does not have the trait, or if the person is not self-aware or knowledgeable about personality traits.  You would be amazed at how many people perceive personality traits as disorders to be classed in the same categories as actual disorders. People may react to this new information about you in ways that reveal disgust, surprise, anger, even happiness.  Whatever the case we are creating a space between ourselves and “them” when we feel we need to tell someone the way in which we are different from them.  It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that human beings do not like being “othered,” or made to feel that they are somehow less than another person.  This may be the case when we reveal that we are part of a unique 15-20% of the overall population.  No one wants to be part of the other 80%.  Everyone wants to feel they are unique and special in some way, especially in Western cultures where individuality is emphasized so profoundly.

Similarly it’s possible that the other person thought they knew you well and are caught quite off guard at this new information.  There may be some resentment at feeling you were withholding vital information, thereby damaging the relationship (at least through hurt feelings).  Not all people will react with horror at your revelation that “I’m an HSP!”  Some will be quite ho-hum about it, not quite engaging you in the way you intended, which you probably wished to be excited interest so you could tell her all the details about this journey to self-awareness and self-acceptance you’ve been on.  Others may be quite dismissive saying “you’ve read one too many self-help books!” In this case what they may be saying is at odds with your own deep need for self-awareness.

When we discuss anything related to mental health it is likely to be perceived through a deeply personal lens.  In many Western societies awareness and understanding of mental illnesses is limited with many people gleaning their knowledge from firsthand experience with a particular disorder (a family member or friend).  Often people will generalize based on one, isolated experience.  For instance, let’s say your friend had a family member with bipolar depression and witnessed non-compliance with medications or mistreatment at the hands of therapists, or worse, witnessed episodes of crisis in the affected person.  In some cases that single experience (with its intensely negative connotations) will form the person’s entire mental inventory related to all mental illnesses or anything related to personalities.  Good luck explaining what it means to be a highly sensitive person to that type.

People are subject to intense peer pressure to ensure conformity to group norms.  If a particular group (even an entire culture) is closed to acknowledging differences between people there may be tremendous pressure to deny or ignore scientific evidence supporting personality traits, even psychological research in general.  In a modern age of easy access to all information (good, bad, and questionable) people may also be very skeptical about entertaining new ideas: we’ve become very jaded about the reliability of any one source (and justifiably so).  The pressure to conform to group norms and beliefs is one of the strongest forces affecting behavior that is known.

“So what?  You’re still a person like me who has to live her life!“  This response may make you feel devalued, but is also a pragmatic response in that we do indeed have to go on living our lives.  The difference is HSPs may have slightly different needs that we must accommodate in order to function at our optimal level.  It’s not news that the economic changes since 2008, coupled with a declining purchasing power of many currencies (in the US since about 1970), has made scarcity a more prominent issue for many people.  When we operate on a scarcity mentality we are concerned with the basics of life: food, housing, clothing, transportation, and energy.  Things that complicate or seem to otherwise hinder the single-minded pursuit of difficult to obtain resources may be construed as pointless, without merit, or counterproductive, hence, the “so what?”

Why do we feel a need to reveal an intimate aspect of ourselves like sensory processing sensitivity and how can we approach it better?

We may be excited to reveal a part of ourselves that we feel explains so much of our behaviors!  This is a natural inclination and we may feel great joy at finally understanding this complicated aspect of ourselves and wish to share it with others.  Admittedly, sensory processing sensitivity is a complex construct and may take any of us quite awhile to fully understand and appreciate its influence in our lives.

We should be selective in whom we choose to confide such intimate details to acknowledging the lack of awareness and acceptance that exists in the general public regarding personality traits and a general distrust of psychology and all things related to mental health.

You are under no obligation to reveal your personality traits to anyone.  If you are an HSP it is likely that others already understand about you that you think and feel deeply; that you may be overstimulated in certain circumstances and situations; that you have a need to recharge in private; and that you are empathetic and sensitive to subtleties.  You might be surprised at how astute others may be: HSP or not.

Be who you feel yourself to be while feeling no need to explain that to others.  If you are capable of embracing who you are in a confident way it will invite others into your experience and let’s remember that HSPs do not exist in a void or vacuum.  Your personality trait is simply an evolved psychological mechanism that provides you with a broader range of possible behaviors.  Being an HSP does not mean you will constantly exhibit all of the possible range of behaviors, but at any point you may embody one or more.  

By accepting and espousing the label, highly sensitive person (or HSP), you are placing yourself in a box.  As I noted in my recent post The Homogenization of the Highly Sensitive Person it should not be our aim to think of ourselves in any one dimension, rather we should attempt to be all that we are capable of as human beings emphasizing that we are simply a segment of the species with a marginally rare personality trait evolved to meet the survival and reproductive needs of our species.  In modern societies it may not seem that we are valued, understood, or appreciated, but there is a need for this trait in our world where duality (extremes of positions) seem to dominate with very little compromise in actually getting things done.  As individuals capable of envisioning a broader range of complexity (coupled with our innate creativity) we are naturals for embodying complexity.  Whether that is appreciated in our society is a different matter.

As a researcher, consultant, educator, and author who has spoken to hundreds of HSPs I am continually awestruck at the beautiful humanity we HSPs seem to embody, just in our being us.  I’ve always been drawn to the eccentric, creative, deep-minded type of individual and I have never been disappointed in meeting an HSP.  We may vary a great deal in how we express sensory processing sensitivity, but make no mistake it is a beautiful personality trait that serves to humanize our coarser edges as a species; provide creativity propelling innovation and progress; and contributes to thorough planning through reflection, contemplation, and connectivity.  There is much more that makes us us, but each of us expresses that as uniquely as snowflakes in the winter.

Be yourself in the best way you can trusting that that confident embodiment is enough to invite others into your experience without any need on your part to “sell” the trait to others.

What have been your experiences in revealing to others that you are a highly sensitive person?  Have they reacted positively, as if your sensitivity is not that much of a surprise or have they reacted with disbelief as if you’re embracing a nebulous concept with no scientific evidence or validity?

My experiences, though you might think I would have no problem telling others (or a need to) due to my very public exposure in Sensitive – The Untold Story or through my book Thrive: The Highly Sensitive Person and Career, have been that I have felt the need to detail this aspect of my personality rarely.  Others who know me know either view me as “way too quiet,” or think of me as a creative type (with stereotypical behaviors).  Both are true, but the reality of who I am, and who you are, is so much more vast!  To reduce us to labels (quiet, artistic, moody, etc.) is to deny the oceanic possibilities inherent in each person.  Who would we seek to reduce people to mere labels, mere categories of people who will think and act in predictable ways?  I suggest part of the answer is in our Western orientation toward reductionism, which is, simply put, a way of learning about something through reducing a complex construct to its individual parts trusting that by knowing each part we can see the whole.

The truth is reductivist thought often mistakes the trees for the forest.  By revealing that I am an HSP (with the terribly unfortunate “highly sensitive” moniker) I would be projecting to others a narrow slice of my total being.  Of course, the truth is much broader and we know that HSPs are generally curious-minded, open to new experiences, creative, and complex individuals capable of a broader range of possible behaviors and feelings (with accompanying depth of processing) than those without the trait.

Choosing to reveal to others our trait is always a calculated gamble.  Perhaps they will be open to understanding, perhaps not.  In some cases the advantages and risk of confusing looks and quizzical expressions (or just the nonplussed, deadpan look) are worth the discomfort because being understood by others in certain situations may be key to an effective relationship that takes into account our greater sensitivities for many things as well as our deeper processing of all experience.  Understanding and allowing for those aspects can lead to better outcomes in some relationships (professional and otherwise).

If you DO choose to reveal sensory processing sensitivity I suggest you

• use the scientific term sensory processing sensitivity and not highly sensitive person.
• I also recommend articulating the fact that this trait has been well-researched by academically qualified scientists who publish regularly in mainstream peer-reviewed journals.
• You might include the recent fMRI studies showing slight anatomical differences in the brains of HSPs with greater activation in the areas controlling empathy.
• Certainly you would want to include that sensory processing sensitivity is a personality trait present in 15-20% of the total population and not a disorder of any kind with sensory processing sensitivity simply representing an evolved psychological mechanism that provides for greater survivability and reproductive success for the species.
• Lastly, you might mention that the trait is likely heritable, though no one gene has been identified yet, and is moderated by childhood environment (very important because HSPs from unsupportive backgrounds with abuse, trauma, or conflict in the household experience often lifelong issues with anxiety, depression, low self-efficacy, pessimism, and other negative trends due to greater processing of intensely negative experiences).

Following up on the successful overview documentary film, Sensitive-The Untold Story, the movie’s creators, Will Harper and Diana Sinelnikova Harper, have embarked on the formidable task of addressing the role of childhood in the lives of highly sensitive people.  As readers of this blog know I have explored the crucial role adverse childhood events (ACEs) may play in influencing the course of our lives, even the way our brains work.  I am excited/interested to see this new film, which is sure to include the same rigorous scientifically-backed findings as the first movie.

No word yet on a premier date.  Stay tuned!

http://sensitivethemovie.com/singapore-opens-its-doors-to-sensitive-the-untold-story-sequel/

Tracy Cooper, Ph.D.

Author of Thrive: The Highly Sensitive Person and Career

“All highly sensitive people are crybabies.”  “All HSPs are easily offended.”  “No HSP could possibly enjoy fireworks because of the explosions!”  These blanket statements, and a hundred other homogenizing assumptions, seem to proliferate discussions in HSP forums on social media and in general as awareness increases of sensory processing sensitivity, the underlying personality trait people termed highly sensitive people (or HSPs) identify with.  Do most of these generalizations have some basis in a kernel of truth?  Yes, most do, but what there is no consensus for is a set list of characteristics beyond the popular DOES acronym for describing the four main aspects of sensory processing sensitivity.  In this brief post I will examine some of the social and psychological processes we are engaging in when we attempt to generalize one characteristic to an entire group.

In-Groups and Out-Groups

It is likely that, in our ancestral past, it proved beneficial to be able to determine which individuals held things in common with us and which did not.  By aligning ourselves with those we felt commonalities with we formed coalitions.  These coalitions and alliances may have been short-term, as for a hunting party where labor and skill were necessary for success, or longer-term, as for establishing ties and bonds with neighboring groups that could lessen the potential for violence and mistrust, while increasing potential allies in a pinch.

Concurrent with this tendency was the othering of people we did not identify with.  These were out-group members.  As members of an out-group our natural tendency was to homogenize them, while thinking of our in-group as more diverse.  In actuality this is usually not the case and can lead to groupthink, which is a situation groups of individuals can get into where people no longer raise objections, present countering viewpoints, or consider the consequences of their actions in favor of group conformity.

For the many HSP communities there has been an increasing trend, so it seems, to cast members of any one group as all alike.  “NONE of us can stand fireworks because we’re all highly sensitive!”  But, is this true?  I personally enjoy fireworks, especially the loud booms, the louder the better.  Does this mean I’m not an HSP?  Does this mean that over one billion people, we are 15-20% of the total population, cower and shrink back from fireworks?  Of course it doesn’t.  It is likely as many HSPs LOVE fireworks as do not.  There’s no way to know unless we poll a significant number of  random HSPs.  So why do we feel so compelled to assume all of us are alike?  Moreover why do we attempt to coerce other HSPs into conformity?

Out-Group Derogation

We have all had experiences with the 80% of the population who do not possess the trait.  After all we live among them, work with them, and may be married to them and have children who are “them.”  Certainly for people who are strongly emotional, a key aspect of sensory processing sensitivity, dealing with those who do not have the trait can be exasperating and lead to lumping them together as a singular group of “non-HSPs,” but that very term “non-HSPs” automatically casts the billions of other humans on the planet into an out-group category.  There is no more consensus regarding the behaviors of those without the trait than those with the trait.  Behaviors are influenced by a number of factors and are context dependent meaning how we choose to act and react in a given situation.  For instance, an HSP may react very strongly or not at all depending on the context.  So how is it that an HSP can tolerate fireworks when we are “supposed” to be easily overstimulated?  Doesn’t that make us all like a room full of cats just waiting for a shoe to hit the floor?

In my latest book, Thrive: The Highly Sensitive Person and Career, I described the concept of HSPs as being individuals capable of exhibiting a broader range of possible behaviors than in those without the trait.  This tendency, or more appropriately capability, means we have a larger number of possible behaviors that we may exhibit in any given context, not that we will.  Even complex, deep thinking and feeling people may choose to not react when the stimulation is of their own choosing.  In such circumstances, when we consciously choose the stimulation, we are prepared for the accompanying booms that go with attending a fireworks show or celebration.  In that sense we probably override our feeling instinct and enjoy ourselves to an extent not possible in those without the trait.  The same concept would apply to ANY stimulation we consciously choose.

Many HSPs probably enjoy a good day in the city touring art museums, eateries, and cultural offerings.  Just as many probably prefer a quiet day at the beach lost in their own thoughts while they browse for shells or enjoy the communion with nature.  Another example, many HSPs react in a visceral way at certain types of noises.  I have a major issue with restaurants where people crunch chips loudly like breaking glass, or rattling noises, such as candy wrappers.  At other times I can be completely oblivious to otherwise irritating, possibly infuriating noises.  I know some HSPs who react to noises, such as described above, in a far more aggressive way, occasionally making a public scene at the “offender.”  Some of those same HSPs may be totally fine with horror movies, which may be full of surprise moments and graphic violence.  It comes back to a matter of choice.  When we choose the stimulation we are more likely to be more tolerant.  When it is forced on us we may react quite differently, and, yes, an enraged HSP can be an ugly, irrational spectacle.

When we think of stimulation as being either chosen or forced on us we can see how we may presume that all HSPs prefer quiet, reflective conditions, but nothing could be farther from the truth.  We might also cast people without the trait as completely insensitive, unfeeling, or non-empathetic.  Nothing is further from the truth again.  Non-HSPs may react the same way in any given circumstance.  It’s not as if they don’t register the stimulation, they just aren’t as sensitive and do not experience the quick, deep emotions that we often do.

To categorize, homogenize, and overgeneralize is to create an oversimplification of others that is reductive, simplistic, and ignores the reality that HSPs are not a separate group of humans who should live apart from everyone else in some secluded, noise-free environment.  HSPs vary as much as the rest of the population.  Some are very nice, others are as disagreeable and pessimistic as one can imagine.  There is no one singular mold from which all HSPs are cast.  Each of our individual psyches consist of genetic, environmental, and choice specific influences.  How we react in a given circumstance is as varied as the wind.

Celebrating and Preserving Diversity

The trend toward homogenization of HSPs is likely to continue as people seek commonality.  Interestingly HSPs may be as driven by human instincts as anyone else, in spite of their own perceived “differentness.”  Many HSPs have reported feeling different than others throughout their lives.  It is ironic that in our diversity we seek to homogenize that natural variety into a compact, limiting HSP “mold.”  Instead I challenge each of us to celebrate our diversity by NOT succumbing to the tendency to lump us all together and express that in public.  There is a real consequence to such homogenization.

When we subscribe to the notion of group similarity we limit the ability of people who may be new to exploring sensory processing sensitivity to effectively identify exactly what it means to be an HSP.  It’s difficult enough to sift through each of the four aspects of sensory processing sensitivity: depth of processing of all stimuli, overstimulation in certain circumstances, high empathy and emotional reactivity, and sensitivity to subtle stimuli,without the smoke screen of homogenization that seems to be obscuring a marginally rare personality trait shared by over one billion people worldwide.

Instead I propose, and advocate for, a simple acknowledgement of our inherent diversity, a beautiful diversity of artists, lovers, healers, impassioned educators, activists, and a thousand other blends of human energy and effort.  Let’s celebrate our diversity, while acknowledging we still live within a larger group of people.  I contend that our mission is not to separate ourselves, rather it is to embody what it means to be capable of a broader range of thoughts and actions than others.  This is a tremendous strength, not a weakness.  Each of us, in our own unique way, needs to express what it means to be us in our lives in as much as we are capable.  It means nothing to be highly sensitive if we do nothing except seek commonality, which is actually conformity.  When we seek radical commonality we imitate teenagers who claim diversity, yet all wear similar clothes, speak a similar language with fad expressions (group specific jargon), and ultimately, in spite of our efforts to find diversity in our commonality, appear homogeneous to those who are outside their group.

I think it is highly useful to learn how HSPs may be alike, especially when one is new to exploring the trait, but then the best approach, and the one that may best preserve individual diversity, is to work on expressing who we are in highly individual ways.  It is through our expression of differentness in the world that we serve the purpose of alerting others to thinking and experiencing life in new ways in a time of increasing polarization and narrow thought.  This is of deep value to all of humankind.

The Commodification of the HSP

There is another aspect to homogenization that will occur over time for HSPs.  Western society, being generally driven by the profit motive, aims to sell products and services to groups of people, based on like preferences.  It’s likely that as the marketplace gathers increasing amounts of data they will incorporate advertising psychology to attempt to understand how best to market their products.  This process of using psychology to market to consumers has been in place since the middle of the 20th century and began with Edward Bernays, who began the practice of using the social sciences to manipulate and influence how we think, feel, and act.  Bernay’s said “”If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it? The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits.” (Propaganda, 2005 ed., p. 71.) He called this scientific technique of opinion-molding the “engineering of consent.”

It is inevitable that as soon as business gets a whiff of profit from HSPs the floodgates will open to forming and shaping of public opinion, even in individuals supposedly as broad-minded as HSPs.  We serve as pawns to the market when we self-describe as one set group of people with a definable set of characteristics.  I certainly would have no problem if the built environment would take a few cues from those of us who may prefer public design that incorporates more people friendly use of spaces, but I do not welcome marketing to HSPs based on faulty understandings of who we are.

I think it is true that we HSPs can usually read between the lines in advertising, due to our strong empathy and scrutiny, and it might prove comedic to view television commercials advertising cure-all products for HSPs, but, no doubt, people will be victimized by scammers and unscrupulous producers of useless products and services.  If I advocate for one central view in this discussion it would be skepticism to any claims of homogeneity among HSPs.

The Ordinary Magic of Resilience and the Highly Sensitive Person
Tracy Cooper, Ph.D.

It’s been said that resilience is the ability to bounce back from adversity, but do we actually appreciate the deeper implications of resilience beyond that superficial dimension? Is resilience that simple and how does it affect the lives of highly sensitive people?

In my book Thrive: The Highly Sensitive Person and Career I wrote about the necessity of cultivating a mindset and way of being that allows for us to develop and nourish the best, most creative parts of ourselves in service to our higher instincts. That mindset must be based on developing an attitude toward self-care that approaches a spiritual practice. We HSPs function in a slightly different way than those without the trait, sensory processing sensitivity, and that difference can be exhausting for us as we react to stimuli in our environments that may be positive, negative, or ambiguous. Regardless of the nature of the stimuli we are quick to react emotionally and quick to begin a deep process of feeling, thinking, and observing before we act.

In this brief article I would like to present a few nuggets regarding resilience that will expand our understanding of the concept and raise several important implications we may all reflect on as 2015 closes and a new year begins.

Resilience
First, let’s establish an expanded definition of resilience to include thinking of resilience as more than a response to stressful events. Resilience, as described by Reich, Zautra, and Hall (2010), focuses on recovery, or the ability to rebound from stress, a capacity to “regain equilibrium quickly and return to an initial state of health.” Further, a second dimension, sustainability, implies the “continuation of the recovery trajectory, even growth and enhancement of function as a result of healthy reactions to the stressful experience.” In this conceptualization resilience is more of a process than simply an outcome. I suggest this is especially applicable for HSPs due to our greater sensitivities and continual nature of stresses in our lives.

It is important to note, even crucial, that not all HSPs are alike. In fact, what is problematic one HSP may not register with the next. Thus, our experiences with stress may vary widely as does our approach in managing the stressful event. Without this acknowledgement of deep diversity in our population, and we are discussing over one billion individuals worldwide, we allow ourselves to fall prey to the human tendency to seek commonality and familiarity, thereby diminishing the reality of each individual expressing the trait in a slightly different way. To establish this point even further let’s consider how we differ.

Each of us comes from a unique culture with various worldviews determining our perceptions about ourselves, other people, and the world we live in. Within that we each inhabit a place in the social structure determined by our socioeconomic status. Our education level further determines much with regard to how we view the world and its many inherent stresses. Even our familial groups and secondary groups, from birth on, contribute in significant ways in imparting reactions to stress and subsequent strategies for managing how we react. Some of us have very good outcomes in stressful circumstances, others do quite poorly and continue to react in ways that damage our emotional, physical, and social selves. Because most people alive today find themselves in an increasingly dynamic and challenging survival environment our cultivation of resilience as a process and an outcome seem extremely advisable. Is resilience difficult to cultivate and is it common in our species?

Resilience is actually a common experience among people of all ages, from children (Garmezy, 1991), to the rest of the lifespan (Bonanno, 2004; Greve & Staudinger, 2006). Though we may all react to initially stressful psychological experiences most of us recover, and even grow from the experience. Indeed, in the most trying of circumstances is when we discover our capacity to rebound psychologically, physiologically, and socially. This does not mean that we may not be the “worse for wear,” rather that our ability to recover from stress is a built-in mechanism that has allowed our species to thrive in any environment, across time with vastly differing challenges. Humans seem to be masters of resilience for the most part, but are there special challenges for the highly sensitive person?

Emotionality
The highly sensitive person reacts emotionally more so than those without the trait.
This means that we may experience an intense emotional reaction triggering internal mental chatter alerting us to dangers (useful in some contexts), imploring us to explore options, or experience anxiety as a result of fear of the event. Many HSPs have learned to tune out some of the mind chatter, or at least minimize its detrimental effects on their ability to recover through careful attunement to what is actually important and what is simply excess mind noise. Others may feel overwhelmed with anxiety, dread, and experience an activation of the fight or flight instinct raising adrenal levels as our bodies prepare to engage or flee. For some the feelings of anxiety and physiological excitement may be so strong they can do nothing but withdraw from the situation and regroup. This instinct to flee may run counter to our strong sense of conscientiousness, which may compel us to engage the experience as best as we can.

The strong emotionality in highly sensitive people makes us quick to react, perhaps overreact in some circumstances, to a potential danger or to an opportunity. The firing of strong emotion awakens the mind and focuses it to a laser like point drawing in all of our capacities in this one moment as we begin to experience an activation of our fight or flight instinct. Adrenaline surges when emotions flare as our bodies prepare themselves for immediate action. These processes are deeply embedded in our DNA as a self-preservation instinct alerting us to immediate danger from animals, natural hazards, or other people who may be aggressive and dangerous.

Let’s make no mistake about these evolved psychological mechanisms. Traits like sensory processing sensitivity likely served to keep us safe from danger, alert us to opportunities for food or mating, and enhanced our ability to function as members of social groups. It is in our modern world where we are far removed from immediate engagement of our capacities to live and survive in the outdoors that even developing an understanding and awareness of these instinctual mechanisms seems like studying an alien species with peculiar dispositions seemingly unsuited to the current sociological structure. Indeed, our strong emotionality still alerts us to immediate danger from aggressive and dangerous people and to potential opportunities for food and mating. The difference in a modern age is we trade currency for food meaning we have adapted our hunting instincts to the working world. In that sense we develop strategies to entice customers to trade their currency for the goods or services we choose to sell often using advertising and marketing with alluring “bait,” similar to a hunting snare.  Other comparisons abound in the corporate world of utilizing our hunting instincts, but let’s suffice it to say that we evolved these instincts to aid in our survival.

In mating and relationships we are continually searching the signals others project for potential suitability as mates, even after we are in committed relationships. At times we project our own sexual energy to show interest. Some people do this quite subtlety, while others are more overt. The ability to quickly pick up on these mating cues is intriguing in the highly sensitive person because it eschews traditional notions of potential mates always choosing the strongest or fittest specimens. Sensitivity, in a very real sense, implies a subtle cleverness and creativity based on observation, patience, reflection, and strategy, rather than overwhelming with impulsivity, aggression, and superficiality. Emotionality, as evidenced in the highly sensitive person, may serve as a strong factor in our overall resilience as we quickly attune ourselves to a particular situation and make choices based on our past experiences in similar situations blended with our current observations and instincts. This does not mean that being a person of emotional depth is not challenging. Rather, I am suggesting that emotionality represents a survival advantage individually and collectively. However, emotionality on its own offers little in the way of a survival advantage without a concurrent depth of processing.

Deep Thinking
Highly sensitive people process all experience more deeply and thoroughly than those without the trait.
Physiological systems are built to bounce back. Only under extraordinary circumstances do the effects of adversity linger preventing sustainable resilience in any meaningful sense. There may be a number of reasons why an HSP may be unable to recover and grow from an adverse experience, but most prominent is childhood experiences of abuse, trauma, conflict, or neglect. An HSP who has experienced adverse childhood events, or ACEs, will likely function in a slightly different way to stresses and adversity than those with no ACEs. Changes in brain connectivity, a lower set point for arousal with a commiserate overreaction to stimuli, and chronic activation of primitive fight or flight instincts skew reactions to adversity in those with ACEs potentially leading to less resilient processes and outcomes.

In HSPs with fewer or no ACEs the depth to which we process all experience may lead us to deeper realizations regarding the adversity, its implications, and its overall contextual significance. As we experience adversity it is a natural reaction to grow and learn from the experience, if possible, and no more so than in HSPs who engage their deep reflective capacity, coupled with a significant drive for meaning, creativity, and innovative solutions. Resilience is “ordinary magic” and is wired into all of us as human beings (Masten, 2001), though there are important cultural differences that may determine how we approach lived experiences. For instance, in Western culture the emphasis is on choice and mastery over the environment, while in Eastern culture full awareness and acceptance of experience, even the most painful, is viewed as essential to gaining an enlightened and joyous worldview (Reich, Zautra, and Hall, 2010).

The world of meaning and choice is paramount for many HSPs as we feel innately compelled to live with meaning and purpose. I suggest that HSPs may be the bridge between Eastern and Western philosophies of consciousness due to our inherent complexity of mind and openness to new experience. As I articulated in Thrive HSPs seem to be people who inhabit a broader range of possible human expression than those without the trait. This inherent dispositional orientation is aided by our natural tendency to think very deeply about every experience we have. Though this predilection may be, at times, overwhelming in and of itself a capacity to examine and reflect on adversity is a greater tool in our thrive toolbox than simple survival of adversity by creating a more thoughtfully crafted future response to similar adversity. This careful weaving of thoughts, actions, and behaviors also ties in very deeply with how culture is created, revised, and passed down. Though we have discussed individual resilience to date there are implications for the role HSPs may play in developing and sustaining community resilience as outlined in the dispositional sketch above. Key to community resilience is HSPs strong empathy. Empathy is the ability to enter the experience of another person fully without judgement feeling what they feel, while offering the type of bonding that can only come from authentic human presence.

Empathy
Empathy is the single biggest aspect HSPs expressed to me as representing a centrality of common experience in their lives. Surprisingly, empathy plays a decisive role in fostering resilient processes in adverse circumstances. Often we may think of resilience as comprising a tough, rugged, hearty approach to adversity, but actually resilient processes often begin with a willingness to pause for a moment of reflection welcoming a broader view, or other small expression of optimism, positive emotion, or interpersonal sensitivity. When we connect interpersonally we are stronger than when we struggle alone. As social creatures we have only survived through cooperative efforts rooted in empathy for others.

The social environment, because we all live within it to one degree or another, is a significant source of strength in overcoming adversity and growing from the experience, though we may experience growth from adversity without the presence of others. Social psychologist Charles Horton Cooley (1902) offers us an interesting way to view how we formulate perceptions of ourselves. Cooley created a concept called the “looking glass self,” to illustrate how we only come to a self-image through understanding how others perceive us. This process continues throughout the life course and is continually informed by social interactions with our in-groups and out-groups. Here too we see that human beings prefer to adopt collective social identities based on in-group loyalties. That is to say, we develop a sense of identity as a result of comparing ourselves to our in-groups, while contrasting them against out-groups. This is also true of our very own HSP community in which we see such strong trends toward seeking commonality at the cost of understanding true diversity.

Helgeson and Lopez (2010) offer us the following model to help us visualize several pathways to the resilience process.

In the above visual we can see that if we choose to sidestep disclosing our stressor to our social network we proceed directly to cognitive processing and potentially some growth, but we forgo any received support or growth support, plus we have fewer resources at our disposal to process or post-process the adversity. Sometimes it may be true that we are better off working through a problem on our own, due to lack of interest on the part of others, expressed disagreement, or apathy. In general, though, the support and potential relationship growth and closeness are worth any personal risk entailed with seeking support from our social networks.

I suggest for contemplation that too often we HSPs spend too much time ruminating on our stressors and fail to enlist the help of others. Some of us, no doubt, have experienced mishandling at the hands of others who neither understood why an adverse event affected us so deeply and why we can’t seem to just “get over it.” When one goes to the well for help, but finds the well tainted or dry it is less likely in the future that we will seek that help. I suggest we often choose the wrong well to go to for help. Knowing who is trustworthy and interested is often a minefield at a time when we may be least able to discern which step will blow up in our faces and which will lead us to real help.

The depth of processing we HSPs are known for, combined with careful observation and reflection make, what I feel, is a potent combination for true resilience as a process and an outcome. In my view highly sensitive people deal with more adversity than those without the trait due to our heightened sensitivities to many stimuli. Some of us are more able to grow from adversity than others, but all of us seem to be well-equipped to learn from each experience, strengthen our personal confidence, and contribute to greater resilience in our social groups.

As we boldly enter 2016 I offer that we may continue to face adversity, but by being aware that each experience holds within it the potential for new growth and development each new experience offers us the opportunity to cast greater meaning in our lives if we can see beyond adversity to the greater reality of our common struggle as human beings on a finite planet in the infinite ocean of space and time.

(In subsequent posts on this blog I will offer varying views of resilience and how they may apply to the lives of highly sensitive people.  Stay tuned!)

References

Bonanno, G. (2004). Loss, trauma, and human resilience: Have we underestimated the human capacity to thrive after extremely aversive events? American Psychologist, 59, 20-28.

Cooley, C. (1902). Human Nature and the Social Order, New York: Scribner’s.

Garmezy, N. (1991). Resiliency and vulnerability to adverse developmental outcomes associated with poverty. American Behavioral Scientist, 34, 416-430.

Greve, W., & Staudinger, U. (2006). Resilience in later adulthood and old age: Resources and potentials for successful aging. In D. Ciccheti & D. Cohen (Eds), Developmental psychopathology: Risk, disorder, and adaptation (2nd ed., pp. 796-840). New York:Wiley.

Helgeson, V., & Lopez, L. (2010). Social support and growth following adversity. In Reich, J., Zautra, A., and Hall, J. (2010), Handbook of Adult Resilience. The Guilford Press, New York: NY.

Masten, A. (2001). Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in development. American Psychologist, 56,227-238.

Reich, J., Zautra, A., and Hall, J. (2010), Handbook of Adult Resilience. The Guilford Press, New York: NY.