The Highly Sensitive Person How to Thrive when the World Overwhelms You
Reviews
[b:The Highly Sensitive Parent: Be Brilliant in Your Role, Even When the World Overwhelms You|51244948|The Highly Sensitive Parent Be Brilliant in Your Role, Even When the World Overwhelms You|Elaine N. Aron|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1572993365l/51244948._SX50_SY75_.jpg|71851589] was <b>underwhelming</b>. Being a highly sensitive person <i>(definition per Wikipedia: Sensory processing sensitivity is a temperamental or personality trait involving "an increased sensitivity of the central nervous system and a deeper cognitive processing of physical, social, and emotional stimuli)</i>, I was hoping for more encouragement to be <i>brilliant</i> in my role as a mother. Instead, this book reminds us readers <i>over and over</i> at how being highly sensitive is a predicament. Moreover, being a highly sensitive person is a downright hindrance, for a lack of better term.
Despite the numerous real-life accounts from fellow highly sensitive parents, there was little to be gleaned to actually help <i>build</i> someone up who has these sensitives. Rearing children is difficult on a good day for anyone. Rearing children, when you are more susceptible to sensory stimulus certainly poses additional challenges. What this book does instead, is encourage the reader to find a release or an out from their situation. "Get away, you aren't cut out for this, you <b>need</b> help," was more emphasized than building the reader up to handle challenging situations. Instead of needing someone else to take over in stressful situations--which rarely an opportunity for someone like me who works from home, homeschools my children, and is a homemaker with my kids being constantly present--offering suggestions on how to redirect stimulus would be helpful.
Being a highly sensitive person, I already know the shortcomings this has divulged in me. Instead of bowing out and finding a quiet space to hide, finding solutions to help build up a HSP was desired, but not the result. This is where these self-help books usually fall short; rather than offering aide and solutions, they simply point out the "problem" and foster a victim mentality, which is completely opposite of what is required in order to grow and adapt to the challenges of daily life.
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My review: https://mattstein.com/books/highly-sensitive-person
Some interesting nuggets that I identified with, but I found myself wanting fewer opinion/sweeping declarations and more hard science.
Well researched and very broad. Would appreciate more depth in the discussions
This year has been a year of expansion on my belief borders, recognizing our diversity as humans and living beings is a huge part of it. This book is a great discover that my girlfriend made and it has well foundamented points by ilustrating what is mean to be, live with and interact with a high sensitive person. goes from the scientific studies to cases and practices for every posibility we can face being a sensitive person and empatizing with one.
Me enseñó mucho más sobre mi misma. A entender y aceptar que ser HPS es hermoso.
Conflicted about this book. I enjoyed the first chapters explaining what a Highly Sensitive Person is, primarily because it is the first time I've ever seen this so clearly defined and I absolutely identified with all of it- down to the detail of being irritated by coarse fabric. The chapter about HSP in the workplace also hit home. However- the author takes a lot of liberties with the topic, and most of this is conjecture/her opinion. It feels like pop psychology and a setup for subsequent books/montetization (which has proven true over time). I've learned that the book "Quiet" potentially covers the topic of Highly Sensitive People in a better way.
I found it very interesting and an easy language to read. i also liked that the author tried to warn you in multiple cases and didn’t provide just information without the cause of attention needed!
it’s not a 5 ⭐️ though because i found those parts sort of boring to read. i wanted to move on to a more interesting part.
An interesting insight into a personality type that would generally be labelled simply as shy. I see many links between HSP and Autism. The book's best work is done early; the final third lost me. The interminable fixation on a review of one's childhood was overdone.
While interesting, this book was not great. I’m not mad about it, the science based portions were very helpful!!! I learned some things about myself, and I have some coping ideas. The trouble I had is with the highly subjective chapters on socialization and psychology. A lot of the solutions or strategies offered here are frankly impractical in most settings I’ve ever been in, and the writing shows how much research had yet to be done on the subject. Fortunately, since the publication of this book there has been more research so I advise anyone looking to get more insight into being an HSP to simply read some blogs and some studies and buy a pair of noise cancelling headphones! Can’t stress enough how much peace I know because of those things.
If I would have read this book in my 20s, it would likely have changed the trajectory of my life and undoubtedly made my all-time favorites list. At a minimum, it would have saved me a LOT of grief. But, I'm 53 now and I learned much of what I read here through trial, error, reading, watching, observing, self reflection, therapy, and many conversations. I am a highly sensitive person through and through. While nothing I read was earth shattering to me, it was extremely helpful to have some gaps filled and wonderful to feel the connection that comes from knowing you are not an anomaly...that you are, in fact, in great company. Elaine organized the book in a logical linear style—starting with birth and going through each major phase of life, then touching on helpful topics like spirituality and healthcare. If you feel things deeply and are considering reading this book, read it sooner, rather than later! If you already know you're an HSP, read this book to complete your education and feel connected.
Highlights
Has no “faith” except a faith that all will be okay.
But remember it is not your trait that is to blame, but the world into which you and it were born, and are constantly being challenged to adapt to or change.
It is finding who you are, not what you think someone else wants you to become.
While it is wise to accept what we cannot change about ourselves, it is also good to remember that we are never too old to replace discouragement with bits and pieces of confidence and hope.
Perhaps imaginary figures, characters in books, or nature itself calmed and supported you enough; your trait may have made you happier than other children with this solitude.
Our culture has an idea of competition in the pursuit of excellence that can make anyone not striving for the top feel like a worthless, non- productive bystander. This applies not only to one's career but even to one's leisure. Are you fit enough, are you progressing in your hobby, are you competent as a cook or gardener? And family life - is your marriage intimate enough, your sexual life optimal, have you done all that you can do to raise excellent children?
The way to come to tolerate and then enjoy being involved in the world is by being in the world.
Further, when a past experience was very bad, an HSP can overgeneralize and avoid or feel anxious in too many situations, just because the new ones resemble in some small way the past bad one. The biggest cost to us of being highly sensitive, however, is that our nervous systems can become overloaded. Everyone has a limit as to how much information or stimulation can be taken in before one becomes overloaded, overstimulated, overaroused, overwhelmed, and just over! We simply reach that point sooner than others. Fortunately, as soon as we get some downtime we recover nicely.
In other words, sensitivity, or responsivity as these biologists also called it, involves paying more attention to details than others do, then using that knowledge to make better predictions in the future. Sometimes you are better of doing so, other times it is a hard waste of energy.
Ask yourself if the sun rises in the east. Then see how you feel about your “wrong" answer. Because, of course, you are wrong. The sun does not rise. The earth turns. So much for personal experience. We cannot trust it, or so it seems. We can only trust science. Science has triumphed as the Best Way to Know Anything. But science is simply not designed to answer the big spiritual, philosophical, and moral questions. So we almost behave as if they must not be important. But they are. They are always being answered, implicitly, by a society’s values and behaviours — whom it respects, whom it loves, whom it fears, whom it leaves to languish unhoused and unfed.
These two factors- liking certain things about the other and finding out the other person likes you-give me an image of a world admiring each other, someone else to confess their love. This image is important for HSPs to keep in mind because one of the most arousing moments in one's life is either confessing or receiving a declaration of affection. But if we want to be close to someone, we must do it! We must endure all the risks of getting closer and being close, including speaking up.
«For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour.... To put the question in general terms would be comparable to the question posed to a chess champion, “Tell me, Master, what is the best move in the world?” There simply is no such thing as the best or even a good move apart from a particular situation in a game.... One should not search for an abstract meaning of life.»
The way to come to tolerate and then enjoy being involve in the world is by being in the world.
As you reparent your body, the first thing to realize is that the more it avoids stimulation, the more arousing the remaining stimulation becomes.
This book appears on the shelf Read in 2005
This book appears on the shelf Picture book
