Who is the Highly Sensitive Person?
Here is the transcript of the video I made on the four primary aspects of being a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). Read more to learn who is the Highly Sensitive Person and if you are a HSP too!
Who is the Highly Sensitive Person?
Joanne: The world that we happen to be in, especially in the United States, it is a setting that's not particularly friendly towards those who are in the minority, including Highly Sensitive Persons. The main thing when it comes to the experience of a highly sensitive person, generally in the western part of the world, it's seen more towards the negative.
So a lot of the labels or criticisms that HSPs tend to take on are phrases like, you know, why are you being so emotional? Stop being irrational. Stop being too weak. Why are you too much? Why can't you just get over your feelings? Like, what's the big deal? So a lot of messages that tend to be very dismissive, downplaying of our experiences as if our reactions are irrational, out of proportion, it's an indication of weakness or failure.
Things like that. So some of the common messages that people get as a Highly Sensitive Person are that we need thicker skin, that we need to stop taking things personally, stop caring as much about different things, stop crying, stop whining, things like that. And the reason why I'm doing this talk on this topic is because maybe it's not so much that there's something inherently wrong with us as Highly Sensitive Persons. But that there's a mismatch between us, our giftings, how we naturally operate, and the environments that we live in.
So a lot of the reason why I am teaching this program to begin with and focusing on emotions is that I believe that feelings are like a language in its own right, with its own vocabulary, its own grammar structure.
And that a lot of us, including those who aren't HSPs, where we get the message that we're being too emotional, perhaps the issue isn't so much that we are too emotional, but we happen to speak this language of feelings very well in a context where feelings are just not the dominant language.
So maybe it's that we speak this language really well in a context where other people don't at all. So when it comes to our experiences of ourselves in the context of the general, the greater population. There's a lot of negative attention that HSPs or those who are big feelers tend to draw from everybody else.
The word 'too' is a very relative language. Like if something is too small or too big, that implies that there's some baseline as to what just the right amount is. So anytime we receive the message that we're too emotional, too much, I like to ask the question, well, what does too refer to? What if, instead of us being too much, what if other people are too little?
What if instead of us being too emotional, what if other people are too underly emotional? Maybe they need to up their game. So, when it comes to sensitivity, I think it's pretty similar. That, you know, there might be a case that there's, like, an appropriate amount of sensitivity, but most likely, in a world that's so full of diversity, it might just be that sensitivity is itself its own distinct neutral widely celebrated category in itself that maybe it's not something to be compared to something else.
We just accept it as if we accept the different colors in the color spectrum. So instead of us being too sensitive, it might be the case that the people around us are too underly sensitive, so they need to learn how to be more sensitive. We might actually need to learn how to, let's say, take things less personally, but I don't know if sensitivity is inherently a flaw or a negative trait.
We might need to redefine, we might need to look at it with a different lens or a different angle so that we're not overly absorbing shame. You know, just because there's not a good fit with the rest of the population. Now, the term highly sensitive person has been coined by Dr. Elaine Aron, she came up with a lot of observations of this huge, chunk of the population who tend to resonate with similar dynamics, often around physical sensitivity and also emotional sensitivity. So in her book, The Highly Sensitive Person, I'm going to be sharing a little bit from that book, just so that we're on the same page with the working definition of it.
Because, you know, in a sense, there are some people who are highly sensitive. There's some people who are empaths. Those terms get used interchangeably, even though they're not technically the same thing. So I would highly recommend that if you are curious as to whether or not you're a highly sensitive person, that you go back to the original source.
You know, I would recommend these three books, The Highly Sensitive Person, The Highly Sensitive Person in Love, which is about HSPs in relationships. Especially romantic ones. And The Highly Sensitive Child, if you have a kiddo, or if you yourself might have been a highly sensitive child growing up.
Highly Sensitive Person Traits
So if you already know that you're a highly sensitive person, then feel free to skip until we get to some of the yellow slides. But I'm going to be going over the different aspects of what it's like to be a highly sensitive person. It is not a diagnosis or disease. It's not a flaw that we have. This trait is something that's built into our actual body.
Our nervous systems, our neurology in that it defines or colors the way that we experience the world around us. You know, it can't be a disease if a huge chunk of the population experiences it. So 20% of the population. A fifth of this whole world has the highly sensitive person trait. So it's large enough where it is its own category of experiences, but technically, because it's in the minority what kind of treatment Highly Sensitive Persons get depends on the social context. So, if you take someone who is a highly sensitive person in an environment that is not very friendly towards minorities, which I would include the United States in that, that person is going to have a pretty difficult time.
Because their traits, their natural way of being doesn't align with what society tends to value, that person's going to get extra flack, even though there isn't anything inherently wrong with them. But you take that same person, you drop them off in a different part of the world that does celebrate, those who are in the minority position and especially contexts that have a lot of HSP traits built into the fabric of society.
I would say Japan is probably a pretty easy example of that. Then that same individual, even though nothing changed with them, nothing changed with their temperament, their giftings, their abilities, that person's probably going to be well celebrated. It's good for us to check in with our own experiences according to the social context that we live in.
Instead of just assuming that whatever labels that are thrown at us, instead of just going along with them and assuming that they're true, it might be time for us to step back and be like, Hmm, maybe the labels that I am receiving themselves need to be reevaluated. Maybe it's less a reflection of me and who I am.
Maybe it's more a reflection of the person who's saying that label. So there's a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to the highly sensitive person trait in this context in the United States, especially, but I like to think of them as neutral traits. They're, they're not inherently better or worse.
Like a knife is a very useful tool for certain cases. So is a hammer. But a knife and a hammer, if they try to do each other's jobs, it's just not going to work out as well. So, the four defining features of the Highly Sensitive Person trait follow the acronym DOES. These stand for depth of processing, overstimulation, emotional reactivity and empathy, and sensitivity to subtle stimuli.
DEPTH OF PROCESSING
I'm going to be going over each of these guys. So starting with depth of processing, I like thinking about this like living in a DVD world where you have the capacity to experience and see things in Blu ray high def, taking in far greater information, far greater details. In terms of color, sounds, smells, emotions, you've taken far greater quantity of sensory and emotional data, and then you've run all that through a very fine sieve.
So you can imagine. That it might take forever for us to process through experiences, like a birthday party, you know, if it were to be in a sitting where there's lots of people, lots of sounds, people snagging on things, different smells, it might on the surface be a very fun experience. But for someone who's HSP, they might be bombarded by all these sensory informations and different people dynamics that even though they know it generally is fun, they might still feel super backlogged and overwhelmed.
So depth of processing means we take in far greater quantity and quality of data, and then we run it through the fine sieve. Giving a lot of room for more, deeper, meaningful things like, Oh, I wonder what's going on between those two people versus this person's wearing this and that person's wearing that. How this shows up in day to day life is that when it comes to decisions, the highly sensitive person is more likely to take fricking forever in making decisions because there's the assumption that in order for me to make a good decision, I need to really think through every single scenario, look at it from different angles, consider it from different possibilities so that I may make the best decision or a good decision.
And in professional context or in you know, our personal relationships, other people might feel impatient and frustrated because it's as if we need a lot more time to make decisions. There's a lot of rumination, a lot of analysis paralysis, maybe procrastination that's involved. So that's kind of where that trait might show up.
OVERSTIMULATION
Now when it comes to the second feature or overstimulation, our nervous systems are more finely tuned to just notice a lot more things. And so, if our nervous system, the nerve cells or the brain cells in our body, are constantly getting signals, you know, it's only going to take a matter of time until we're so overloaded, we're bombarded, when people have a lot of things going on, whether externally in our environment. or internally within our thoughts and feelings, we can feel super backlogged.
Like you think of those like cartoon scenes where the main character, their eyes glaze over. There's so much happening and they're just kind of like the lights are on, but no one's home. So because this is a tendency that HSPs tend to have, it's very important that we build into our weeks or our schedules.
We need more margin. We need more space, even you listening on this, watching this video, all the information on these slides itself might feel very overwhelming. So if you're watching this in recorded form, you might play the video, listen to it, read the things and then pause. And digest it a little bit before you move on to the next one.
So people prefer taking down in notes because that kind of helps pace it out. But in typical day to day, we don't have the leisure of being able to press pause all the time. And so like, if we're in conversation, the other person just keeps talking. So afterwards, HSPs tend to need a lot of time away from all kinds of stimulation.
Usually after a full day of seeing clients at work in my therapy practice, it's a pretty typical thing. I go home, I go to my bedroom, I turn off all the lights, I change into comfortable clothes. Sometimes, especially after a hard day, I might roll into bed under my weighted blankets and just chill there for like 15 or so minutes.
A lot of that is because our nervous system has just taken a lot of stuff and it's just too much. So we need to find ways to decompress it. And maybe it's important that we tell the people close to us that we just need some time to chill out and decompress. Not because we don't care about them, but because if we don't do that, if we don't disengage so that we decompress.
We're talking to them, but we're not really fully present. So we're just kind of checked out. We're not really paying attention, not because we don't want to, but because we already took in too much. So it's important for us when we're in relationships to really pause and hesitate before re engaging.
Through the day, reengaging other people, things like that. Now, it's a common experience for the highly sensitive person to just, compared to people who are non HSP, to have a lot more depth internally. Part of this is part of the depth of the processing, but oftentimes HSPs tend to focus more inward because things are a lot more interesting here than sometimes out there.
But one of those interesting things that happen inside are our feelings and the quality or the nature of our feelings tend to be more intense. So highs are really high, lows are really low, there's a lot of fluctuation in between, and that's regardless of our personality types. So, because some people have more feeling personality types than others, but even for people who generally are more analytical, there's a lot more subtlety and nuance that goes on internally.
Not everything that could be described in words. This is one of the reasons why sometimes it's easy for HSPs to get misunderstood, because we sense all the intricacies of what's happening on the inside, but we don't always have the capacity to translate that into words so that other people can get it.
EMPATHY
Another pretty common trait is that we are like sponges. We tend to pick up on signals of those around us, sensory wise, but also emotionally. Taking on other people's vibes, other people's feelings, noticing their micro expressions in their faces, like noticing a smirk, or kind of a person looking away, and then having reactions to that. And so this is partially why it's pretty easy for HSPs to take things more personally because we notice what's happening on the outside. We bring it in and we kind of process it internally. Sometimes without us even knowing it. Having a thin skin, it's a double edged sword. It's one of the great things that help us close the gap with other people.
We can be very tender, very caring and compassionate because we don't sense as much of a gap with other people. But for that very reason, if we're not careful, we can accidentally take on other people's stuff. That we have no business carrying, and then judge ourselves because we are so bogged down. So, if you happen to be around another person who is very loud, or they just don't stop talking, you might be generally more irritable.
Because your body's constantly bombarded by all these sounds. So instead of judging yourself for being irritable as if that's like a character flaw, it might just mean that you might need to spend some time away from this person or when you do interact with them, you do it in shorter spurts. Might be that you get one of those loop earbuds that decrease the decibels.
So, I have one that I carry with me when I go to like restaurants or coffee shops that kind of pop them in and it dampens the little sound level. So you might have to find some creative ways for you to create a literal buffer with the other person, dampening sounds, decreasing interaction intensity or frequency, things like that.
SENSITIVITY
Last trait of the highly sensitive person trait is sensitivity to subtle stimuli. And this is about the five senses, the five S's are the five senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. Again, we notice a lot of things. We're also bothered by a lot of things. So common example is the tags on your clothes or the ticking of the clock, the humming of the fridge, a certain smell that sometimes it could be a pleasant smell, but sometimes it could be an odor.
Because we notice these kinds of subtle things that most people, they don't notice. They don't pick it up. We're more likely to be bothered and agitated because of it. Doesn't mean that there's something wrong with us because, you know, in some senses, it can come in handy, like being able to pick up the smell of mold that's, you know, building on the local bread that's on the counter.
Like most people might not be able to pick it up, but we might be able to notice it so that we can get rid of any contaminants. So again, D-O-E-S. Those are the four traits of a highly sensitive person. If you're still not sure whether or not you might be HSP, then easiest way is for you to grab a copy of the book, The Highly Sensitive Person.
There's, I think, a 22 question questionnaire in there. And so the higher you answer yes to, the more likely you're a highly sensitive person. Are there any questions that come up at this time? Give me a yes or no. If no, then we're going to just move on to the next section.
Any questions?
The Power of Sensitivity
So, despite the way that Highly Sensitive Persons are treated in the world, there's a lot of value that comes with sensitivity. The great movement throughout different periods of human existence, like the arts, music, culture. A lot of those have been probably designed by those who are highly sensitive.
Usually those who are not highly sensitive tend to make quick actions more impulsively. There is also time for that in history, but in a lot of ways what defines a culture, what informs values and things like that, that probably has been more informed by people who tend to be sensitive. So some of the examples of the powers of sensitivity are having a rich inner life that focuses on the more ethereal, existential things, things that are less practical, less material, things like beauty or meaning, purpose, things that, you know, people have existential or identity crises about. Because people underly focus on those things, life sometimes catapults them into focusing on those things against their will.
Those who are highly sensitive tend to think about those things pretty often. So when crises happen or big changes happen in life, in some ways we're better able to adjust because we've already gotten that much more practice. So useful skill in focusing on the more deeper existential things. Some other traits are having a very high sense of observation or pattern recognition.
Highly Sensitive Persons tend to feel and think a lot before they act and make a decision. So it's like think, think, think, think, think, feel, feel, feel, feel, feel, and then maybe make a decision. So the downside of that is that sometimes we can drag our feet on making decisions that Non HSPs, they're like, make a decision. Okay, I got it.
But the upside to having that very deliberate, conscientious, intuitive decision making is that by the time we make a decision, it has more weight. It's not as reactive. It's not as wishy washy. We really think it through and then make a decision. So, some of the things, like one term that Elaine Aron, uses to describe Highly Sensitive Persons is the priestly scholar. In a world full of warrior kings who tend to lead life in a way that centers around strength, loudness, being the best, being the biggest, the loudest. It's a lot of like impulsive, brash decision making that is very powerful. It's very widespread. It's very, change initiating.
But as you can imagine, It can lead to a lot of chaos because people are making a whole lot of widespread decisions that aren't particularly deliberative. So we can even see the state of this world that we're in, a lot of the conflicts that happen in different parts of the world, a lot of the internal strife that happens within this country.
Chances are people could use a lot more sensitivity in really thinking through what really matters most to them, what are their ethics, what are the impact that they can have on other people, things that HSPs are generally better at. We need more of that in our world. Without it, we have lots of reactive decision making that ends up in a lot of destruction.
So the idea of a priestly scholar, priestly, implies that it's like someone who's like connected to God or the universe, like someone who is tapping into a higher wisdom that's beyond human ability. And then the ability to speak that forth into that world, being able to speak truth, being able to convict people, with passion, with conviction, things like that.
And then the scholar aspect, someone who's very studious, very deliberate, focuses on the depths instead of just glossing over with whatever it is. instant gratification. So a big challenge that not just highly sensitive person, but, but big feelers, you know, a lot of compassionate types, empathic types, we struggle with being in a world that doesn't value a lot of feelings.
So in a similar way, Highly Sensitive Persons tend to have a huge, hugely difficult time being in an environment of people who don't care to slow down, stop and listen. So how can we be priestly scholars or priestly advisors in a world full of warrior kings? In a world where, you know, it's as if might is right, whoever's the loudest is best, and things like that.
That is the main mission for those who are Highly Sensitive Persons. How can we make not just a meaningful impact, Or a deep, personally purposeful impact in the world or in this life that we live, but how can we make this impact in a way that actually catches the attention of warrior kings, instead of us doubling down in our HSP status.
Because that would create a polarization with the warrior kings who tend to really not give a damn or care to listen. Highly Sensitive Persons might need to come closer in taking on some warrior king traits in the same way that those who are warrior kings need to nurture some capacity in the HSP direction.
How can we meet each other more in the middle instead of digging our heels down on our polar opposite ends and then judging the other party. We need to find ways to collaborate together. We cannot just do with one class or the other.
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