Highly Sensitive

Fitting in, is difficult. I sort of blend but I don’t mix well. I can play the extrovert but prefer my introverted heart. The former leaves me exhausted.

People with the personality trait of high sensitivity have qualities to be more creative, including awareness of subtleties in emotional and sensory detail.

Talk about tumbling down the rabbit hole. Jessica Anya Blau is the Baltimore author who memorably mined her experience growing up in a freewheeling bohemian family in her first two novels...In her third novel, "The Wonder Bread Summer," Blau explores the Southern California counterculture of the 1980s through the eyes of 20-year-old Allie Dodgson.

 

How did you become a writer?

I was a quiet kid who sat in a room and watched everybody and was interested in how they operated, what they did and said. My dad would always say, "Jessie can be in the room, and you'd never even know she's there."

Secrets to surviving a highly sensitive (HSP) life - by Susan Biali, M.D.

I've written about being a Highly Sensitive Person on this blog several times now, and each time I'm amazed by the intensity with which people respond to this topic. There are always a few critics who belittle or question the HSP concept, yet based on the huge number of page reads and overwhelmingly positive (and often grateful) responses, there really does seem to be something to this HSP phenomenon.

Why HSPs attract and are attracted to narcissists and other negative people. - by Deborah Ward. "Many highly sensitive people have asked me why they so often end up in relationships with narcissists or other negative types of people, who take advantage of us, drain our energy and take our kindness without giving anything in return."

"It is also good every so often to go away and relax a little for when you come back to your work your judgment will be better, since to remain constantly at work causes you to deceive yourself." Leonardo da Vinci

 

In her article What's the rush?, creativity coach Jenna Avery describes how constantly striving and being urgent about our lives and careers can have such negative impacts on emotional health, especially for highly sensitive people, who “don’t like to work under stress and pressure.”

What are some of the qualities of the personality trait of high sensitivity that can help people, including men, be more creative?

 

Writer and entrepreneur Peter Messerschmidt thinks “Often they are the ‘Cultural Creatives’ of society; men who have found ways to publically be themselves without sacrificing any of their sensitive traits. They may even be public figures like musicians David Bowie and Neil Young..."

So, I listened to this guy, and he’s got a hypnotic effect. He plays acoustic guitar, of course; and he is a real poet; and he’s a very sensitive guy.”

Record producer John Hammond, about Leonard Cohen

Psychologist Elaine Aron and other researchers find that approximately 20 percent of the population has the personality trait of high sensitivity, equally divided between males and females.

“Virtually all of the HSMs in my study enthusiastically shared with me how much they appreciated the positive aspects of being sensitive. For example, many men discussed how their intuition, creativity and ability to notice subtleties in the environment has helped strengthen their relationships, succeed in work, and deeply enjoy music and art projects." Psychologist Ted Zeff

"Highly sensitive people are a very intriguing group of people indeed, not only for their extreme sensitivity to almost 'everything' but also for their unique abilities such as heightened intuition, powerful senses and an almost psychic level of empathy with people they interact with.There is no doubt in my mind, highly sensitive people 'do' have a purpose here on this seemingly insensitive planet.

A number of people claim to have had an idyllic or happy early life, the sort evoked by this photo: "The Walk to Paradise Garden" [1946] by W. Eugene Smith.

 

But for many of us who have been highly sensitive all our lives, or had especially challenging experiences as children, that image does not feel like a fit.

But for many of us who have been highly sensitive all our lives, or had especially challenging experiences as children, that image does not feel like a fit. - See more at: http://highlysensitive.org/28/jenna-forrest-on-having-a-sensitive-childhood/#sthash.Z9ltodVl.dpufBut for many of us who have been highly sensitive all our lives, or had especially challenging experiences as children, that image does not feel like a fit. - See more at: http://highlysensitive.org/28/jenna-forrest-on-having-a-sensitive-childhood/#sthash.Z9ltodVl.dpuf

Many talented and creative people experience the personality trait of high sensitivity, which often includes strong emotional reactivity.

 

Actor Jessica Chastain: “I’m very sensitive in real life. I cannot not cry if someone around me is crying…even if it’s not appropriate."

 

Elaine Aron, PhD is one of the leading writers and researchers on the personality trait of high sensitivity (sensory processing sensitivity; present for about 15 to 20 percent of us), and she declares that HSPs (highly sensitive persons) “do cry more readily than others. It was a strong finding in our research."

"The world is full of noise and those that are the loudest are the ones we tend to follow but what about the quiet ones?

"Author Susan Cain shines a spotlight on introverts and reveals how over time our society has come to look to extroverts as leaders. Not suggesting that one is better than the other, Susan argues that the world needs an equal space between introverts and extroverts; that an innovative, creative world wouldn't be the same without the two coming together."

 

Confession. I'm an empath. I feel other peoples' emotions as if they're my own. Often, their pain. On an unusually strong level. Whether I know them or not.

 

It’s been a huge asset as an entrepreneur, marketer, leader and artist. I can get into peoples’ heads, understand what they need, want, desire, aspire to. What makes them vibrate with emotion, good and bad. It lets me work on more of an emotional level, see past facades and words, then speak to, create and solve for what really matters.

Highly Sensitive Person: Lise August on adult and child Well-Being