Quotes from Elaine N. Aron

Or, when we feel most insecure, we act flamboyantly or make crazy jokes to ensure that everyone's attention is on us.

Typically, HSPs are highly conscientious, loyal, vigilant about quality, good with details, intuitive visionaries, often gifted, thoughtful of the needs of clients or customers, and good influences on the social climate of the workplace. In short, they are ideal employees. Every organization needs some.

I have noticed that not all HSPs feel discouraged by not being able to do everything their peers do. They have little envy. They appreciate their trait and know it gives them much that others lack. I think the discouragement, like the failure to buffer ourselves, comes from attitudes learned in early childhood.

There is the documentary Sensitive: The Untold Story and the feature film, Sensitive and in Love. There have been twice-a-year HSP Gathering Retreats, frequent international research conferences, and numerous seminars and webinars for the public on the subject in the U.S. and Europe, plus YouTube videos, books, magazines, newsletters, and websites, and all sorts of services exclusively for highly sensitive persons—most good and some, well, not as good.

About sixty thousand subscribe to my free e-mail newsletter at hsperson.com, where there are now hundreds of articles and blog posts I have written over the years, all archived so that you can search and find something on almost every aspect of being highly sensitive. This is all because you have discovered that you are highly sensitive. I know that for many of you it has changed your life, so we have reason to celebrate this growth over twenty-five years.

they understand what you think is its value, you can let them make up their own mind.

parents to read, since even highly sensitive parents will

HSPs usually respond to change with resistance. Or we try to throw ourselves into it, but we still suffer from it. We just don't "do" change well, even good changes. That

You are also bothered by things others may hardly notice, such as the sound of children chewing with their mouth open, jangling keys in your partner's pocket, or a bit of a whine added to a request.

Anything done to the body will change the mind. We expect this to be the case with drugs specifically designed for that purpose. But we forget that our brain and therefore our thoughts can also be changed by sleep, exercise, nutrition, environment and the state of our sexual hormones, to name a few factors we can often control ourselves. It is equally true that anything done to the mind will also change the body - meditation, telling our troubles to a friend, or even just writing them down.

Psychologists have asked me (and I'm sure more only thought but didn't ask), "How could you have discovered an entirely new trait?" The answer is that sensitivity is not new at all but just difficult to observe by watching how people behave, which is usually how psychology proceeds.

Real redemption or enlightenment, as much as it can be achieved in this world, comes through hard work that does not skirt through personal issues.

Psychotherapy in its broadest sense is a collection of paths toward wisdom and wholeness.

Most of you, however, being fond of reading and quiet study, excelled in schoolwork. It was the development of social or physical skills that was hampered by your overarousal. To handle that, perhaps you found a close friend to play with. And perhaps you had the reputation of being the one who thought up the best games, wrote the best stories, and painted the best pictures.

I should add that concepts very much like sensitivity are being studied by other researchers. If you are interested in this work, you can look up terms such as biological sensitivity to context (authors will be Thomas Boyce, Bruce Ellis, and others) and orienting sensitivity (the main authors will be David Evans and Mary Rothbart).

The first published studies my husband and I did generated the self-test you have in this book and a slightly different version especially for research, called the Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) Scale. This research was also intended to demonstrate that high sensitivity is not the same as introversion or "neuroticism" (professional jargon for a tendency to be depressed or excessively anxious).

Again, when you can only watch behaviors, sensitivity is not easy to separate from shyness, fearfulness, or in young children, just plain being difficult.

was finally living a fantasy I had cherished for years. Of course, I got sick and hardly enjoyed a minute of the trip. At the time, I thought I must be neurotically robbing myself of my big moment. Now, understanding this trait, I see that the trip was just too exciting.

It is not surprising that many sensitive adolescents meet the crisis by destroying their budding self so they will not have to watch it fail to bloom "right.

It is not surprising that many sensitive adolescents meet the crisis by destroying their budding self so they will not have to watch it fail to bloom "right." And there are plenty of ways to self-destruct: marrying or having a baby in a way that imprisons one in a narrow, prescribed role; abusing drugs or alcohol; becoming physically or mentally incapacitated; joining a cult or organization that offers security and answers; or suicide.

when I am too withdrawn, I would like to stay home for the rest of my life. But it is self-destructive. So I go out to meet the rest of the world, then come back to incorporate them. Creative people need time without people. But they can't go too long. When you retreat, you lose your sense of reality, your adaptability.

Notice that no other person is in her first memory.

It means you are aware of subtleties in your surroundings, a great advantage in many situations. It also means you are more easily overwhelmed when you have been out in a highly stimulating environment for too long, bombarded by sights and sounds until you are exhausted in a nervous-system sort of way.

Like hungry chickens, when we cannot be fed what we need, we feed ourselves what we can find.