Seeking and Acceptance Highly Sensitive Men Work Spirituality Lifestyle Therapy Personal Growth HSPs on the Web 2003 California Gathering HSP Resources On Being Gifted The Gifted Adult Characteristics Special Issues Blessing or Curse? Commentary Gifted Resources On Being Introverted Inward Journey Outward Journey Shyness & Introversion Finding Self Introvert Resources On Personality Types C.G.Jung Myers-Briggs The Enneagram ANSIR Socionics Others On Psychology, etc. Counseling & Therapy Abnormal Psych? Choosing a Therapist On Life, in General Thoughts Words Images Dreams & Wishes Commentaries Putting it All Together A Journal, of Sorts Dedications & Thanks About Me A Gallery of Links |
Seeking and Acceptance Highly Sensitive Men Work Spirituality Lifestyle Therapy Personal Growth HSPs on the Web 2003 California Gathering HSP Resources On Being Gifted The Gifted Adult Characteristics Special Issues Blessing or Curse? Commentary Gifted Resources On Being Introverted Inward Journey Outward Journey Shyness & Introversion Finding Self Introvert Resources On Personality Types C.G.Jung Myers-Briggs The Enneagram ANSIR Socionics Others On Psychology, etc. Counseling & Therapy Abnormal Psych? Choosing a Therapist On Life, in General Thoughts Words Images Dreams & Wishes Commentaries Putting it All Together A Journal, of Sorts Dedications & Thanks About Me A Gallery of Links |
Seeking, Finding and Accepting your HSP-ness |
All content Copyright ©1995-2003 Peter Messerschmidt & Inner Reflections. All Rights Reserved. |
2003.06.26 2003.07.17 |
Discovering, understanding and coming to terms with the idea that you're an HSP doesn't always happen overnight. The description "Seeking and Acceptance" could perhaps be more accurately phrased as "From Seeking to Acceptance," since there were actually several phases to this particular part of my personal journey to find out "Who I Am." |
SEEKING: The early stages of my journey-- when I first started exploring reasons why "I felt so different"-- happened long before I had any awareness of "High Sensitivity" as a genetic trait. And it was actually as a result of my research on Gifted Adults that I first considered the possibility that "Sensitivity" might offer part of the explanation for why I had such difficulty feeling "normal" in the world. In studying the connection between intelligence and introversion, I repeatedly came across studies showing that as person's IQ/intelligence went up, so did the likelihood that this person would display symptoms of heightened (or "Hyper") sensitivity. Whereas this was interesting to me, I didn't pay too much attention to it, at the time. I felt like I had been offered a partial explanation, but no real answers on how it would affect my interaction with the world. |
FINDING: My perspective was completely changed when I found and read Elaine Aron's book "The Highly Sensitive Person." I had been "seeking," and now I had "found" an explanation and accounting for why my life seemed to have been dominated by a rather substantial number of difficulties-- difficulties that didn't always seem like "difficulties" to other people. As I read "The Highly Sensitive Person," I had a long series of "aha moments," as I repeatedly related to Dr. Aron's words-- almost as if she knew me as well as I did! Yet, I also had some rather mixed feelings. Most of these mixed feelings centered around-- on one hand-- a great sense of relief and happiness that I had found a giant "puzzle piece" in my search for self-identity but-- on the other hand-- coming face to face with an increasingly irrefutable fact: I was a "Highly Sensitive MAN," perceived by many as the antithesis of the "social ideal" for the male gender. |
