Real Life Reflections

 I can be my own worst enemy. I do things that disagree with my nature, things that cause me stress. It seems rather silly, right? Okay, maybe idiotic is a better descriptor. Regardless, I still do them. Why? Good question. I'm not a psychologist, but having lived with myself for a while now, my best guess would be that it's because of the lies I've believed (which you can read about here if you missed last week's post). So what exactly do I do that makes me an enemy of me? Here are a few of them: * I spend too much time on electronic media, most notably: Facebook, emails, and Amazon. Do I really need to know what the sister of my best friend in sixth grade is up to? How many times a day is too many times to see if Airfare Watchdog has found me a cheap flight to my desired destination when, in the two years that I've been watching, they've found ZERO? And how many books can I add to my Wish List in one day (quite a few as it turns out)? * I demand of mys...

Last week, I introduced my plan to work through the exercises in a little book called The Highly Sensitive Person's Companion by Ted Zeff  (if you missed it, you can read it here) . Before we jump into our first assignment, let's talk a little bit about introverts and "highly sensitive people." There seems to be some widespread misconceptions of what it means to be an introvert. People often define it as being shy or having social anxiety or worse, being self-absorbed. These descriptions simply aren't true. Extroverts can also be shy, have social anxiety, and can definitely be self-absorbed! Simply stated, introverts are internally stimulated, and they internalize external stimuli. Virtually everything is stimulating to an introvert! To bring it home, here are a few questions to which introverts/highly sensitive people would answer yes: * Do crowds exhaust you? * Do you tend to think before acting? * Is your body sensitive to alcohol and caffeine? * Does no...

After nearly 54 years in this body, I have recently embarked on a quest to learn how to live with it in peace. Hope that this is possible began to stir in me two and a half years ago when I read, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain. Since reading Quiet , I've had innumerable conversations, hours of pondering, and read additional articles, blogs, and books on the subject. These have led me to an entirely new term, "highly sensitive person (HSP)." I'm not exactly a fan of that particular term because it connotes weakness, but since no one asked for my opinion, I guess I'll learn to live with it.  In contradiction to how I first perceived the term, it actually refers to someone who is hyper-sensitive to light, sound, touch, taste, and/or smell (NOT someone who is an emotional weakling). HSPs (also known as sensory-defensives), like introverts, are easily over-stimulated because of their heightened sensitivity to...