Skip to main content

My Year with the HSP Companion

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 external stimuli (I'm tempted to believe that "sensory defensive," "highly-sensitive person (HSP)," and "introvert" are three terms for the same thing, but I haven't read enough yet to draw that conclusion absolutely).

I readily admit that I'm an introvert, an HSP, and while I cannot change the over-stimulating world in which I live, nor can I change the fact that it overstimulates me, I now have hope that these two utterly incongruent things - the world and this trait of mine - can, in fact, peacefully co-exist...with a little tweaking on my part.

So....

Over the next year, I plan to read The Highly Sensitive Person's Companion by Ted Zeff.
This little book is divided into fifty-two chapters. Each chapter outlines an exercise for the coming week to help the HSP make adjustments that will enable him/her not only to cope but to thrive.

I invite you to follow me this next year. If you're a gregarious extrovert who is fairly oblivious to external stimuli, it may help you better understand your spouse/significant other or your child, your parents, siblings, in-law(s), friend, or co-worker. If you're an introvert/highly-sensitive person, buy a copy of the book and read the chapters week by week or simply follow my blog. And whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, I'd love to hear your comments!

Hopefully, as we go through this together we'll grow in our understanding of the people around us, and if you happen to be an introvert/sensory-defensive/HSP (whichever term you prefer), I hope you'll gain much more than understanding. I hope it changes your life. I hope it changes mine.

Stay tuned for week one!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

As A Child

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3 Become like little children? Really? Children are definitely cute and innocent, but that pretty much covers the positive qualities. On the negative side, however, the list is quite a bit lengthier: demanding, dependent, self-centered, messy, often smelly, expensive, and embarrassingly honest. So why? WHY in the world would Jesus tell us to become like little children? WHY in the world would He want that? What was He thinking?! Well, He was a thirty-something year-old bachelor. Maybe He didn't really know what He was talking about when He said that. I mean, if we come to Him like little children, it's pretty much guaranteed to be messy. We're likely to be crabby, cranky. We might be downright angry. Prayer-ADD is hard to control on a good day. If we're not on top of it, if we don't have our list in front of us to focus our thoughts, we...
4 comments
Read more

The Hug That Said It All

I witnessed a hug the other day. Big deal, right? People see other people hug all the time. Yeah, but this was a hug that melted my heart. We attended a graduation party in honor of our nephew. It was held under a pavilion. There was quite a spread of food, and each table was loaded with decorations and favors (very nicely done, Ange!). Obviously a lot of work . . . a lot of love was poured into this party. As the evening wound down, many of us hung around to help clean up. That's the un-fun part of a party. The un-fun part of this party became even more un-fun when, in an attempt to dump a drum of trash into a plastic trash bag, wet, gooey, smelley garbage ended up on the concrete floor of the pavilion. It was rank and disgusting, but my sister-in-law (the afore mentioned "Ange.") cleaned up without complaint. When the graduate meandered by shortly thereafter, I jokingly told him, in a scolding voice, that he had better get down on his knees in gratitude for all his moth...
3 comments
Read more

More Than Enough

Life is teeming with reminders of our need for God. Take today for example: I'm exhausted. I have this ridiculously sensitive body rhythm, and I messed it up yesterday. I went to St. Louis with a mother and daughter. The daughter is strongly considering an extended stay in Burkina Faso as a missionary. So the mother/daughter team that have been there/done that spent the day with the mother/daughter team in the early stages of going there/doing that. It was a great time. Ami and I both enjoyed sharing our experiences, and by their own admission, the time was profitable for the other mother and daughter; but for me, to talk for a full eight hours is waaaayyy past my conversation limit. "Conversation limit?" Yep. Conversation limit. A previous boss used to cite some statistic about how many words an average woman speaks each day as compared to the average man. He'd see me talking and joke that I hadn't reached my quota for the day. My quota, however, is much lower ...
2 comments
Read more