The Highly Sensitive Person's Workbook: Introduction

I remember when I was a little girl, tripping in the door at the end of the school day, tears streaming, pigtails askew, my parents would hug me and pronounce, “Sara, you take things too personally. You’re too sensitive. You need to just let things roll off your back, like the way rain rolls off a duck’s feathers.”

For two decades, that advice echoed resoundingly in my head, and I never could understand why life experiences affected me so profoundly, while everyone else seemed to be blissfully unaware of my inner desperation.

Some part of me was singular: I knew that. How could I not? Others categorized me as a social butterfly, but when I tried to be solitary (bodily or in my own mind), something was amiss (e.g. “What’s wrong, Sara?? Why are you so quiet, Sara? Are you sad, Sara?”). In college, when a relative told me I would never get a husband because I wasn’t being demure (i.e. “You’re being too loud!”), I laughed it off; but in my heart, I wept.

My individuation as an HSP really began several years ago when I was in Walla Walla, Washington, having gelato with my good friend Luke. My curious inquiry about his beautiful, twining, colorful tattoo led to an unforgettable conversation about Empaths: who they are, what they’re like, and how the world impacts— and, more often than not, damages— them. Luke was an Empath. I suspected I might be one, too, and after I relocated to Las Vegas for my career, I began to research Empaths. I think now that I must have stumbled on the phrases “hsp” and “highly sensitive” during my reading. I don’t know why I disregarded them: after all, I’d been charged all my life “not to take things so personally.” I was sensitive. Perhaps I lacked the motivation to discover what it meant, perhaps I was in a hurry, or perhaps I just brushed it off (like the rain and the duck, ironically!).

But recently, I was browsing through the audio books at the library, and I stumbled across a title that spoke to me: The Highly Sensitive Person. My health had been spiraling slowly downwards for the past year and I was near burnout at work. I was looking for an answer to a question I didn’t know. When I spotted the book, I felt commanded: “Get that one!” I’m convinced it was Providence; believe what you will.

I started listening to the CD and almost immediately recognized that I was one of the 20% Dr. Aron was talking about!

I ordered The Highly Sensitive Person’s Workbook from Amazon.com and HI would like to share my experiences as I work through the chapters within the book: to internalize the information within myself, to comfort and inspire the many HSPs who are dear to me, and to help the remainder of you comprehend us a little bit better.