The Highly Sensitive Man with William Allen

In this episode, I talk with author and coach Willian Allen who has recently published his first book Confessions of a Sensitive Man, An Unconventional Defense of Sensitive Men. We explore what it means to be highly sensitive and the challenges faced by highly sensitive men.

We also explore the importance of finding balance between the masculine and feminine polarities of ourselves and the evolving nature of what it means to be a man in current society. William shares the inspiration behind his blog, The Highly Sensitive Man and how this blog led to the formation of his new book.

About William Allen…
William Allen is a first-time author with a writer’s heart and researcher’s mind. After getting a degree in Psychology with an eye on doing psychological research, he recalibrated for a career in Information Technology. He found himself in a thirty-year career as an Information Technology manager at Wells Fargo who enjoyed managing highly intelligent, often difficult staff, many of whom were highly sensitive.

He retired early from his corporate job to found his Hypno-coaching and neurofeedback brain training business, BrainPilots, in Bend, Oregon. While in Bend, he co-organized the area’s first Introvert/Highly Sensitive Person discussion group. 

In late 2016, he began his blog, The Sensitive Man, about his experiences, as a highly sensitive man. The blog became the genesis of his book, Confessions of a Sensitive Man. He feels that Highly Sensitive Men need to take their keen insights and intuition and make them public. He would like to shed more light on highly sensitive men and the much-needed role they need to take in our society.

 Stay in touch with William Allen
 
Website:  www.thesensitiveman.com

Author of Confessions of a Sensitive Man, An Unconventional Defense of Sensitive Men

More about your host, Jules De Vitto....

Jules De Vitto is a transpersonal orientated coach and educator who is experienced at helping Highly Sensitive People overcome anxiety, stress and burnout. 

Jules is Highly Sensitive herself and is also passionate about helping Highly Sensitive People to step into their authentic power and align with their true purpose in life. She lived in Asia for eleven years before moving to London and integrates Eastern practices and modern-day mindfulness into her work.

She has a degree in Psychology, an MA in Education and an MSc in Transpersonal Psychology, Consciousness and Spirituality. She’s a published author through Changemaker Books and John Hunt Publishers and wrote Resilience: Navigating Loss in a Time of Crisis to help people through the Covid-19 Pandemic available here.

You can stay connected with Jules through her...   
 
 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/highly.sensitive.humans/

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/highlysensitivehumans  
 
 Join the 8-week course, 'Step into your Authentic Power as a Highly Sensitive Person' starts October 4th 2021, and is limited to 20 people! Join now!

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome, I'm your host, Jules DeVito, and you're listening to the Highly Sensitive Human Podcast. The show that offers an insight into the world of the highly sensitive person and helps those who identify with the traits of high sensitivity to feel more empowered and resilient without denying their authentic gifts. So William began his blog, The Sensitive Man, in the late 2016, and the blog was about his experiences as a highly sensitive man. So the blog became the genius of his new book, and William feels that highly sensitive men need to take their keen insights and intuition and make them public. He would like to shed more light on highly sensitive men's much-needed role in our society. Okay, welcome, Bill, and thank you so much for being my guest today on the Highly Sensitive Human podcast. So I'm just wondering if you could share a little bit more about the work that you do and yeah, how it relates to helping those who are highly sensitive and in particular with men.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

I sure will. And I want to thank you for having me on. I appreciate that. To talk about the work that I do, you'd have to kind of I'd have to give you a little background on my career. Um, it's I do have a bachelor's degree in psychology, although I don't do formal therapy or anything like that. Um I worked for most of my adult life in information technology for a large financial institution. And although it gave me great opportunities to work with a variety of people and do a lot of different things that challenged me and helped me grow, uh it wasn't until I took an early retirement about 10 years ago that I started to focus in on the psychology aspect and wanting to work and help people. One of the things that I liked doing the most at my work as an IT manager was coaching staff and helping them not only with career decisions, but sometimes their personal life as well. And I realized that I had kind of a talent for doing that. So this business venture that I wanted to start was going to be centered somewhere around coaching or helping people to in sort of everyday kind of problems and issues, not in the counseling therapeutic sense. And so I wound up getting a certification in hypnosis, something that I've been fascinated with for a long time. And I reframed that so that it was not just a hypnosis uh business, it was a business about hypnocoaching, which uses hypnosis as a tool to help people overcome, you know, issues and things, maybe minor anxieties or bad habits they wanted to uh to adapt and change. And one of the things I noticed, Jules, was a lot of the people that I was working with were highly sensitive people. This was back in around 2010, 2012, and I had only found out about high sensitivity and that there was something that would describe what I was by reading Dr. Elaine Aaron's book back in the mid-90s. So this was all kind of new to me, but it was starting to kind of gel. And I had expanded the business a little bit to include neurofeedback brain training, which I thought was a good way of helping people overcome these kind of stressful anxieties-ridden type situations that sometimes they found themselves in. And I found some really good tools for that. Uh, while I was running this business, I started blogging and started writing more about high sensitivity, especially in men, because I was had grown up in a kind of environment where I was supposed to be a sort of traditional male, um, and it was in conflict with what I was. And as I was saying, doing the business that I did, I found more often than not, the people that I work I was working with and talking to were highly sensitive individuals. And it became sort of a natural fit that I would work with them and coach them based on the experiences that I had had growing up and the ways I had learned to cope and so forth. And I incorporated a lot of that into the blog that I wrote, which is uh The Sensitive Man. It's a blog that I've been doing since 2016. That became the genesis for the book that I wrote, uh Confessions of a Sensitive Man. And so when you describe work in the sense now, my focus and attention is on the book and delivering the message, especially to sensitive men, uh, about their sensitivity and hopefully answering questions through my experience that they may have had also in their own lives.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Thank you so much for sharing that. It's really interesting, a really interesting journey. And with that being said, I'm just wondering, because you mentioned the book. Um, and if I'm right, the book is called Confessions of a Sensitive Man. Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 5:58

That is correct, yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

And so what would you say the purpose of the book is, or what is that message that you're trying to get across to the people that read it?

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Well, well, part of the book, I mean, it started out as kind of relating my experiences as being sensitive. Now, as I said before, I grew up in a part of uh the United States, the southern United States, which is a very conservative, very traditional um area of the country, uh, in which male roles and female roles are very highly defined with boundaries. And being sensitive is not something that a young male in the southern part of the United States, anyway, was supposed to be. So immediately I had these sort of conflicts of having to deal with uh my sensitivity and then matching up with what was the sort of stereotypical male role model and what masculinity was defined as. So the book started out in a lot of ways just relating my experiences, but I began to see as I was writing this that I had lots of questions that went along with you know, trying to define uh my masculinity in a sort of a greater spectrum of what I had been taught. So I did more research, I did more reading on it, and it really kind of evolved into a book not only about sensitivity in men, but also what does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be masculine? And that became sort of a subtext for the main text of the books, which was about being sensitive and being a male, was also what does it mean these days to be masculine? And it expanded and comparing and contrasting what masculine versus feminine is, and and I began to realize what what we really need to be thinking about is not these sort of arbitrary, culturally defined roles of what masculine and feminine are, but what it means to be human. And being human is about expressing emotions and feelings, and these are things that traditionally men have not been allowed to do openly. So it really kind of transformed sort of a journey writing the book and it taking me along on this path. I began to realize it was about being more human and allowing men to be more human, and that means expressing themselves emotionally, uh, expressing uh their intuitive side, their nurturing and caring side, and their empathetic side. And I that was a real interesting arc that I found that was happening underneath uh as I was writing the book. So it's it's like I said, essentially it was the intent originally was my older self writing a book to my younger self. And I began to realize that there were a lot of things that that I had learned through the course of writing the book, and of course, through my experiences growing up as a highly sensitive man, that really were relevant to today and what's going on in the world today. So like I said, that the book has got this subtext to it about that, which is being human and what does it mean to be masculine.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

That feels like such an important message right now. I think from my experience, the the roles of the masculine and the feminine feel very confused right now in society and what it means to be a man, like you said, I don't think that the younger generation have a clear idea of what that involves. And it sounds like from what you're saying, um it's really about you were talking about being human, it's really about stepping into the authentic self and like you said, being able to express emotions, um, intuition, empathy, and know it's okay to do that.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Exactly. There's always been this thread, I think, especially when you think of things like um what I mean by being more human is being more balanced. I think if you look at feminine energy and and masculine energy as a concept, uh set of constructs that we put on both of those things, that each one of us, male and female, carries those those uh characteristics with us uh because of cultural definitions, uh, especially for men, particularly, and and with women too, I'm sure, some of the opposite, let's say, for example, if you're a female, maybe the masculine characteristics um get suppressed, and the same thing is true for men. So there you there's a sort of lack of balance there. And what I'm really advocating for is that we look at inviting that balance back into um our lives, and which ultimately helps us express ourselves as humans more fully. So the idea that it's masculine and feminine, we've sort of sexualized that, that these are characteristics that a man has, a male has, versus a female, as opposed to different energies that are just uh have different characteristics that, in if you look at it as a whole, creates a very balanced human being. And so these are some of the things I think you're right. I think what's happening today is that gender identity has become more fluid, um, sexual identity has become fluid as well, and a lot of people are just saying, and especially younger people, are saying, you know what, I don't feel like I fit into this box. I feel like I'd like to be able to expand myself. And I really do think sensitive men, and one of the things that I advocate in the book, that sensitive men can have a role in helping other men, other non-HSP men, to model what this new new masculine might look like, you know, which is to be able to be more expressive emotionally, more nurturing, more intuitive. These are things we have traditionally uh characterized as female characteristics, but in fact they're really very human, uh, with you know no identity to that. So I I really think that men, especially highly sensitive men, could actually step up and do something here in terms of modeling and helping culturally, the wider culture, redefine what these terms masculine and feminine mean.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Brilliant. I I really love the way you've uh described that, finding the balance. And I'm wondering why you feel this is so important right now. Let's say, for the highly sensitive men to model this new masculine, what about it feels necessary, would you say?

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Well, I mean, it really truly, uh as an American, I can say this. You can look at the state of my country right now, and you can see where this idea of the old masculine, which has um been characterized by a lot of people as toxic masculinity. And it doesn't have to be toxic just because of the maybe sexual overtures that come out as a result of men imposing themselves and subjugating themselves. It is much broader than that. And this I found in the book is a term that describes hegemonic masculinity, which is a term where traditionally it has been a small subset of the population. And I think in the United States, particularly it's been white males who dominate and subjugate anybody else that doesn't fit into their category. I think you're starting to see pushback now, not only from women, but from people of color. You're seeing it from the LGBTQ community, you're seeing it from people who have been oppressed and put down for so long. This model is a dominant model. It's a model of talking about the hegemonic masculinity, and it's not sustainable. I mean, it it's it's created wars, it's created the issues we have with climate change right now. It's an abusive, dominant uh type of mentality that is really destroying us all over the planet. And I think we need to re-examine what that is and why it's it we've allowed that to be part of our our culture. And I think you're starting to see that pushback. And a lot of young young people, younger than myself, and I'm 65, um are starting to awaken up to this. It's starting to become something that is, I think, uh a cause. And what we need to do is be able to replace this, this hegemonic masculinity, this toxic masculinity with something that is more balanced, because this is clearly out of balance. And when things are out of balance and out of balance in nature, nothing good comes of that. Imbalance is not a good thing. You can think of yin and yang, you can think of uh of uh balance uh in anything that goes on in in nature positive, negative, light, dark, all that, those metaphors for balance. When things are out of balance, bad things happen, basically. And I think that right now, this point in time, there's an interesting point in the book that Dr. Ahrens brings up in some of her blog articles about the evolutionary quality that nature has created, a subset of the larger population of a more cautious, more I'll say wise, but certainly cautious, careful uh subset of the species. And this is true for different animals, not just uh humans only, that HSP seem to fill that bill, which is basically the cautious, wise advisor. And that's the role that that our personalities have wired us for. And I think we can step up and be that uh advisor, uh, but part of the process is educating those of us who know that we're sensitive and know about the characteristic, uh, educating other highly sensitive people who may not know that. And there are a lot of people out there who still don't know that they have this characteristic, and a lot of men who don't know they have this characteristic. They're walking around thinking that there's something wrong with them, and there's not. So, to your point, I I think that this time in our history is the perfect time for HSP men to recognize and embrace the quality that we have and to model it for other men who I believe are more willing now than they've ever been to accept it. I mean, there's always going to be an element that is going to reject it. But I think a broader spectrum of men now are willing to accept this, this, this, these characteristics and this new version of what masculine means.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Yeah, absolutely. And like you said, it feels that educational peace is so important. And I think this is another reason it's so crucial that your book is coming out now, because I know for myself, I mean, being a woman, I it was about seven years ago that I came across the term high sensitivity. Um, before that, I always knew that I experienced the world in a different way, but I could never put a label to it. So just having that label and knowing it's okay to um step into those traits and not be ashamed of them or think there's something wrong with me has been life-changing. So definitely um with men, I do think it's more difficult for men to embrace those traits because it is repressed or it is seen as uh somehow society sees it as a weakness. So I really appreciate and resonate with what you have shared.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Yeah, you're absolutely right. I I think that's a critical piece, is that um a lot of the traits associated with highly sensitive people are considered to be uh culturally as more effeminate. And I think men are afraid to embrace those characteristics because, like you said, they see it as a weakness. It is not a weakness, it is, in fact, a gift, and I think it can be a strength. I think part of the problem is like yourself and like myself as well, for the longest time I didn't know what this was. I did not know that this was a personality characteristic. It was not, it's not a disorder, it's not a problem, it's not an issue. But so many sensitive people deal with it and aren't quite sure how to deal with it. So, you know, in the book, I talk about how I navigated my life with this characteristic in some ways. And I've got another book that I hope will be will be out next year. It's a second part of this book about dealing with this on a kind of a day-to-day basis. Um but, you know, it is not a weakness, and I want to make sure men understand that. And so the subtitle of the book is that it's an unconventional defense of sensitive men, because I really do think that men need to know uh if you have this characteristic, it's not a problem, it doesn't make you less of a man, um, and that you should embrace it because of all the gifts that come with it, you know, creativity, uh, being able to see and experience and nuance things from the environment that so many people miss because our brains are wired to do that.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Yeah, absolutely. And again, I I relate to the idea that it brings, it does bring so many gifts and that there's so many positive qualities that come from being highly sensitive. But with that being said, what would you say one of your biggest struggles has been as a highly sensitive man?

SPEAKER_00 21:27

Well, certainly um I had I, as we talked about earlier, I struggled with, you know, because of my sensitivity and dealing with the emotion and even the emotional expression was dealing with masculinity. But I think probably one of the things I struggled with the most was, and there are challenges to being highly sensitive. I'm not trying to sugarcoat that it's all goodness, but um one of the things was overwhelming and I think this is something that every highly sensitive person has to. To deal with. Hitting that point where you just feel like you want to melt down, and there's too much stimulus going on in the environment. It's being able to learn how to manage that. And I very early on, back when I was in college, which started out with uh learning uh transcendental meditation and learning techniques to help me to calm and quiet my mind down. Um, I kind of made that a sort of a hobby of mine is experimenting and learning different ways that I could use to calm myself down. So that certainly was a struggle, is learning to deal with the stress sometimes of life, the overwhelm that comes with um you know living in a highly stressful world. I worked in information technology for many years, which is a very stressful environment because of the expectation that you know your computer systems are up 24 by 7, and there should be no downtime, that kind of stuff. Um, it certainly was uh a challenge to me to learn how to manage working in that kind of environment and yet be able to manage my own internal um systems, you know, trying to stay calm, keep myself uh relaxed. And so that was a has always been a big struggle for me. And I suspect that that would be something that many HSBs deal with on a day-to-day basis. So that would be certainly something I would suggest that everybody do is find some techniques and find um tools that will help you do that because that's something you're just going to live with for the rest of your life. Um, but you can manage it, and that's the important thing, is it can be managed. So, yeah, that would probably be my biggest struggle is dealing with uh the stressors.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

You mentioned techniques and tools. So, do you have a specific technique or tool that you have used to manage that overwhelm or to calm down your nervous system? You did mention meditation. Um, I'm not sure if that's something you use or you would recommend, but is there something you can share with us?

SPEAKER_00 24:27

Yes, certainly. I you know, I think we live in a tech technologically driven society. Um, so much of what we get and use today uh you know may be uh related to using of the use of the telephone or your uh cell phones. Uh, there are apps that are out there. In fact, I wrote a blog article recently about uh apps that can be used to help calm the mind. Uh, there's quite a few that are coming out now. Uh in my business, I was very fortunate to find a um software tool. Now, it's not uh as readily available in terms of pricing and so forth for the average person, but there are practitioners who use this uh tool. It's called neuroptimal. It is a neurofeedback tool that is uh quite easy for uh the practitioner to use, and it's also quite easy for the client to use. And what it does essentially is monitors your brainwave activity and then gives you very subtle uh unconscious uh audio signals uh to help your brain synchronize with the uh uh feedback that it's getting from the computer software. It's an amazing tool. Uh it's very subtle, it's it's a perfect tool for, I think, highly sensitive people because honestly, there's not really much you have to do. And most often I found that uh not only myself but other people would kind of drift off into a deep alpha brainwave state or theta brainwave state and not have to do anything. It was very relaxing. Um, and it has a very subtle long-term effect if you do this regularly. Uh, but there are other tools that are out there. There's brain entrainment tools that you can use to help spot you in a situation, let's say you're nervous or upset, overwhelmed, uh, that can help you relax and get into an alpha or or theta brainwave state, um, uh, and will help calm your mind down. But meditation is probably the most portable uh tool and technique that I've found. Uh, and there's so many different types of meditation. Uh, you know, you could probably look on YouTube and find uh some uh particular meditation that might suit you best. I like the idea too of doing things which would include sort of a um moving meditation, which could be uh uh practicing tai chi or yoga or something that involves the body as well. But there are many, many things that you can do, techniques that are you know interface with technology, things like meditation, which you can do, which, like I said, you carry with you no matter where you are, no matter what you have with you, you can always do that. Uh, there's music that's specifically designed to, I think it's 425 megahertz music or hertz music that you can find on YouTube as well that can help relax you. The idea is to get your brain to go into sort of neutral, and that allows you to calm down because you're not rushing thoughts through it, you're not ruminating about uh something that you did, or you're not worrying about something that's coming down the road. You're basically trying to stay in the present moment. And there's, like I said, a myriad of tools that you can you can find out there. Again, you can they could uh your listeners could go to the blog, and there's some sources there that I have under um uh apps that can help you uh as a highly sensitive person deal with, especially with negative thinking and so forth. Um but I I like meditation, as I said, because it's easy, it's portable, you can take it with you. Uh, and there are all kinds of technology that's being developed these days. Brain training is actually something that I think is going to take off as a perhaps as a business, or certainly it's going to get more and more developed, so it's easier for people to access it. And I think that's going to be useful, especially for highly sensitive people, to help calm down.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

Yeah, brilliant. This is really, really helpful. And I will put the link to the blog post you mentioned in the notes so people can access that easily. But I really like the idea of the apps you mentioned with the brain entrainment. I think that's really fascinating. So it's actually you're saying that the app is responding to your brain waves in the moment. So it's helping, like on an individual basis, it's helping the brain waves to shift into the alpha and theta state. Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Yes, there's there's there's technology for for a couple of different types of technology. Uh, one uses um uh uh isochronic tones, or different tones that are set up that kind of entrain the brain. Um, and there's others that send a different signal to each ear, and then your brain sort of entrains to the middle signal, which is then maybe alpha brainwave state. Um, the idea that what's nice about these things is that they're very passive. You don't have to do something. Uh sometimes in meditation, if you have a mantra or you have something that you're trying to focus on and you have a very active mind, it's a little bit more difficult to get into that state. It's a training thing, though. The idea is that this is something that you want to continue to do. It's not something I would probably best equate it to doing uh physical exercise at a gym or at some uh fitness center. Uh you don't go in there and do it once and walk away and think, well, now I'm fit. You you actually have to keep doing it over and over again. Uh, it's a matter of training your muscles and training your body. The same thing would be true with these brain tools. Um you would be doing this just like you would be doing physical fitness, but you'd be doing it for your for your brain activity. So, yeah, some of these tools are very passive and allow you to just basically sit back and let your brain entrain to these particular signals, and it really can get you into a very nice, peaceful place.

SPEAKER_01 31:09

Yeah, and I'm interested, would you say this also works with highly sensitive people who struggle with their sleep or, like you mentioned, erasing thoughts, ruminating, struggling to switch off. So, does it work in the same way?

SPEAKER_00 31:27

It can. I know that when I was doing the hypnosis business, I had many people come to me for trying to find ways to sort of turn their brain off and go to sleep at night. And I think insomnia, like other things like weight loss, they seem simple on the surface, but they're actually very complicated issues because they may involve your work environment, they may involve, as you were saying, your your thoughts not being able to turn off. There might be some physical reasons why you're not being able to go to sleep as well. But if you really suspect that it's something like just racing thoughts, worrying, stressing out about life, and taking that with you, uh, there are apps that are out there as well that deal specifically with that. And some of it has to do with, you know, the kind of um uh mental training it does. Um, there are things that you know you need to do to prep yourself to going to bed at night and so forth, which mean means shutting off computers and shutting off lights and and and all kinds of things as a kind of a preparation for going to sleep. But yes, uh they can help calm the brain down, and that's something that you learn to do over time. It is a training ritual, you know. Um it's it's not an instant fix. Um, and but yet it does work over time. And I think that the good thing about this, and I think especially for highly sensitive people, is the idea that you can train your brain to react certain ways to certain stimulus. It's not though, it's not as though, well, I'm wired this way, I have to live with this the rest of my life. I really believe that you can control some of this activity through this these brain training um exercises. And uh I think that will help a lot of highly sensitive people who are maybe uh prone to a lot more overwhelm and a lot more uh stress in life. Um and some of that's covered in the book, and certainly in the second book, I spent a little bit more time on these kinds of things as well.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

Yeah, and that feels like another really, really important message. You know, you're emphasizing the importance of training and being consistent with these techniques and methods and meditating on a regular basis, and I think it comes back to something you shared earlier, which was being highly sensitive isn't an illness, and it doesn't mean you're a victim to these struggles or to the sensitivity. So I think what you're saying is that we can actually really be in control of how we respond to our environment, and we can make those shifts and those changes.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

Absolutely. And you know, that's that's true for anyone, highly sensitive, or or even people that are you know not so sensitive. I do think in many ways, sensitivity is is a spectrum, right? You have uh, and a lot of people have are now describing it as uh three different things. Um I think it's a daffodils or people that are less sensitive. People in the middle are tulips, if you look, think of it as a bell curve, and people on the high end are orchids, and you know how fussy orchids are, but they're really very beautiful flowers. Um and I I I think people can travel up and down that scale a little bit, even sensitive people. Um, but um the reality is that if you if you believe you don't have control of this at all, and you can't control you know, overwhelm or how things are, then being highly sensitive can be very challenging. And I think the the message I would like to share and relate to people is that you can control some of these outputs that you have. Uh you're going to perceive things, you're going to see things, you're going to get a lot of data that's rushing into you because of the way we process sensory information. And sensitivity isn't just about emotion, it's also about processing sensory information. And that in and of itself can be overwhelming. Getting more stuff uh into your brain uh through your sense organs doesn't, well, of course, it doesn't necessarily mean we have better eyes or uh have better olfactory systems or whatever. It what it does mean is that we open our filters are are more open, and so we're pulling more data in. That can be a very overwhelming thing, but that's something that we can work with. We can we can learn to train our brain so that we're not as overwhelmed. And that would give us the opportunity of processing more of this information in a more positive way, and uh seeing those nuanced pieces of the environment. You know, it's like walking into a party uh of people, a group of people, the the highly sensitive person might be the person in the room who can sense the uh a female, let's just say, or a man for that matter, who has too much cologne on and they can smell that difference, or they might be able to taste the extra salt in the hors d'oeuvres. It's just having that ability to process more nuanced information, and that can be overwhelming. So I think it's a gift, and I think it's something that we can use in a positive way, but we also have to arm ourselves to be able to deal with you know, some of that overwhelm so that we don't just wind up living our lives in a cave somewhere to protect ourselves from getting too much data coming in. So it's a balance again, goes back to the whole concept of balance.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

Yeah, absolutely. And I agree with that. I think in order for us to access those gifts and these the strengths of the traits, we really need to find ways to prevent the overwhelm. Um, so um I know you have your book coming out soon. Uh what what date is it being released?

SPEAKER_00 37:50

It's actually now available. Uh, the Kindle version is available on Amazon, or the ebook version is is now available on Amazon. It was as of last Wednesday. Um the uh hard, it's not a hardback, it's a softback cover, but it's the the book version of it will be out in November. So I think you can pre-order the book if that's your preference. Uh if you uh prefer Kindle, it's available right now and it's on Amazon, it's on iBooks, it's on Barnes and Noble and uh other distributors. I'm not sure all of them yet, but it is uh should be easily accessible.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Brilliant. And again, I will put the link for your book in the notes so people can access that easily. Where would you say you have had any specific books that have inspired you on your journey? Are there any other books or resources that you would recommend for people?

SPEAKER_00 38:50

Yeah, I I well certainly I would say for any, especially for any sensitive person, but especially for me, I the most eye-opening book was the book that Elaine Aaron wrote about highly sensitive people or highly sensitive person, I think is what she titled it as. It has to be in every highly sensitive person's library. Uh, there's some other good books that have been written about HSPs, um, by especially for men, by Dr. Ted Zeff. He's written some great books on, especially on raising highly sensitive boys. Uh, and Dr. Tracy Cooper has written some books and some interesting takes on high sensitivity. There is a subset of highly sensitive uh people that are called high sensation seekers, and it sort of almost seems to be contradictory to what we think of as highly sensitive people, being more cautious. But highly sensitive people can also have a side to them, a streak, if you will, for high sensation seeking. It's not something that they live in uh in the constantly in that mode, but it's sort of um looking for novelty in life. Uh, actually have that trait myself, um, and I didn't know that it even existed until I read Dr. Cooper's book. So there's a lot of good books out there on that. Um, as far as things that are inspiring me, I'm actually kind of shifting a little bit. And I'm looking at um reading more um Eastern uh philosophy, the Dao Dijing is a good book that I'm starting to absorb now and helping me understand things like balance uh and and how to approach life, which is different than kind of some of the things I taught uh was taught in sort of a Western way. Um so um, you know, I just think the idea at this point is uh, and especially for me, is just to read as much as I can about this concept of balance. I because I really think that's going to be something that's gonna be a big part of our future on this planet is learning and seeking that.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

I'm just wondering, could you say something else about the high sensation seeking? I've also heard of that term myself, and I do wonder if I have some of those traits as well. Um, but what does that look like for you in your life, or how might other highly sensitive people be able to identify what that looks like?

SPEAKER_00 41:24

I I think I, you know, a lot of times when you hear something like that, you're thinking of the person who's who's constantly going places to bungee jump, or someone who likes to do uh parachuting or whatever. It's not necessarily about high risk uh in terms of physical health and safety. It is about novelty seeking. Um, I have a tendency, and here's an interesting fact about highly sensitive people that Dr. Aaron has brought out is that we often don't do so well in relationships long-term. That I think there's a part of us that naturally seeks novelty. Um that doesn't mean that you won't, if you're a highly sensitive person, you won't have a long loving relationship with someone. But if if you find that you're not and you're looking for something new, it could be that high sensation-seeking piece. And I think there's a kind of a uh a way of dealing with that that highly sensitive people will get to a point where they're they're they're constantly looking for stimulation at some point. And and I think that's what they're looking for as they go out and look for these novel experiences. It could be just change of venue, it could be travel, it could be um doing something exciting for a brief period of time, but then coming back to being your more cautious uh self. So the tendency, I think, is more about looking for new things, new experiences, which I think is a good thing. Um, but uh uh it doesn't necessarily have to be something that's high risk or of a physical nature, high risk or dangerous type of thing, although it might be. You know, it just really depends on the individual. Certainly, Dr. Cooper's book would be a great place to go, get some detail, deep dive on that, because he has sort of specialized in that particular area.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

With everything we've spoken about today, um, there's been some really um prominent themes, and I think the theme of balance has been coming through a lot. Um, is there anything else you'd like to share about your book or what we've spoken about? Anything that feels um really important to get through?

SPEAKER_00 43:42

Well, the the theme of balance is very important, but also think the the idea that living more in the present. I I have a there's an old uh Zen uh I wouldn't call it a parable, but it's a short story about a student going to his master's. And you may have heard of this before, but it's become kind of a mantra with me right now. The student goes to the Zen master and asks him, How do you become enlightened? And the master looks back at the student and says, Well, chop wood, carry water. The student looks about, thinks about that for a minute, looks back at the master again and says, What do you do after you're enlightened? And the master looks back at him and says, Chop wood, carry water. The idea is to stay focused on what it is that's sustaining you, right? In the moment. I think as HSPs, we tend to either live in the past and ruminate too much about what we did, what we could have done, how we could, you know, overanalyzing everything that we've done. And sometimes that's a problem for us. Or we spend a lot of time worrying about the future, something that we're going to do, some activity, but we very seldom stay in the moment. And that's where that has relevance to me, that saying, chop wood, carry water, because that is really something you're doing in the moment. It's menial, but it's something that you can focus and stay focused on in the present. And I think for me, as I've gotten older and more experienced, that's something that I've learned that I would like to relate to other HSPs, is the trivial stuff that you do right now and then that you think is trivial that you're doing in the present is really where your life really is. And not to get too hung up on what happened in the past and not to get too hung up about looking to the future. That doesn't mean set goals or any of that stuff. It just means don't worry and get anxious about it. So that would be something I would share it with people. And the other thing is uh I would tell highly sensitive people who are just learning about the trait or have it and know it is whatever you do, don't give up. You know, I think the world is changing, and we are going to be a big part of that in various ways. And um, I think we have an important role to fulfill. And I think Dr. Aaron is right. There is an evolutionary reason why we exist, and I'm I'm now learning to embrace it and be proud of that.

SPEAKER_01 46:12

Yeah, thank you. And I think that's a really, really important message to end on. And I think the idea of staying present is so crucial. And I can also relate as a highly sensitive person to over-analyzing, overthinking. And I know that meditation and mindfulness has been really instrumental in my life to shifting that pattern. Um, and the other thing you've shared was just how we as highly sensitive people have a glob, it feels like a global responsibility right now because we are going through this massive shift. And just one more thing I want to say about that is it almost feels to me that the the balance, the the scale is going even further off. It's yeah, and it's like that needs to happen before we can bring it back into alignment again. And I I don't know if that's something you also see happening at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 47:19

Absolutely. I and I totally agree with that. And and HSPs tend to be a little bit um tentative, maybe sometimes intimidate about that, but we can do this as a group. And I appreciate you giving me an opportunity to talk with you today.

SPEAKER_01 47:35

You are welcome. Well, thank you so much for joining. And I'm just wondering where can listeners go to find out more about your work and the resources that you've mentioned here today.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

Well, let's see. The the website is thesensitiveman.com. Um, and that's where the blogs are, and there's some information about the books and so forth. I'm gonna continue to develop that site as well. Um, I'm on Facebook as the Sensitive Man. They can find me there, and I would love for them to like me. I think it's where I put a lot of my uh information outbound for that. And on Twitter, it's the the Sensitive MA1. I didn't wasn't able to get Sensitive Man, but I did get Sensitive MA1, so that's where I'm at on Twitter.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

Brilliant, thank you. And again, I'll put those links below so people can find you easily on Facebook, Twitter, and your website as well. So thank you so much, and I'm looking forward to reading your book.

SPEAKER_00 48:36

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Joe's. I appreciate you having me on.

SPEAKER_01 48:39

You are welcome. Thanks for joining me this week on Highly Sensitive Humans. Make sure to visit my website, highly sensitivehumans.com, where you can subscribe to the show and find out more about my upcoming workshops, my online eight-week course, and where I also offer one-to-one coaching for highly sensitive people. And if you found value in the show today, I'd really appreciate a rating. Or if you'd simply share this episode with your friends or other highly sensitive people that would help support this podcast.