Читать книгу The Highly Sensitive Person - Elaine N. Aron - Страница 32

This first chapter may have been very stimulating! All sorts of strong, confusing feelings could be arising in you by now. I know from experience, however, that as you read and work through this book, those feelings will become increasingly clear and positive.

To sum it up again, you pick up on the subtleties that others miss and so naturally you also arrive quickly at the level of arousal past which you are no longer comfortable. That first fact about you could not be true without the second being true as well. It’s a package deal, and a very good package.

It’s also important that you keep in mind that this book is about both your personal innate physical trait and also about your frequently unappreciated social importance. You were born to be among the advisors and thinkers, the spiritual and moral leaders of your society. There is every reason for pride.

• Working With What You Have Learned •

Reframing Your Reactions to Change

At the end of some chapters I will ask you to “reframe” your experiences in the light of what you now know. Reframing is a term from cognitive psychotherapy which simply means seeing something in a new way, in a new context, with a new frame around it.

Your first reframing task is to think about three major changes in your life that you remember well. HSPs usually respond to change with resistance. Or we try to throw ourselves into it, but we still suffer from it. We just don’t “do” change well, even good changes. That can be the most maddening. When my novel was published and I had to go to England to promote it, I was finally living a fantasy I had cherished for years. Of course, I got sick and hardly enjoyed a minute of the trip. At the time, I thought I must be neurotically robbing myself of my big moment. Now, understanding this trait, I see that the trip was just too exciting.

My new understanding of that experience is exactly what I mean by reframing. So now it is your turn. Think of three major changes or surprises in your life. Choose one—a loss or ending—that seemed bad at the time. Choose one that seems as if it should have been neutral, just a major change. And one that was good, something to celebrate or something done for you and meant to be kind. Now follow these steps for each.

1. Think about your response to the change and how you have always viewed it. Did you feel you responded “wrong” or not as others would have? Or for too long? Did you decide you were no good in some way? Did you try to hide your upset from others? Or did others find out and tell you that you were being “too much”?

Here’s an example of a negative change. Josh is thirty now, but for more than twenty years he has carried a sense of shame from when, in the middle of third grade, he had to go to a new elementary school. He had been well enough liked at his old school for his drawing ability, his sense of humor, his funny choices of clothes and such. At the new school these same qualities made him the target of bullying and teasing. He acted as if he didn’t care, but deep inside he felt awful. Even at thirty, in the back of his mind he wondered if he hadn’t deserved to be so “unpopular.” Maybe he really was odd and a “weakling.” Or else why hadn’t he defended himself better? Maybe it was all true.

2. Consider your response in the light of what you know now about how your body automatically operates. In the case of Josh I would say that he was highly aroused during those first weeks at the new school. It must have been difficult to think up clever kid stuff to say, to succeed in the games and classroom tasks by which other children judge a new student. The bullies saw him as an easy target who could make them appear tougher. The others were afraid to defend him. He lost confidence and felt flawed, not likable. This intensified his arousal when he tried anything new while others were around. He could never seem relaxed and normal. It was a painful time but nothing to be ashamed of.

3. Think if there’s anything that needs to be done now. I especially recommend sharing your new view of the situation with someone else—provided they will appreciate it. Perhaps it could even be someone who was present at the time who could help you continue to fit details into the picture. I also advocate writing down your old and new views of the experience and keeping them around for a while as a reminder.