Читать книгу The Highly Sensitive Man - Tom Falkenstein - Страница 11
ОглавлениеYOU MAY WELL HAVE READ a lot about high sensitivity in other books or online, thought long and hard about the term high sensitivity, and already decided that you’re highly sensitive. Or perhaps you’ve read a couple of articles about high sensitivity, heard about it here and there, and wondered whether you, too, might be highly sensitive. Or perhaps you’re not highly sensitive at all, but you have an inkling that your spouse, your partner, your son, your son-in-law, your brother, your father, or one of your friends might be highly sensitive and you want to better understand what it means. Maybe someone gave you this book as a present or lent it to you because that person thinks that you could be highly sensitive. Whatever the reason is that you’re reading these pages, I’m really happy that you’re here. Because the more people who know about high sensitivity and really understand what it is, the better.
In this chapter, so that you get a really clear idea of exactly what high sensitivity is, I want to give you a compact but detailed overview of the academic research on the subject. This will increase your knowledge about high sensitivity and give you a firm grounding in the theoretical background. I will also explain the scientific context, showing how high sensitivity complements the better-known term introversion. At the same time, it’s important to me that you understand that the concept of high sensitivity is based on the results of numerous robust scientific studies from around the world and represents a serious field of scientific research. It is in no way some sort of “new age” phenomenon. One can get this impression when one sees the myriad ways in which people try to sell the term high sensitivity and the way it is sometimes presented in online forums. High sensitivity is neither a silver bullet nor some sort of sixth sense. Highly sensitive people haven’t traveled from another galaxy, nor are they necessarily gifted. It is not a psychological disorder, but a neutral temperamental trait that can help to explain many things, but not all things. It is also very important to differentiate high sensitivity from a temporary psychological sensitivity during stressful life events or a short-term period of feeling thin-skinned after, for instance, suffering trauma or during a period of depression or anxiety. High sensitivity is not a temporary state, but a constant trait that you are born with and will carry with you for the whole of your life.
Sensitivity, Introversion, and Extroversion
We are all different, and we arrive in the world with some of these differences. Anyone who has kids or who has friends and family with kids knows that newborn babies already differ from each other, even in their very first few weeks of life. Before we have been influenced by experiences, other people, our education, or any number of other factors that help form our personalities, we are already reacting differently to stimuli and consequently display different behavioral tendencies. “She’s a much worse sleeper than her sister,” “She cries much more than her brothers and sisters,” or “He feeds really slowly because he’s always distracted by things he sees” are just a few of the kinds of comments I’ve heard from parents describing and comparing their children. So children’s innate temperaments have a substantial influence on them and are observable from Day 1. And a child’s temperament also has an influence on its parents’ behavior, which, in turn, influences how secure the parent–child bond is. This means that differences in temperaments between parents and children can sometimes lead to problems in this relationship and that parents can sometimes become frustrated if they feel that their child has a “difficult” temperament. I can recall a highly sensitive client who was often yelled at and even punished by her stressed and overworked mother because, as a child, she cried far more often that her elder sister and her mother couldn’t bear it.
If we are going to talk about temperament, this, of course, raises the question of what the term temperament actually means. The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates (c. 460–375 BC) was one of the first Western thinkers to tackle the question of temperament, developing his own temperamental theory. Since then, countless writers, philosophers, doctors, psychologists, and academics have explored the idea of temperaments and defined a range of different temperamental traits. To this day, research into human temperaments remains an important area of developmental psychology.
Professor Silvia Schneider of Ruhr University, Bochum, offers a clear and easily comprehensible definition of what temperament actually is: “The word temperament describes a constitutional factor that is inherited and which predisposes someone to react to situations and people in specific ways. Temperamental traits can be understood as those that form the basis for the development of the personality, appear early in life, are stable over time, and which are influenced by biological factors.”1
Simply put, our temperament is the basis of our personalities and the complex interaction between our temperament and our environment forms our personality.2 Researchers disagree on exactly how stable temperamental traits are. There is, nevertheless, broad agreement on the fact that our temperament represents a relatively permanent tendency that affects how we react and interact with the world from early childhood onward.
Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, was the first person to talk about “innate sensitivity.” Jung believed that around 25 percent of all people are born with a particularly sensitive disposition and that this sensitivity has a decisive influence on people’s worldview. Jung introduced the terms introversion and extroversion into personality psychology to describe two different natures that influence people’s perception, intuition, thinking, feelings, and behavior. According to Jung, introverted people are more inclined to direct their energy and their attention inward and toward their inner processes (feeling and thinking, for instance), whereas extroverted people are more strongly inclined to direct their physical energy outward.3 Since then, numerous researchers into personality traits, including Jung himself, have continued to develop the concept of introversion and extroversion.
One of these researchers was the German-born British psychologist Hans Jürgen Eysenck, who related Jung’s concept to Hippocrates’s temperamental theory and believed that there is a neurological basis for the differences between introverted and extroverted people. In 1968, he described the typical introvert as someone who is quiet, introspective, rather reserved (except with very close friends), and loves books more than people. Introverts tend to make plans in advance, be cautious, and not like impulsive actions. They don’t like arousal, approach daily life with a certain seriousness, and value a well-ordered life. Eysenck describes the typical extrovert as sociable, as someone who likes events, has many friends, needs people to talk to, and doesn’t like being alone. Extroverts crave excitement, are constantly making the most of opportunities, react spontaneously, take risks, and are generally more impulsive.4
As such, Jung’s concept of innate sensitivity began to shift to a difference between observable extroverted and introverted behaviors in people. Jung’s theory of extroversion and introversion continues to be hugely important, and it has had a decisive influence on research into both temperament and personality. In the most commonly used model of personality psychology, the Big Five, extroversion is included alongside openness to experience, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism. And there continues to be widespread interest in the concept of extroversion and introversion outside of academic research, as evidenced by the success of books like Susan Cain’s brilliant bestseller, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.
Another researcher influenced by Jung’s theory of extroversion and introversion is Jerome Kagan, professor of developmental psychology at Harvard University. Based on the results of his longitudinal studies, begun in the 1970s, Kagan differentiates between two groups of children: inhibited children and uninhibited children. According to Kagan, these two types represent relatively stable temperamental traits that follow us throughout our lives and that can only be influenced by environmental factors to a limited extent. Schneider summarizes Kagan’s results as follows:
Behavioral inhibition can be defined as a withdrawn, cautious, avoidant, and shy behavior in new and unfamiliar situations, such as meeting new people or dealing with unfamiliar objects and environments. This behavior can already be evident at the age of eight months. In babies, behavioral inhibition manifests itself as an easily triggered irritability (for instance, crying or screaming), in infants as shy and anxious behavior, and in school children as socially withdrawn behavior. The stability of this temperamental trait into adolescence has been demonstrated in a number of studies.5
According to Kagan, around 20 percent of all children exhibit inhibited behavior. These children have a lower arousal threshold than other children, particularly in unfamiliar situations. This means that their sympathetic nervous systems respond in a more reactive way to these stimuli. The sympathetic nervous system is part of the autonomic nervous system, alongside the parasympathetic nervous system, which is involved in activities such as digestion when we are at rest. The sympathetic nervous system, on the other hand, is involved in stimulating activities that affect our heart rate, blood pressure, muscle tone, and metabolism. When confronted with an unfamiliar situation or a new stimulus, inhibited children—in contrast to uninhibited children—will exhibit shy, cautious, and withdrawn behavior, while simultaneously exhibiting increased stress symptoms in their sympathetic nervous system, such as muscle tension and a heightened heart rate.
Numerous other researchers on temperament, including the psychiatrists Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess, have developed a range of different categories and models to differentiate between various temperamental traits. In their longitudinal study on temperamental development, which ran from 1956 to the 1990s in New York, Thomas and Chess observed the behavioral characteristics of babies and defined nine new temperamental dimensions.6 They were able to assign a clear temperamental type to 65 percent of the babies: 40 percent were categorized as “easy” babies, 10 percent were “difficult” babies, and around 15 percent were categorized as “slow to warm up.” In a book on high sensitivity, you can probably guess that it is the babies who were “slow to warm up” that we are interested in. The babies in this group were withdrawn when they had to deal with new people or situations and needed more time to get used to them. This means that they were initially behaviorally inhibited, but they then particularly benefitted from repeated contact and increased familiarity with new situations, people, or objects.7, 8 Their activity levels were lower and their sensitivity to subtle stimuli greater, and they reacted less emotionally than babies with “difficult” temperaments.
What these scientific findings suggest is that Jung was probably right when he posited that “many people are more sensitive than others from birth onwards.” And it also seems to be the case that children described as “inhibited” have similar characteristics to those described in other studies as “slow to warm up”: a stronger physical and emotional reaction to new and unfamiliar situations and stimuli and withdrawn behavior. What research has also been able to show is that alongside visible differences in behavior, there are also underlying physical and biochemical differences between inhibited and uninhibited children, as well as between extroverted and introverted adults. Introverted people, for instance, display a lower pain threshold and generally react more sensitively to external stimulation, such as visual and aural stimuli.9 Both the British psychologist Jeffrey Alan Gray and the American psychiatrist C. Robert Cloninger have created influential models that suggest that personality differences between people can be explained by biological causes.10
For a long time, though, inhibited behavior among children had been judged negatively because it was connected with the development of anxiety disorders in adulthood. A sensitivity to new environmental stimuli was seen as representing a higher level of vulnerability or susceptibility and was thus judged to be a risk factor in the development of psychological problems, as well as being connected with shyness in both children and adults.
But could being more sensitive to external stimuli actually be advantageous? And could the same fundamental higher sensitivity be the underlying cause of all of these different behavioral characteristics, be they “slow to warm up,” “behaviorally inhibited,” “withdrawn,” or “introverted”? It was these questions that a series of researchers began to ask in the 1990s, with fascinating results.
The Advantages of Being More Sensitive to Your Environment
So we have now learned that research into temperament suggests that, pretty much from birth onward, people register information from their environment differently from each other and also that they differ in their observable reactions and behaviors. These differences in sensitivity are not only seen among people, but have also been observed to date in over one hundred different animals, including rhesus monkeys, mice, dogs, zebra finches, fruit flies, and fish.11
Be it in a human being or a zebra finch, we can observe two distinct strategies when animals or people are faced with new or what initially appear to be threatening situations. One group behaves reactively, that is to say, they wait and become observant and cautious before they act. The other group, however, when faced with the same situation, reacts proactively, displaying daring and aggressive behavior and actively exploring the situation. Neither of these strategies is better than the other, both have advantages and disadvantages depending on the situation, so it seems that, for many species, it has paid off to retain both types.
Since the 1990s, a number of different models and hypotheses have been created to explain the individual differences in human sensitivity, including Jay Belsky and Michael Pluess’s differential susceptibility theory, W. Thomas Boyce and Bruce J. Ellis’s biological sensitivity to context, and Elaine Aron’s sensory processing sensitivity. Although these theories all have their differences, the Swiss psychologist and researcher Pluess uses the umbrella term environmental sensitivity to broadly describe all of them.12 What all of these theories have in common, in comparison to the earlier temperamental theories outlined above, is that they foreground the term sensitivity, which they judge neutrally, sometimes even identifying advantages associated with this higher sensitivity. Numerous studies over the past few years have clearly shown that those people who react more sensitively to their environment, react more strongly not only to negative events but also to positive events.
This means that being highly sensitive does not, as had previously been thought, necessarily lead to an increase in psychological vulnerabilities or disadvantages, but that, on the contrary, in the right surroundings, it can actually be an advantage. Both Belsky and Pluess have been able to show that it is precisely those particularly sensitive children, whom we once called “slow to warm up,” “difficult,” or “behaviorally inhibited,” who most profit from a caring and loving relationship with their parents and consequently receive better grades and display higher social competencies than those children with “easy” temperaments.13 As Pluess said during a conversation with me, “We were able to show that children with ‘difficult’ temperaments developed better in positive, supportive surroundings than other children, precisely because their higher sensitivity meant that they reacted more strongly to positive influences.” This is what Pluess calls “differential susceptibility”—that being sensitive means you suffer more from being in a negative environment, but also that you thrive more in a positive environment.
Belsky and Pluess believe that there are biological and evolutionary reasons why differences in individuals’ sensitivities could be advantageous for a whole species when faced with uncertain conditions. If one strategy does not pay off, then the existence of the species could be assured by the alternative strategy. According to Belsky and Pluess, these differences manifest themselves in a more sensitive central nervous system and are influenced by genetics and prenatal and early postnatal factors. These individuals then react more sensitively to their environment and are thus more formed by it, a process that they can profit from.14 It could thus be the case that differences in the sensitivity of people’s nervous systems is a natural phenomenon.
Boyce and Ellis’s theory of biological sensitivity to context is also based on the idea that being more sensitive is not necessarily a disadvantage for those affected, and can indeed be an advantage. But this is only the case when these particularly sensitive children grow up in a caring, loving, and supportive environment. Then the advantages of their sensitive nature becomes clear because they profit more strongly from these positive experiences and relationships than those who are less sensitive, precisely because they are so open to and affected by external influences and thus are more influenced by them than less sensitive children.
Boyce, who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, has been able to observe that around 15 to 20 percent of all children react particularly sensitively to their environment. He refers to these children as “orchid children” and calls all other children “dandelion children,” because, like robust dandelions, they can “grow anywhere” and have less “complicated care needs.” The orchid children, on the other hand, are more pliable and react more sensitively to their environment. Boyce discovered that orchid children react particularly strongly to negative factors in their surroundings, which he measured based on their heart rates and their levels of cortisol (which is sometimes called the stress hormone because it is released at increasingly high levels when people are stressed). These children tended to react more often with behavioral problems when faced with negative situations in the family, such as money worries, illness, or parental conflict, in comparison with the dandelion children. In later life, these orchid children were more susceptible to developing problematic behaviors and psychological problems, including drug abuse and depression. But if those same particularly sensitive and malleable children grew up in low-stress, loving, and supportive surroundings, then they were happier, more productive, and healthier than the dandelion children.15, 16
What becomes clear when we take a close look at these recent studies is that all of us differ in our environmental sensitivity. And while particularly sensitive temperaments were described in earlier studies only indirectly and often negatively—with researchers believing that being more sensitive could make people more susceptible to psychological disorders—current research suggests that high levels of sensitivity are an essential and completely neutral trait. In other words, being more sensitive can be an advantage, but it can also be a disadvantage. This is completely dependent on which experiences the highly sensitive person has in the environment in which they grow up or live. The researchers whose work we have looked at in the second half of this chapter believe that natural selection led to the development of two discrete evolutionary strategies that guaranteed the survival of our species. The advantage of the reactive or sensitive strategy could be that organisms, whether human or animal, are more vigilant, sensitive, and adaptable when faced with potential opportunities and threats in their environments and social groups. Consequently, they are better able to adapt their future behavior to these new situations.
So the next time that you as a highly sensitive man find yourself in a full, loud, and sticky train car and feel unwell or tense while your traveling companion appears to be calm, can concentrate on the newspaper despite the noise, and is even able to order a hot coffee, just remember that your sensitivity is not just a disadvantage, even if it feels so in moments like this. Because it’s likely that you’re reacting more strongly not only to the negative aspects of this situation but also to the positive: the golden field of flowers that the train is speeding past, the colors of the sunset, the trees and the shrubs, some good news in your friend’s newspaper, or a funny or loving interaction in the family sitting opposite you.
Elaine Aron’s Concept of High Sensitivity
One of the researchers investigating sensitivity during the 1990s was Elaine Aron, and she was the first to observe and identify the phenomenon of high sensitivity. Aron sees high sensitivity—or sensory processing sensitivity, to use the scientific term—as a neutral, innate temperamental trait. Highly sensitive people observe things in great detail exhaustively, think longer and more deeply before they take action, and generally react more emotionally to positive as well as negative occurrences in their surroundings. This can be observed externally as a pattern of behavior in which people are more hesitant, “slow to warm up,” or “behaviorally inhibited.” But Aron believes that the underlying cause of this observable behavior is that highly sensitive people process stimuli more deeply. Using the questionnaire that she developed during her research—the Highly Sensitive Person Scale—Aron was able to show that highly sensitive people react more strongly to both positive and negative images, that they register small visual details more quickly, and even that they benefit more strongly from therapeutic interventions than non–highly sensitive people.17, 18 Using brain imaging technology, Aron was able to show over the course of numerous studies that there were differences in the brain activity of highly sensitive and non–highly sensitive people. In highly sensitive adults, the areas of the brain connected with information processing, consciousness, empathy, and activity planning, such as the insular cortex and the inferior frontal gyrus, are all more active than in individuals who are not highly sensitive. The psychologist Bianca Acevedo summarizes the results of these studies as follows:
Collectively, the present results support the notion that sensory processing sensitivity is a trait associated with enhanced awareness and responsiveness to others’ moods, as it engages brain systems involved in sensory information processing and integration, action planning, and overall awareness. These findings highlight how the highly sensitive brain mediates greater attunement and action planning needed to respond to the environment, particularly in relevant social contexts.19
Aron’s early research from the 1990s shows that around 15 to 20 percent of all people are highly sensitive, although Pluess suggests that the most recent research, in which Aron was also involved, estimates this figure to be around 30 percent. Pluess has also shown that there are three, rather than two distinct sensitivity groups, as previously thought, on a sensitivity continuum: a high sensitive group (31%), a medium sensitive group (40%) and a low sensitive group (29%). So not just “orchids” and “dandelions,” but also “tulips.”20
Aron differentiates high sensitivity from introversion and has been able to show that around 30 percent of all highly sensitive people are, in fact, extroverted.21 This means, of course, that around 70 percent of all highly sensitive people are indeed introverted. Aron believes that high sensitivity can exist alongside a range of other apparently contradictory temperamental and personality traits, such as “sensation seeking.”22 The term sensation seeking was coined by the clinical psychologist Marvin Zuckermann, who has been researching this characteristic since the 1960s. He uses the term sensation seeking to describe people who seek out variety and new experiences, and, according to Zuckermann, it is a trait that is inheritable in 60 percent of cases.23, 24 This characteristic tends to be connected to behaviors that can be described as “adventure-, risk- and excitement-seeking.” Sensation seekers are more quickly bored than other people and thus seek out variety and potentially risky activities more often than other people. They tend to be restless when they find themselves in situations that offer little stimulation or variety. Zuckermann suggests that more men than women are sensation seekers and that those behaviors that accompany this trait tend to be moderated by age. Having a tendency to seek out risk, variety, and excitement, while also being highly sensitive, is something that Aron often compares to having “one foot on the brake, the other on the gas.”25
Aron also differentiates between high sensitivity and neuroticism—the tendency to react anxiously or depressively. Aron believes that highly sensitive people only have a higher risk of developing anxiety, depression, or shyness in life if they had a childhood that involved significantly negative experiences and an environment that badly clashed with their temperaments. The particular malleability of highly sensitive children again plays a decisive role here, specifically the question of how well the attributes, expectations, behaviors, and challenges of a child’s social environment fit their temperament—what in psychology we often call “goodness of fit.” If the fit is good, or good enough, then, according to Aron, highly sensitive children will develop just as well, if not better, than children who are not highly sensitive, which tallies with the research of Boyce, Ellis, Belsky, and Pluess. It is, of course, completely possible that a highly sensitive adult will experience a depressive episode or other psychological problems in life, despite experiencing a safe and loving childhood, but what we can say is that high sensitivity in itself does not automatically lead to an increase in the likelihood of suffering from depression or anxiety.
SUMMARY
My hope is that you now feel that you have a broad enough knowledge about the academic background of high sensitivity and that you are better able to place the concept scientifically. Since the 1990s, high sensitivity, or sensory processing sensitivity, has represented a specific and active field of research that underpins the scientific basis of what Jung was already describing in 1913 as “innate sensitivity.” Around the middle of the last century, this innate sensitivity was described using an array of different terms. High sensitivity has a biological and evolutionary explanation, can be demonstrated in measurable differences in brain activity, and has recently been connected to a range of genetic variations, including in the neurotransmitters (the messengers of our nervous system) serotonin and dopamine.26, 27 For a long time, sensitivity was believed to be equivalent to introversion, despite the fact that we now know that high sensitivity and introversion are two separate things. These two phenomena do often go hand in hand, however, but we also know that around 30 percent of all highly sensitive people display extroverted behaviors in social settings. According to Aron, high sensitivity is a temperamental trait, whereas introversion and extroversion are personality styles that develop over the course of one’s life and describe our social behavior. She thus believes that we are born highly sensitive, whereas introversion and extroversion are learned.
For the sake of our quality of life, our happiness, and our psychological health, it is very important that we are able to recognize whether we are highly sensitive or not. This is the question that we will be addressing in the next chapter, while tackling the typical characteristics and difficulties that highly sensitive men have to deal with in daily life.
Darryl: “For me, the positive aspects of my high sensitivity outweigh the negatives; the advantages and disadvantages are two sides of the same coin.”
Darryl is in his early thirties. He is a musician and is training to be a masseur. His story illustrates how high sensitivity and the characteristics connected to it can be assets. He’s found that aspects of his temperament are useful in his work as both a musician and masseur. And he actively seeks ways to accommodate his temperament; I like that he is seeking out other musicians to play with onstage rather than allowing his stage fright to force him offstage completely. In the interview, Daryl mentions a diagnosis of “social phobia,” and it is important to mention here that there is a difference between high sensitivity and social phobia, because the latter is a psychological disorder, not a temperamental trait (see chapter 4). Social phobia is a distinct fear of being the center of attention in social situations and is accompanied by symptoms of anxiety, avoidant behavior, and distress. This is not necessarily the case with high sensitivity. Of course, it is possible for highly sensitive people to pick up and react more strongly to subtle social stimuli or develop social anxiety more rapidly in the face of negative social experiences than less sensitive individuals. It is also possible to be both highly sensitive and also socially anxious.
When and how did you first notice you were highly sensitive?
In 2008, my cognitive behavioral psychotherapist—who I was seeing about my social anxiety—pointed out that I might be highly sensitive. I believe that my high sensitivity contributed to the development of my social anxiety, but only in interaction with some unpleasant external influences from my childhood. I then read a few books about the subject and was immediately convinced that my therapist was right, because I saw myself in so many of the highly sensitive characteristics described, which I hadn’t previously had any explanation for and which didn’t seem to be completely explained by social phobia.
What are the advantages and the disadvantages of being highly sensitive?
For me, the positive aspects of my high sensitivity outweigh the negatives; the advantages and disadvantages are two sides of the same coin. The “advantages” for me are my rich inner life, my strong fantasies and creativity, my feel for aesthetic things, and the ability to be on my own without feeling bored. I’d also say that I have a very clear sense of justice, that I’m very empathetic, thorough, and conscientious. The “disadvantages” are that I get quickly overstimulated, I’m a perfectionist, I tend to doubt myself and be very self-critical, and I’m sometimes quite hesitant and not very spontaneous. It can also sometimes be a problem that I need time out, to protect myself from too much stimulation, and that I often feel emotionally overwhelmed.
Looking back, what sort of messages or feedback would have been helpful to you?
“If you’re different from other people, that doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with you; it means you’re special.”
“Always listen to what your body and your intuition are trying to tell you and stick with that.”
“Your sensitivity is really important for society as a whole. You can do a lot of good.”
“The particular way you see the world is an asset.”
“Feelings are never right or wrong; (we can just deal with them well or less well).”
“It’s completely fine if you’re shy, quiet, or withdrawn.”
What are the particular challenges that highly sensitive men face in our society?
I think as a highly sensitive man I have traits that might be seen as “feminine” and other traits that would be seen as “masculine.” Sometimes I’m quite reserved, quiet, and need harmony in my life. I think a lot about my emotional life, practice yoga and meditation, and am interested in spiritual things. I react sensitively to physical violence or shocking images in, for instance, films. I’m also not very interested in cars or technical things, and my physical build is quite slim. At the same time, I also have lots of “manly” characteristics and preferences, like football and drinking beer. I like to exhaust myself physically and can also be dominant and strong-willed. Generally, my sense is that many women, but also men, actually really value this mixture of “feminine” and “masculine” characteristics.
How does your high sensitivity affect your relationships with other men?
I have as many male friends as female friends and don’t see many differences in those relationships. In terms of my relationships with men, it could be a disadvantage that I have a strong need for harmony, have difficulties setting boundaries, and am not interested in competition among men. However, one advantage in the way I relate to other men is that I often pick up on things that they don’t notice about themselves, like particular feelings. For instance, my brother and my father—they both have a real flair for analytical thinking, but I would say that they find it hard to access their feelings, like anger or sadness. I feel like I’m sometimes able to help them by acting like a kind of “emotional mirror.” At the same time, I do think I have to be really careful with them and make sure I’m “speaking their language,” because I think I’ve been addressing my feelings in a far more direct way for a lot longer, including with two therapists. I’ve noticed that men who are comfortable with themselves and with their masculinity don’t have any problems with my high sensitivity and, in fact, are able to value it. On the other hand, men who have problems with their self-worth, if, for instance, they don’t acknowledge the shy or introverted sides of their personality, tend to demean highly sensitive characteristics in other men. I’ve experienced that myself regularly, also with women.
How does your high sensitivity affect your relationships with women?
I am often reserved and cautious when it comes to approaching new people and need a lot of time to open up. When it comes to talking to attractive women, to flirting and initiating intimacy, I’m often very hesitant and tense. In my experience, highly sensitive and shy men have a far harder time when it comes to all of that, because in our society it’s sadly still the case that people expect men to make the first move, to “bowl women over,” and to actively initiate sex. Because of that, I’m still quite unhappy with my sex life. But the moment that I’ve got past that first stage, then everything’s great, and I’m sure that my high sensitivity plays a role in that. I can have very intense, deep conversations with women about feelings, about spiritual topics and about relationships, and I find it easy to put myself in my partner’s shoes. I also experience sex with a woman very intensely.
What are the advantages and the disadvantages of being highly sensitive at work?
I recently started the training to become a masseur. My high sensitivity helps me to intuitively notice things about my clients. I’m very perceptive when I work and often need to process that, usually by taking a little break between clients. As a musician, my high sensitivity really helps my creative process: intuition, empathy, a feel for aesthetics and details, but also for the bigger picture, conscientiousness, and the ability to really immerse myself in my art. At the same time, my precision can also quickly turn into perfectionism. If I have to be the center of attention, have to present myself and sell myself (whether online or onstage), then I feel very inhibited and often get very nervous, especially if I have to stand on the stage on my own and sing. Because of this, I haven’t performed very much, which has held me back professionally. I’m currently looking for other musicians to play with me to help me deal with that.
What’s your advice for other highly sensitive men?
Unconditionally accept your own personality, your past, and your life story, as well as your present situation in life. Research your high sensitivity by reading books and talking to other people about it. I also think that positively reinterpreting life events from your past and your characteristics with your newfound knowledge about your high sensitivity is also really important. At the same time, you need to organize your own life according to your highly sensitive nature and stop trying to constantly fulfill everyone else’s expectations. Pay more attention to the signals that your body’s giving you and to your intuition, by practicing mindfulness meditation, for instance. And last but not least: take a walk in the woods—barefoot is best!
