The Highly Sensitive Person Quotes

“Then there was the HSP whose earliest memory was of being the imaginary “dough” in a family-reunion skit of “patty-cake, patty-cake.” In spite of crying and pleading with her parents, this two-year-old was passed in a circle from stranger to stranger. Reliving the long-repressed feelings that went with this memory, she realized that it (and other situations she had probably repressed completely) left her with a sense of helpless terror about being picked up, about being controlled physically in any way, and about her parents not protecting her.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“I remember once watching two dog owners taking their small pups into the surf and throwing them out into deep water. The dogs swam desperately to their owners’ waiting arms even though it meant that the treatment would be repeated. Not only was it probably the only alternative to drowning, but these arms were the ones that provided all the safety and food the pups had ever known. So they wagged their tails wildly, and I suppose their owners believed what they wanted and thought the pups loved the “game.” Maybe even the pups were unsure after a while.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Have you imagined yourself in Jesse’s place? What a confusing situation. The source of your arousal is utterly out of your control. Your intuition tells you that the other, usually so helpful, is now anything but help. Yet the other is laughing, having fun, expecting you to. Here is a reason why you may find it hard even now to know what you do and do not like, separate from what others like to do to you or with you or think you should like.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Also, while you go out into the world unconsciously seeking that long-desired security, without extensive experience with what you seek, you often repeat the same old mistakes, choosing again and again the same familiar sort of person who makes you feel insecure.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Alas, non-therapy relationships sometimes can’t withstand the task of undoing childhood-based insecurity (the avoidance of intimacy or the compulsion to merge and fear of being abandoned).”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Like hungry chickens, when we cannot be fed what we need, we feed ourselves what we can find.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Notice that no other person is in her first memory.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Boundaries are obviously an idea closely related to containers. Boundaries should be flexible, letting in what you want and keeping out what you don’t want. You want to avoid shutting everyone out all the time indiscriminately. And you want to control any urges to merge with others. It would be nice, but it just doesn’t work for long. You lose all of your autonomy. Many HSPs tell me that a major problem for them is poor boundaries—getting involved in situations that are not really their business or their problem, letting too many people distress them, saying more than they wanted, getting mired in other people’s messes, becoming too intimate too fast or with the wrong people. There’s one essential rule here: Boundaries take practice! Make good boundaries your goal.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Above all, if you do lose a container (or worse, several), accept that you will feel especially vulnerable and overwhelmed until you can adjust.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Part of maturing into wisdom is transferring more and more of your sense of security from the tangible to the intangible containers.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“So unless this section of the chapter is distressing you, stop and take some time to think about your infant/body’s first caretaker and the similarities between that early caretaking and how you care for yourself now.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“For example, just a little time feeling hunger and crying or feeling cold and fussing helps an infant/body know his or her own wants. If the caretaker is feeding the infant/body before it is even hungry, it loses contact with its instincts. And if the infant /body is kept from exploring, it does not get used to the world. The caretaker/you is reinforcing the impression that the world is threatening and the infant/body cannot survive out there. There are no opportunities to avoid, manage, or endure overarousal. Everything remains unfamiliar and overarousing. In terms of the previous chapter, the infant/body does not have enough successful approach experiences to balance the strong, inherited pause-to-check system that can take over and become too inhibiting.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Meanwhile, your body was learning not to respond as if threatened by each new experience. And in the absence of a response, the body did not experience distressing, long-term arousal. You found that your body was a friend to trust. At the same time, you were learning that you had a special body, a sensitive nervous system. But you could handle things by learning when to push yourself a little, when to take your time, when to back off entirely, when to rest and try later.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“The other message an infant may receive is that the caretaker is dangerous and ought to be avoided or values more highly a child who is minimal trouble and very independent. Perhaps the caretaker is too stressed to care for a child. And there are those who at times, in anger or desperation, even want the infant to disappear or die. In that case the infant will do best not to be attached at all. Such infants are said to be avoidant. When separated from their mothers or fathers, they seem quite indifferent”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Now and then, for various reasons usually having to do with how the mother or father was raised, a primary caretaker may give one of two other messages, creating an insecure attachment. One is that the world is so awful, or the caretaker is so preoccupied or vulnerable, that the infant must hang on very, very tight. The child does not dare to explore very much. Maybe the caretaker does not want exploring or would leave the infant behind if he or she did not hang on. These babies are said to be anxious about, or preoccupied with, their attachment to their caretaker.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“hours with their eyes closed without worrying if they are actually sleeping. Since 80 percent of sensory stimulation comes in through the eyes, just resting with your eyes closed gives you quite a break.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Later, Jung began to describe introverted and intuitive types in similar ways, but even more positively. He said they had to be more self-protective—what he meant by being introverted. But he also said that they were “educators and promoters of culture ... their life teaches the other possibility, the interior life which is so painfully wanting in our civilization.” Such people, Jung said, are naturally more influenced by their unconscious, which gives them information of the “utmost importance,” a “prophetic foresight.” To Jung, the unconscious contains important wisdom to be learned. A life lived in deep communication with the unconscious is far more influential and personally satisfying.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person

“Another important point is that the more cortisol in an infant’s body, the less the child will sleep, and the less sleep, the more cortisol. In the daytime, the more cortisol, the more fear, the more fear, the more cortisol. Uninterrupted sleep at night and timely naps all reduce cortisol in infants. And remember, lower cortisol also means fewer short-term alarms. It was easy to see that this was a constant problem with Rob. It may have been for you, too. Furthermore, if sleep problems beginning in infancy are not controlled, they may last into adulthood and make a highly sensitive person almost unbearably sensitive. So get your sleep!”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person

“Most researchers on temperament have studied short-term arousal. It’s easy to study, for it’s quite apparent from the higher levels of heartbeat, respiration, perspiration, pupil dilation, and adrenaline. There is another system of arousal, however, that is governed more by hormones. It goes into action just as quickly, but the effect of its main product, cortisol, is most noticeable after ten to twenty minutes. An important point is that when cortisol is present, the short-term arousal response is also even more likely. That is, this long-term type of arousal makes us even more excitable, more sensitive, than before.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person

“How like the opposition I described in the last chapter between the warrior-king class and the royal-advisor class.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person

“But what does this system really do? It takes in everything about a situation and then automatically compares the present to what has been normal and usual in the past and what should be expected in the future. If there is a mismatch, the system makes us stop and wait until we understand the new circumstance. To me this is a very significant part of being intelligent. So I prefer to give it a more positive name: the automatic pause-to-check system.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person

“A number of researchers think that there are two systems in the brain and that it is the balance of these two that creates sensitivity. One system, the “behavioral activation” (or “approach,” or “facilitation,” system) is hooked up to the parts of the brain that take in messages from the senses and send out orders to the limbs to get moving. This system is designed to move us toward things, especially new ones. It is probably meant to keep us eagerly searching for the good things in life, like fresh food and companionship, all of which we need for survival. When the activation system is operating, we are curious, bold, and impulsive. The other system is called the “behavioral inhibition” (or “withdrawal,” or “avoidance,” system). (You can already tell by the names which is the “good” one according to our culture.) This system is said to move us away from things, making us attentive to dangers. It makes us alert, cautious, and watchful for signs. Not surprisingly, this system is hooked up to all the parts of the brain Kagan noted to be more active in his “inhibited” children.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person

“For example, Kagan found that babies who later showed this trait also had cooler foreheads on the right side of their head, which indicates greater activity on the right side of the brain. (The blood is drawn away from the surface toward the activity.)”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person

“It is painful to imagine what would have happened if I had been the sort to have shouted at Rob to shut up and get back to bed. He probably would have done just that, feeling abandoned in a dangerous world. But he would not have slept. His intuitive mind would have elaborated on the experience for hours, including probably deciding he was somehow to blame. With sensitive children, physical blows or traumas aren’t required to make them afraid of the dark.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person

“HSPs know all about being “too tired to sleep.” They are actually too frazzled to sleep.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person

“Sooner or later everyone encounters stressful life experiences, but HSPs react more to such stimulation. If you see this reaction as part of some basic flaw, you intensify the stress already present in any life crisis.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Many children born very sensitive are pushed hard by parents, schools, or friends to be bolder. Living in a noisy or crowded environment, growing up in a large family, or being made to be more physically active may sometimes reduce sensitivity, just as sensitive animals that are handled a great deal will sometimes lose some of their natural caution, at least with certain people or in specific situations. That the underlying trait is entirely gone, however, seems unlikely.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“This book may even increase your annoyance a bit as you begin to appreciate that you are a minority whose rights to have less stimulation are generally ignored.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“In our culture, however, possessing this trait is not considered ideal and that fact probably has had a major impact on you. Well-meaning parents and teachers probably tried to help you “overcome” it, as if it were a defect. Other children were not always as nice about it. As an adult, it has probably been harder to find the right career and relationships and generally to feel self-worth and self-confidence.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“many HSPs have Seasonal Affective Disorder. This does not mean every HSP; it is just a bit more common in us.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You