The Highly Sensitive Person Quotes

“However, how will you feel going to your grave without having tried?”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“While it is wise to accept what we cannot change about ourselves, it is also good to remember that we are never too old to replace discouragement with bits and pieces of confidence and hope.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Children seem to thrive when their caretakers are sensitive. And I have met many highly sensitive caretakers who were at their happiest tending their children or the children of others.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“You have probably learned to take downtime when you need it, which is more often than others do, and avoid overstimulating environments, but only people close to you see this side of you.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“accepting that no one person can relate to all of you. Indeed, accepting the loneliness that goes with giftedness may be the most freeing, empowering step of all. But also accept its opposite, that there’s no need to feel isolated, for everyone is gifted in some way.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Then there is the very human tendency to enter or persist in a close relationship out of sheer fear of being alone, overaroused, or faced with new or frightening situations. I think this is a major reason why research finds that one-third of college students fall in love during their first year away from home. We’re all social animals, feeling safer in each other’s company. But you don’t want to put up with just anyone out of fear of being alone. The other will sense it eventually and be hurt or take advantage of you. You both deserve better. Look back over your love history. Did you fall in love out of fear of being alone? I believe that HSPs ought to feel that they can survive at least for a while without a close, romantic relationship. Otherwise, we are not free to wait for a person we really like. If you cannot live alone yet, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Most likely something damaged your trust in the world, or someone wanted you not to develop that trust. But if it’s practical, do try living on your own. Should it seem too difficult, work it through with a therapist to support and coach you—someone who will not abuse or abandon you and who has no interest in the outcome except seeing you self-sufficient.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“As I have emphasized, HSPs are prone to low self-esteem because they are not their culture’s ideal. So sometimes they consider themselves lucky if someone wants them at all. But love on this basis can backfire. Later, you may realize that the person you fell in love with was very much your inferior or simply not your type. Look back at your own love history. Has low self-esteem played a role? The main solution, of course, is to build up your self-esteem by reframing your life in terms of your sensitivity, doing some inner work on whatever else lowered your confidence, and getting out in the world on your terms and proving to yourself that you’re okay. You’ll be surprised how many people will love you deeply just because of your sensitivity.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Look back over your love history. Can you make sense of it in terms of your early attachment? Did you bring to it intense needs left over from childhood? To have some of those needs left over is to be supplied with the normal “glue” of adult closeness. But we can ask only so much from a fellow adult. Anyone who really wants an adult with a child’s needs (e.g., a need to never have the other out of sight) has something unresolved going on from the past, too. Psychotherapy is about the only place where one can wake up to what was lost, mourn the rest, and learn to control the overwhelming feelings.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“We all go out programmed in some way: to please and cling to the first kind person who promises to love and protect us; to find the perfect parent and worship that person totally; to be extremely careful of attaching to anyone; to attach to someone just like the person who did not want us the first time (to see if we can change them this time) or who insisted we never grow up; or just to find another safe harbor like the one we enjoyed as children.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Since only about 50 to 60 percent of the population enjoyed a secure attachment in childhood (a shocking statistic, really), those of you HSPs who tend to be very cautious about close relationships (avoidant), or very intense in them (anxious-ambivalent), can still consider yourselves quite normal. But your responses to relationships are powerful because there is so much unfinished business in that department.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“As the novelist Charles Williams wrote, “Unless devotion is given to the thing which must prove false in the end, the thing that is true in the end cannot enter.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“If possible, try to train yourself. Take home the instruction manuals or stay after hours and work on your own. Or arrange to be trained one-on-one, preferably by someone who puts you at ease. Ask to be shown a step, then to be left to practice it alone. Next, allow someone else to watch you who is not a supervisor, someone who doesn’t make you so nervous.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Do you wish others would notice your value without your having to remind them? That is a common desire stemming from childhood that is seldom fulfilled in this world. Or, are you in fact accomplishing very little? Do you care? Maybe you need to keep a record of the accomplishments that do matter to you—trails biked, books read, conversations had with friends. If something besides work takes most of your energy, it may be what you most enjoy. Is there any way to be paid for doing that? And if a responsibility such as children or an aging parent is taking up your time, feel pride in meeting that responsibility. List this as an accomplishment, too, even though it cannot be shared with most employers.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Because you’re more sensitive, you don’t need extra discomfort or stress around you. A situation may have been deemed safe but still be stressful for you. Likewise, others may have no problem with fluorescent lights, low levels of machine noise, or chemical odors, but you do. This is a very individual matter, even among HSPs.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“One solution to all of this is not to insist that your gifts all be expressed at work. Express yourself through private projects and art, schemes for future or parallel self-employment, and through life itself.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Some of you may be struggling with discovering your vocation and feeling a little frustrated that your intuition is not helping you more. Alas, intuition can also stand in your way because it makes you aware of too many inner voices speaking for too many different possibilities. Yes, it would be desirable just to serve others, thinking little of my material gain. But that rules out a lifestyle with time to pursue the finer things in life. And both exclude the actualizing of my artistic gifts. And I have always admired the quiet life, centered in family. Or should it be centered in the spiritual? But that is so up in the air when I admire a life close to the earth. Perhaps I would be happiest working for ecological causes. But then, the needs of humans are so great. All the voices are strong. Which one is right? If you’re flooded with such voices, you will probably have trouble with decisions of all sorts; very intuitive people usually do. But you’ll need to develop your decision-making skills for whatever vocation you choose. So start now paring down the choices to two or three. Maybe make a rational list of the pros and cons. Or pretend you have made up your mind definitely one way and live with that for a day or two.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Some of us get caught up in demands from others. These may be real responsibilities or may be the common ideas of what makes for success—money, prestige, security. Then there are the pressures others can bring to bear on us because we are so unwilling to displease anyone.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Following the thinking of Carl Jung, I see each life as an individuation process, one of discovering the particular question you were put on earth to answer.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Without HSPs in positions at the top in a society or organization, the warrior types tend to make impulsive decisions that lack intuition, use power and force abusively, and fail to take into account history and future trends. That’s no insult to them; it is just their nature. (This was the whole point of Merlin’s role in the King Arthur legends; similar figures are in most Indo-European epics.)”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person

“List the major events you remember from childhood and adolescence, the memories that shaped who you are.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person

“It is not surprising that many sensitive adolescents meet the crisis by destroying their budding self so they will not have to watch it fail to bloom “right.” And there are plenty of ways to self-destruct: marrying or having a baby in a way that imprisons one in a narrow, prescribed role; abusing drugs or alcohol; becoming physically or mentally incapacitated; joining a cult or organization that offers security and answers; or suicide.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“It is not surprising that many sensitive adolescents meet the crisis by destroying their budding self so they will not have to watch it fail to bloom “right.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“If you were labeled gifted, your childhood may have been easier. Your sensitivity was understood as part of a larger trait that was more socially accepted. There existed better advice to teachers and parents concerning gifted children. For example, one researcher reminds parents that such children cannot be expected to blend well with their peers. Parents will not produce a spoiled freak if they give their child special treatment and extra opportunities. Parents and teachers are firmly told to allow gifted children to just be who they are. This is good advice for children with all traits that miss the average and ideal, but giftedness is valued enough to permit deviation from the norm. There is some good and bad in everything, however. Parents or teachers may have pressured you. Your self-worth may have been entirely contingent upon your achievements. Meanwhile, if you were not with gifted peers, you would be lonely and possibly rejected. There are now some better guidelines for raising gifted children. I have adapted them for reparenting your gifted self. Reparenting Your “Gifted” Self 1. Appreciate yourself for being, not doing. 2. Praise yourself for taking risks and learning something new rather than for your successes; it will help you cope with failure. 3. Try not to constantly compare yourself to others; it invites excessive competition. 4. Give yourself opportunities to interact with other gifted people. 5. Do not overschedule yourself. Allow time to think, to daydream. 6. Keep your expectations realistic. 7. Do not hide your abilities. 8. Be your own advocate. Support your right to be yourself. 9. Accept it when you have narrow interests. Or broad ones.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Most of you, however, being fond of reading and quiet study, excelled in schoolwork. It was the development of social or physical skills that was hampered by your overarousal. To handle that, perhaps you found a close friend to play with. And perhaps you had the reputation of being the one who thought up the best games, wrote the best stories, and painted the best pictures.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Probably at first you dealt with school by withdrawing and just observing. I recall well my son’s first day in school. He went to the corner and stared as if dumbstruck. But silent watching is not “normal.” The teacher says, “The others are playing—why don’t you?” Rather than displeasing the teacher or being seen as odd, maybe you overcame your reluctance. Or maybe you simply could not. In which case, more and more attention came your way—just what you did not need.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“I have noticed that not all HSPs feel discouraged by not being able to do everything their peers do. They have little envy. They appreciate their trait and know it gives them much that others lack. I think the discouragement, like the failure to buffer ourselves, comes from attitudes learned in early childhood.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“It can be just as present in adulthood as you see friends taking on careers, travel, moves, and relationships that you would fear. Yet deep inside you also know you have the same or more talent, desire, and potential.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“Few HSPs escape the pressure to be a good sport, normal, or pleasing to others, and even when those others are long gone, you keep on trying to please them.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“1. Just as a parent does not send a toddler into a new situation alone, do not do that to yourself. Take someone else along. 2. Just as a parent begins by talking about the situation with the child, talk to the fearful part of yourself. Focus on what is familiar and safe. 3. Just as a parent keeps the promise that the child can leave if he or she becomes too upset, allow yourself to go home if you need to. 4. Just as a parent is confident the child will be okay after a while, expect the part of yourself that is afraid to be okay after some time to adjust to all the unfamiliar stimulation. 5. Just as a parent is careful not to respond to a child’s fear with more concern than is justified by the situation, if the part that is fearful needs help, respond with no more anxiety than the braver part of you thinks is justified.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

“The issue is so important to us that it is almost funny. A colleague told me about this informal social psychological experiment: A new baby was left in a park with an attendant who, when asked by passersby, would claim to have agreed to sit with the child for a few moments and did not know if it was a boy or girl. Everyone stopping to admire the infant was quite distressed at not being able to know the child’s gender. Some even offered to undress the child to find out. Other studies explain why gender matters so much: people tend to treat baby boys and girls quite differently.”
― Elaine N. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You