When the swirl of life pushes me toward overwhelm, my automatic response is to rush toward stimulus minimus. But there’s an error of perspective there.

What I really want is stimulus maximus, just like everyone else on the planet. I want the maximum input that I can handle. I want Life, with a capital L. I want vitality and breathtaking wonder and revelations complete with operatic accompaniment.

If all of that comes to me in a different way than it comes to the majority of humans, is it any less maximus? Of course not. Maximus is relative. It’s only minimus by comparison. Sure, the way I get off can look like stimulus minimus (a riveting idea, a colour combination seen in passing from a bus window, a silly look exchanged with my nephew), but only if compared with someone who’s different – like someone who whoops it up on the bus, all the way to the bungee-jumping festival.

Comparison damages our souls. Consider yourself worthy of the full package: all senses firing at maximum capacity, tuned, honed, and giddy – thriving in your very own, very valid version of Life with a capital L.

Shove all those other people off the scale. Recalibrate. Find your own stimulus maximus.

“Sometimes I go about pitying myself
And all the while I am being carried across the sky
By beautiful clouds.”
~ Ojibway Indian saying

Flickr photo: Free sunset flamingo pink…, by D Sharon Pruitt of Pink Sherbet Photography

Related reading: Avoid the Rush – Finish Last, Successfully Sensitive | Jo Martin

Like heroes throughout time, when we confront tough passages to freedom we’re prompted to weigh pros and cons. Is the trial of the journey worth the goal or can I be satisfied just staying like this? It’s not such a bad life I have now, really. Sort of.

What turns the tide? What motivates us to lace the boots, heft the pack, and stride or stumble forward? And what stops us from doing so?

Two big detours come from people who want to change us and people we want to change. A journey of empowerment only succeeds when we change because we want to change. It’s personal. Wanting others to change before we can succeed puts the power in their hands. Seeking approval for the journey also puts the power into hands other than our own.

“No one can solve problems for someone whose problem is that they don’t want problems solved.”
~ Richard Bach, One

“Whatever anyone else thinks about me is none of my business.”
~ Michael J. Fox, Lucky Man: A Memoir

The shortest distance between you and your empowered dreams is the path you choose, coupled with your willingness to travel that path alone. Not alone as in “lonely.” Alone as in “only one of you, ever.” Reaching for your own empowerment means making a commitment to yourself, inside yourself – a pact between you and you, and no one else. Only then do you tap the fortitude, assistance, guidance, and miracles that pull you toward the people and situations made for you alone – the glorious one and only you.

Flickr photo: Some times I believe I can fly, by R’eyes

Related reading: Hero Practice, Pep Talk | Keep the Faith

When the folks around you make waves with their alien communication styles, fervent demands, or weird displays of power, you need healthy boundary skills that pop to the surface like a life preserver.

Stay Afloat When They’re Rocking Your Boat rushes in like the Coast Guard, assisting you to a safe haven. By using sneaky methods like associating a simple, easy-to-remember drawing with each step of the process, Stay Afloat pre-programs healthy reactions to challenging boundary situations.

In nine simple steps, you can move from flailing in heavy seas to peering into the cooler at the dock.

The Healthy Boundaries Handbook has been updated with a new cover and title – revised into a second edition. To reach more of those bobbing almost-sailors, scanning the horizon for signs of help, the price has been lowered to CAN$9.50.

Don’t suffer through another stormy interchange that leaves you gasping on the shore with half your face covered in sand. Help has arrived. Get up. You can do this.

* * *

The price of the Highly Sensitive Vancouver e-book is also now CAN$9.50.

You head straight to the local Highly Sensitive Haven. It’s tucked away on a quiet side street not far from where the action is. There’s a small, unobtrusive sign beside the gate in the stone wall to let you know you’re in the right place. The solid wood door is beautifully carved, and heavy as you push against it. The moment you step into the shaded courtyard, into the haven designed with you in mind, all your senses tell you that even though you don’t know anyone in town, even though you’ve never been here before, you’re home.

There are a few people scattered around the little tables in the dappled light. A couple of them glance up at you, but not for long. Most of the people are sitting alone, writing or reading. All of them are quiet, even the people talking and laughing. To the right is a beautiful old building with an open door. You head that way, your heavy luggage banging against your weary legs, but before you reach the doorway, a man comes out, smiling in welcome, and helps you take your bags inside. He introduces himself and directs you to a table with a comfortable chair into which you sink gratefully. He offers you water or tea or juice – perhaps a piece of fruit or something from the little café just to tide you over. When you’ve caught your breath, had a few sips, feel a bit restored, you catch his eye and he comes over to sit across the table from you. He asks about your trip, and as he listens attentively to what you want from your visit to this town you find yourself stopping to take a huge breath as you feel the lost bits of you that weren’t travelling as fast as the plane was begin to find you and start to make you whole again. You smile.

By the time you leave the haven, a couple of hours later, you’ve made arrangements to meet the nice couple (locals who work nearby, here as usual on their lunch break) who sat at the table next to you in the courtyard for dinner later, you’ve mapped out your first forays of exploration (and have the brochures and maps already tucked into your bag), you know the location of the health food store that’s nearest the place you’ll be staying (and its hours of operation), and you’re headed to a small hotel (only four rooms) run by a woman about your age who’s also highly sensitive. A taxi is waiting for you just outside the gate of the haven, called for you by the haven folks. You’ll thank them again when you’re back here tomorrow to hear the string quartet that plays every Thursday in the spacious library on the second floor. And you’ll be back for another dose of home.

It’s mid-afternoon when you emerge from the little hotel. The sun shines, the jet lag has been pushed back by the warm welcome and smooth transition. You’re safe. You’re among friends. You’re finally here, where you’ve dreamed of coming for years, with an afternoon all to yourself. You consult the map once more, then tuck it away in a pocket. Your strides as you step away from the stoop are bold and strong. It’s time to explore.

Nan is my mother. She’s also highly sensitive, but she raised me in a time before the term or trait of high sensitivity had been popularized. We had a conversation about my childhood – what it was like to be highly sensitive with each other in the days before the current knowledge and tools about highly sensitive people (HSPs) were readily available.

GRACE

What was it like having a baby with a head the size of a watermelon? I mean, what was it like having a highly sensitive child?

NAN

I didn’t think of you as highly sensitive. The term I would have used back then would have been “independent.” I used to joke about the fact that you were born screaming. After I knew more about you, I figured you’d been complaining about your lack of control over the induced labour because you’d have prefered to have chosen the date of your birth for yourself.

The next thing that really made me aware of what I called your “independence” was the ongoing ordeal with socks, which started when you were about two. We had to put them on and take them off about four or five times every time you got dressed because the bump at the toe always bugged you and I had to keep readjusting them until it didn’t bug you.

GRACE

What if you’d said, “Never mind. Let’s go.”?

NAN

You’d yell and refuse to have your shoes put on. No negotiation. No make-do. It had to be your way or nothing.

And then there was the day of the dress. I was getting you ready to go to pre-school when you were four. I had one dress washed and ironed and in the closet, but you absolutely refused to wear it. I didn’t know why. While you were at school that day I washed and ironed all the dresses you owned, and from then on you could choose for yourself every day.

GRACE

Does knowing now about high sensitivity alter your view of early incidents like that?

NAN

Yes. It’s interesting to try and adjust those memories, basing the causes more on high sensitivity than thinking of it only as stubbornness and independence. You always had such strong opinions about what you liked and didn’t like (and you still do).

I remember telling my own mother once (and I don’t remember how old you were at the time) that you were so independent but that I couldn’t imagine where you’d gotten it from. She looked at me, rolled her eyes, and said, “You don’t know?” Looking back, I think I must have been the only highly sensitive person in my whole large family. I can see how the strong needs and the hyper-awareness of highly sensitive children, like you and I both were, get interpreted as being so unique as to be weird.

GRACE

As challenging as it must have been sometimes, you handled things pretty well. Whatever you thought at the time was the cause of my “independence,” my memory is that you did things that helped me.

NAN

Well, I couldn’t think of what else to do. I didn’t know how to find socks that didn’t have bumps, so I kept on rearranging them until you were satisfied. It was probably a very good thing that you were stubborn since things like bumps in your socks mattered so much to you.

There were other things that stood out about you which I now think were part of your high sensitivity, like your creativity. I was always delighted about that.

GRACE

You were always quite creative yourself [as an aside, Nan graduated at the top of her class in May from a two-year production weaving course - at the age of 73]. I completely loved all the art classes you found for me, through public parks or wherever. They can’t have cost much because we didn’t have much money, but you found a way and those experiences provided me with so much pure bliss. I totally loved them. Thank you for that.

And thanks for the library experiences, too. My memory is that every time we moved to a new town [which was often] one of the first things you’d do was take me and David [my brother] to the library to get us all library cards. And there were never any limits about the library. We were never, ever told we couldn’t check something out, and you never put limits on how much we could check out. I remember leaving libraries all across the southern United States with stacks of books up to my chin, giddy with the bounty.

Also, you’d often offer interesting, creative suggestions whenever I’d tell you I was bored. You’d say things like, “Go read the dictionary,” or, “Write a poem in your mind – that’s what I do.” [Mom's graduation project from the production weaving course involved weaving her poetry.]

NAN

Thank you, Sweetie. But you’re forgetting the teenage years, when I cowered in my room.

GRACE

Right. But remember that I didn’t know what was going on then either. I only knew that so many things felt so wrong, and it all made me feel very angry. I had no idea how to get a grip on things, on myself.

NAN

I know. Neither did I. And I wasn’t in the most healthy of places then either. Most of the time it was dreadful, but along the way I figured out that things were easier when I didn’t try to argue with you. It was easier to simply let you do what you wanted to do.

For instance, when you were in high school I used to wake you up in the mornings, but you’d be so upset with me that I decided I wasn’t going to do it anymore and bought an alarm clock for you. It was a simple solution, but it made my mornings much more enjoyable! Now, knowing about HSPs, I suspect you desperately needed sleep to stay grounded or balanced, and when you hadn’t gotten enough you woke up cranky.

Another interesting thing was that you’d sometimes announce in the morning on a school day that you needed to go back to bed. At some point I realized that if I made you go to school on one of those days, you’d get sick, but if I let you stay home and rest, you’d be ready to go back to school the next day. You seemed to know when your body needed to rest, and you didn’t abuse the option to stay home.

GRACE

Seriously, I can’t thank you enough for those things. They really made a difference.

NAN

Well, if I’d known then about high sensitivity and if I’d had any resources about it to call upon, it would have been easier to know how to be your mom.

Although maybe there were some things I was doing right … I just thought of something else. Do you remember when we lived in Hawaii, in that duplex? You and David had found a tree branch that you really liked. You asked me for help with making it stand up, and I gave you a jar you could put rocks in so it would be heavy enough to support the branch. You put it on the stoop between the two doors of the duplex and had a great time decorating it. I was inside the house, but I could hear you through the screen door. At some point our new neighbour came out of the other side of the duplex. She must have seen your branch then because she said in a scornful voice, “What in the world is this?” I knew you well enough to picture you pulling yourself up to your full second-grade height and looking the woman right in the eye as I heard you say very clearly and firmly, “My mother says it’s interesting.”

GRACE

What a great thing it was to grow up with a champion (well, with two champions, since Dad was no slouch in that department, either). Now that you know about the trait of high sensitivity, what advice would you give to yourself back then and to other parents who are raising HSP kids now?

NAN

The biggest and most important advice would be to listen to your HSP children. If, as a parent, you know about high sensitivity, you definitely have a big advantage because you know to listen when an HSP child says they’re too hot or too cold or whatever. You know that the child is probably not just being irritating. If you’re not highly sensitive yourselves, you ought to read all you can about the trait so you can better understand it. But the primary thing is to trust your highly sensitive children when they tell you about themselves.

GRACE

Is there anything you’d like to add?

NAN

I sometimes still feel like a kid myself when I’m surrounded by adults and I’m having an HSP need that I’m having trouble getting met. It’s frustrating to tell people that the light is too bright for me so I need to turn it off, or that I need the background music to be turned off so I can hear what people are saying, and to get a response that clearly shows they don’t believe it should be a problem. They may go along with the adjustment I need if they like me well enough, but I’m amazed I need to say the same things every single time. It’s frustrating.

So, I’m glad to have this conversation with you, Grace, to add my one voice, however soft, to the growing awareness about highly sensitive people, in the hopes that more education will continue to result in more tolerance and understanding for us all.

GRACE

Thanks, Mom. I love you.

NAN

You’re welcome, Sweetie. I love you, too.

Nan shares three of her favourite books:

The Trouble with Poetry: And Other Poems, by Billy Collins. His poems are simple, accessible, and moving.

Findus and Pettson children’s books, by Sven Nordqvist, like Pancakes for Findus. I love the illustrations, with all the secret and strange things to be found in them, and the relationship between the old man, Pettson, and the feisty cat, Findus, makes me happy.

Bad Cat: 244 Not-So-Pretty Kitties And Cats Gone Bad, by Jim Edgar. This book’s ability to make me laugh is off the charts.