High sensitivity. A gift or challenge?

William or Bill Allen is based in Florida. About 10 years ago he took early retirement from his IT managerial role at a large financial institution and decided to do something completely different by starting his own company based in Oregon which specialised in hypnosis, coaching and nuerofeedback brain training. Through this he met a lot of Highly Sensitive People and started his blog, The Sensitive Man which explored the personality characteristic of high sensitivity, particularly in men.

Bill feels there are a lot of men, himself included, who struggle with the sensitive trait they have. After writing his blog for a couple of years he then used it, along with his own personal experiences, as the basis for his book Confessions of a Sensitive Man, An Unconventional Defense of Sensitive Men. Bill thinks that sensitivity is neither a male or female trait and that for many years’ men have been subjected to an outdated idea about what masculinity entails. Culturally there have been huge changes over the last 50 years with changes to the male and female roles and there has been some confusion around this. His aim now is to help men understand that sensitivity, which was once thought of as solely a female trait, is actually a human trait.

Sensitivity can be seen to have some negative correlations for men because its thought of a ‘weak’ characteristic. Vulnerability is a thing men cannot allow themselves to be and Bill feels this has led to the increase in suicide in men because they can’t recognise this characteristic in any way. Cultural icons in films and books supersede all the emotions people have so there is a cultural expectation for men to behave in a certain way. Bill thinks that if sensitivity is seen as something negative there maybe a need to reframe the term to reach men who may feel unable to embrace their highly sensitive natures within their existing environment.

Bill follows the work of Dr Elaine Aron in defining the four specific characteristics that make up high sensitivity. Dr Aron uses DOES as a way of summarising high sensitivity. D = depth of processing, O = overstimulation, E = emotional responsivity/empathy and S = sensitivity to subtleties.

High sensitivity can be seen as a gift or challenge. Bill feels it’s about going against the cultural norm by either suppressing or embracing the gift in the way we interact with our environment. Some HSP’s have difficulty dealing with criticism and overreact and this can lead to overthinking and becoming super-cautious.  Bill feels there are challenges that need to be managed and that training may be needed to manage overwhelm and the way HSP’s react to things that may seem trivial to other people. Maybe there is a need to be more mindful to manage the challenges and embrace the gift part of it.

The motivation for writing his book came from the fact that he had some HSP boys as clients and he thought a book would provide a way of sharing his knowledge and experiences with younger men and boys. The book covers topics that interested him as well as his personal experiences. Growing up in the Southern United States as a highly sensitive man, there were huge contrasts between his sensitivity and the ideas of the time on masculinity. Moving forward though he feels the rigid definition of masculinity is changing through the Millennial and Gen X generations having a far more ‘open door’ attitude to the idea of high sensitivity and allowing themselves to embrace it.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Bill here. Our previous podcasts, upcoming guest list and previous blogs are also available.

Find out more about Bill at his website The sensitiveman.com His book Confessions of a Sensitive Man is available here.