the Loud, Fast, Too Much World. The Hidden Power of the Highly Sensitive Person - Jenn Granneman and Andre Solo

 

Source: recommendation by friend and poet Emilee Weeks. I checked it out from the library

I can see why she recommended it to me. I've always known I was a little on the orchid side. People started telling me early on that I was "sensitive" usually combined with the word "too." 

I remember bursting into tears when my third grade teacher kindly advised me that I had used way too much glue on my art project. Thankfully I had super caring sympathetic parents who also encouraged me to be tough but didn't diminish my nature or make me feel "less than." 

I made a vow early in life that I would do my best to avoid the censor of any authority figure. I became adept at reading adults and conforming to their particular expectations. I'm not alone according to these authors. 

I've been aware of my "super powers" and "fatal flaws" for a pretty long time through my personality psychology studies, readings, and observations of myself and others. I'm pretty creative, empathetic, intuitive, conscientious, organized. 

This book offered new insights on how sensitive folks process the world at a neurological level. I think I've subconsciously been pretty hard on myself for some things that I guess I just saw as weaknesses. Like here's some examples - putting my jacket on and off 10 times during the day (constant temperature fluctuations,) blood sugar dips (why am I always snacking when other people seem to be fine?), difficulty concentrating in noisy environments, being overwhelmed by crowds (esp indoors - to the point of semi-panicked claustrophobic dashes for the outdoors), needing time (and preferably a way) to process anything and everything that occurs especially emotionally charged situations..

Then there's the empath thing. Walking into a room and immediately absorbing the mood and energy of everyone present. This sensitivity apparently makes it rough for HSPs in romantic relationships. Pair their incessant desire/expectation for high level in-depth interaction with their need for space, quiet, and recovery time - yep- tough lot. 

I think my main takeaways - are to give myself mental grace when I need extra recovery time and also to continue practicing habits that will re-center my nervous system. 

I really liked the chapter on job crafting. It really helped me feel positive about my job which is very detailed and introverted. It doesn't seem to tap into some of my giftings but after reading this, I really see how it actually is a great fit. I work in a quiet environment that is fairly low stress. I do highly detailed work. I enjoy a relative amount of freedom in how I prioritize tasks and I can continue to hone my role into something that is a good fit for me and a contribution to the company. 

A great read for sensitive souls or for someone who has one in their midst. 

Aweism in the Secular Life - response to Living the Secular Life by Phil Zuckerman

 

Living the Secular Life

New Answers to Old Questions - Phil Zuckerman

Source: friend recommendation from a discussion group I facilitate

There's a running theme in my life and readings. This is a well written book by a sociologist but it doesn't read like someone's thesis. It's full of personalized stories of the author's own life and of people he's interviewed. 

He cross references countries and cultures that are more secular compared to religious and discusses whether being religious truly makes a person or group more moral or ethical. 

It's a complex question but he seeks to dispel the myth that being irreligious means a slide into immorality. He uses various examples of both individuals and collective groups to back up his position. 

He talks about raising children with a secular worldview and offers some interesting stories about people's perspective on this. 

Zuckerman dives into such topics as death, community, morality, families, hard times and how people deal with some of life's big mysteries and challenges without a traditional religious view or structure.  

There's a chapter called "aweism." It was my favorite part of the book. "Aweism" is the author's coinage because he finds some other terms like humanist, atheist, agnostic, limiting. This section I will include below to wrap up really captures the author's fluid writing style and conceptual acumen. 

"Aweism encapsulates the notion that existence is ultimately a beautiful mystery, that being alive is a wellspring of wonder, and that the deepest questions of existence, creation, time, and space are so powerful as to inspire deep feelings of joy, poignancy, and sublime awe."

He goes on to say that accepting the mystery can lead to a happier state of being. I agree with this. 

"An aweist hearkens to the words of Albert Einstein (a self -described agnostic) who suggested that 'the most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. he to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed out candle." 

Lion Heart - Olive MacLeod fits well with Betty Friedan's theory

 Olive the Lionheart: Lost Love, Imperial Spies, and One Woman's Journey into the Heart of Africa 

 Brad Ricca 

Olive MacLeod (1880-1936)

Source: Library Book sale 

My Grandma tells me her last name is pronounce "Mcloud" which sounds so much better than Ma-Klee-od.

This got me thinking about something I read years ago in the Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan (I think that's where I got it anyway.) The gist is this: We tend to think that feminism happened in straight line with women progressively gaining more freedom and autonomy. It's more like waves or "two steps forward one back." There was a period in the early 1900s in which some women actually gained entrance into previously male dominated domains and a few of them enjoyed empowerment and a certain degree of liberty and influence that later in post WWII era was redacted. I have two examples below and their timelines are fairly close to Olive's. 

Amelia Earhart  (1897-1937) - aviator

Margaret Mead - (1901-1978) - anthropologist

Friedan theorized that after World War II, society desired a return to more rigid gender roles and the hyper feminization of women was emphasized. Women who had entered the work force during the war, returned en masse to the home whereupon homemaking, childbearing, and domesticity were idealized and generally promoted. 

Olive MacLeod seemed to enjoy her unmarried life in her twenties and into her thirties and this fictionalized biography based on her letters, journals, and writings captures her romantic and adventurous life and spirit. 

She was a Scot and her father was a proud clan leader. Having read Goddesses in Every Woman by Jean Shinoda Bolen, I would wager to say that Olive and her older sister Flora had a strong strain of Athena energy that was encouraged by an affectionate and empowering father (who had no sons.) Flora went on to become the clan chieftainess herself eventually.

Olive is portrayed as imaginative, intrepid, and intelligent. She eventually journeys into the heart of Africa with an English couple and a small entourage of servants following the trail of Olive's recently deceased fiancé - an explorer who she had fallen in love with during his sabbatical in England. 

The author toggles back and forth between their engagement correspondences and the present journey into Africa and the adventures that unfold throughout the trip.

Olive continued to write letters to her deceased fiancé which is both endearing and sad. It turns out her life has an enemies to lovers trope. The English dude who oversees one of the then "Colonies" of the empire and who seems to be constantly stymying their movements, ends up becoming her husband. (much later after she returns to the UK, writes a book, flirts with becoming admitted to the prestigious Royal Society (did she?) She then becomes Olive "Temple" and they eventually settle in Spain. 

Olive has baby lion pets, and climbs mountains guarded by dark ancestral spirits. She faces down stern tribal chieftains and sneaks into the wife's quarters so she can satisfy her curiosity. Everywhere she goes she has to let down her long red hair to be gazed at by locals. 

I have to confess, I kept thinking that they would discover that "dead" fiance was actually still alive and they had been misinformed. But sadly that appears not to be the case. 

Anyway I found it to be an entertaining read.