The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You by Elaine N. Aron Narrator: Barbara Caruso
Published by Recorded Books on 11-07-08
Genres: Non-Fiction, Mental Health
Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
Format: Audiobook
Source: Libby
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Do you have a keen imagination and vivid dreams? Is time alone each day as essential to you as food and water? Are you "too shy" or "too sensitive" according to others? Do noise and confusion quickly overwhelm you? If your answers are yes, you may be a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP).
Most of us feel overstimulated every once in a while, but for the HSP, it's a way of life. In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Elaine Aron, a clinical psychologist, workshop leader, and an HSP herself, shows you how to identify this trait in yourself and make the most of it in everyday situations. Drawing on her many years of research and hundreds of interviews, she shows how you can better understand yourself and your trait to create a fuller, richer life.
This book has been on my TBR pile for a while as I think I meet the requirements to be called an HSP and I wanted to know about the subject, you know: know thyself and all that.
There’s an initial test to identify if you could be a High Sensitive Person or you may know one, but if you’re reading this book, most probably you are one and you’ve known all your life. I found some of the advice useful to cope with life in general as an HSP. Some of the stories were also helpful, as they made me feel less alone knowing that other people had similar experiences.
It was okay but after a while, it began to feel very repetitive. There were several chapters, each one dedicated to a different life aspect, but the answer to most of the situations was almost always the same. I missed some talk about how HSP are empaths and how we detect phony people without even trying, or how that may drain us out.
The end of the book was disappointing as it mentions religion, mysticism, and serendipity as a way for HSP to deal with things. Being HSP doesn’t mean that you need to seek answers to things out of this world, and that coincidences are more than just that. I consider myself a very HSP but I’m also quite down to earth. I thought this book was going to be good but it was disappointing in so many ways.
Barbara Caruso’s narration was okay. This book was published in 2008, and the recording quality feels quite outdated. There are plenty of mouth noises that we find nowadays less and less in audiobooks. This less polished audio production was more typical in the past decade. Today, Audiobooks are a much more refined product than they used to be, and for anyone that has gotten used to current audiobooks, some old ones like this can give you quite a shock.
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My name is Elena. Since I was a little child I loved science fiction and fantasy, and I can’t resist a good novel. In 2015, while wait I started to listen to audiobooks and I discovered the pleasure in being able to read while doing my daily tasks, so there’s always an audiobook playing on my phone. If you see me with my Bluetooth headphones on, please be gentle, I get easily startled.
I live with my boyfriend, which I met during my six-year stay in Belgium, four cockatiels, eight lovebirds, and a hamster in Madrid, Spain; and I like to spend my free time knitting and sewing while listening to audiobooks.
