The Sensitivity Handbook: Training Materials for Developing Balanced Sensitivity

Part I: Dealing Constructively with Sensitivity Issues

Exercise 1: Identifying Sensitivity Imbalances

Procedure

• In the case of balanced sensitivity versus hypersensitivity, pause after each pair of alternatives and consider which of the cited examples is more typical of you
• In the case of forms of insensitivity, look for traces of each example from your life
  • For practice in a workshop, choose one example from each category
  • When practicing at home, choose only personally relevant examples
  • For advanced or thorough practice, consider all the cited examples

Examples

1. Balanced sensitivity versus hypersensitivity

• Paying attention to a situation
  • Asking your sick child how he or she feels – or pestering the child with this question every five minutes
  • Watching your health – or being a hypochondriac
• Paying attention to the consequences of your actions
  • Considering others' opinion when deciding something – or being so frightened of disapproval that it disables you
  • Taking care to do well at school – or worrying obsessively about failure
• Responding in general
  • Soberly shifting lanes when someone tries to pass you – or becoming heated and thinking obscenities
  • Calmly searching for your misplaced keys – or panicking
• Responding emotionally
  • Feeling tender compassion when a loved one is upset – or becoming upset yourself
  • Feeling sad, but maintaining your dignity, when suffering a loss – or wallowing in self-pity and depression

2. Forms of insensitivity

• Not noticing a situation
  • Not noticing that a relative is upset
  • Not paying attention to the fact that your relationship with your partner is unhealthy
• Not noticing the consequences of your actions
  • Not noticing that you have hurt someone's feelings
  • Not noticing that overwork is causing you stress
• Noticing, but not acting
  • Seeing an injured person lying alone in the street, but not stopping to help
  • Noticing fatigue while doing work that can wait, but not taking a break
• Noticing and acting, but without feelings
  • Attentively caring for a sick person, but feeling nothing
  • Following a special regime while sick, but, unable to relate to your body or your illness, emotionally distancing yourself
• Noticing and acting, but with unbalanced judgment of what to do
  • Giving others what you want, such as economic security, rather than what they need, such as more understanding and affection
  • Doing what others want you to do, such as spend a great deal of time with them, rather than what you need to do, namely take more time for yourself