What do you think?
Rate this book
Finely Tuned: How To Thrive As A Highly Sensitive Person or Empath
"Don't be so sensitive." "Just get it over it." "You're just so intense"... If you're a highly sensitive person or an empath, you've probably heard these statements many times. Maybe you feel different because you're just more tuned in and sensitive than most people you know. You notice things others don't. You can easily pick up on the mood of the room. You're bothered by small irritations, noise, and bright light. Sometimes the world just feels overwhelming, and you wonder what is wrong with you. The good news? Being highly sensitive isn't weird or wrong. It's a perfectly normal trait held by 15-20% of the population. The Little-Known Power of Being Finely Tuned As a sensitive person, you may believe you're weak and less resilient than others. This belief may have been reinforced all of your life, but nothing could be further from the truth. Highly sensitive people and empaths are gifted with unique skills making them more creative, intuitive, conscientious, and empathic. They are evolutionarily hard-wired this way to benefit the larger community, as they are the first to notice and respond to subtitles, moods, and danger. They are also first to feel deeper, positive emotions as well. Thriving Daily As a Sensitive It can be daunting to live in a world that feels overwhelming and insensitive, especially when others don't understand or appreciate you. With self-awareness, mindful communication, and proper management of your environment, you'll not only survive as a sensitive, but you'll thrive in ways you never anticipated. Life will be more enriching and joyful, and your traits as a sensitive person can be leveraged to squeeze much more fulfillment from life as you learn to accept and appreciate your amazing personality. Finely How To Thrive As A Highly Sensitive Person or Empath Finely Tuned is a guidebook for those with highly sensitive, empathic natures seeking relief from the pain of being misunderstood and wanting to reclaim life on their own terms, sensitivities and all. It spells out exactly why you have this keenly sensitive nature, and how you are perfectly normal in your traits and needs. It teaches you skills for understanding yourself, communicating your traits with others, and redesigning your life around your beautiful gifts so that you and others can fully benefit from them. Scroll to the top of the page and select the BUY NOW button.
158 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 5, 2015
256 people are currently reading
399 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
July 21, 2021
Good book for information on HSP and tips on how to manage it. Not much new information for me, but I already knew a lot about it. It was well written, with links and references, which i really appreciate!
July 20, 2017
A really interesting helpful book. A pleasure to find HSP so well explained and with advice on how to accept who you are and how to see it as an advantage.
Amazing to see now why I find so irritating strong perfumes in the workplace and don't start me off on florescent lighting!
All managers should read a copy of this book and understand what a value HSPs can be to their workforce.
Amazing to see now why I find so irritating strong perfumes in the workplace and don't start me off on florescent lighting!
All managers should read a copy of this book and understand what a value HSPs can be to their workforce.
March 14, 2017
Very interesting read!
Finally I've found out why I am the way I am. For years I've known I was very much different from most people. This book was such an uplifting experience for me. I highly recommend it!
Finally I've found out why I am the way I am. For years I've known I was very much different from most people. This book was such an uplifting experience for me. I highly recommend it!
March 6, 2017
illuminating and empowering
This book was illuminating and empowering. I recognized myself in the pages, sometimes in ways that caught me off guard. I appreciated both the explanations of what it means to be highly sensitive (backed by research), but also for the practical, clear, doable suggestions for actions to take to thrive with this personality. I'm so thankful I came across this book!
This book was illuminating and empowering. I recognized myself in the pages, sometimes in ways that caught me off guard. I appreciated both the explanations of what it means to be highly sensitive (backed by research), but also for the practical, clear, doable suggestions for actions to take to thrive with this personality. I'm so thankful I came across this book!
Read
February 3, 2018Some scientific underpinning. Many generalizations. Scratches the surface of some pertinent questions and needs of those with more responsive nervous systems.
June 8, 2022
I decided to read this book as part of my “Kindle read-down challenge” - it was the oldest unread book in my Kindle library for June (the challenge is each month to check the oldest unread book in my library and either commit to reading it or accepting that I don’t want to and deleting it for good)
And I think the word that most sums up my response to the book is ‘dated’ - it feels like it’s from well before 2015, and I’m not entirely sure why.
Partly, it might be because it’s been a while since I first discovered I was a massively introverted HSP, and while I did a LOT of reading on the topic back then, I haven’t read much on it in several years… so perhaps this is casting me back to another time in my life.
Beyond that though, I twitched at the heteronormativity (not once was there a reference to a partner or spouse who was anything other than the ‘opposite gender’), gender normativity (really? Women are “hard-wired to be more emotional”? Please cite your sources for this landmark finding, Ms Davenport) and random assumptions of gender binary.
In particular - and it felt like this was more an editing issue than anything else - it seemed weird that in some chapters, the author was comfortable with using singular ‘they’, while in others, she bounced back and forth between ‘he or she’, ‘he’, and ‘she’ (sometimes in the same sentence, for the same person).
None of which necessarily make this a bad book… but they do make it a product of its time, which probably creates that dated sense I get from it.
Aside from that sense, this isn’t a bad read, especially if you’re new to the concept of HSP or the high sensitivity trait from Elaine Aron’s work. I didn’t learn anything new from it though, and I’d probably only recommend it with a warning that it really does feel… well… dated now.
And I think the word that most sums up my response to the book is ‘dated’ - it feels like it’s from well before 2015, and I’m not entirely sure why.
Partly, it might be because it’s been a while since I first discovered I was a massively introverted HSP, and while I did a LOT of reading on the topic back then, I haven’t read much on it in several years… so perhaps this is casting me back to another time in my life.
Beyond that though, I twitched at the heteronormativity (not once was there a reference to a partner or spouse who was anything other than the ‘opposite gender’), gender normativity (really? Women are “hard-wired to be more emotional”? Please cite your sources for this landmark finding, Ms Davenport) and random assumptions of gender binary.
In particular - and it felt like this was more an editing issue than anything else - it seemed weird that in some chapters, the author was comfortable with using singular ‘they’, while in others, she bounced back and forth between ‘he or she’, ‘he’, and ‘she’ (sometimes in the same sentence, for the same person).
None of which necessarily make this a bad book… but they do make it a product of its time, which probably creates that dated sense I get from it.
Aside from that sense, this isn’t a bad read, especially if you’re new to the concept of HSP or the high sensitivity trait from Elaine Aron’s work. I didn’t learn anything new from it though, and I’d probably only recommend it with a warning that it really does feel… well… dated now.
October 31, 2018
The book is a quick overview or “field handbook,” if you will, covering different aspects of highly sensitive persons (HSPs) by compiling past research by there and helpful pointers for thriving as an HSP into one place. It’s a quick read but I found it very helpful for understanding the HSP trait more and I would recommend it for anyone who wonders why they feel just a smidge more sensitive all the time, and anyone who is in a romantic relationship or close friendship with someone like this.
April 1, 2018
So useful to all HSP who never fully understood why they were different or what to do about it.
February 6, 2017
One of my children was diagnosed with 'Sensory Processing Disorder' - the word 'disorder' seems like there is a problem with him, something wrong, it's not a nice label and our family and friends struggled to understand what it meant, in real terms. I read this book with the aim of understanding his needs more clearly and being able to explain them (other than via my intuition or what I discovered has worked through trial and error) - he is indeed a Highly Sensitive Person. The book reiterated that there is nothing "wrong", he's just different, and there are ways to help. Many strategies are listed.
In fact, the book was a revelation. Not only did it help with my son, but I also realised that I have a lot of the same traits, and although I have learned to hide them or they manifest in different ways for me, they have the same cause. For over 40 years I hadn't realised why things act as triggers for me - suddenly so much makes sense.
As well as the book content, the linked websites were also incredibly useful. I took a (linked) quiz at the point of my realisation - a score over 14 indicates that you are likely to be a HSP - my score was 22, in contrast, my husband's was 8. This was really helpful in discussing how things occur differently for our son and for me, and why my husband often finds it hard to understand why either of us might react strongly to things that he barely notices (for example why the loud rock music he plays makes me physically uncomfortable, or why a mood in a room might make either of us very uncomfortable while he is oblivious, why my son and I both need to go away on our own when we have been with lots of people and how exhausting it is to be in crowds, and so on). Well worth reading if you have HS traits or you have someone else who does, and you'd like to understand it a bit more.
In fact, the book was a revelation. Not only did it help with my son, but I also realised that I have a lot of the same traits, and although I have learned to hide them or they manifest in different ways for me, they have the same cause. For over 40 years I hadn't realised why things act as triggers for me - suddenly so much makes sense.
As well as the book content, the linked websites were also incredibly useful. I took a (linked) quiz at the point of my realisation - a score over 14 indicates that you are likely to be a HSP - my score was 22, in contrast, my husband's was 8. This was really helpful in discussing how things occur differently for our son and for me, and why my husband often finds it hard to understand why either of us might react strongly to things that he barely notices (for example why the loud rock music he plays makes me physically uncomfortable, or why a mood in a room might make either of us very uncomfortable while he is oblivious, why my son and I both need to go away on our own when we have been with lots of people and how exhausting it is to be in crowds, and so on). Well worth reading if you have HS traits or you have someone else who does, and you'd like to understand it a bit more.
August 29, 2015
For the price tag, I'd say this is a decent intro to learning about HSPs. However, I found it lacking for what *I* was looking for.
While the author included many references, I felt this book focused on basic coping strategies and affirmations. The suggestions were helpful to a degree, but some seemed so obvious as to make me wonder why my time was wasted with such filler.
Speaking of, the affirmations were seemingly a large and repetitive part of the book. I wanted to jump ahead on multiple occasions. For me, knowledge and then experience built from that knowledge builds my confidence as opposed to just telling myself positive remarks.
The author talked about how HSPs have been given a gift in these traits, but she didn't really elaborate. A list of adjectives is not helpful to me, especially when so much time was spent on coping strategies and suggestions, as well as, the need to spread the word that HSPs are normal. I wanted to read about how HSP traits are a gift. If nothing else, through examples. I was hoping for ways to hone my gift.
I wanted ways to celebrate this, rather than spending so much time and focus on defending it and convincing everyone, including HSPs ourselves, that we're normal. It wasn't until the last few paragraphs, when I finally felt the author flipped the script in that subtle distinction.
I felt the content wasn't well balanced, but gathering from the author's experiences, I can see why she focused on the topics she did.
I guess what I'm getting at is, while not a bad book, it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Sadly, it left me looking for more and not more from her.
While the author included many references, I felt this book focused on basic coping strategies and affirmations. The suggestions were helpful to a degree, but some seemed so obvious as to make me wonder why my time was wasted with such filler.
Speaking of, the affirmations were seemingly a large and repetitive part of the book. I wanted to jump ahead on multiple occasions. For me, knowledge and then experience built from that knowledge builds my confidence as opposed to just telling myself positive remarks.
The author talked about how HSPs have been given a gift in these traits, but she didn't really elaborate. A list of adjectives is not helpful to me, especially when so much time was spent on coping strategies and suggestions, as well as, the need to spread the word that HSPs are normal. I wanted to read about how HSP traits are a gift. If nothing else, through examples. I was hoping for ways to hone my gift.
I wanted ways to celebrate this, rather than spending so much time and focus on defending it and convincing everyone, including HSPs ourselves, that we're normal. It wasn't until the last few paragraphs, when I finally felt the author flipped the script in that subtle distinction.
I felt the content wasn't well balanced, but gathering from the author's experiences, I can see why she focused on the topics she did.
I guess what I'm getting at is, while not a bad book, it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Sadly, it left me looking for more and not more from her.
March 13, 2018
I wish I could give this book 10 stars! What a God send!
Thank you so much for writing this book! It is the first book in years that has captivated me from start to finish because it was as if I had written it myself! I have no words to describe how alive every subject in this book made feel! I caught myself nodding my head in agreement and smiling as I absorbed every kindred word. I am a newly discovered hsp/empath and a holistic practitioner. I am so thankful to discover that all of these intense feelings I have experienced in the past was all just building my risiliance and in turn my confidence and my conviction to do the right thing. My intuition has NEVER let me down and I have just started embracing the gift. Using it in my practice has helped tremendously. I always felt like I was different and much more sensitive than the rest and it was confusing, especially when my only true intention was to spread joy or love.
This writing has completely validated my direction and it has lifted a huge weight from my heart. I now know that it's ok to be sensitive, in fact, our planet needs it. Here's my opportunity! Love and blessings to you, Barrie. Thank you for sharing your gifts and making a difference in the lives of others. After all, isn't that what life is all about? I look forward to reading your other offerings.
Thank you so much for writing this book! It is the first book in years that has captivated me from start to finish because it was as if I had written it myself! I have no words to describe how alive every subject in this book made feel! I caught myself nodding my head in agreement and smiling as I absorbed every kindred word. I am a newly discovered hsp/empath and a holistic practitioner. I am so thankful to discover that all of these intense feelings I have experienced in the past was all just building my risiliance and in turn my confidence and my conviction to do the right thing. My intuition has NEVER let me down and I have just started embracing the gift. Using it in my practice has helped tremendously. I always felt like I was different and much more sensitive than the rest and it was confusing, especially when my only true intention was to spread joy or love.
This writing has completely validated my direction and it has lifted a huge weight from my heart. I now know that it's ok to be sensitive, in fact, our planet needs it. Here's my opportunity! Love and blessings to you, Barrie. Thank you for sharing your gifts and making a difference in the lives of others. After all, isn't that what life is all about? I look forward to reading your other offerings.
August 7, 2017
More of a Novella Self Service Resource Guide
Not bad, the meat of this book is in the resources which most have connections or links to. It's a start, the direction you go in depends on the links pertaining to your specialized needs.
Not bad, the meat of this book is in the resources which most have connections or links to. It's a start, the direction you go in depends on the links pertaining to your specialized needs.
October 26, 2022
Great book, but as an autistic person, I feel it should be noted that this book is literally just describing autism and potentially some other forms of neurodiversity, esp. with the mention of social and sensory issues. I used to identify with the term HSP, but turns out it was just undiagnosed autism. HSP is not a medical term, and in order to get the accommodations you need to live a balanced, well-regulated life, don’t be afraid to look into autism and other forms of neurodiversity if this book resonated with you.❤️ P.S. yes autistic people can feel empathy and even be empaths; we just express it differently than neurotypicals. :-) I relate to every part of this book; I just wish it would have mentioned different neurotypes that can fall under the HSP umbrella instead of seemingly equating the term "HSP" to a medical diagnosis itself.
-An autistic empath♾️
-An autistic empath♾️
April 28, 2018
Interesting to find out my partner and I are both HS people. The most interesting thing was finding out that I am the extroverted one and he is the introverted one. This is cool. I can see how we balance eachother. What’s more is this book helped me understand how I could further meet his needs. The book also helped me understand my friendships better and left me understanding myself more. I accept myself and am proud to be highly sensitive because I can see how it has been beneficial to my life. It has it’s moments of getting the best of me but I know how to deal with that a bit better now.
July 12, 2023
Hard-boiled facts about the highly sensitive temperament. But, the coping mechanisms are never solid. It's as if highly sensitive people do not belong in this much crowded world.
February 9, 2016
It's a great introductory book to highly sensitive people and empaths, and offers much enlightenment and insight into these groups of people. It explains the biological and personality make up of such group types, and offers coping strategies to handle information processing of the brain, as well as practical communicative strategies. This book started out really well but ended up being too repetitive. The book would have been better if it were shorter or more concise. Still, it is a great book for those who are new or unaware of such groups of people.
November 16, 2019
(Audiobook )
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews