Exploring High Sensation Seeking & Highly Sensitive Men with Dr. Tracy Cooper

In this Episode I talk to  Dr. Tracy Cooper about his incredible work and research exploring the intersection between Highly Sensitive People and High Sensation Seeking. We talk about the soon to be released documentary, Sensitive Men Rising that Dr. Cooper is working on with Emmy Award-winning director Will Harper and the incredible actor, musician, artist Luke Goss.

Become a patron of the Highly Sensitive Human Podcast  and get early, exclusive access to the podcast, the written transcripts, behind the scenes content and a bonus Q + A with experts: BECOME A PATRON HERE >>

About Dr. Tracy Cooper...

Tracy Cooper, Ph.D. is a broad thinker, writer, creative, educator, and active researcher exploring Sensory Processing Sensitivity and Sensation Seeking. Dr. Cooper is Assistant Professor for Baker University’s Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in leadership in higher education degree. Dr. Cooper co-founded the first Highly Sensitive Men’s Seminar and began offering coed HSP seminars, including the first High Sensation Seeking Highly Sensitive Person’s seminar.

Dr. Cooper appeared in the documentary movie Sensitive – The Untold Story, with many other researchers, exploring the personality trait Sensory Processing Sensitivity and currently is working with Emmy Award-winning director of Sensitive-The Untold Story, Will Harper and the incredible actor, musician, artist Luke Goss on Sensitive Men Rising-The Documentary.

Dr. Tracy Cooper's Books

1. Thrive: The Highly Sensitive Person and Career, a book based on two extensive studies investigating the way highly sensitive people experience careers. 
2. Thrill: The High Sensation Seeking Highly Sensitive Person, a comprehensive book exploring the intersection of Sensory Processing Sensitivity and Sensation Seeking.
3. In 2020 he published Empowering the Sensitive Male Soul, a book dedicated to raising awareness and consciousness around sensory processing sensitivity in men.

Stay in Touch:

Dr Tracy Cooper's Website

Tracy Cooper, Ph.D. | Facebook

Sensitive Men Rising-The Documentary | Facebook

Sensitive Men Rising - The Documentary

Become a patron of the Highly Sensitive Human Podcast  and get early, exclusive access to the podcast, the written transcripts, behind the scenes content and a bonus Q + A with experts: BECOME A PATRON HERE >>

More about Jules De Vitto...

Jules De Vitto is a Transpersonal Coach who is experienced at helping Highly Sensitive People overcome anxiety, stress and burnout. 

Jules is Highly Sensitive herself and is passionate about helping Highly Sensitive People step into their authentic power and align with their true purpose in life. She lived in Asia for eleven years before moving to London and integrates Eastern practices and modern-day mindfulness into her work. She has a degree in Psychology, an MA in Education and an MSc in Transpersonal Psychology, Consciousness and Spirituality. She’s a Meditation teacher on Insight Timer and a  published author through Changemaker Books and John Hunt Publishers. She wrote Resilience: Navigating Loss in a Time of Crisis to help people through the Covid-19 Pandemic available

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome, I'm your host, Jules Davito, and you're listening to the Highly Sensitive Human Podcast. The show that offers an insight into the world of the highly sensitive person and helps those who identify with the traits of high sensitivity to feel more empowered and resilient without denying their authentic gifts. So, welcome everyone to this episode. And in today's episode, I'm really excited to be talking with Dr. Tracy Cooper about his incredible work and research exploring the intersection between highly sensitive people and high sensation seeking. We also talk about the soon-to-be-released documentary, Sensitive Men Rising, that Dr. Cooper is working on with Emmy Award-winning director Will Harper and the incredible actor, musician, and artist Luke Goss. So Tracy Cooper is a broad thinker, writer, creative educator, and active researcher, exploring sensory processing sensitivity and sensation seeking. He is assistant professor for Baker University's Doctor of Education in Leadership in Higher Education degree. And Dr. Cooper co-founded the first highly sensitive men's seminar and began offering co-ed HSP seminars, including the first high sensation seeking, highly sensitive persons seminar. So welcome, Tracy, and thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast today.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Thank you for inviting me. Happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

So obviously, this podcast is all about being highly sensitive and what we know as the highly sensitive person. So to begin, would you be able to give us a brief definition of what it means to be highly sensitive, or from your experience, how you understand sensory processing sensitivity?

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Sure. Yeah, sensory processing sensitivity is a fairly complex construct when you look at it on the surface, but really it only comprises four key aspects. The depth of processing, which is we sensitive people tend to spend more time in reflection, pattern recognition, memory consolidation. So we spend more time thinking about all of the things that happen to us, all of the stimulation that we take in. So we have deeper minds, really fundamentally. The second uh core aspect is overstimulation. We have a lower threshold for over-arousal or feeling overexcited, and consequently have a need to withdraw to recover from that overstimulation at times. And that varies from person to person quite a bit. But that lower threshold for over-arousal is one of the key aspects of being highly sensitive that most highly sensitive people do not like at the same time because nobody likes being overstimulated before other people who are less sensitive. Um, the third core aspect is we're usually higher in empathy, which means we can not only sense the energies of other people, but we can actually feel their experiences as if they were our own in many cases. Um, and empathy does not necessarily lead to compassion, though we hope it does. We are higher in empathy, so we can feel those things that are happening in our environment. And the other aspect of that um core aspect is we also have a broader emotional range. So I like to describe it as a psychological androgyny whereby we're not necessarily all masculine or all feminine, but we comprise some of the best of both traits. Um so that psychological androgyny gives us a broader emotional range uh from which to express ourselves. And the last core aspect of uh sensory processing sensitivity is the sensitivity to subtle cues. So we tend to pick up on things that other people tend to overlook. And when you think of them all together, because we notice the subtleties, because we are able to sense other people's uh bodily and energetic affect, because we have a broader emotional range and we're deep thinkers, that all works together, but it also over it can fuel over-arousal and overstimulation. And so we have to work very hard at maintaining that balance and understanding where our threshold is for over-arousal. But they do uh the the sensitivity to subtleties, the high empathy, the emotional range, those feed the deeper processing. So that's my sort of concise definition of sensory processing sensitivity.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Yeah, brilliant. Thank you. So, from what I hear from what you've just shared, is that there's a lot, there can be a lot of struggles with being highly sensitive, but also there's a lot of strengths that come with it. And um, one of the questions I get asked a lot is is sensory processing sensitivity or the highly sensitive person is it a disorder? And what would you respond to that, this sense of whether it's a disorder or not?

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Right. No, it's not a disorder at all. In fact, it's a neutral personality trait, a naturally occurring neutral personality trait that is inherent in over a hundred other species besides human beings. So it's an evolved psychological mechanism that allows for about 20% of our species to have what Ted Zef liked to call a finely tuned nervous system, right? So we think and feel things more deeply, and we also process those things to a deeper degree, which makes us great planners, it makes us great creatives, it makes us great helpers and healers. And we need those kinds of people. We need leaders who have that high empathy in the deeper minds uh in order to lead us forward as a species. So it's not a pathology at all, but it can predispose us to, because we do think about things more deeply and we do notice things more subtly, um, we can become more prone to anxieties, right? And to depressions and issues. It doesn't necessarily mean we will, but it means because of that deeper mind and the stronger feelings, the intense feelings that are strong, quick emotions, that we may be more subject to overthinking things or to rumination, which can lead us to anxieties. But it does not exist in and of itself in the DSM 5. So it's not a diagnosis that you can get from a therapist or a psychologist or psychiatrist. It's simply a personality trait, one among many in human beings.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's really helpful for people to hear because um, like I said, that's a question I often get asked. And um this idea as well of it existing on a spectrum, I think that's important to acknowledge as well. That there's um, I mean, would you say there's different um yeah, intensities in terms of being high highly sensitive? You know, it it can range from someone being um extremely highly sensitive or um averagely highly sensitive. What would you say about that in terms of it being on a on a spectrum?

SPEAKER_00 7:11

I I do feel it is sort of a spectrum in a way that there are those people at the very high end of it, and there are those people that are sort of at the lower part of that range, and particularly men tend to squash some, a lot of it out of themselves, except for the emotional intensity, uh, due to cultural uh disapproval of sensitivity in general. Um, but I think it is a range. I've noticed a lot of people in monitoring social media and interviewing hundreds of people and in speaking with many, many, many HFPs that they're they are very, very different. And some of them are exquisitely sensitive. And for some of those people, it is exquisitely painful, and they never have learned how to manage it or to learn an appropriate self-care practice that they take very seriously. So, so many of us have not had appropriate mentoring. We haven't been taught to be highly sensitive in a very overstimulating world, or to know how to find our place in the world or how to express our sensitivity. So it does seem that there are less highly sensitive people within the range and more highly sensitive people within the range. But I should also say that personality traits, when expressed at an extreme, tend to be unhealthy, no matter what the trait. So sensation seeking as well is another personality trait. But when it's expressed at an extreme high degree level, people tend to take undue risk and they suffer real consequences because of that. Same with sensitivity. When people are super highly sensitive, they tend to be almost non-functional. So that's not a healthy expression of a personality trait for the species, let alone for the individual.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Yeah, so you've mentioned a few things here which I'd like to go into in more depth. So one of them being um highly sensitive men, um, and I find it really interesting what you just mentioned, that men tend to squash or repress the traits more so than women, and also this idea of sensation seeking. Um, so yeah, first of all, could you explain a bit more about your work and what you do in terms of how you've worked with highly sensitive people and men in particular?

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Sure. Yeah, I've been working for some years now with writing books that would be of value and utility to highly sensitive people. I started with a book on career to help uh highly sensitive people really understand how to frame their sensitivity in terms of career and what they could do with it. Um, and that has helped somewhat. Uh, and the second book I did was on the high sensation-seeking, highly sensitive person because there was no book that existed for us, and I'm also a high sensation-seeking HSP. And the third book I did was for highly sensitive men. Those were the three books that really arose out of my dissertation study uh for my PhD. And so those three books were in my mind as I was doing that study, and I knew I had to do all three of those. And my work presently focuses around both highly sensitive men and high sensation seeking, highly sensitive people, but also HSPs at times as well. So I hold online seminars for now with the pandemic that allows people from all over the world to come to know high sensation seeking and sensitivity if they're there for that. I'm holding a seminar in August for uh self-care for uh just for HSPs, but also for high sensation seeking HSVs. And I do two seminars a year for sensitive men because it is such an area that needs so much work and it needs so many offerings. And we're also working on a new documentary film with uh Will Harbour, who's the director of Sensitive the Untold Story. So we're very excited about all the things that are happening, and so I've taken up this sort of leadership role, uh really a servant leadership role, because I'm there really to help raise consciousness in other people and provide ways for them to come to know themselves better. But we have all these wonderful resources, and I'm contributing to that archive of materials that we are uh we are building. And it's such an exciting time now for sensitive people to be alive because 20 years ago these things didn't exist and it was so much more difficult. Uh, and there was such a lack of awareness back then, 20, 30, 40 years ago. I mean, when I was growing up in the 70s, there was no awareness of sensitivity. Nobody used the word sensitive, you know, it was an unknown. Uh so something you had to come to through long study and searching on your own. Today it's so easy to come across the materials. And my work is about making that all more accessible uh and more prevalent out there and normalizing sensitivity in the culture.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Absolutely. Yeah, and I was about to say, I feel like the awareness of it is crucial in terms of normalizing it and for people going back to that question I asked earlier in terms of it not being a disorder, actually realizing there's so much potential and so many gifts that people can tap into when they have the right self-care practices or the right resources in place. So I just want to touch upon um the high sensation seeking part of this, um, because you mentioned it, and I'm not sure if everyone listening has heard of high sensation seeking or knows what this intersection is between highly sensitive person and high sensation seeking. A lot of S is there. So would you be able to explain a bit more about what it is to be a high sensation seeker and how it relates to being a highly sensitive person?

SPEAKER_00 12:35

Yeah, and it is a mouthful to say every time. So, yeah, sensation seeking is a separate personality trait developed by uh a clinical psychologist named Marvin Zuckerman. And he developed it in the 1960s. So it's been around longer than uh sensory processing sensitivity has. Uh, and what he found was there seemed to be a general trait in humans whereby a percentage of people tended to be higher in what he called sensation seeking. And he defined that as core four core aspects as well. So it has four aspects just like sensitivity does. Um, the first of which, and most people never get beyond this, but the first aspect is thrill and adventure seeking. So those are people who seek physical thrills to get the adrenaline rush. Um, people usually they understand that and they say that's not me, and they never get beyond that. But I want to explain the other three because the second one is novelty and new experience seeking. So those are people who will seek out novelty and new experiences for the sake of having those experiences. So traveling to a strange place, trying different foods, going to seek out novelty, whether it be the theater, music, movies, whatever you can think of, uh, being around new people, just new experiences that are novel to you. Um, that's one of the aspects that sensitive people tend to identify with the most as far as sensation seeking. The third aspect is a boredom susceptibility. So just as sensitive people tend to have a lower threshold for over arousal, people who are high in sensation seeking tend to have a lower threshold for boredom. In other words, they'll become bored before people who are uh lower in sensation seeking will. So they need that stimulation to stay above that threshold for themselves or to stay below that threshold for themselves so they don't process. And the fourth aspect is disinhibition. So sensitivity really is something that works on inhibition, right? So thinking before we act, uh, sensation seeking really is the opposite of that. It's really acting before we think, or almost like an impulsivity, though it's not quite the same thing. Um, so disinhibition can be doing things that are really maybe beyond your own normal behaviors, wild parties or even things like speeding, you know, for the thrill of it. But at the same time, you know the risk involved in it and you're willing to take those risks in order to have the experience. So much of it is powered by novelty and new experience seeking, in my view. The way they cross over, though, is like I said, sensitive people tend to identify strongly with the novelty and new experience seeking and the boredom susceptibility. That's also a key finding is that sensitive people have that lower threshold for boredom as well. You can do because they have the deep minds, right? They like to and they take in more. So they're naturally curious and more open people who want to think about things more. And so to do that, you really it's hard to be in a routine environment that is the same all of the time and have enough stimulation for that incredible mind. So sensation seeking, when it's really balanced, then again, if it's expressed at too high of a level, there can be personal, legal, financial repercussions to incredible risk that you should have never taken in the first place. But being sensitive sometimes will put the brakes on that. So you have that cautionary instinct that will kind of tamper it down so that you're not at that upper echelon of extreme high sensation seeking, which can really get you in trouble. So being a sensitive person and being a high sensation seeker can mean that you're incredibly creative. It can mean that you reinvent yourself frequently, it can mean that you're never sitting still for long because you have that need to keep moving forward, almost like a shark has to keep moving forward. It's almost the same thing in a way, uh, though not in a vicious sort of way. Being sensitive and being high sensation seeking is uh it creates its own dynamic. And sometimes that that is overstimulation because the need to move forward sometimes can be overstimulating in and of itself. When the sensitive part wants to rest or wants to do something quieter, the sensation seeker wants to go out and do something else. So it's like an internal battle that's always taking place between which one do I give into, you know, and learning to balance the two is really about having a self-care practice in place so that you can check in with your own body, right? In your own mind and see how you're feeling and say, do I really need to do this? Because it's gonna be extremely tired, tiring if I do this and I need to recover and I need to manage my energy on a daily basis. And in some cases, you know it's gonna be overstimulating, and that's fine, but realize that you're also going to have to recover from it.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Yeah, absolutely. And I really appreciate you explaining it in so much depth. Um, I can definitely relate to being a high sensation uh seeker, um, and I find this is often a contradiction or something which is misunderstood. So I can relate to that desire or that need to uh seek out novelty to new experiences. I've traveled a lot and I do get bored very easily. I constantly, constantly need to be doing and finding new experiences and new projects. But from my experience, it does become overwhelming, and I do need to have that daily self-care practice in place. So I'm just wondering, yeah, because the image I had as well when you were talking was this sense of um this push-pull. So almost as if there's um these conflicting parts within the person. So a part that wants to move forward has this strong drive or willpower, and then a part that needs to retreat and recover. So, what would you say some of the biggest struggles are with that uh that push-pull dynamic within a person if they have these traits existing within themselves?

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Sure, yeah. The biggest the biggest issue uh pretty obviously is overstimulation. So learning where your boundary is for feeling overstimulating and then paying attention to that can be a real problem and a real challenge for high sensation seekers. And very often the sensation seeking wins out over the sensitive part, and then they wind up burned out, right? They wind up burned out on their on their jobs, their careers, their relationships, uh, and they wind up not knowing why, right? Because they lack self-awareness. So one of the biggest struggles also is self-awareness, not knowing why you feel the way you do, why you seek out novelty, new experiences, why, why, you know, just why you know, why you feel overstimulated. It can be so confusing for so many people, and it could be a kind of tangled web that has to be picked apart. But again, there's so many great resources now. And I've done a number of these interviews talking about high sensation seekers. People tend to love to talk about that. And I'm happy to do so because I love having those resources out there for people because it is such a challenge to pick it apart. And if I can describe it in a way that makes sense, then I can short uh circuit that process so that people have a greater self-awareness of both traits and not see either one as a pathology. But there are definitely challenges in place, and having a self-care practice really apply to both traits. If you can't balance it out, uh it really can become a major problem in your life. And people do uh really succumb to what um has been described as kind of unsocialized, high sensation seeking that is impulsive. And then you can have real, real problems in life. And if you put the high highly sensitive part into the shadow side where you're not really uh acknowledging or honoring it, then it becomes something that is a real struggle within your own self. So it's a relief to know that you're highly sensitive and to understand that and the way those four uh DOES aspects work together, but you can also see how the aspects of sensation seeking power or trigger the overstimulation at the same time. So you really do have to really understand the way those two traits work so you can put it to work in your life because they are the best of both worlds, really, when they're balanced out.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Yeah, and you mentioned self-care practices. I'm wondering what what would that look like for someone? What would that involve in terms of having a self-care practice or uh seeking a balance between these aspects?

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Sure. Yeah, absolutely. So uh we've worked on self-care a lot this year, particularly with last year being so hard on people. But one of the main things that involves is learning how to set and enforce and maintain boundaries. So many sensitive people they don't really understand. They know that they feel overaroused, but they're sometimes very afraid of confrontation because it's terribly overstimulating when you're in a confrontation with someone and when they're intruding on you. So learning how to set a boundary very often uh requires that you have already exceeded what should have been a boundary in the first place. So learning to set and force and maintain boundaries and revisit them over time because we change over time, and maybe boundaries need to be done away with or set at a different place. So we can maintain so we can not only protect ourselves, but it protects other people, right? So they know that they're not doing something that is intrusive on us because they may not be aware of that. A lot of people are crossing boundaries because they don't know a boundary exists. So it protects ourselves and protects other people. That's one of the key things about having a really strong self-care practice is boundary setting and maintaining. But another key aspect is really being able to question our perceptions. So very often we perceive reality in a particular way, and sometimes it's due to the culture that we come from, the socioeconomic background that we come from, our education level, our own personal biases and prejudices. But learning To become a really rational thinker, not only a rational thinker, but a rational creative thinker, that's really the highest aspiration. And we should be working towards that so that we're using both of those capacities, that logical thinking capacity that's very rational and can think problems through in a very particular way, while also having the creative thinking part that can generate ideas and options. And the two work together in an interplay that's not often acknowledged. But that is a key part of self-care as well, so that we're thinking in an accurate, rational, and creative way. And one of the big things that uh that that serves is being able to question our perceptions. Are we viewing reality or the things that happen to us in an accurate way? So it can help to have another person whom we trust to give us an objective opinion about whether we are thinking of the situation in an accurate way or whether we're not, whether we're overreacting or spending too much time on or assigning too much to it. And very often what can happen is we feel a sense of shame when we attribute it to our own selves. Um, and that can be a major thing to overcome and to be aware of. So the crux of self-care really is thinking in terms of taking care of yourself in every possible way. It's often confused as a fad, you know, self-care, but it's really much deeper than that. And it has to be viewed almost like a spiritual practice, something that you really take seriously and that you you set those boundaries, you're able to question and evaluate and adjust your perceptions as necessary, and that you do all of the other things that will keep you functional and well balanced. And that's a hard thing to do for people, particularly sensitive people, because we tend to neglect our own lead, our own needs many times and be people pleasers. So we tend to not be able to say no. And again, it comes down to their appropriate mentoring, you know, teaching someone how to be highly sensitive so that they don't get walked all over all the time, so that they actually are able to step into their own personal power. Because when they can, they have these incredible gifts, right? Of being intelligent, being a deep thinker, and noticing subtleties, and you know, it can be very effective leaders and healers and educators and so on.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Yeah, absolutely. And boundaries, yeah, 100%. I mean, again, in the work I do, that comes up all the time, and it's about communicating those boundaries as well. One of the things I teach is nonviolent communication, and I find that sense of um helping highly sensitive people tap into what they're feeling, what their needs are, and then being able to communicate those is so crucial. So, yeah, I really like how you link that to the self-care practice. And as you were talking, I was just wondering how how does this relate to being introverted andor extroverted? Because I know there's a lot of um questions about this as well, or misconceptions in terms of um being highly sensitive and being introverted. And then I thought, yeah, if you're a high sensation seeker, then that you know relates to extroversion, perhaps. So what yeah, what's the correlation between those dynamics?

SPEAKER_00 25:03

There is a lot of confusion around that, and it it is easy to confuse it, but some 70% of highly sensitive people are more introverted and 30% are extroverted, which seems to be counterintuitive that you could have an extroverted HSP, but absolutely there are 30% that are extroverted, or about one-third, and they have the same kind of issue, and they may be more social and make sense of reality amongst each other, other people who are extroverted by talking about it, right? By verbalizing. That's how they make sense of reality, is externally, where an introvert makes sense of reality within their own mind, kind of by themselves, intuitively, instinctively. The problem with being extroverted and highly sensitive is they still have the lower threshold for over-arousal. So they may seem extroverted on the surface, but at some point they're going to cross that threshold and they're going to feel like they need to back away. And other people may not understand that, particularly other extroverts, particularly who are less sensitive, who don't have that same lower threshold for over-arousal. Their threshold may be much higher. So they can tolerate a whole lot more social stimulation than the highly sensitive extrovert. Now, being high sensation seeking sometimes can be correlated or thought of as being extroverted, but it's really not necessarily the case. Myself, for instance, I mean, I'm an introvert at high sensation seeking HSP. You wouldn't know that from talking to me now, but I absolutely am. And uh I don't ext I don't identify as extroverted in the slightest. I can play the role, which I think a number of us that are introverted learn to do that very well. We can play the role of the extrovert, but then I'm gonna take hours off to rest and recuperate, you know, after. So there's that understanding that I can play a role very effectively, and I've had to learn to do that as a professor, as an educator, um, as someone who works with people, you know, on a daily basis. Um I can play that role very effectively and come across as someone who is very extroverted, but it's not the case at all. And I think it's the same for other people. There are extroverted high sensation seekers for sure, and it seems as if they're all extroverted because they seem to be acting that way on the surface, but you never know what's right beneath there. There could be an introvert that's um high sensation seeking and also an HSP. It's everybody's different, and we have you know a whole variety of different personality traits that intersect at any time.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Yeah, absolutely. And I can also relate to that. Um, I believe a lot of people assume I'm extroverted through the work I do. I also do a lot of workshops and teach and do the podcast that we're talking on right now. But my nature is to be introverted. Yeah, so that's my innate trait. And um, like you just said, it's uh it's a role, it's a specific role that we can slip into. But at the same time, this comes back to what you said earlier about awareness. And, you know, if we're aware what our innate traits are, then we can do what is right for us in terms of the self-care practice again and and navigating the world in the way that suits us. Uh, so I think, yeah, it's a really, really interesting conversation. And um, I just want to now talk a little bit about your the new documentary that you were a part of, which is Sensitive Men Rising. Um, and yeah, could you talk a bit more about the documentary and how, again, it relates to helping highly sensitive men?

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Sure, I would love to. Yeah, Will Harper, the direct Indie Award-winning director of Sensitive Dental Story, and he has directed so many incredible things and worked with amazing people, including he was a director for the Oprah show for quite a while. Um, and he's worked in television, he's worked in film. Um, he approached me about doing this film and working together because I've been working in the space of working with sensitive men for quite some time. And we came up with this idea together to do sensitive men rising, right? And we've been putting this together over time, over months and months, and we did a fundraiser recently. And we were lucky enough to make a connection with Luke Goss, who is very well known in the UK, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Yeah, as a member of the 80s boy band bros with his brother Matt. And he's also been in over 25 action films in Hollywood, and uh he's an amazing, highly sensitive man, right? And um, yeah, we're so lucky to hook up with him, and he's going to be in the film. And we also have another musical celebrity that's going to be in the film, but we're not ready quite to announce that yet. But if that happens, that's going to be an incredible addition as well, because he he's such a uh an amazingly touching, highly sensitive performer. That's really all I can say. But you will connect with the story when you hear it. But the sensitive men rising film uh is going to present the global perspective. That's our intent, is to present a real global perspective of highly sensitive men from around the world, not only present the positive aspects, but the negative aspects, the challenges that we face, but also the opportunities. So a real complete look, probably as only HSTs would do.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

In true documentary fashion. So it won't have narrative um guiding the discussion, but rather the stories will tell themselves. So people have this space within the film to absorb and to just be part of it for time. And the idea is to open the door for sensitive men and to say that it being a sensitive man is not such a big deal. You know, learn to own it, learn to get past the word sensitive. In fact, we have a chapter in there in the film called the S-word. So we're gonna look at the problem with the word sensitive and take it head on. We're gonna tackle it head on and say, you know, it's not such a big deal. We're limited by by words, by the lexicon, and by words to describe what it means to be sensitive. We're gonna say, get beyond it. We all need to get beyond that as men because we have these incredible gifts at the same time of being deep-minded and being high empathy and having this emotional range and noting subtleties. And that's an incredible sort of thing that the world needs in terms of healers and leaders and educators and so on. And we need these men to come forward, and so we're opening the door for them in a really big grand way. But this film won't be the only thing that we do. Once we open the door, we also want to keep it open. So there will be further things after this. But this film is tremendously exciting. And we also have Dr. Elaine Aaron, the originator of sensory processing sensitivity, on board. So she's gonna be a part of the film as well. So we have this incredible production team and and Luke Goss's production team as well, because he has a film company of his own. And so we have these people on board there to help us to create this wonderful documentary, and it's gonna be true cinematic style, so it's gonna be a beautiful thing to watch at the same time, an aesthetic experience that sensitive people will appreciate.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

Yeah, it's really exciting. As you're talking about it, I'm getting shivers down my spine. Um, and I love the title as well, Sensitive Men Rising, because I do believe so strongly that um more than ever there is a need for men to step forward in terms of embracing sensitivity. And you know, you mentioned there's so many um negative connotations surrounding the word. And you mentioned some of the struggles that men have. And I'm just wondering if you could talk a bit more about that. What where what are these struggles and where do they come from? Um why is it such a struggle for men to embrace their sensitivity? I know that's a big question, but yeah, could you say a bit more about that?

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Sure, absolutely. So it's it's hard for men, particularly in Western cultures, but in many cultures where the notion of what it means to be masculine comprises a particular set of criteria. Um, and learning to conform to that sometimes, or many, many times, is quite difficult for sensitive men because we don't necessarily identify with things like being highly competitive, highly aggressive, being uh uh you know, sexually dominant over women, or uh being uh apathetic or unemotional, you know, just the opposite of being a sensitive person. We're we're often taught these things early on, and we're we're it's also glorified in the media. So when we see movies, many times they're over the top. There are these guys that are completely just the opposite of sensitivity. And sensitivity is a general trait, right? It exists in all people to some degree. We're just at the high end of it with the 20% that are highly sensitive, but there's a whole middle group that are moderately sensitive, and then there are people at the bottom group that are low sensitive. But really looking at that, there are people uh that are less sensitive that don't understand why a young boy would be more empathetic, right? Or would be a deeper thinker, and because they fear that that boy won't be able to fit in and do well in life, uh, and sometimes they're projecting their own fears, their own psychological fears, their own inadequacies, their own lack of owning their own lives onto their children. And so they prevent these young boys from really being who they are, really being able to step into their own power as they grow up. And they place these robots in the way, and then culture gets a hold of them at some point and starts to mold and shape them, and then parents don't have as much influence at some point. Um, once they become teenagers, very often the culture has a hold of them, and then it molds and shapes them into something that doesn't necessarily resemble who that person is at all. And it can be a long time after that before a grown adult man decides that I really don't, I really don't want to be like this, or I really don't identify with this, and he can struggle with that most of his life in some cases. It can be quite difficult to reconcile uh feeling empathy, you know, at such a strong level or feeling strong, quick emotions as we sensitive people do. That can be hard for a man because men are by cultural, by many cultures, supposed to be unemotional, stoic, right? So stoicism is often misconstrued. Stoicism actually means that you really focus on the things you can do something about and don't focus on the things you can't. It doesn't mean ignoring everything at all. So it's often very often misconstrued. Stoicism actually is a wonderful philosophy of life. But uh the difficulties for a man, particularly a sensitive man, is you know, learning how to live in a world that doesn't necessarily value his sensitivity in many cases. So that seems to be changing. And we aim to really help speed that process along with this film because we have people, men from all walks of life, and we also have women, because men don't exist in a vacuum, right? We all we all live together. So we're really going to show the function of the trait. We really want to show what men do with being highly sensitive. So show it not as a pathology, but show it as this benefit, as this gift, almost as a superpower, in a way, that you have this deeper mind and this stronger empathy, and you notice subtleties and all of these wonderful things, you know, openness and creativity and innovation. You can be a tremendous person out in the world, but you got to learn to own it and not worry about culture and what culture wants you to be, the nice little box that they have designed for you. You have to just step aside. And there's a good study that shows that sensitive people pay less attention to culture. So we need to really heed that, that we men, especially that are sensitive, need to not worry about culture. We need to be our own person, reinvent culture because each one of us is a participant in culture. And so we have a say every single day about what we believe and how we act.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

Yeah, and as you're talking, um, I worked as a teacher for a long time in primary education, and um I'm reminded of the importance of educating um children about this because you know it really is ingrained in the school culture and it does start in it in the education system, this sense of young boys, like you said, um, believing it's not okay to show their emotions or this sense of, oh yeah, you just need to get over it or move on, or um not giving them time to process. Um right, yeah. And so I think, yeah, as you said, it really starts from a young age, the sense of um men and women uh believing that they have to be a certain way. Um, but you mentioned this idea of sensitive people being great leaders. And I was just wondering, yeah, what is it about the sensitivity that enables someone to be a great leader for you? What does what's the correlation there?

SPEAKER_00 38:01

Yeah, there's a couple of things, and some of the some of the best historical figures, you know, like Einstein, for instance, uh Abraham Lincoln, Sir Isaac Newton, Winston Churchill, your own Winston Churchill was highly sensitive, very likely from everything that we know from the historical record. They seem to fit the profile of being highly sensitive. So, what kind of qualities did he exhibit or do we exhibit as leaders that make us really well suited to leadership? Because you might think that being a leader means that you have to bash people to get things done. But really, being an effective leader means that you are able to build those social connections, right? Build those social networks, those systems of reciprocity. So when you need to get things done, you can call those favors in because you build connections, right? You don't just threaten and intimidate and control, but you actually have that empathy. So you know how to build other people up. You learn how to not be as egocentric. So you don't take credit for everything that happens, but rather you give credit where it belongs with the people who actually accomplish the goal. So being a really effective leader, I think a sensitive person is uniquely suited to being truly effective as a leader, but they also have to own their own sensitivity at the same time to be able to do that. So it's really for sensitive people that are evolved or so are somewhat further down on their journey so that they have a real understanding of what it means to be highly sensitive and how to utilize that, because a lot of highly sensitive people do not, and they struggle with the overstimulation, they may never get past that. But being a really effective leader means that you really own that in a way, so that you're understanding how to use your depth of processing, right? Your deep thinking, your deep mind. Um, so when there are problems, and there are always problems in your leader, you know how to pick the problem apart. You know how to put people together in teams because you can use the empathy. So you know this person's disposition and this person's temperament, and they would work well together. You notice subtle cues as well. So you can pick up on those small details that need to still be addressed, or you make a very effective planner. So you think ahead to the big picture, not just the trees, but you see the forest. You can make a tremendously effective leader if you really can come to own those four aspects of high sensitivity. And we have some of the greatest leaders out there are highly sensitive, but not in every case. In some cases, you need leaders that can make very fast decisions, right? That are not necessarily the best long-term plans, but that will accomplish a particular goal quickly. So when things are not as much of an emergency or a brush fire, then sensitive leaders can really come in and work their magic at building and growing the potential of other people as well as themselves. Because we sensitive people know that the most fulfilling part of life isn't necessarily our own stories, but helping to contribute to the stories of other people so that we get that satisfaction and gratification that comes from seeing other people achieve, from seeing them grow and develop and heal themselves.

SPEAKER_01 40:53

Yeah, absolutely. And I do find, again, with a lot of the highly sensitive people I work with, there's a natural desire to want to help others or to step into that role of being a healer or coach, therapist, teacher, some kind of guide for others. And so that there is that pull towards wanting to, as you pointed out, help others to reach their full potential. So I think that's really inspiring and important for people listening to be reminded of, you know, instead of seeing sensitivity as something that holds you back, it's actually something which can propel you forward. So you've mentioned quite a few resources today in some of your seminars and books that you've written. And I will include all of the links to those in the show notes. I'm just wondering, do you have a specific book or something or reference that you would say that definitely all people listening today need to look at or read? Is there anything specific that comes to mind?

SPEAKER_00 41:59

There's so many that are available. From Elaine Aaron's uh first book, you know, The Highly Sensitive Person. Um that's a really great book to read to start out with. I mean, there's so many wonderful ones. If you're interested in Sensitive Men, then I have the book, Empowering the Sensitive Male Soul. Tom Falkenstein has the book, The Highly Sensitive Man. And he's a psychotherapist, so he presents that different viewpoint. Um, and Tom Falkenstein will also be in Sensitive Men Rising. I'm proud to say that.

SPEAKER_01 42:25

Oh, fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

And he is actually a UK native, so you have that as well.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Yeah, yeah, brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 42:32

You're interested in uh high sensation seeking. I have the only book out there with Thrill, the High Sensation Seeking, Highly Sensitive Person. Um, there are a couple of books on Career that are really good. My book, Thrill, The Highly Sensitive Person in Career. Making Work Work for the Highly Sensitive Person by Barry Yeager is a good one as well. Um, and there seems to be a plethora of books. There's one uh on brain research, actually, by Bianco Asivito. That's a really good book.

SPEAKER_01 42:58

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:59

Uh Elaine Aaron has another one, um psychotherapy for the highly sensitive person. So that's a bunch of books. And it's being added to every year. In fact, I'm doing a new book on creativity in the highly sensitive person. So I'm so excited about that one because that's almost like full circle for me. Um, where I started this journey was just intentionally being very open to what um I could become, who I could become, and then what good I could do with that in the world. So doing something on creativity is for me like full circle. So really coming into an ownership of that creativity and seeing what it means to other people. Not only creativity in the sense of creating things, as in artistic products, but creating your life, using creativity in a higher spiritual sense. So that's going to be an incredible addition as well to the kind of uh books that are available out there. But I'll leave you with a really great quote that I love though. Creativity is intelligence having fun. And Albert Einstein said that.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

I'm really excited to hear. Your book as well. When is that coming out? Is that do you know? Do you have a date for that?

SPEAKER_00 44:05

Or I'm actually working on the interviews and studies for that now. Um, so it's kind of happening concurrently part-time along with Sensitive Men Rising film. But I expect end of the year or beginning of next year, will uh the creativity book will come out.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

And sensitive men rising, what's the release date for the film?

SPEAKER_00 44:27

We're hoping for this fall. We're still in the late pre-production stage and we're set to begin filming here within the hopefully within the next few weeks. And it's going to happen very, very quickly as uh Wool Harper goes one way and I go the other way in the United States. And we're going to be interviewing lots of people and uh collecting those so that we can begin the uh processing part or the production part and then the post-production and putting it together.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

Yeah, brilliant. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to seeing that. And so we're coming close to the end, but I just want to ask you what it is that inspires you or drives you to do the work that you do, the amazing, incredible work that you're doing, so many different projects. Um what is it that fuels that for you?

SPEAKER_00 45:13

I I think it's a sense of curiosity that I've always had since I was a young boy. I mean, I was always a very curious person about what I could do, what could I become, and how can I do something with that. Only as an adult middle-aged man, it's, you know, I have a particular place in the world now as a PhD, as an educator, as a professor, and as a consultant and an advocate for highly sensitive people. Since I've become part of this whole world, or rather, this has become a part of my world, it's become part of my mission to help raise consciousness and awareness in other people so that they can grow and develop. So I've really, I'm really driven by the idea of being a servant leader, of really helping and empowering other people to achieve not only their full potential, but help them reach their goals. Because they do set goals, and I really love helping people reach goals. I work with dissertation students that are doing their education doctorates for uh leadership and higher education at Baker University, and it's amazing to help other people become doctors, you know, people that are going to change the lives of thousands of people during their careers. So I I'm cowered now by what are the possibilities each day? Because there's always new things that I can become a part of. Uh, sometimes it's interviews like this that I can do, and sometimes it's engaging in big projects like Sensitive En Rising. Uh, so it's creativity, really. It's wallowing in creativity and just luxuriating in it because it's an amazing life that you can create and you can do wonderful things during your time on this earth.

SPEAKER_01 46:45

Yeah, absolutely. And that desire for creativity for me, as you're talking, relates to the high sensation-seeking part of you, right? That's that's what I hear coming through. Um, that desire to make the most of every opportunity and to keep um helping and serving others, you know, like you just said, knowing the impact you can make on the world. I I think um that's innate to so many highly sensitive people. So I really appreciate you sharing that. And is there anything else you'd like to share about what we've spoken about today? Is there anything you feel we haven't touched upon that is crucial to talk about?

SPEAKER_00 47:27

There's always so much to talk about when it comes to sensitive people and high sensation seeking and sensitive men and many other areas. But I think that it's it's so crucial to, if you're new to understanding that you're highly sensitive, to partake of some of the resources that are out there because they'll help you along your way so much more quickly than if you struggle and try to figure it out on your own. Um, sensitive to Untold Story is the film that is the best quick introduction. It's a one-hour film, but it will introduce you to the science. And so it's really important to understand that high sensitivity has a lot of science behind it, very good science, and that science is ongoing. So there are over a hundred studies that have been conducted on sensory processing sensitivity, and it's been envisioned in different ways, including most recently in environmental sensitivity. So work is still ongoing, but it seems to be holding up over time. And I would say just stay tuned for all the wonderful materials that are coming out because they're all designed to help you along your journey to reaching a high level of self-awareness so that you can get beyond this overstimulation and so you understand how to mitigate it and develop a self-care practice for yourself so you can take advantage of the openness and the creativity and the deep-mindedness, you know, and you can do that. You can decide for yourself how you want to show up in the world, and that could be in a quiet way. You know, you can become a quiet leader and be extremely effective, or you can become someone that just does something very that's much quieter and much more uh reclusive, and that's totally fine too. But you'll be able to choose how you show up in the world, and you won't feel as if you're being held back by being highly sensitive. Because if you feel that way, it just means you don't have enough self-awareness yet, or you haven't worked on overcoming traumas and healing from the past. So there's so much that can be done to help people, and I'm just a part of that journey.

SPEAKER_01 49:16

And the word that comes to mind is community as well, the importance of community and making those connections and realizing that you're not alone on this journey.

SPEAKER_00 49:26

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 49:27

Yeah, and and so speaking about all of these resources that you've mentioned today and all of the projects and work that you're involved in, where can listeners go to find out more about your work? Is there a specific website you have, or where would you like to direct them to?

SPEAKER_00 49:42

Yeah, I'm most active on Facebook, believe it or not. I find that to be the most convenient way for me to post things is through Facebook. I have a website as well, but I don't use it that much. So I recommend people like visit my page or like it at Facebook. It's at TracyCooperph. And the other page that I'm really active on is at Sensitive Men Rising. Uh I have I have a personal page, but if you like that, all you're gonna see are pictures of cats. So nothing on HSPs on my personal page, but the two professional pages is where you'll find most of my stuff. And I'm also on LinkedIn, again, TracyCooper PhD. Um, and feel free to connect. I'm always happy to build my network out. And uh, so if you're working with HSPs or NHSV, I'm happy to connect. And it's it's an amazing life, and you're totally not alone.

SPEAKER_01 50:30

Brilliant. Thank you for sharing those. And I will put them in the show notes so people can access those easily. I'm interested about the cats, though. Are you a big cat fan?

SPEAKER_00 50:39

You have um cats as pets or yeah, I have this beautiful female Siamese, and I I like to call her my I like to call her my assistant um because she keeps me on schedule. She has this internal clock inside of her somehow. And she comes in at meowls when it's time for me to go to bed or it's time for me to do something.

SPEAKER_01 50:58

Brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 50:59

But she's really in charge, I think, and she's this most beautiful Siamese with the blue eyes, and she's a seal point. Because I have this, and she's just the most gorgeous kitty. And so I've always had a love for cats. They've always been my friends and my companions.

SPEAKER_01 51:11

Lovely. And maybe she's highly sensitive as well.

SPEAKER_00 51:15

Oh, no doubt. I I know she absolutely is, and so we get along famously.

SPEAKER_01 51:19

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being on the episode today. It's been a pleasure talking to you, and thank you for all of the amazing uh resources and projects that you're working on for highly sensitive people.

SPEAKER_00 51:32

Yeah, my pleasure, Jules. It's uh it was fun doing the interview.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

Thanks for joining me this week on Highly Sensitive Humans. Make sure to visit my website, highly sensitivehumans.com, where you can subscribe to the show and find out more about my upcoming workshops, my online eight-week course, and where I also offer one-to-one coaching for highly sensitive people. And if you found value in the show today, I'd really appreciate a rating. Or if you'd simply share this episode with your friends or other highly sensitive people, that would help support this podcast.