Ep. #62 The Highly Sensitive Personality Trait w/ William Allen

Underground Antics with Shane Pokroy

William Allen is an author with a writer’s heart and researcher’s mind. After getting a degree in Psychology with an eye on doing psychology research, he recalibrated for a career in Information Technology. He found himself in a thirty-year career as an Information Technology manager at Wells Fargo who enjoyed managing highly intelligent, often difficult staff, many of whom were highly sensitive. He was awarded a prestigious Corporate Management Excellence award for his empathetic management style.

He retired early from his corporate job to found his Hypno-coaching and neurofeedback brain training business, BrainPilots, in Bend, Oregon. While in Bend, he co-organized the area’s first Introvert/Highly Sensitive Person discussion group. In late 2016, he began his blog, The Sensitive Man, about his experiences as a highly sensitive man. The blog became the genesis of his book, Confessions of a Sensitive Man. He feels that HSP males need to take their keen insights and intuition and make them public. He would like to shed more light on highly sensitive males and the much-needed role they need to take in our society.

In this episode, Bill and I discuss the evolution and function of the Highly Sensitive Personality Trait. A highly sensitive person (HSP) is a term used to describe the group of people who process information deeply - this includes emotions, thoughts and sensory stimuli. Like any personality trait, there are both advantages and disadvantages and exists as a spectrum. High sensitivity is often associated with creativity, empathy, and insight but also tends to mean they are more prone to being overwhelmed by stressors and sensory input. Being an HSP isn’t a bad thing, and William is on a mission to spread the word and help educate people.

As Bill explains, HSPs are often misunderstood in our modern times, and HSPs often feel undervalued, overlooked, or rejected by society - this can lead to feelings of aloneness, estrangement, and needing to ‘hide’ their true selves. This tends to be especially true of highly sensitive men who do not conform to normative standards of ‘ideal’ masculinity. William wants to change the way we think of what it means to be a man in today’s world. He argues that we should start to re-examine the values we attribute to ideal men, and open the conversation to include the strengths of sensitivity, intuition, and insight.

Get a copy of William’s Books: Confessions of a Sensitive Man: An Unconventional Defense of Sensitive Men

On Being a Sensitive Man: Success Strategies for Harnessing Your Highly Sensing Nature

More of William: 🙏🏽 Website: The Sensitive Man 🙏🏽 Twitter: @TheSensitiveMa1 🙏🏽 Facebook: The Sensitive Man

More of Shane: 🙏🏽 Underground Antics Website 🙏🏽 LinkedIn: Shane Pokroy 🙏🏽 Instagram: @shanepokroy 🙏🏽 Facebook: @UndergroundAnticsPodcast

🎧 Listen and subscribe to Underground Antics on your favourite pod