TL;DR:
This week, I launch the West Coast Acadian podcast with a new take on an old fairy tale. To set the stage, I wrote this blog post about my experience with The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine N. Aron—a life-changing read that helped me reframe sensitivity not as a flaw, but as a deep and powerful trait. If you’ve ever felt “too much” or wondered why the world hits you harder than others, this blog post (and the episode to come) is for you.

Don’t feel like reading? No worries—the podcast episode dives deep into The Princess and the Pea. We’ll read both versions written by men, analyze them through a feminist lens, unpack the idea of sensitivity, and reimagine the tale as a myth for women—not just a fairy tale.

#staytuned

It's been years since I read this book but I cannot begin to explain this week's story until I share a book that informed my reexamination of who I thought I was as I experienced my twenties with a baby on my hip. 

I'm launching into this same process of self-reflection as I approach forty (40) years of age   with a teenage cracking hilarious one-liners. And having slightly more time, I want to share key books, studies, and theories that have shaped and influenced my life. I also want to use the podcast / website's blog to share my voyage into this decade's deep dive... because I feel more inward self-reflection coming. I participated more in community this "school" year than I have in previous years because I am narrowing down my purpose and my love.

Love?

Yes. Love. Unlike Steve Jobs, I don't think you should find what you love and turn it into work, that's an unkind thing to do to something or someone you love. 

However, when you love something truly, you choose that over yourself, and it's especially beautiful when two people choose each other. 

When a person chooses some thing, even over themselves, the results can be kind of ugly. That's kind of the dark world that I live in, but it's not a madness I can really and readily describe.

My love and madness isn't a substance, or a thing, it's a habit.

My love is a madness for connection, a need to share what I've seen before I die and it becomes pointless to add my two cents, as well as impossible. I don't want to yell into a vacuum or proselytize on a mount, I just want to tell stories and have conversations and change hearts and open minds. 

There's so much sadness in the world that bringing more beauty into it is a spiritual calling, because all spiritual work is technically unpaid, they encapsulate their work in objects they can sell and we call them artists. 

I am an artist and my first medium is the written word. 

My mother said I went from single sounds, to words, to sentences. I went from standing to running. But I babbled those single sounds, and I stood around clutching furniture, for what would be a long time - it seemed. And when I was ready to run they had to put a leash on me in public because I had a tendency to run away and then get lost.

I learn a tool, then I wield it and test it. It's part of my personality. 

Although everyone with a touch of neurodiversity is probably screaming "she has the 'Tism!" with the enthusiasm of witch hunters, I actually didn't know I had autism until my child was diagnosed, so I had to develop other language in my head. I also had to learn tools on my own because in small communities, people are prejudiced openly about gender and sex, it's so much worse when they know you are different cognitively. Women like this are saints in my opinion. They find a way to understand others' situations and find a way to give them the tools they need in the context with which they need it. Below you will learn about one such angel in my own life.

Changing the Narrative

Most of the language in my head before that had become a narrative around what was "wrong with me." My own words were merely internalized questions from dozens over the years; and yes, it's still a work in progress dismantling those beliefs. I am actively working to dismantle limiting beliefs about myself because I have really only been taught those, and every time I try something new, people who love me become scared for me. I can become very dark after failing sometimes.

I see the "hopeful but cautious" look on family faces, the side-eye from arm-chair judges without day-jobs. How else would you interpret that as a cycle? Sure, learning to walk was painful, but if I wince at every failure my child had when they are teaching themselves to walk, both I and my child will become scared of failure, and that path leads to choosing to stop trying. Not a helpful habit. 

To be clear, failure isn't a habit it's a step toward success. But it isn't if we give up, and giving up can definitely become a habit. 

Extremes become our norm when we are unwell, and it is due in part because we are more sensitive and we are more likely to internalize the maltreatment we receive even if we can logically and cognitively believe that we don't deserve it. It's one of the weaknesses / strengths of neurodiversity that we experience some of the extremes of the physical and cognitive universes that we inhabit, and then we also have to get along with folks who have never even been exposed to those extremes. 

For example, a nurotypical person with good health will be able to cognitively convince themselves (maybe after a day or two of consideration, if any) that the slight from the friend at the event wasn't personal. For myself and other sensitives, and especially women, it can become almost impossible to separate the slight from ourselves, making it exceptionally personal. Then, we test it and develop narrative around the event. 

At its extreme expression, this pattern of obsession can become a cycle of distraction and triggering, creating expressions of mental and cognitive decline. However, most folks only have a few brushes with mental illness in their life. Maybe a few extra weeks of blues around a baby's birth or a longer grief period than expected around a death will visit the average person. But we all know someone who is touched with something a little worse, a little scarier, something that will require a nuance that we need to learn from others. Someone who will require us to manage ourselves, as best we are able.

I would bet money if I had any that this is how our early stories around the watering hole likely began. 

One woman bitching to another about how certain behaviours might be unacceptable, or how another woman had clothing they admired. 

Women are more sensitive and it's not a gender thing, it's a sex thing, and a neuro-difference thing. And if you are intrigued, here's a book that changed my life and the trajectory of my choices I made as a new mother:

The first book I want to share with you, is a book that changed my life. That book is - The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine N. Aron. 

Elaine N. Aron’s The Highly Sensitive Person explores what it means to have sensory processing sensitivity (SPS)—a trait that describes people who process stimuli more deeply, feel emotions intensely, and can become overwhelmed by their environments more easily than others. Aron’s work is foundational in understanding the strengths and struggles of high sensitivity, offering practical strategies for navigating relationships, work, and personal well-being. I highly recommend it. 

When I was a teenager, I had a school counsellor sign me up for a workshop that walked us through, by the author himself, "7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens," and at first I had been insulted. I took it way too personally, but I kept that feeling to myself and I went anyways. 

Attending changed my life.

It helped me plan my future better but it didn't necessarily address my own reality.

It was "tool laden," which meant it required both a) cognitive understanding, and b) fully-committed single-party participation. In other words, the onus is on the tool's user. If you don't pick up the hammer, nothing gets built. As a teenager growing out of my "me me me" phase, still highly insecure, this workshop revolutionized my life. As an ex-cadet with instructional skills, the workshop taught me how to not only dissect books with tools in them, but it taught me how to acquire those tools in actuality rather than in mimicry (which is why a lot of self-help programs fail, a lack of commitment to any program leads to failure.)

Aron's book filled me with that same life-changing perspective and gave me a new perch by which to observe my own interior world. It taught me that I was sensitive. 

You might think - Amanda, you were in your twenties before you realized you were sensitive?!

Uhm. Yeah, okay. 

(kicks dirt) 

I feel shame that there are things I learned later in life than others, and it's not really my shame. It's the shame of my family, my community, and my teachers. But I have to feel it for them. 

I know growing up I was slow and I was often bullied for being a bit of a dunce, seeing things differently than others around me, adults, and even sometimes extracurricular activity leaders. The problem though wasn't that I was slow, the problem is that I was deep and adults in the 90's were impatient.

But sensitivity isn’t just about personality—it has biological and neurological roots.

Research suggests that women, on average, are more attuned to subtle emotional cues than men. A study of over 5,000 participants found strong support for the emotional sensitivity hypothesis, reinforcing the idea that women often pick up on low-intensity or ambiguous emotional expressions more easily than their masculine counterparts. 

There’s also a significant overlap between high sensitivity and neurodivergence, particularly autism spectrum disorder (ASD). 

I personally prefer the terminology "Autism Spectrum Conditions," which opens the condition up to both "high-function" folks and those who are challenged by their conditions. To be clear, I wish we had better terminology than "high" and "low function" as the terms come with eugenics-laden meaning from the Nazi-doctor that developed them: Asperger. 

One of the things that many autistic individuals experience is heightened sensory processing, such as reacting more strongly to light, sound, touch, and other stimuli.  Interestingly, another study found that highly sensitive people tend to report more stress-related and somatic symptoms, regardless of their neuroticism levels.

Sensitivity, it seems, isn’t just about how we feel—it affects our physical health.

If this resonates with you, or if you’ve ever wondered whether high sensitivity is a sign of something more, here are some studies worth exploring (click on links to be brought to them):

1. Gender Differences in Emotion Perception – Women tend to be more sensitive to emotional cues than men.
2. Sensory Processing in Autism – How atypical sensory experiences play a role in ASD.
3. Sensitivity & Health – The link between high sensitivity and physical stress symptoms.
4. Cognitive Sensitivity in Women – Women’s sensitivity to trial history in response inhibition tasks.

Sensitivity isn’t a weakness—it’s a way of experiencing the world more deeply. 

But it also comes with challenges, especially in a society that values resilience over reflection. Whether you see yourself in Aron’s Highly Sensitive Person or you’re exploring the science behind sensitivity, it’s worth considering where you fit on the spectrum—and how to care for yourself accordingly. 

One of my favourite paragraphs I discovered came from the last of the above cited sources about Cognitive Sensitivity in Women:

There were no sex differences in overall accuracy or response inhibition but women showed greater sensitivity to trial history. Women sped up more than men following correct “Go” trials, and slowed down more than men following errors. These small but statistically significant effects (Cohen’s d=0.25–0.3) suggest more flexible adjustments in speed-accuracy trade-offs in women and greater cognitive flexibility associated with the responsive control of action.

Sensitivity in my own opinion is something women are good at and arguably, our evolution depends on it. Our mothers' capacity and ability to demonstrate not only sensitivity but emotional responsiveness in both society and in the wild, is one of the hallmarks of womanhood because we are the ones left with the babies. 

Whether we have access to abortion or not, women and girls have been having babies since before the dawn of our theory of time and our measurement of it. One of the first toys we give young girls are baby dolls. 

Today in our society, it's as if we've forgotten the magic that is difference. The magic that is perspective. The magic of women. 

If you need a word other than sensitive, or perhaps for good reason you find the word triggering, then consider yourself a deeply perceptive woman or person. Our Perception, or personal interaction with the world, is different but that means we add colour to this world and our communities. 

Our First Episode

This week, read about the history of fairy tales in western society and hear three distinct versions of The Princess and the Pea along with a deep analysis of the history behind this now infamous tale.

Since I lacked the tools and language as a child to describe my perception of the world, fairy tales were the first narratives and this tale, the Princess and the Pea, was one of the first that acknowledged this difference in perception that women seem to have. 

Tune into the first episode as we learn all about this tale, the origins, the way it was co-opted by men, and then we will finish with my own re-imagining this tale in a way that tries to restore some wisdom and perspective for women by a woman. 

I look forward to telling this story, so don't miss it. 

Thanks for reading!