The Pacific Northwest HSP Network

A social network and support group system for Highly Sensitive People in the Pacific Northwest

Created: 2008.01.25

Last updated: 2008.07.13

About us >>

A few words about how the Network came into being, and the person behind it

I have often been told that I seem far too quiet, soft spoken and introverted to be someone whose life often revolves around helping people make connections. The truth is that even though I am introverted, I also love people. And I especially love seeing people's lives transformed for the better, as a result of their interaction with a new friend.

I'm originally from Denmark, but I have lived in the US since 1981, when I came here to go to college. After many years of living in the south, I finally moved to Port Townsend, Washington, in the late summer of 2006. It seems that I finally have found a place that truly feels like "home" to me.

"You need to stop being so sensitive, if you want to get ahead in life!"

I suppose I have been aware that I was a little "different" since I was quite young. I was the kid who rescued bugs in the house and set them free outside, I was the kid in school who just "wanted everyone to get along" instead of fighting, and I soon learned that I was far more interested in connecting people, than in competing with them. Needless to say, I wasn't much good at team sports, since I didn't like the idea that there had to be "losers" in most situations. The words I heard most frequently as a child was that I took everything "too seriously" and "too personally." And, on occasion, I was told "Oh, stop being so sensitive!"

I did my best to try to live a fairly "normal" life until my mid-30's. I earned a degree in business, and eventually ended up as the principal of an import and retail business. For all intents and purposes, I had achieved the societal interpretation of "success." And yet, I was not very happy with my life.

"Oh, so it's not just ME?"

I read Dr. Elaine Aron's book "The Highly Sensitive Person" in 1997. Many people have since told me that reading the book was like reading a "self description." My experience was a little different, because I was already aware that I was "sensitive," so I wasn't really learning anything new. What made the book very important to me was that I not only was offered a name for this "weirdness" in my life, I suddenly became aware that it wasn't just a personal quirk of my own that I simply needed to learn to deal with, but something that 15% of the population was living with.

There were others like me!

During the subsequent decade, I tried to learn everything I could about this trait; this being a Highly Sensitive Person. In the early days, very little information was available, but as the Internet grew, so did the volume of information about high sensitivity.

Soon usenet groups started to form; they evolved into email groups and message board communties... web sites about sensitivity started appearing all over, and soon I read about something called an "HSP Gathering--" literally a workshop/retreat for HSPs.

I went to my first HSP Gathering in June 2003. Although I was aware of an interesting sense of fellowship and camraderie in the HSP web groups, I had no idea that these positive feelings would "translate" as readily as they did, "in the flesh." After spending five days in the company of 30-odd HSPs, it became very clear to me just HOW important it is for us to have close friendships with other HSPs. As I have said many times, "nobody gets what it's like to live life as an HSP, like another HSP."

Connecting Highly Sensitive People around the world

Since 1997, I have tried my hand at many different aspects of helping HSPs connect. I have been a "community volunteer" in a 4000+ member HSP community on the Internet. I have been a group moderator, in a couple of HSP email groups. I have started and run a couple of dozen local and regional web-based discussion groups for HSPs. I have helped start and run a local HSP social/support group, in Austin, Texas, and have consulted on the creation of similar groups in Boston, New York, Minneapolis, Los Angeles and San Francisco. I have assisted and even co-hosted HSP Gatherings on a national level. I have also presented and facilitated workshops at HSP Gatherings. In the process of doing so, I have had the privilege of meeting 100s of HSPs in person, and have emailed with possibly 1000s, in cyberspace.

Now, it seems, my time has come to not only start another group in my home town, but to try to offer a "container" of sorts, within which other HSPs can more easily and safely try to form groups with their peers wherever they live, around the Pacific Northwest.

On a more personal level...

I started to "reinvent myself" about a decade ago. It was my desire to create a sustainable life in a location where I felt truly at home, in a manner that completely took into account my sensitivities.

So I live in Port Townsend, a peaceful smaller town surrounded by water and mountains, where the pace is slow and comfortable, because the presence of Korporate Amerika is slight, and the population is largely made up of old hippies, artists, writers and other independent spirits. I create a sustainable living by-- in essence-- "playing with my childhood hobbies." I write (I started to keep journals when I was six), I sell rare stamps to stamp collectors (I collected stamps as a child) and I sell "found objects" from the beach to artists, sculptors and jewelers around the world... a continuation of my love of the beach, when I was a child.