Summer Reading: A Memoir, A Mystery, and an Excellent Book on Meditation

Originally published in Comfort Zone Newsletter: May 2012.

1. H. R. Ellis II, HSP, has written a mystery novel, Law School, with an HSP as the protoganist. Here is what he writes about it for Comfort Zone (read this even if you never read the novel!):

A highly sensitive person (HSP) makes the perfect hero. Skeptical? Keep reading.

Years ago, I toiled by day as an Assistant Attorney General and worked by night on a novel titled Law School. I had a promising murder mystery, but a weak main character. The law student protagonist was plain, lame, and with no name. Well, my office was on the fourth floor of the Alabama Statehouse. One morning, I smelled the smoke of an electrical fire. I mentioned it to others, but no one else noticed. Later that day, word arrived of a minor electrical fire… in the basement, four floors from where I had somehow sensed it.

Word of this “HSP moment” (and other similar events) apparently reached the woman who then worked as our appellate brief editor. She also served as our “counselor in residence.” We all took our problems to her, and she had us all figured out, including me, who she labeled “tactile.” Once as I walked past her office door, she said, “You should be a detective.” A light came on in my head. I had read The Highly Sensitive Person, and, it hit me: An HSP makes the perfect sleuth! …and the perfect hero my novel needed.

Back to the drawing board for my novel. With an assist from Elaine, I rebuilt my book around a new protagonist: a “sensitive,” intuitive guy who was “…one of them people who knows stuff and don’t know how he knows it…” Hard to imagine a better crime solver, isn’t it? Another possible example: Sherlock Holmes. In the second of the new Holmes movies with Robert Downey, Jr. in the title role, a woman asks Holmes–as they whirl about a crowded dance floor–“What do you see?” His response? “I see everything.” Like Sherlock, HSPs don’t miss much.

Hence, my novel had a new hero, a humble, principled, unusually observant guy named Seth Sentel. Here’s how Seth became a hero, maybe how every HSP can be one:

1. Seth embraced his gifts. Do likewise. Revere the positive side of the double-edged HSP sword. Know your useful skill set. Read Elaine’s book again. Ponder deeply what you have. This part should be easy.
2. Guard against how your gifts can get you into trouble, i.e., if you can spot beauty or charisma a mile away, be certain such traits are attached to good character. Otherwise, like Seth, you might walk into a trap.
3. When Seth’s gifts did land him in trouble, he got help. Consider following his example.
4. Things get tough for Seth. He gets overwhelmed. He must choose: Be strong, or be defeated. Seth draws on his inner toughness. Then, he finds where evil is hiding, and defeats it. So, when life out-guns you, have courage. Don’t quit.

Seth was hit from all sides, however, he didn’t just overcome; he excelled. So can we. Seth, a man of faith, realized he’d been given some special birthday presents from God, and concluded they were his for a reason. Now, he had confidence. He had important things to accomplish and a little magic with which to do so, just like all HSPs. So, stop “lazing around in the lobby of destiny,” as Seth’s best friend advised him. Get busy doing what you were made for!

2. Paul Wortman, an HSP and good friend of mine, has written a memoir, Think Jung! How I Found Meaning in My Life that you might enjoy. He self-published it through Amazon and it is developing a nice following. It has definitions and examples of Carl Jung’s major concepts and an introduction to Jungian dream analysis spread throughout. He does all of this through 44 short memoirs, so it is easy to pick up and read a little at a time. They are highly personal and honest, about his suffering in childhood; his life as a professor in the highly competitive world of academia; his marriage, travels and adventures, and above all, his long path of healing from that difficult childhood.

This is not one of those fictionalized memoirs in which you don’t know what’s true, what’s not. This is real life. It has a nice homey, reassuring quality in that way, complete with photos of himself and his wife and friends and a cover designed by his son. But this is well written, not homey in that sense. Paul must have a record for the number of letters he has had published in the New York Times, a very picky place. Oh yes, I wrote the Foreword.

3. Jonathan Shear, Ph.D., has edited a volume, The Experience of Meditation, which allows experts from each of the ten major meditation traditions to write about their method and the philosophy behind it. From the brain research on meditation, and from a careful comparison, it’s so clear that there are major differences in meditation practices. Each author is dedicated to explaining their approach, and in themselves the chapters are illuminating. More important perhaps for those who want to meditate, or are questioning the form of meditation they do now, this book finally provides an opportunity to compare methods in a more objective way than your meditation teacher telling you why other methods are not as good.

Not only does the book include the meditation schools we are most familiar with, such as Zen, TM, and mindfulness, but also Tibetan Buddhism, Kriya Yoga, Integral Yoga, yoga generally, Qigong, Sufism, and Christian Centering Prayer. I especially enjoyed the Sufi author (without having to become a Sufi). Each has something to offer an HSP.