Anyone who is extra sensitive can blame it on their genes and past experiences
The evening is progressing well; you are enjoying your glass of wine and the company of friends. Then all of a sudden someone looks at you and makes a remark implying that your outfit is too tight. You find yourself getting red in the face and feel like sinking through the floor. Your feelings of enjoyment are transformed into anger, mixed with humiliation. The evening is ruined for you.
If you are a logical, sane person who experiences this kind of reaction more often than you would like to, you may fall into the category of 'extra-sensitive'. You could very well blame your genes for this: Scientists agree that at least half your personality comes from your gene pool and that sensitivity runs rampant in certain kinds of families. If you happen to be a ruminator (someone who mulls, analyses, etc) you are at higher risk for absorbing negative messages from the environment.
But by reading too much into what other people say or do, we may sometimes overreact to innocuous remarks. Some of us lash out, which just compounds the problem, while others say nothing but brood endlessly instead, which is linked to depression.
Elaine Aron, a psychotherapist and author of The Highly Sensitive Person says that we are all more vulnerable in areas that touch on how we define ourselves.
So if your self-esteem is tied to your work performance you're likely to get more upset if a coworker comments negatively on your report, than if your child tells you that you aren't looking good on a particular day. All of us have a drive for self-verification, to have others reflect the beliefs we hold about ourselves. Most people are highly motivated to believe the best about themselves and go about looking for feedback from others ( sometimes inadvertently) to confirm these good feelings. But someone who is depressed often goes around and seeks negative feedback, to verify her own thoughts. Research supports the idea that bad is stronger than good; bad feedback, bad parenting and bad experiences are more powerful than good ones.
People remember bad more vividly, process it more efficiently, and pay more attention to it. Bad impressions form quicker, and negative feelings tend to linger longer than positive ones. So one's brain can trick one into reinforcing a bad day by recalling bad memories that will confirm the feelings, especially since life experiences help to shape our personalities too. If you acquire some idea about yourself - maybe you were the kid who was always late to school, or never finished her homework assignment on time- the idea that you are "disorganised" will impact your brain circuitry and get built into how you think about yourself.
The human brain loves to categorise and label so while someone is the "pretty one", another is the "smart one" and the third is the "lazy one". One grows accustomed to that label and is constantly recreating that identity, just because it feels familiar.
The way our brains are wired also explains why some people seem to believe the best about themselves while others seize on the most self critical thoughts that crop up in their heads. It turns out that there's a certain area in the brain that's assigned the task of negative thinking, which acts as the barometer of every social interaction we have. It goes on red alert when the feedback you have been getting from others isn't going well.
This area is the anterior cingulate cortex, which turns out to be larger and more influential in women, as it is the brain circuitry for observing emotions in others. This is the reason women are assumed to have more emotional sensitivity. We've been built to be emotionally responsive to the needs of a non- verbal infant.
The hormonal surges in the female brain, described as the rising tide of estrogen and progesterone make women more sensitive to emotional nuance, such as disapproval or rejection: The way feedback is interpreted from other people can depend upon where you are in your cycle.
Some days the feedback will destroy your self-confidence and on others it will destroy it.
There's something about the menstrual cycle which puts a woman's emotional self in a bad light at least a few days every month, and at least 90 percent of women feel a heightened emotionality four to five days every month.
In general women are taught to think more about other people's feelings than men are. So while it's ok for men to be blunt, women are expected to be warmer, more agreeable and more invested in relationships and end up more likely to overreact to minor problems and remarks but there is good news for those who would like to change their perspectives.
If we can enhance memory, which we know we can, then we can change our outlook too and find an alternative way of viewing ourselves. You can transform negative thinking by driving the brain in a different direction: It's all about changing our reactions into more constructive ones.
Doing this repeatedly can help us make a fundamental difference in how our brains operate. Identifying your pattern of negative thinking and the barriers in your mind is the first step towards creating a positive view of yourself.
Our sensitivity to the negative opinion of others is so strong that we record these emotional wounds in the same part of the brain as actual physical pain.
"Reproduced From Mail Today"
A brilliant interview ... Must Read .. too good
Don't miss last 2 Questions...
Some, rather most organizations reject his CV today because he has changed jobs frequently (10 in 14 years). My friend, the ˜job hopper™ (referred here as Mr. JH), does not mind it. well he does not need to mind it at all. Having worked full-time with 10 employer companies in just 14 years gives Mr.. JH the relaxing edge that most of the ˜company loyal™ employees are struggling for today. Today, Mr. JH too is laid off like some other 14-15 year experienced guys “ the difference being the latter have just worked in 2-3 organizations in the same number of years. Here are the excerpts of an interview with Mr. JH:
Q: Why have you changed 10 jobs in 14 years? A: To get financially sound and stable before getting laid off the second time.
Q: So you knew you would be laid off in the year 2009? A: Well I was laid off first in the year 2002 due to the first global economic slowdown. I had not got a full-time job before January 2003 when the economy started looking up; so I had struggled for almost a year without job and with compromises.
Q: Which number of job was that? A: That was my third job.
Q: So from Jan 2003 to Jan 2009, in 6 years, you have changed 8 jobs to make the count as 10 jobs in 14 years? A: I had no other option. In my first 8 years of professional life, I had worked only for 2 organizations thinking that jobs are deserved after lot of hard work and one should stay with an employer company to justify the saying ˜employer loyalty™. But I was an idiot.
Q: Why do you say so? A: My salary in the first 8 years went up only marginally. I could not save enough and also, I had thought that I had a ˜permanent™ job, so I need not worry about ˜what will I do if I lose my job™. I could never imagine losing a job because of economic slowdown and not because of my performance. That was January 2002.
Q: Can you brief on what happened between January 2003 and 2009. A: Well, I had learnt my lessons of being ˜company loyal™ and not ˜money earning and saving loyal™. But then you can save enough only when you earn enough. So I shifted my loyalty towards money making and saving “ I changed 8 jobs in 6 years assuring all my interviewers about my stability.
Q: So you lied to your interviewers; you had already planned to change the job for which you were being interviewed on a particular day? A: Yes, you can change jobs only when the market is up and companies are hiring. You tell me “ can I get a job now because of the slowdown? No. So one should change jobs for higher salaries only when the market is up because that is the only time when companies hire and can afford the expected salaries.
Q: What have you gained by doing such things? A: That's the question I was waiting for. In Jan 2003, I had a fixed salary (without variables) of say Rs. X p.a. In January 2009, my salary was 8X. So assuming my salary was Rs.3 lakh p.a. in Jan 2003, my last drawn salary in Jan 2009 was Rs.24 lakh p.a. (without variable). I never bothered about variable as I had no intention to stay for 1 year and go through the appraisal process to wait for the company to give me a hike.
Q: So you decided on your own hike? A: Yes, in 2003, I could see the slowdown coming again in future like it had happened in 2001-02. Though I was not sure by when the next slowdown would come, I was pretty sure I wanted a ˜debt-free™ life before being laid off again. So I planned my hike targets on a yearly basis without waiting for the year to complete.
Q: So are you debt-free now? A: Yes, I earned so much by virtue of job changes for money and spent so little that today I have a loan free 2 BR flat (1200 sq.. feet) plus a loan free big car without bothering about any EMIs. I am laid off too but I do not complain at all. If I have laid off companies for money, it is OK if a company lays me off because of lack of money.
Q: Who is complaining? A: All those guys who are not getting a job to pay their EMIs off are complaining. They had made fun of me saying I am a job hopper and do not have any company loyalty. Now I ask them what they gained by their company loyalty; they too are laid off like me and pass comments to me “ why will you bother about us, you are already debt-free. They were still in the bracket of 12-14 lakh p.a. when they were laid off.
Q: What is your advice to professionals? A: Like Narayan Murthy had said “ love your job and not your company because you never know when your company will stop loving you. In the same lines, love yourself and your family needs more than the company's needs. Companies can keep coming and going; family will always remain the same. Make money for yourself first and simultaneously make money for the company, not the other way around.
Q: What is your biggest pain point with companies? A: When a company does well, its CEO will address the entire company saying, ˜well done guys, it is YOUR company, keep up the hard work, I am with you. But when the slowdown happens and the company does not do so well, the same CEO will say, It is MY company and to save the company, I have to take tough decisions including asking people to go. So think about your financial stability first; when you get laid off, your kids will complain to you and not your boss.
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