The speaker starts by asking a question to capture the audience’s attention and relate to their common experience. Then, she introduces the topic of his speech, which is how to overcome the shame and stereotypes of being a highly sensitive person (HSP). She also previews the main points from 3 aspects: what it means to be an HSP, how HSPs are misunderstood, and why HSPs are valuable and needed in society.
The speaker then uses a combination of facts, statistics, anecdotes, and examples to support her main points. She explains the genetic trait that defines HSPs, and how it affects their perception, empathy, and awareness. She also addresses the common myths and assumptions about HSPs, such as being introverted or female. She then offers her own stories to illustrate the challenges and gifts of being an HSP. She also mentions some famous HSPs who have contributed to art, science, philosophy, and social justice.
The speaker summarizes her main points and urges the audience to change their negative attitude towards sensitivity and to appreciate its strengths. She also encourages HSPs to embrace their identity and share their gifts with the world. She ends with a metaphor of butterflies and a quote from John Lennon’s “Imagine” to inspire the audience to create a more gentle world.
I’m a highly sensitive person. What’s the first thing you think about when I tell you that? That I must be shy and introverted? Or perhaps very emotional? Or maybe even that you need to walk on eggshells around me?
我是一个极度敏感的人，听到这个你的第一反应是什么？认为我害羞而且内向？或者非常情绪化？或者在我身边一定要小心翼翼？
The common assumption about highly sensitive people is that we are somehow weak and fragile creatures who picked a losing ticket in the genetic lottery of life. You can see this in action when you google the word ‘sensitive’. You will see images of toothache, irritated skin, wilted dandelions, and crying people. Sensitivity clearly has a PR problem. Today I want to help change that.
对于极度敏感人群，一般的猜测是他们有点脆弱，有点弱不禁风，在生命竞争中没有抽到一手好牌。你谷歌一下“敏感”这个词就能明白，你会搜到一些图，比如牙疼，皮肤病，枯萎的蒲公英和流泪的人。敏感看来很不招人待见，今天我想改变这种情况。
Maybe by now you’re wondering what is it like to be highly sensitive? I invite you to imagine living with all of your senses on high alert. You also have a vivid inner world, where all of your emotions are magnified. Sadness is a deep sorrow, and joy is pure ecstasy. You also care beyond reason and empathize without limits. Imagine being in permanent osmosis with everything around you.
你们也许感到好奇，极度敏感到底是什么样子？想象一下，你的所有感觉时刻处于高度戒备?你还拥有丰富的内心世界，所有的情绪会被放大，悲伤就痛彻心扉，开心就欣喜若狂，你会没来由的过于在乎，同情起来也没有底线，身边的一切无时无刻不在影响你。
Highly sensitive people often hear things like: “You are too sensitive,” “Stop taking everything to heart,” or my favorite, “You should really toughen up.” The fundamental message is clear: to be highly sensitive is to be highly flawed. I used to agree with that. I always thought I should come with some sort of warning sign or a disclaimer: “careful; highly sensitive.”
极度敏感人群经常会听到的话是：“你太敏感了，”“别老是伤春悲秋的，”还有一句是我的最爱，“你真该更强硬一些。”中心意思很明确，极度敏感是一种缺陷。我也一度这么认为，我老想在身上贴个警告牌或者带个免责声明“注意，此人极度敏感。“
Now, let me share with you a few of the perks of being a highly sensitive person. For one, I have an intensely overactive mind, which means it’s impossible to switch off. That also means that insomnia is my best friend. As you can imagine, that comes in particularly handy the night before a TED talk.
接下来，我想跟大家分享身为极度敏感人群的一些好处.首先，我思维非常活跃，完全停不下来。因此失眠是我最好的朋友，想象一下，这一点在准备TED演讲的晚上尤其有用。
Also I cannot watch scary or violent movies because the images seem to haunt me forever. I remember when I was a child, I watched the movie ‘Jaws’. It traumatized me so much that I was unable to even go near a swimming pool, let alone the sea, for several years. And, embarrassingly enough, I do my childhood nickname of Princess on the Pea proud when it comes to traveling and hotel beds. The mattress should be not too hard, not too soft; it has to be just right. My father once jokingly recommended that I should simply start traveling with my own bed and pillow to avoid any future travel hassles.
同时我也不能看恐怖或者暴力电影，因为那些图像会永远浮现在我眼前。我记得小时候去看了《大白鲨》。它对我的创伤如此之重，以至于很多年以来我都不敢靠近游泳池，更别说去海边了。而且，说来渐愧，当我旅行住酒店的时候，我把小时候的外号“豌豆公主”表现得淋漓尽致，床垫不能太硬，也不能太软，要刚刚好。我父亲有一次跟我开玩笑说，为了避免再次发生旅行冲突，下次我应该带上自己的床和枕头。
I often wondered, “What good could it possibly do me to be this way?” Well, the gifts of sensitivity slowly crept up on me. I’ve come to learn to love that I deeply and easily connect with others and also that I have a strong intuition that guides me like an infallible GPS. It was only at the age of 25 that I came across a book that changed my life: The Highly Sensitive Person by Dr. Elaine Aron. I could finally put a name to my overwhelmingly technicolor experience of life, and it gave me hope that there were others like me. In this book she describes highly sensitive people, or in short HSPs, as people who have a genetic trait of sensory processing sensitivity. That’s quite a mouthful.
我经常在想，我这样的人到底有什么好？慢慢地，敏感的好处显现出来了。我发现自己容易与人交往，而且直觉强烈，就像永远可靠的GPS指引我前行，早在25岁那年，我读到一本书，从此改变我的人生：伊莱恩·亚伦博士所著的《高度敏感的人》。我终于找到一个词来定义我异常绚烂多彩的人生，而这给了我希望，因为我发现自己还有同类。在这本书中，她将高度敏感的人，简称HSP，解释为具有感觉处理敏感性基因特点的，讲起来很拗口。
And surprisingly, 15% to 20% of the population is HSP. Now, she uses the wonderful acronym “DOES” to summarize the core traits of HSPs. The “D” stands for depth of processing. As HSPs, we have a phenomenal ability to deeply analyze absolutely everything. My favorite example for this is what I like to call Chinese restaurant syndrome. Basically, we can take up to an hour to read the entire 40-page menu, despite the fact that we will very likely order our favorite dish anyway.