Big Feelings, Big Joy | The Haven Book Club

Note: This event is now happening on October 25th rather than October 18th 2026.

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Our Haven Book Club returns this week. We will explore Big Feelings, Big Joy: The Essential Practices to Reclaim Your Strengths as a Highly Sensitive Person.

Written by licensed psychotherapist April Snow, the book draws on her clinical experience with thousands of Highly Sensitive People (HSPs). She also shares her own lived experience as a highly sensitive person. Big Feelings, Big Joy offers encouragement, validation, and practical tools for understanding sensitivity as a core part of who we are. April shows us how to accept, value, and nurture sensitivity rather than resent it or try to change it.

In our 60-minute HSP book club meeting, we’ll explore some of the book’s core ideas. This will allow us to hold it as a light to consider our own backgrounds, experiences, questions, and challenges.

Session Info

You don’t need to have read the book before joining us. I identified some shared experiences and interests that April writes about and pulled snippets we can use as jump-off points for our discussion.

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PART 1: What is a Highly Sensitive Person?

April says that highly sensitive people live fully engaged, fulfilling, creative lives. Most wouldn’t even guess they’re highly sensitive because they don’t fit the stereotype of sensitivity as a weakness.

She says that being highly sensitive is living with your heart and eyes wide open, which benefits everyone. But it isn’t just about the external world. It’s about learning to channel your sensitivity so that you can live a life full of meaning, success, and connection on your own terms.

REFERENCE: Here is April’s “ORCHID” Framework for Understanding Sensory Processing Sensitivity

This is an adaptation of the latest HSP-R measures: Sensitivity to Details, Depth of Processing, Social Sensitivity, Sensitivity to Positive Experiences, Emotional Reactivity, and Overstimulation

OBSERVANT of the little details

• You can read between the lines when talking to someone, pick up on body language and nonverbal cues, and anticipate a conflict before it escalates.
• You notice the subtle signs that you’re getting sick and can intervene early.
• Your sleep and mood are highly impacted by seasonal changes in temperature and lighting.
• You easily understand social cues, which helps you to adapt to unfamiliar situations.
• You never miss a detail and have a reputation for being a creative problem solver at work.

RESPONSIVE to your environment and can get easily overstimulated

• You feel anxious or irritable when there’s too much going on and you don’t have space to reflect and recharge.
• You focus on one task at a time because multitasking interferes with focus and decision-making.
• You get stuck in bed in the mornings after socialising too much or having a stressful day at work.
• You prefer soft, low lighting and dim the screens as low as they can go on your devices.
• You don’t perform familiar tasks as well when you’re being observed.

COMPASSIONATE and empathetic toward others

• You often feel guilty for setting boundaries or prioritising your own needs.
• You can anticipate what someone feels and needs before they even say anything.
• You understand the impact of your actions on others, leading to fewer conflicts and quicker resolutions.
• You feel a strong urge to protect others when you see them being mistreated and to fight injustices, although you don’t always have the bandwidth to do so.
• You can’t help but laugh, cry, or yawn when you see someone else do it, whether in real life or on the screen.

HEARTFELT and a big feeler

• You experience profound joy in the little moments, such as cuddling your dog, watching the full moon light up the sky, seeing an inspiring piece of art, eating your favorite treat, or savoring a good book.
• You feel romantic love as intensely as if you were a character in a rom-com.
• Your emotions linger for days or weeks as you work to integrate the meaning and understand your experience.
• You are touched by sincere connection, whether it’s exchanging smiles with a stranger or having a heartfelt conversation with your best friend.
• You find yourself exaggerating your feelings so that others can understand the intensity of what you’re going through.

IMPRESSIONABLE and therefore significantly impacted by positive experiences

• You soak up the good like a sponge, feeling immensely impacted by supportive environments and small gestures of kindness.
• You’ll love a song so much that you can’t help but put it on repeat for weeks.
• You are highly invested in and connected to fictional characters in books, shows, or movies, often developing a parasocial relationship.
• You are deeply moved by meaningful spiritual or religious practices.
• You downplay your positive experiences to make sure others don’t feel jealous or uncomfortable.

DEEP THINKER and intentional decision maker

• You need time to make transitions throughout the day, such as getting out of bed, leaving the house, or moving from one task to the next.
• You struggle to fall asleep at night unless you have time to wind down and reflect on your day.
• You feel a slight resistance to diving into something new, even if you also feel excited.
• You take longer to make decisions to ensure you don’t make a mistake.
• Growing up, you needed time to warm up in new settings like classrooms, sleepovers, or camp.

Our Sensitivity Stories

It would be lovely to spend some time thinking about our own relationship with sensitivity. In particular, the impact of learning about it.

How did you first learn about sensory processing sensitivity?

As you look back, how did being highly sensitive affect you growing up?

What difference has this knowledge made in your life?

PART 2 – Downtime and Daydreaming

We live in a time full of endless productivity hacks, optimisation protocols, and health trends. Everything is measured and monitored, and even basic human needs like rest, nutrition, and movement have become instrumentalised through the lens of productivity.

In a chapter about the value of daydreaming, April writes, “Many HSPs grow up believing the myth that they have to earn their downtime. They can’t help but think that pursuing their interests without a specific goal or allowing their thoughts to wander is some type of personal failing. That if they immerse themselves in doing things they love or pause to think in the middle of the day, they’re lazy or irresponsible…

The key is to remember that while downtime and daydreaming are helpful battery-charging and problem-solving tools, their purpose is not to serve future productivity but to replenish from the energy you’ve expended. There is no objective in downtime other than having quiet space for yourself to recharge and reflect, to be with yourself and catch your breath.”

What does this type of downtime look like for you personally? How do you ensure you get enough of it without folding it back into a productivity system?

What’s Mundane is Magical

April writes that “When you’re highly sensitive, the mundane is magical, and the special is euphoric. While it can be uncomfortable, inconvenient, or downright annoying to feel sadness, fear, and disappointment more intensely than non-HSPs, the upside is that you also get to experience big feelings of joy, excitement, and awe…

Thirty years later, I still think about how meaningful it was to eat ice cream on my grandmother’s porch in the summertime while we counted the seconds between thunderclaps. I’ll always cherish the way we found joy in those little moments together.”

When we spoke on my podcast, we talked about how for HSPs, it takes less to make more of an impact. This is differential susceptibility, where the state of our environment has a greater impact the more sensitive we are, for better or worse. April applies this to our memories – small things make deep and lasting impressions on us.

Does this ring true for you in any areas of your life? Where perhaps it takes less to make something meaningful for you than it seems to for others?

Part 3 – Making Decisions

10 Common Values for Highly Sensitive People

In a chapter about the need for HSPs to think things through as part of deep processing, April shares a list of common personal values she describes as our guiding light in the storm of decision-making. By knowing what matters most to us, she suggests we can navigate through the noise and stay connected to ourselves when making choices.

Maybe you can think of a time you made a decision that was almost impossible to communicate and it might not have made sense to others, but as you consider this list, it is perfectly understandable…

1. Autonomy—having the freedom to live on your own terms
2. Balance—maintaining a sustainable rhythm between personal time and commitments
3. Beauty—surrounding yourself with an uplifting and inspiring aesthetic
4. Compassion—considering where others are coming from and responding accordingly
5. Connection—creating emotionally safe and meaningful relationships
6. Curiosity—being open to learning new things about yourself and others
7. Fairness—treating people equally
8. Growth—learning more about your inner world and what you need to thrive
9. Integrity—doing what’s right and communicating honestly
10. Meaning—finding purpose and connecting with something bigger than yourself

Which of these values are nonnegotiable for you? How have they shaped your decision-making? Are there any values missing from that list for you?

“No” as a Default Answer

A section in the chapter caught my attention about setting boundaries without guilt. It makes sense as an antidote to chronic people-pleasing. April writes:

“How many times have you automatically said “yes” to a request only to immediately feel a wave of regret wash over you? This is common when you don’t stop to check in with yourself and make sure you have bandwidth to fulfil a commitment. Your impulse is to be supportive, but you don’t always have the capacity to say “yes.” “

Can you think of something you got stuck doing which you regretted saying yes to because of an aspect of your sensitivity?

There’s another side to this which is also worth considering: the adverse impact of “no” being a default answer.

When an unusual invitation, opportunity, and request arrives, a highly sensitive person might experience a rush of overstimulation. It might be something that would eventually become a certain yes, but until an integrative bridge is established that helps you envision what that would look like, it feels impossible.

If it takes us time to come around, some things can help and others can hinder this intervening period.

What tends to help you reach a meaningful decision? What may get in the way?

Would You Like To Explore Further?

There are many other topics that we won’t have time to cover in this session, but if there’s interest, we can explore more in future.

What, if anything, feels like the biggest challenge for you related to being a highly sensitive person that you would like to explore more and feel less alone with?

A Conversation with April

I recently spoke with April about the book on The Gentle Rebel Podcast.

As with all Haven gatherings, you’re welcome to come as you are, however you need. The session will be discussion-based and facilitated by me (Andy Mort), with everyone given space to share if they want to. It would be lovely to hear from you, but there’s no pressure to speak.

We’ll also keep exploring any topics, questions, and ideas that come up in The Courtyard afterwards, so the conversation doesn’t end when the session does.

The call will be recorded for paying members to catch up with afterwards and will be available for 30 days after the session.