antifragile

Antifragile: Benefiting from Life’s Ups & Downs

Creativity, Gratitude, Non-Resistance, Personal Effectiveness, Potential, Tools for Positive Change1 Comment

Chaos, disorder, volatility, turmoil, errors, and uncertainty – among other factors commonly perceived as negative – are not necessarily our enemies. Nassim Nicholas Taleb points out once again in his latest masterwork, Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder, that we live in a “Black Swan” world where unpredictable events that have maximum impact on our lives happen necessarily and, well, unpredictably. These events are “Black Swans” in Taleb’s prose. In our complex, modern lives, these factors – chaos, disorder, volatility, turmoil, errors and uncertainty – are not a matter of choice; they exist and in ever-increasing quantities. We will run into them, or they will run into us. So, instead of positioning ourselves against them, why not use them as “friends” or at least as “allies” in our development of self?

Energy Patterns: The Cornerstone of Self-Care and Potential-Realization for Gifted People

Coaching Process, Gifted Coaching, Life-balance, Personal Effectiveness, Potential, Procrastination, Psychology, Tools for Positive Change1 Comment

 Gifted people have big agendas – they want to learn and accomplish so much in life! However, without understanding how to best manage their energy, they often find themselves burning out or otherwise not concentrating well, not accomplishing what they want, and not being satisfied with themselves. Learn about how I help my gifted clients learn to better understand and manage their energy to increase productivity, creativity, self-care and self-esteem.

Living with Intensity: Giftedness & Self-Actualization

Coaching Process, Consciousness, Creativity, Gifted Coaching, Inner Conflict, Personal Effectiveness, Potential, Psychology, Tools for Positive Change14 Comments

Intense inner disharmony can sometimes accompany the experience of giftedness. But rather than framing this disharmony as mental weakness or illness, Dabrowski looked at it as a catalyst for advanced personality development. Learn about Dabrowski’s Overexcitabilities, Theory of Positive Disintegration and the climb toward gifted self-actualization in this article.

Recontextualizing Struggle as a Creative Necessity

Creativity, Inner Conflict, Non-Resistance, Personal EffectivenessLeave a comment

Many of us conceptualize “struggle” as “bad.” In our limited view, we consider that to struggle means to be in pain, and that to be in pain is bad. But it is exactly this reasoning that has caused so many of us to fall repeatedly into cycles of struggle recreation (often called self-defeating behavior patterns): to avoid struggle is to short-circuit a natural and necessary growth process, keeping us in a “Groundhog Day” pattern of personal and relational problems. How can we resolve this dilemma?

Did You Grow Up Too Fast? The Myth of Premature Maturity

Abuse Recovery, Consciousness, Growing Up, Healing, Personal Effectiveness1 Comment

The little girl with no needs. The little boy who takes care of mom. Premature maturity, is in fact, no escape from having needs or needing to be taken care of. It is not an escape from being a child, and it is in fact, not often maturity at all. Premature maturity is something else more painful: it is our childish attempt to buy (negotiate) a sense of security in a world of confusion, chaos, pain, death, illness, and feelings of loneliness and abandon. If we are just mature enough, maybe someone will care, will love us, will help us. Or if we are just strong enough, maybe the family can stay together, mom can get better, dad will love us, we’ll find our place in life.