Gifted Wounds, Gifted Healing

Abuse Recovery, gifted trauma, Giftedness, InterGifted, RelationshipsLeave a comment

Giftedness itself isn’t traumatizing, but the environments we grow up and live in often are. Because giftedness comes with unique developmental needs, sensitivities and social differences, it also carries particular vulnerabilities – especially in environments that misunderstand, minimize or exploit those differences. The resulting trauma can fracture our relationship with our gifted self, leaving us disconnected from our creativity, meaning and sense of existential belonging. In this article, Jennifer Harvey Sallin explores the nature of gifted trauma and what it means to heal it, by learning to create the conditions where it can be safely reclaimed. This article is an adapted version of the introduction to InterGifted’s recently published book ‘How I Healed My Gifted Trauma’, a collaborative exploration of how gifted people around the world are finding their way back to wholeness. 

Degrowth: The Path to a Better Life

climate emergency, Climate Psychology, degrowth, RelationshipsLeave a comment

A good life is built upon our relationships – to ourselves, with others, and to the whole of life. In a growth-dependent paradigm (i.e. Capitalism), the need for growth at all expenses puts pressure on us and our relationships, toxifying the psychic, social, environmental and spiritual fabric into which we weave our life experience. In contrast, a degrowth framework allows us to live in an embodied present in which our relationships are based on real living, mutual aid, a sense of place and community care, and joy and collective meaning. This article explores the psychological and physical harms of growthist ideology, and how we can individually and collectively create a better life that meets our true needs for thriving.

personality

Personality Preferences: Extraversion, Introversion and Authentic Action

Coaching Process, Creativity, Gifted Coaching, Personal Effectiveness, Psychology, Relationships, Tools for Positive Change3 Comments

Have you ever wondered why at times your creativity and productivity seem to flow, and other times you can’t think straight and produce mediocre work? Why at times you are happy to be with people, and other times you are fed up with their presence? In reality, each of us has a preferred way of approaching and ordering activities and tasks, and if we plan according to our preferences – when and with whom and how we collaborate, solve problems, make decisions, and brainstorm, for example – we naturally find effectiveness and joy. The trick is knowing our preferences in the first place! Let’s learn about them together…

Binocular Behavior

Binocular Behavior & The Gifted – A Dysfunctional Form of Self-Protection and Control

Coaching Process, Gifted Coaching, Relationships, Tools for Positive Change9 Comments

Observing others’ behaviors is, in itself, rather healthy. It allows us to appropriately anticipate and react to kindness or threat from others, which serves to give us motivation (anticipating kindness) or information to protect ourselves (anticipating threat). However, “binocular behavior”, as I call it, is a dysfunctional level of this observation behavior – when we try too hard to anticipate kindness or threat. Relating to the world from a distance, we distort reality in ways that cause us to lose our motivation or to create feelings of insecurity. Gifted people, with their strong imaginative, abstracting and pattern recognition skills – in combination with their general intensity of mind and experience – sometimes use their “binoculars” to create very elaborate, if misguided, theories about what is happening in others’ minds, the results of which can be socially unpleasant and painful. This article aims at helping gifted individuals put down their binoculars and relate directly with the world, and to understand the crucial role that differences in cognitive timing play in the tendency to pick them up in the first place.

carried emotions

Emotions and Carried Emotions

Coaching Process, Growing Up, Inner Conflict, Power of the Mind, Psychology, Relationships, Tools for Positive Change6 Comments

Many of our emotions are self-experienced; however, sometimes our emotions are carried emotions — emotions that we do experience but that are not ours. These emotions have been given to us by others (our parents, our culture, etc.) and they make us feel like we are living someone else’s life. In this article, I explore the difference between self-experienced emotions and carried emotions, and show how gifted people can gain conscious control over their inner emotional lives.

The Power of Choice: Remembering William Glasser

Books, Growing Up, Personal Effectiveness, Potential, Psychology, Relationships, Tools for Positive ChangeLeave a comment

William Glasser was an American psychiatrist who had a profound effect on the early development of my approach to life, therapy and coaching. His unconventional voice in the fields of psychiatry and psychology was responsible for giving me, and many others, hope in a profession that felt stifling and impractical. He passed away this year, but he and his work live on in those millions of us who found hope and healing in his message. Rest in peace, Dr. Glasser.

Dr. Hawkins and a Map of Consciousness

Books, Consciousness, Healing, Psychology, Relationships, Spiritual Growth3 Comments

Dr. David R. Hawkins was a Spiritual Teacher, Consciousness Researcher, and Psychiatrist whose work changed, and continues to positively influence, my life. Before I discovered his work, I felt stuck, trying to evolve in a world of people that “didn’t understand me” (or so I thought). With his insight, I was able to finally take charge of my own future.