Embracing Intensity

Quick update on the upcoming week's.

Links:

First Ignite Your Power Group Call

Group Call with Silver Huang

Embracing Intensity Community

How does it feel to identify as broken and immensely different from all those around you? If these feelings continue and compound, then one ends up feeling mentally ill---doomed to be always on the outside of normal.

Chris Wells joins us today from The Gifted Development Center in Westminster, CO. We met at the SENG conference, and then Chris’ name came up again in a conversation with Kate Arms, our guest from Episode 93. Chris has the knowledge and in-depth experience on the topic of positive disintegration. Her story is amazing--and you don’t want to miss it!

Something new we’re doing here in the Embracing Intensity community is profiling different members of the community to share who we are, what we’ve figured out, and how we can get to know and understand each other better. I’m giving you a sneak peek of my interview with Javon Fernanders, and you can find out more when you join us at Embracing Intensity.

Show Highlights:

• What Chris is intensely passionate about, in light of her history of mental illness and giftedness--and why she’s become an advocate
• What intensity looks like for someone who had “mental illness” since a young age
• Why it’s taken Chris her whole life to temper the way she is and to be able to move through the world without causing problems
• How intensity made everything more difficult because no one understood and she always felt alien and different
• How she spent 12 years on disability for bipolar and panic disorder, wondering, “What’s wrong with me?”
• Positive disintegration: a sign of strong developmental potential that says, “You are NOT broken.”
• What it means to be an empath and to no longer feel so alone
• The cultural factors that affected Chris and the messages she was raised with
• Why she wishes people would have encouraged her in the things she wanted to do
• How she “tuned herself out” and used her gifts to make adults’ lives difficult as a teen
• How Chris got on the path to “figuring things out”--after getting kicked out of high school, going to drug rehab, and writing a book
• Overexcitability and how it is misunderstood
• Chris’ younger life---”Intensity out of control”
• Why she felt like her personality wasn’t working anymore
• How she uses her fire for good, in studying positive disintegration in incredible depth
• Why she began studying Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration
• What has helped in harnessing the power of Chris’ intensity and how “life flows more now”
• The best advice anyone ever gave Chris: From Linda Silverman, “Stop trying to fit in--and study Dabrowski’s theory.”
• Personal habits that help her use her fire in positive ways, like writing
• Books that have influenced Chris the most:
  • Ordinary People by Judith Guest
  • Mellow Out by Michael Piechowski
  • Living with Intensity by Susan Daniels and Michael Piechowski
• How Chris helps others use their own fire
• Building community and connection with support and affirmation

Resources:

Chris Tane Wells

Parents of Twice Exceptional Kids

We are super excited to have Heather Boorman, of the Fringy Bit Podcast, share her talk on Self-Compassion from the SENG (Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted) conference last summer!

Self-Compassion has been proven to be an effective mindset and intervention toward more sustainable mental health and self-concept. This presentation will apply the work of Dr. Kristin Neff in the field of self-compassion to the gifted population and typical struggles faced by many gifted individuals. In particular, we will consider how Dabrowski’s super-stimulabilities and other typical psychosocial traits can lead to perfectionism, imposter syndrome, self-judgment, low frustration tolerance, depression, and anxiety. We will consider the ways in which society’s responses to giftedness and emphasis on self-esteem can also contribute to un-wellness in gifted children, youth, and adults. Self-compassion will then be defined and defended as an effective intervention toward increased wellness. Attendees will be introduced to, and participate in, exercises to increase self-compassion. The session will be a blend of lecture and interactive.

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will be able to identify at least 5 psychosocial traits typical within the gifted population
2. Participants will be able to explain how typical psychosocial experiences of gifted individuals may contribute to un-wellness in the forms of perfectionism, imposter syndrome, low frustration tolerance, self-judgment, and mental health issues.
3. Participants will be able to define self-compassion and identify the 3 components that contribute to self-compassion
4. Participants will be able to identify and implement at least 3 interventions to increase self-compassion.

About the Author:

Heather Boorman lives an intensely joy-filled and full life as a homeschooling mom to 3 fringy kids and the executive director and therapist with Boorman Counseling. She passionately advocates for differently wired kids and adults through her work as a national speaker, writer & podcaster at The Fringy Bit. Heather’s also the author of The Gifted Kids Workbook, which provides mindfulness-based activities to help kids reduce stress, balance emotions, and build confidence.

About Embracing Intensity Group Calls:

Each month on the second Saturday, we will have a guest speaker dive into a topic they love followed by a discussion with the group. The talk will be shared on the podcast, but the discussion will only be shared with Embracing Intensity community members and patrons. The calls will be on the Zoom platform, which allows you to interact at whatever level you'd like (video, audio or use photo and chat box). There will be an opportunity for further discussion in the Embracing Intensity Community.

Links:

Fringy Bit Podcast

Embracing Intensity Community

Are you a humanitarian? Today's episode is with Jaiden Love, a healer, educator, and humanitarian and the author of the book Saving My Life. Jaiden is a very spiritual person who has been passionate about serving and helping others for all of his life. He has been running his own business for the last ten years, and although it has continually morphed and changed over this time, it has always been about helping people to live their truth. Listen in today to find out about Jaiden and the way that he helps people to become the very best version of themselves.

Jaiden has a really huge heart and wonderful energy that radiates right through the screen and microphone. As a healer, he is passionate about helping others to do their own inner work, so that they can learn to live their truth and their happiest life. As an educator, Jaiden strives to give people the tools to treat others with more compassion and respect. The combination of the two allows him to create and hold a safe space for people to reach the ultimate goal of greater connectedness and love in the world. Listen in to find out what Jaiden has to share in today's episode.

Show highlights:

• How politics helped Jaiden to realize that he is actually a humanitarian.
• Jaiden discusses the mindset block that he has always had towards being political, even though he now sees that being a humanitarian is a type of political stance.
• The impact that Jaiden's intensity, sensitivity, and creativity had on him while growing up.
• Jaiden has been putting other people's needs and happiness for most of his life. Now he knows that he needs to first take care of himself, in order to really be of help to others.
• Jaiden is black and he was adopted and raised by a white family in a small, mostly white town, so there were a number of cultural factors that affected the way he expressed himself while growing up.
• The difficulties that most people have with expressing their truth to themselves and to others.
• Jaiden worked as a high-school counselor for about five years and listening to the students talking to him about their troubled home-lives had a deep impact on him, both emotionally and physically.
• Jaiden is really passionate about nutrition and he sees that most people just don't realize how much the things they put in and onto their bodies actually affects them emotionally.
• Jaiden started out as an energy healer and he explains why he combined spiritual coaching with that.
• Jason explains that everything that is experienced on the physical level starts on the emotional and spiritual level.
• Giving people the tools to cope with issues of gender identity.
• The odd reactions that people tend to have towards the words 'God' and 'spirituality'.
• Living your own truth, regardless of who and how you are.
• The importance of feeling safe, and having love and support in your life.
• What Jaiden's book, Saving My Life, is all about. The book is available from Amazon.

Links:

Jaiden's website: Held And Heard

Jaiden's email: [email protected]

Jaiden's phone number: 503 757 1454

Jaiden is on Linkedin

To receive a 45-minute free consultation from Jaiden, contact him and tell him that you listened to this podcast.

Resources:

Books:

Saving My Life by Jaden Jemel Love

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

The Disappearance of the Universe by Gary Renard

The Abundance Book by John Randolf Price

A Course In Miracles

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz

Our Find Your Power Zone Tool-kit Challenge starts on the 14th of January, as a way to kick off the growth of our new Embracing Intensity Community. Go to Embracing Intensity to find out more about the challenge and about our new community.

I'm back after my month off! I was supposed to be resting and taking a break, but last week I had some divine inspiration for the direction of the year to come!

In this episode:

• I share about my entrepreneurial journey the past 4-5 years.
• It all comes back to listening to your gut over "conventional wisdom"
• Creating a vibrant community both online and in person. 
• A peek at our upcoming events for 2019!

Links:

Power Zone Toolkit

Embracing Intensity Community

I'm taking the month of December off! Stay tuned in the new year for our awesome upcoming monthly group calls! And feel free to binge listen and share past episodes - there are a bunch of good ones to choose from! 

Are you a gifted adult? if so, are you putting your intellectual gifts to good use? Today we're super thrilled to be talking to Alexis P. Morgan. Alexis fills her time and earns her keep as a writer, artist, and troublemaking socialite. She does all of this as the proprietress of her blog, Death, Sex, and Taxes. Alexis is a truly remarkable person who has really shared so much of herself in her work, and in her powerful writing about her navigations as a gifted adult. Listen in today to find out what Alexis has to share about finding balance, as a gifted adult.

Black, leftist, and glorious, twenty-seven-year-old Alexis lives each day in the spirit of her devotion to truth, justice, and liberation. She particularly enjoys taking an ax to capitalism and oppressive fuckshit. She also loves spinning and telling tales about the universe and its many wonders. And oversharing about her own ongoing inner monologues. Listen in to find out what Alexis has to say about dealing with the challenges of having an overactive brain and really intense emotions. 

Show highlights:

• Alex explains how her recent diagnosis of relapsing, remitting multiple sclerosis has affected her.
• Alexis talks about her recent, bold decision to become trained as a professional dominatrix.
• Inspiring social change through her writing.
• Alexis initially started writing as a way of dealing with growing up in a toxic environment.
• Her really difficult time in school.
• How writing helped her to cope with her intensely active mind.
• Being morbidly intense at the age of six.
• Living in a state of hyper-arousal.
• Realizing that there are many different ways to use one's gifts.
• Alexis's interest in power dynamics.
• We live in a culture that's very antagonistic towards neurodiversity.
• Alexis sees herself as a culturally conditioned introvert in some ways.
• Intensity does not imply irrationality.
• Alexis uses her fire as a catalyzing force, rather than a destructive one.
• Alex speaks about her first exposure to the world of kink and sex-positive.
• How Alexis manages to relax.

Your Power Word Challenge for 2019:

Starting this week, we are going to go through a variety of exploration questions to discover the word for you to embody in 2019.

Links and resources:

Alexis's website: Death Sex And Taxes

Alexis on Facebook: Alexis P. Morgan

Book: Your Rainforest Mind by Paula Plover 

Your Rainforest Mind is one of my all-time favorite books for gifted adults, and we had the privilege of having author, Paula Prober, join us for a group call to discuss her book! In this episode, we share highlights from the conversation and inspiration for other rainforest minded people!

We explore questions including:

• What are novel strategies to deal with the "fried circuits" of over-excitability outside of the standard "good self care?"
• How do you approach communicating your excitable nature in groups or conversations where you are afraid you might come off as dominating or "too much."
• How do you self-motivate when you don't have external forces pushing you forward?
• Feeling the suffering of the world and responsibility to fix it.
• How do you deal with the perfectionism that often comes with giftedness?

Links:

Find Your Power Word for 2019

Is your personality way too big for most people to handle? And do you find yourself sometimes trying to become smaller than you really are? Today we're super excited to have Arianna Bradford join us on the show! Arianna is an intensely passionate portrait photographer who specializes in senior portraits and boudoir photography. In addition to this, she's the founder and lead editor of the Not Your Average Mom (NYAM) Project, which is dedicated to celebrating strong women outside of the role of motherhood. Arianna really loves to talk and to express the ideas that she has going on in her head. She often found herself trying to curb the amount of talking she did when she was in high school, but it seldom worked for longer than ten minutes. Listen in today to find out what Arianna has to share about her passion and her fire.

Arianna was raised in a small town in Florida and spent the first twenty years of her life there. She thought that she would never leave. Due to unexpected circumstances, however, she moved to Texas and stayed there for about six years. During that time, she met her husband and they had two children, Miles and Charlie. Arianna, her husband, and their two young children now live in Happy Valley, Oregon. When she's not busy writing something or photographing people, Arianna enjoys reading, playing video games, or trying to sleep. Listen in today to find out more about Arianna and her brand of intensity.

Show highlights:

• During the time that she was living in Texas, her desire to capture images of her small son rekindled Arianna's interest in photography.
• Arianna loved the creative direction portion of photography when she started taking photos again, towards the end of 2014.
• The hard part of photography for Arianna then was that there was not a lot of money to be made from it in Austen.
• Discovering that she has a passion for working one-on-one with people, as a photographer- especially with women.
• Arianna's main focus is on helping women realize their own individual power and strength.
• What growing up was like for Arianna.
• Arianna was raised to think past what people would tell her.
• Being raised in a household with the attitude that you may as well be straightforward because people are going to judge you anyway.
• It took Arianna a long time to realize that sometimes it wasn't her chasing people away. It was their own prejudices and problems that did that.
• Arianna had to really try to curb her talking at high school, but it seldom worked for longer than ten minutes.
• Wanting to be smaller than she was.
• Most people believe that they need to be liked by as many people as possible.
• An anxious moment that Arianna had back in college when she was struggling socially.
• An incident that caused her anxiety and OCD to get out of control.
• Arianna believes that all emotions, even negative ones, can be channeled into something positive.
• She has made some of her greatest things in times of intense anger or sadness.
• The NYAM project was born of intense anger in Arianna.
• There are people who really identify with Arianna's writing.
• Art has really helped Arianna with harnessing the power of her intensity.
• Working hard on communication and trying to understand where other people are coming from.
• Remember that there's nothing wrong with being firey. People don't have to love you and it's okay for your fire to warm some people more than others.

Books mentioned on the show:

Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.

Links:

Arianna's photography website: Arianna Bradford Sign up to get their newsletter.

The NYAM Project website: NYAM 

Instagram: The NYAM Project

Aurora will be starting a challenge on her Express Your Power page, to walk you through different self-exploration questions. These can assist you in coming up with your power word, which is the word that you would like to embody in 2019.

Aurora will also share inspirations from other participants and there will be a daily raffle too, where you could win a power word pendant and a custom essential oil blend for the theme of the day. You can find this at Express Your Power page

It's been a while since I've done a solo episode, between my new schedule and our group call speaker recordings. This week, I'd like to share a bit about what we have coming down the pike in the Embracing Intensity Community! 

Highlights:

• Share your questions for Author Paula Prober for next week's group call and book study with the author of Your Rainforest Mind on Sat. 11/10 at 10:00 AM Pacific - and don't forget to get your copy of her book!
• Portland, Oregon Metro area folks, mark your calendar for an amazing in-person event hosted by Rukshana Triem
• Our lineup of amazing talks coming up in our monthly group calls! Calls are always open and recordings will be shared to those on the call and Patrons on Patreon. 
• How can I make my weekly Patreon post more valuable to you?
• Launching of my Xpress Your Power store with 50% off Aromatherapy Necklaces. 
• Lots of great upcoming interviews so keep your eyes and ears out!

Links:

XPress Your Power Store

Patreon Community