From the Deep

“Jane! Stop this crazy thing!”

Ever feel like good ol’ George Jetson who yelled these words at the end of every Jetsons episode? I find myself sometimes wishing I could stop the world and get off for just a few minutes to regroup. The rest of you would be suspended in space and time while I take a nap or sip a grande mocha and read a good book.

This is a common theme of life in our current culture. Too much to do, too little time. For the gifted, this can be even more acute. With the characteristics of multipotentiality–having many possible areas in which we can excel–and multiple interests, we frequently find ourselves overcommitted, wanting to fulfill all our obligations and our potential. If we’re not in this mode, we might be about to enter it, because we just have to take that art class or learn that new language or invent the next new gadget that will take the world by storm. Before we know it, we find ourselves running on a hamster wheel, wasting energy going nowhere, and wishing we could get off.

If we feel as if we’re stuck on the Jetson’s conveyor belt, the life coaching principle of balance can help. Balance is about movement. Consider this idea for a moment. How do you best balance on a bicycle? By moving forward. You can even experience balance as movement right now. Simply stand on one foot. Notice how your foot and leg muscles, bones, and tendons constantly adjust to keep you upright. If you’re not moving, you might actually fall over. If you feel stuck in your life, either because you’re too busy or because one area of life isn’t flowing, balance can be harder to achieve.

Often what keeps us stuck is a particular perspective we’re holding about our lives. For example, maybe we feel stuck in a job because we don’t think it’s helping us fulfill our potential, but the economy is so bad that we don’t believe we can find another job. Perhaps we have a view of life that sees balance looking one way, with a certain amount of time spent at work, with family, and in recreation, but we just can’t seem to achieve that “perfect” structure for ourselves.

When we feel stuck, we may unintentionally behave in ways that keep us feeling that way. This blog post is a perfect example of this. I started writing this post a couple of months ago then stopped. I wondered if others would find a series on why coaching works for the gifted as valuable as I believe it could be. I was stuck in an “I’m not offering value” perspective. Ergo, this post sat fallow for many weeks.

We can become “unstuck” when we identify the perspective we’re holding and realize we’ve actually chosen it for ourselves. This gives us the opportunity to play with other perspectives that might move us forward. For example, to finally publish this blog post, I’ve adopted a “whatever” perspective. I’ve identified that my perfectionism had commandeered my creativity, and I decided to let that go and just finish whatever the outcome may be.

As gifted people, we can feel stuck for many reasons. We might have a list of dreams so long it ultimately paralyses us. We know we have the abilities to fulfill those dreams, but we don’t even know where to start. Having multipotentiality, we fear that reaching for one goal might preclude us from reaching another. Or we might not want to draw attention to ourselves and risk rejection, so we keep ourselves from moving forward. Or here’s a classic I hear from parents all the time, especially moms: “If I go after my dreams and desires, I won’t have the energy or capacity to care for my gifted children’s needs, and it’s my job to make sure their special needs are met.”

As a life coach, I help my clients recognize perspectives they might be holding and how those perspectives might keep them from moving forward in their lives. Together, we play with new perspectives, imagining what life might be like from those points of view. Then my clients choose the perspectives they want to hold for their situations. Sometimes they choose a new one. Sometimes they choose multiple perspectives to utilize at different times. And sometimes they decide to hold the exact same perspective they held at first, except now they have consciously chosen it and therefore are free instead of stuck.

Do you feel stuck? Would you like to invite more balance into your life? If so, I’d love to help you discover ways you can move forward. Please contact me for a free 30-minute coaching call!

Other blog posts in my Why Coaching Works for the Gifted series:

• Why Life Coaching Works for the Gifted
• Fulfillment, Why Life Coaching Works for the Gifted, the Sequel

In my last post, I described one reason why I coach gifted people and parents of gifted children (which, let’s face it, are generally gifted people themselves. And yes, moms, that does include you; your children aren’t just gifted because of their fathers. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that one…Anyways, I’m now going to simplify my life and your reading by referring to gifted people and parents of gifted children as “gifted people.” Now, back to our not-so-regularly-scheduled blog post). It’s a word called entelechy, which is the drive to self-actualize, and you can read here how this characteristic of gifted people makes them prime coaching clients.

Closely related to entelechy is another reason life coaching works well for gifted people: fulfillment. Fulfillment is one of three life coaching principles. It involves discovering one’s values, which in coaching lingo means that which makes you uniquely you. When we live according to our values, we feel resonance, that feeling that all is right with the world. For example, if we value authenticity, we’ll feel alive when we’re in relationships and circumstances that allow us to be our full selves and to speak our truth. Even when we’re in difficult situations, we’ll feel energized if we’re expressing our values in them.

On the flip side, when we don’t live in line with our values, we feel dissonance. Energy drains from us, and we don’t feel fulfilled. We might even begin to feel dead inside. For example, if we value authenticity, but we’re in an intimate relationship, work setting, or social situation where we feel the need to hide parts of ourselves, we feel less alive.

Fulfillment is closely related to entelechy. Entelechy is the drive to self-actualize, and fulfillment is a vehicle for getting there.

Because fulfillment is a basic principle of life coaching, gifted people naturally make wonderful coaching clients. Gifted people have strong inner compasses full of values. They often wish to use their gifts for the betterment of the world. They possess a strong sense of justice and morality. They are empathetic. They also frequently hold values of curiosity, deep connection with others like them, wacky humor, creativity, challenge, playfulness, and solitude, among others. (You can look at My Ginormous List of Gifted Grownup Traits to find more values gifted people hold.)

Gifted people adhere to their values very strongly (do we do anything halfway?). In fact, we frequently cannot not live our values! Sometimes we do this unconsciously. We don’t know what our values are, yet we feel compelled to speak and behave in certain ways. Life coaching can help gifted people become conscious of their unique set of values and find ways to live them out in all areas of their lives: family, friendships, work, fun and recreation, and health, among others. By exploring what makes them come alive, a process that naturally brings most gifted people resonance, gifted people can create lives that bring them energy and allow them to make their unique contribution to the world.

If you’re interested in learning more about this, please contact me, and inquire about my complimentary thirty-minute session for potential clients. I’d love to help you explore your own set of values and find fulfillment in every area of your life!

©2010 Lisa Lauffer

If you look at my Twitter profile, you’ll see I’m Chief Sanity Officer for Gifted Grownups & Parents of Gifted Children. What does this mean? First of all, gifted people and parents of gifted children can lead crazy lives with so many abilities, so many interests, and so little time. Gifted people and their parents need some sanity!

But how do I offer it to them? I offer it through life coaching. Life coaching is a relationship developed between a client and coach to help the client discover his/her unique identity and purpose. You can read more about life coaching on the What Is Life Coaching page on my website.

Why coach gifted grownups and parents of gifted kids? While some may think I’ve chosen a crazy, narrow niche for my coaching practice, I’ve found that the gifted profile makes gifted people and their parents particularly good coaching clients. In this post and in many that will follow, I will share why I find this to be true.

The first reason I believe life coaching works well for gifted people has to do with our word for the day (we gifted people love to learn new words): entelechy. Entelechy is the drive toward self-actualization, and most gifted people possess it in truckloads. How many times have parents of gifted children said “I just want him/her to reach his/her potential”? Many gifted people of all ages feel this push. Deidre V. Lovecky, Ph.D, posits that entelechy is one of five traits present in gifted people (you can read her article “Can You Hear the Flower Sing?” in this Dynamic Living blog post).

This characteristic of gifted people is one reason life coaching serves them well. Life coaching helps people discover who they were created to be and what they were created to do. It gives them a place to develop and implement concrete expressions of their unique identity and purpose. It’s about clients discerning their potential and figuring out how to maximize it and use it in life. Parents of gifted children can benefit from life coaching too. It helps them discern what they uniquely have to offer their children to help those kids reach their potential.

If you’re feeling the push-pull of entelechy on your being, please contact me about a thirty-minute complimentary coaching call. It’s my purpose to help you discover yours!

©2010 Lisa Lauffer

7 Weeks Toward Leveraging your Giftedness for Greater Fulfillment & Impact

Do you believe you might be gifted, but you don’t know what difference that truth makes in your life? Do you wish you could feel better about your giftedness and leverage it to feel more fulfilled and make a greater impact on the world around you? The Set Your Brilliance Free! In this seven-week group coaching course, you will:

• Discover your unique gifted profile;
• Redesign your relationship with your giftedness;
• Envision your life based on being your full gifted self;
• Determine how you’re hiding your giftedness and how you’ll bring it into the light of day;
• Find and connect with other members of the gifted tribe;
• Integrate your giftedness into more areas of your life in specific, life-changing ways;
• And more!

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve written two blog posts about self care, one reminding you that you can indeed take care of yourself and the other explaining that the most powerful self care comes from knowing your values: who you are at your core and what makes you come alive. Today I’ll conclude this blog-post mini-series by giving you some concrete ways to include self care in your life. Here are three strategies you can use:

Strategy 1: Bank it, baby! When we proactively participate in self-care opportunities for ourselves, we create a reservoir of strength and energy that we can draw on later. We parents, including those of gifted children, often feel that this is selfish. We struggle with taking the time, energy, and money it takes to meet our own needs, so we constantly live in deficit mode. We’ve taken our emotional and physical credit cards and run them through slots, and we don’t have the energy in the bank to pay the bill when it comes due. Then we crack. We yell, we stomp off, we blame, we cry. And no one is happy.

So bank your self care. You can, deserve to, and in doing so will be caring for your family in the long run.

Strategy 2: Respond, don’t react. We all face stressful times, those moments when it feels that someone or some event is making a huge withdrawal from our emotional bank account. In those instances, we can often feel like reacting by blowing up, throwing objects, or doing something drastic that we regret later. What if, instead, you responded by drawing from a collection of five-, fifteen-, and thirty-minute self-care practices, little emotional snacks as it were, to help you regain some emotional energy throughout your day? What are some quick practices that would help your soul sing instead of sink in these stressful moments?

Again, go to your values. Which activities are the emotional equivalent to an energy bar or energy drink for you–quick practices that feed and center you? Maybe you need to spend five minutes working on a crossword puzzle. Perhaps you just need to dance to your favorite song. When you’ve hit your limit, go to these ideas that don’t require a huge time commitment on your part. Rejuvenate, then return to the fray. You will feel better prepared to face whatever challenge has come your way.

Strategy 3: Take a ten-second vacation. OK, this practice is something everyone should have in his/her self-care arsenal. All it involves is taking a breath to the depths of our bodies. Most of us only breathe into our lungs. But when we breathe deeply (I imagine sending breath to my lower back), we take much-needed oxygen into our systems, and that reduces our stressful feelings, helps us feel more present in the moment, and gives us a fresh perspective on whatever we’re facing. Try it now. Breathe deeply, imagining you’re directing all that fresh air to your lower back, allowing your diaphragm to expand naturally in the process. What do you experience when you do this?

You can use the ten-second vacation anytime, anywhere. So when things feel stressful, chaotic, out of control, just take a deep breath and see how your perspective changes. Feel empowered, and cope with whatever has arisen.

As my astute commenter Jen said at the end of my last post, we parents of gifted kids live on the hamster wheel of life. Even when we do something to care for ourselves, it can so easily feel as if whatever benefit we’ve gained is swallowed up immediately by the needs we face when we return to the real world. (By the way, I recommend you check out what Jen is writing these days–her blog is here.)

So how do we take care of ourselves in ways that feel lasting, in ways that will nourish us when we’re responsible for meeting the needs of our high-needs children? Well, it takes a little effort and planning (okay, a lot of effort and planning), but you can do it. And here’s the first step: know thyself.

We can all brainstorm the traditional self-care methods people use: getting a massage, exercising, eating well, getting enough rest, getting a facial, blah, blah, blah. I’m not against any of those things. In fact, I participate in those kinds of self-care rituals when I can. But the best self care comes from the practices that feed us, energize us, make us come alive. When we’re caring for high-needs kids such as gifted children, our energy can so easily be sapped. When we participate in self-care practices, we need to be efficient, just as Jen lamented. We don’t have much time for it, we end up right back on the hamster wheel, so we need to make our self-care opportunities count. The best way to do that is by knowing what truly makes us come alive.

I’ve discussed this before. It comes down to knowing what we value. You can read more about that in a previous blog post here. Values are what define us, what make us who we are, what uniquely bring life to us. We can discover our values by answering questions such as these:

• What’s really important to me?
• What brings me the most joy?
• What really makes me angry? (Often tapping into more difficult emotions can show us where our passions lie.)
• What was the best moment of my life?
• What is my biggest dream?

Often as parents, especially parents of gifted children, we find ourselves running on fumes. We’ve expended every last ounce of energy–physical and emotional–and we fall into bed at day’s end exhausted and dreading the next time we have to open our eyes (all-too early, of course) and face another twenty-four hours of running the hamster wheel.

What if it were different? What if we woke up everyday excited about what we got to do that day? What might life be like then? And how would it affect our parenting?

Thomas W. Phelan, Ph.D says this in his book 1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12 (Glen Elln, Illinois: ParentMagic, Inc., 2003):

…to effectively express the affection and praise that your children can thrive on, as a parent you must take pretty good care of yourself in the first place. You need to see that your needs are being met and that you are not chronically locked into helpless, angry, martyrlike or victim roles. (p. 189)

When I read this quote, I breathed a sigh of relief. We don’t need to take care of ourselves only for our own sakes (we parents often balk at that idea, but it’s true); our kids need us to. Think of it–what kind of parenting energy might you have available if you were to regularly care for yourself? What words would come out of your mouth? With what tone would you say them? What would you do with and for your kids if you had some energy in your gas tank?

Those of us who parent gifted children do what we must to meet our children’s high needs. We drive the universe in our mini-vans to get our children the interventions they need, to find the education that would best help them develop, to bring them to the extracurricular activities that will enhance their truest selves. We can’t do this when our own physical and emotional gas tanks are on empty.

Not to mention, we are living our own lives. Yes, we have kids and caring for them is part of our lives too. But we also possess a part of our lives that purely belongs to us (I’ll blog more on this at a later date). We don’t want it to pass us by–we don’t want to look back and wish we’d done something more for ourselves, that we’d enjoyed life more because we had more energy and love that we’d given ourselves.

I’ll blog more soon about practical ways we can take care of ourselves. But for now, let it sink it: yes, we can and ought to take time and energy for ourselves (maybe even spend some money on ourselves too).

And now, I’m going to lay down with a good book, which I hope will eventually fall to my chest as I nap blissfully!

A Transformational Journey for Women

The Destiny Project is an eight-week, communal coaching journey toward naming and designing your life around your deepest life purpose. Through this teleconference journey, the leader will personally guide you through the 8 practical steps of the proven Visioneering Process that will break you out of stuck patterns in your life, reawaken your heart’s capacity to dream, guide you to create a crystal-clear vision for your future, and provide practical tools for stepping up to the bigger life you were created to live.

Participating in a Destiny Project Group may be one of the most significant explorations of your life. It is an exploration not merely of your career path (though that will certainly play a part), nor is it just about balancing the many tasks and roles you must fulfill in your daily routine (though that is certainly important). This journey will take you deeper than personality tests and time management programs can go–to an exploration of who you really are at the core, what really makes you come alive, and what big gift lives inside of you that, if unleashed, will inspire the world around you to come alive as well.

• You’ll discover your deepest life purpose, and describe it in detail.
• You’ll “map” out your dreams for the life you most want to experience and enjoy.
• You’ll transform your dreams into specific, clearly-defined visionary goals that you can and will achieve.
• You’ll forge accountable friendships with others just like you–people who’ve had enough of living small–and are committed to stepping up to the life of their biggest dreams.
• You’ll learn practical tools to move beyond the obstacles that have historically stopped you from your goals.
• You’ll “plan for success” by designing a practical, personalized road map to get you from where you are to where you want to be.
• You’ll move from what you want to do to what you will do.

I’m joyful, heartbroken, overwhelmed, grief-stricken, and angry.

My daughter struggles with sensory processing issues, and yesterday I took her to yet another occupational therapy session to treat it. The therapy seems to be working, my daughter enjoys it, and we love her therapist. But after every session the therapist hands me a list of more activities I need to add to our packed days, and the heartbreak and overwhelm set in. I feel so much joy when I look at my daughter, but I’m sad she faces these additional hurdles to overcome (hence the grief and anger), and I struggle to make the changes and additions to our schedule that the therapist prescribes.

So here I sit in it. And I keep trying not to run away emotionally. I wouldn’t run away physically, but I find it easy to distract myself from experiencing my feelings. I can dive into busyness. I can numb my heart with online social networking. I can call a friend and chatter meaninglessly.

None of these things are bad in themselves. Sometimes we need a healthy dose of escapism. But it’s always temporary. When we return to real life, the feelings have made themselves at home in our hearts, and sometimes they greet our return with a vengeance. They’re mad we’ve neglected them.

One of the principles of life coaching is Process, and we coaches colloquialize it using the term “being with.” Process is about the ability to be with whatever shows up in our lives. The extent to which we can be with the experiences and feelings we face, whether positive or negative, is the extent to which we have access to our fullest lives. If we can be with anger, conflict, even celebration, then our world is big, full, and rich. But if we can’t be with those emotions–if we do whatever we can, whether consciously or unconsciously, to avoid those things–then our lives shrink. We have less vitality available to us.

To gain it back, we do the tough work of “being with.” We learn to sit with difficult feelings as they arise: the deep sadness, the raging anger, even the tremendous joy (have you ever noticed how some people can’t celebrate victories or hear praise of themselves, how quickly they deflect it or distract themselves and others from it?).

The good news is that feelings are fairly fleeting. When we choose to experience them, we move through them to a place of greater peace. And not only is this a good tool for us to learn, it’s a good one for us to teach our gifted kids who are often so sensitive. Modeling it for them and giving them tools for processing their feelings will be an investment in their lifelong well-being.

So I don’t have answers for what’s going on in my world or in my twice-exceptional child’s world right now. She’ll do the therapy, we’ll support her at home, and we’ll wait for her brain to integrate the messages her body is communicating. In the meantime, if I can experience my feelings about it all and not run from them, I will have gone through this experience well. I will have lived it and gained from it whatever gift it has to give me.

What are you experiencing in your world today? What feelings have arisen as a result of your experiences? Can you be with them? By being with them, you’ll move through them and gain greater access to your fullest self and your fullest life.

P.S. If you’d like help being with any of your emotions or experiences, please contact me for a free thirty-minute sample coaching phone call. I’d love to be with you in whatever you’re feeling and experiencing!

Today in the United States of America power has changed hands as we’ve inaugurated our forty-fourth president, Barack Hussein Obama.  Some of us embrace this change, feeling hope for the future. Others of us are wary, wondering whether this new administration can handle the challenges it faces. Despite what we may feel, in the USA we are fortunate because power changes hands peaceably. In many countries such shift of power comes with more conflict, violence even. We are blessed that this isn’t true in our nation.

Most of us want change in our country and in our lives. But when we want to shift more personal things, we don’t experience a calm shift in power. We look at our lives, and wish things were different or better in one way or other. When we think of making the change, we may feel euphoria: “this is a change I can believe in!” But when we actually take a step or two in the direction of the shift we want, we experience turmoil the likes of power changing hands in dictator-led countries. It’s a coup d’etat. Our insides turn upside-down.

To calm the fray, we balk. We make excuses. We try to create peace treaties within ourselves. “If you just calm down, I’ll take a smaller step. Or I won’t take a step at all. I’ll move backwards if you like. Just chill, will ya?”

But what we get, then, is a less powerful life. Is that truly change you can believe in?

What change do you want in your life? And what turmoil are you willing to endure? The butterflies you feel in your stomach you can either interpret as fear or as excitement. When you reframe it and are willing to face it, a new day can arrive in your life.

P.S. If you’d like help making change in your life, including facing the turmoil of it, contact me for a complimentary thirty-minute coaching phone call. I’d love to help!