From the Deep

Sometimes you just follow the energy.

I’ve become addicted to podcasts, and recently to one in particular: a Discovery News Audio Podcast called the Friday News Feedbag. I’d been surfing the iTunes podcast library, looking for anything that might be interesting and fun to listen to on a regular basis. This particular podcast features a host (excuse me, podcast master)–Will Johnson–and two reporters–Jorge Ribas and James Williams–who discuss six new science stories from the week in a fun and informative way. Then, if you wish, you can go to their Friday News Feedblog and vote for your favorite story. It sounded fun, and if you know anything about me, you know I’m all for fun. Plus, since the podcast is science-based, I thought my kids might enjoy it too. I pressed the “Subscribe” button.

I listened to my first episode, their Halloween podcast. I enjoyed it, and learned interesting things such as how candy corn was originally made. The three guys seemed to enjoy each other and their topics–I found myself laughing out loud in public and not caring! So I returned to iTunes and downloaded some previous Feedbag podcasts. Same thing. Great science. Fun repartee. I was hooked.

I couldn’t wait for my first “fresh” podcast, one I could listen to hot off the presses as it were, then cast my vote for my favorite story. In this particular podcast, James bravely attempted pronunciations of various scientific terms, and I empathized. Jorge, too, mangled the pronunciation of one word–”Renssalear,” as in Renssalear Polytechnic Institute–a citation for one of his stories.

They lamented the need for a pronunciation specialist, and though I’m not one of those, I do know how to pronounce “Renssalear.” My husband graduated from RPI, so I’m well aware of this small technological powerhouse, and I know how to say its name. So I humbly sent off an e-mail, telling the dynamic trio I was a brand-new listener, enjoyed their show, and wanted to help, providing a phonetic spelling for Renssalear (ren-suh-LEER, in case you want to know).

I figured I’d never hear from them, which I accepted as reality. So imagine my surprise when an e-mail from Jorge arrived in my inbox! At that very instant, I had been telling a fellow life coach how much I was enjoying this podcast, especially the relationship these three men employ in service of education and entertainment. They seem to lean into their relationship to create their podcast–they express curiosity in each other’s stories, blurt out ideas in a non-attached way, rib each other, and thoroughly enjoy themselves. I wanted to learn how to lean into my relationships in service of leading others.

So as I was having this conversation, I recieved the e-mail from Jorge. I glanced at it quickly, figuring it would be a polite thank you for the information I’d sent earlier, and the first line bore that out. But the second line said this: “So we know you’re a pretty new listener,  but we have a question for you: Would you be interested and available to be on this week’s show with us, via phone?”

Ground control to Lisa. Have we lost communication?

After regaining a semblance of composure, I learned that in their playful way, these science journalists had developed a couple self-help titles throughout their podcasts (Will’s is The Infrastructure of Our Lives, and James’ is Be Like Glass). They wanted to run these ideas by me, a certified life coach, to discuss the merits of these potential books in an educational and mostly fun way. Would I be interested?

Interested in being on a Discovery Channel podcast, one based on science, that’s fun, and is probably heard by people globe-wide? Shyah! (That’s “yes” in adolescent-speak.)

My life-coach friend supportively allowed me to disconnect from our call and respond to Jorge’s e-mail with a resounding YES!

All I did was follow my gut through the entire process, from checking out podcasts to writing my e-mail saying I’d be on the show. I followed the energy.

And that’s how I landed in a feedbag.

EPILOG…

I taped my segment with these gentlemen earlier today, and really enjoyed the experience! I had a wonderful opportunity to talk about life coaching and also about the role of science in my family (which is huge, given my husband is a rocket scientist and my kids attend a STEM school). I’ll blog the link as soon as it’s available. And they’ve dubbed me the Official Life Coach of the Friday News Feedbag! I think I need to have new business cards made…

I’m in a mental, emotional waiting room, absentmindedly flipping through a three-months-old, dog-eared People magazine, hoping to receive positive results. I have recently learned that my son, who attends a school that ability groups kids in math and in reading, has landed in an English group that isn’t challenging him. The school is doing its best to address the issue. I mean, when you don’t have enough room because your kids attend school in a strip mall where the teacher sits on the floor of the staff-lounge-turned-classroom so kids can sit at her desk, you can easily understand that we might have one too many levels of kids to group and one too few teachers and classrooms to accommodate them. Nevertheless, my husband and I switched our kids to this school so they could be challenged at their level of potential, and despite triangulating my son’s MAPS, DRA, and standardized-state-test reading scores, he’s basically learning at the level at which he learned last year. That means no growth for this year, and it’s unacceptable.

Before I proceed any further, I want to say that I absolutely love the school my kids attend. As I mentioned previously, the teacher and the principal are actively looking into solutions, and I believe they’ll come up with some creative, helpful ones. The school and this issue are really the background for my point: this is yet one more time when I’ve had to advocate for my child, when I’ve had to expend energy contacting teachers, when I’ve had to be vigilant to make sure my child is receiving the education he needs. Never mind that we made the big switch last year after the previous year’s journey toward giftedness identification and school choice. It didn’t end there. It never ends. I have to stay on top of these things for both of my gifted children. I do so with joy–it’s wonderful to see my children bloom where they’re planted. But it takes time, love, and energy. I dive headlong into these things, with all my heart, all my self. I’m like a mama lion out there, protecting the interests of her lion cubs. And these issues often take precedence over the other commitments I have in my life, including those to myself. Schedules shift. Brain cells are reassigned to the project. Energy drains. And I don’t often acknowledge the impact.

We have high needs kids. Some might even say we have special needs kids. Most people, who think we’re privileged to call our kids “gifted” don’t understand this, thinking our children will bloom wherever they’re planted, even if devoid of the fertilizer of challenging material. But we know better. So we press on, in the face of the challenge and the misunderstanding of our peers, to do our part to ensure our children reach their full potential. We may experience great frustration at times, but when it works, we experience deep joy.

So when these inevitable issues arise, what can we do to maintain our sanity and our connection to ourselves? Here are some suggestions you might find helpful:

• Recognize you’re facing an issue that’s affecting you. Acknowledging this to yourself can bring an immediate release, an opportunity to cut yourself some slack.
• Determine the impact. Are you revved up emotionally? Are you losing sleep? Do you find yourself mulling the issue over and over in your mind, even when you’re doing other things? When you realize the impact, you can move toward specific actions that will plug the energy drain you’re feeling.
• Address the effects of the impact. If you’re emotionally reeling, maybe you need a cup of tea with another mom of gifted children. If you’re losing sleep, perhaps you can write the issue down and put the piece of paper in a box, symbolically letting it go for the night. If you find the situation buzzing in the background of your mind all the time, maybe you need bring it to the forefront and find some answers.
• Take extravagantly good care of yourself. Let’s face it: you have high needs children! They are glorious, and they require a lot of energy and awareness. So you need to be at your best, and that requires attending to self care at all times and especially when issues arise that require extra mental, emotional, and/or physical energy.