"Common Exeriences"
"Qualities of the Highly Gifted Person"
"Sustaining the Gifted Self"
Common Experiences of the Highly Gifted Person
Giftedness is an unusually developed ability to perceive, understand or relate to a field of information - whether it be in the field of the mental, emotional, spiritual, imaginational or the energetic.
Most gifted individuals have never known they are gifted. They are reluctant to accept the label which has many associations. Instead, they tend to view themselves as aberrant or in someway defective.
Adults who were gifted as children tended to grow up using their gifts to adapt to the family and the culture - to fit in. They patrol or regulate their own urges to creative expression and unique use of their gifts, since these urges threaten to set them apart from others.
As a gifted person, you may be plagued by:
- chronic self doubt and feelings of being an impostor
- despair of ever feeling aliveness
- isolation and alienation from others
- too many interests, problems prioritizing
- boredom
- depression
- a high level of sensitivity
As a gifted person, you may interpret your complex inner life and thoughts as signs of craziness. In a culture that does not value the abstract or complex, you may have grown up thinking nobody else was like you. You had no models who could provide a vocabulary for your experiences of the world outside of you, or for your subtle awarenesses. It is likely you viewed yourself from the perspective of the culture, not as the highly gifted individual you were.
When highly gifted people are able to live in their gifts, there are many qualities that set them apart. Highly gifted people tend to:
- have high standards for themselves and others
- have strong moral convictions
- have a high degree of sensitivity to inner and outer stimulus
- be perceptive and insightful
- be extremely curious
- need lots of stimulus - in the area that is their passion
- value novelty in their area of passion
- be innovators
- be independent
- think outside the box
- question authority
As a highly gifted individual, you are compelled by an inner creative imperative to explore the unexplored and to give form to the previously formless. Your high level of awareness of subtleties in mental, emotional, spiritual, imaginational, energetic or physical realms is unsual (and unavailable to most people).
As you step into your gifts, you learn to trust your unique ways of relating to the world. You define the qualities of experience that you need in order to thrive. You come to understand how you differ from those around you, without placing value judgments on these differences. You understand your uniqueness to be part of what you offer to the world.
Qualities of the Highly Gifted Person
With a beginning vocabulary for the unique way that you experience the world, your ability to take care of your needs will be enhanced. Please remember, what I am describing applies to you in the arena of your giftedness.
High moral standards.
As a gifted person, you have a strong sense of what is right and wrong and how others should be treated. It hurts you to see others mistreat each other, animals or the environment.
Passionate devotion to what interests you.
What absorbs you - absorbs you. You easily devote your energies to what moves you.
Independent, tend not to be a follower.
You may not do well in groups or have much patience for process or ineffectual leaders. You tend not to admire authority figures. You seem them for who they really are. You value people for their gifts, not their positions.
High degree of sensitivity to inner and outer stimulus.
Whether or not what you attune to is relevant, you can easily be overwhelmed by stimulus - visual, auditory, mental, emotional, physical or energetic.
Depression or boredom if you are not engaged.
Because much of what is in the world is simply noise for the gifted person, you may avoid stimulus. In fact, as a gifted person you require stimulus in the areas of your passions. Without the proper stimulus, your gifts can turn against you.
Believing something is wrong with you because you are not like others.
Living as a minority, it can take a great effort to stop comparing yourself to others. One tends to compare one's level of energy, number of friends, activity level, personality with that of others.
Elaborate inner dialogues, thoughts or imaginings.
Whether it is what you think when you watch a movie, read a book, hear a lecture, or what you dream - you have a rich inner world. You have rich inner dialogues or imaginings.
Seeing the underpinnings of things.
You tend to think about, explore and see the place of origins. You look at the causal level of interactions in the field of your gifts - whether human interactions, agents of disease, warring countries or foundational aspects to color. You are aware of the place of essence, the place before things have form.
Seeing outcomes before they occur.
You tend to jump ahead. This can occur when you read, listen to someone talk or when you consider an issue. You often see what has not happened yet. Outcomes seems obvious to you because you are considering the variables in a way many are not.
Little interest in much of what interests others.
You don't find yourself easily absorbed in what interests others - events, activities, news or reading matter. You want to go deeper than most.
A rapid learner in the fields of your gifts.
You tend to have natural abilities without formal training. You are a rapid learner in the area of your gifts and a creative thinker - seeing beyond the given.
Independent, not a follower.
Because you process in a different manner than most and tend to attend to many different directions of thought or experience at once, you may find it difficult to be part of "group think" situations.
Many skills or interests.
Many (but not all) gifted people find themselves gifted in more than one area. This can make focusing energies and prioritizing very difficult.
Whether in the field of mathematics, interpersonal skills, music, the environment, art or healing, you see the underpinnings of the field itself. While others may work at the level of manifestation in that field -you are responding to a level before form.
You approach the world and problems differently than others. You may be concerned about things that do not concern others.
You see issues before others do, you see the ramifications of choices before the actions have even been implemented. You notice what others don't. You make connections between ideas that seem unrelated to others. You may see the ramifications of actions of individuals or industries decades before others do.
You may be gifted in fields that do not even exist to most people. If you are a healer, an artist or a scientist, there may be no vocabulary for your thoughts, your experiences or the things you are working on.
Sustaining the Gifted Self
- Self acceptance - celebrate your nature - clear habits of thought or perception that compare you to others
- Self awareness - fill your world with the rich sources of stimulation that you value
- Vocabulary - obtain concepts for your experiences of your internal states and of the external world
- Imagery - find metaphors and visual imagery to explain your experiences
- Personalized techniques for self care - create ways to limit activities that are too stimulating, boring or demanding
- Patience in finding the practitioners who honor your needs - identify gifts and limitations of helping professionals
