I often get asked for referrals to medical professionals whose services may be covered by insurance and can diagnose and provide therapy and/or pharmaceutical treatments for living with neurodiversity. Continue reading
Choosing an office chair can be daunting. Most people are quick to tell you their favorite chair. But how do you know if it fit your needs? On her Facebook Page, ADHD Coach, Krickett Harrison recently asked for help choosing a chair and inspired me to write this article for you. Hope you find it useful.
If you spend a lot of time at your computer, your office chair is the second only to your bed in terms of affecting your physical and emotional health and your overall productivity. Having had a back injury when I was in college, I’ve been through over 15 office chairs in my search for a chair that supported my needs and I’ve learned a few things about choosing office chairs that I’ll share with you here.
Design is the art and process of figuring out creative, elegant options for resolving inner conflicts and fulfilling as many needs as possible to achieve the greatest impact without exhausting your resources.
This is true of all kinds of design whether you are designing a home, a meal, a product, a game, a piece of furniture or whether you are designing your days, weeks and months. The fact is that we are always designing…we just aren’t aware of it.
The overall stages of the design process are the same across all applications of design. It’s like walking, the basics are the same. The difference is in how quickly, creatively, and thoughtfully you do it. When I started learning systems design concepts in 1980, I was struck by how easy it was to “over-design” and get caught up in the details before I even knew if the solution was actually viable or sustainable. It is very easy to get stuck in the planning stages, or in the creative or visual aspects of design.
Dr. Brené Brown is a researcher professor at the University of Houston, Graduate College of Social Work, where she has spent the past ten years studying vulnerability, shame, courage, and whole-hearted living.
Clients often ask me if there is a book or resource for learning more about what I teach regarding self-acceptance, self-respect, self-acknowledgment and self-compassion. Dr. Brené Brown’s work is among the best resources available today. Below are resources from Dr. Brené Brown I wholeheartedly recommend.
BRENE BROWN ON OPRAH
Graphic SOURCE: From Dr. Brene Brown’s appearance on Super Soul Sunday www.oprah.com
View Oprah’s Interviews with Dr. Brene Brown Online Here
VIDEOS BY BRENE BROWN
Shame, Vulnerability, and Whole Hearted Living - Synopsis
Listening to Dr. Brené Brown speak and watching her on You Tube was so heartwarming, validating and affirming. In this video she poses the questions:
VIEW: TEDxHouston – Brené Brown
The Price of Invulnerability - Talk Synopsis
In our anxious world, we often protect ourselves by closing off parts of our lives that leave us feeling most vulnerable. Yet invulnerability has a price. When we knowingly or unknowingly numb ourselves to what we sense threatens us, we sacrifice an essential tool for navigating uncertain times — joy. This talk explores how and why fear and collective scarcity has profoundly dangerous consequences on how we live, love, parent, work and engage in relationships — and how simple acts can restore our sense of purpose and meaning.
VIEW: TEDxKC – Brené Brown
INTERVIEW with BRENE BROWN – MP3
In the spirit of giving and gratitude, my friend Indrani, the mastermind behind the non-profit organization Indrani’s Light, is giving away the recording of her inspiring teleseminar interview featuring author Dr. Brene Brown. If you would like to be notified of future free “Chat and Chai” calls, please sign up here.
Here’s the link to download the MP3.
BOOKS BY BRENE BROWN
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way we Live, Love, Parent and Lead
Intensity of energy, drive, compassion, and frustration is a well-documented aspect of having extraordinary intelligence and empathy. Steve Jobs was lucky he had productive outlets for his intensity, but he also paid a high price. I deeply admire that he was strong enough to not let his creative passion be subdued or muted by the people around him who were clueless about how to cultivate or cope with his intense drive to innovate.
Luckily he insisted on cultivating it himself. Even when he got booted from Apple for his emotional intensity, he refused to give up and moved on to become the force behind Pixar and Toy Story.
It takes a very intense kind of person to challenge the status quo and do what people say can’t be done. Not only were lots of people not supporting him, they were actively trying to suppress and modify him as well. How long would you stand up for your big idea if everyone around you was trying to change it?
“But for all his obnoxiousness with his colleagues…, Jobs had a rich collaborative streak as well. He was enough of an egomaniac to think of himself as another John Lennon, but he was always looking for McCartneys to go along for the ride with him.”
This is a quote from Steven Johnson, author of the brilliant book Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation
To me, this is a kind of intellectual bullying – the kind that creative, emotionally intense and gifted adults and children experience their whole lives.Intense people are often unaware of the affect they have on people and consequently their intentions and thinking process are deeply misunderstood by others. Intensity is a form of neurodiversity. Unharnessed, emotional, intellectual and energetic intensity can feel overwhelming to people.
To me, Steve Jobs exhibited a personality trait called “hypersystemizing” or “addicted to insight.” Hypersystemizing has a biological basis and is often the driving force behind the kind of idealism and perfectionist behavior that Steve Jobs displayed. This is not everyday perfectionism, however. It’s a deep driving need to create something truly magnificent and not let others water down the visionary ideas with “groupthink.”
READ THE FULL UPDATED ARTICLE
Intensity – What makes intensely creative, emotional and gifted adults like Steve Jobs prone to abrasiveness AND to being bullied themselves?
RELATED ARTICLE How to Cultivate the Gifts of Emotional Intensity, ADHD, Creative Intensity and other Traits of Neurodiversity
I was truly dismayed to see someone as influential and talented as Steven Johnson, author of the brilliant book Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation
“But for all his obnoxiousness with his colleagues…, Jobs had a rich collaborative streak as well. He was enough of an egomaniac to think of himself as another John Lennon, but he was always looking for McCartneys to go along for the ride with him.”
SOURCE: http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/2011/10/thoughts-on-steve-jobs-the-book.html
To me, this is an example of the kind of socially accepted intolerance, bias, and disparaging name-calling that creative, emotionally intense and gifted adults (and children) frequently experience their entire lives. Even though Mr. Johnson is intending to show the “other” side of Steve Jobs complex personality, it doesn’t excuse his perpetuating the portrayal of Steve as an “obnoxious egomaniac.” Those are some powerfully degrading and hurtful words for such a respected author to be using as though they were mere objective facts and not defamatory or derogatory character slurs. To me, those words are just offensive as any racist or sexist epithets.
Yes. Steve was emotionally intense. Yes, he had a temper and SOME people felt bullied by him. But he was so much more than that — he had many allies, supporters and people who overlooked his outbursts as being part of his intensity and found his intense convictions inspiring. They didn’t take his emotional intensity personally and loved working with him.
Intensity is one of the many forms of neurodiversity that are misunderstood, not tolerated and aggravated by our culture. Unharnessed, emotional, intellectual and energetic intensity can feel overwhelming to people who are not intense.
When people assume that other people are sharing the same experience in the same way, and at the same level of intensity, it’s so easy to assume they simply lack self- control. In reality, it’s more like two people can be in a 70 degree room and to one it feel like 100 degrees and they are uncontrollably sweating and to another it can feel like 40 degrees and they could be having uncontrollable shivers and goose bumps. Emotional intensity works similarly. There is actually a biologically based neurochemical reason (one of which is dopamine levels) that literally and profoundly affect how intensely we feel emotionally in response to events. For example, we might feel such a strong surge of emotion in response to a new idea that it’s not “controllable” though with practice we CAN learn how to change the way we respond to it. But that requires advanced habit shaping and emotional intelligence skills that are rarely taught.
To the intense person, what seems like nothing to most people, for example, seeing a typo or mistake, can trigger such a strong emotional discomfort that it feels like being hit by a crashing wave. In our culture, instead of recognizing that some people are just that way, we treat it as a mental illness, we invalidate the reality of what it feels like to live with this, or we make it a character defect. When you really look at the situation deeply and objectively, you begin to see that it’s actually a need to learn skills. Thankfully therapy is moving toward an educational model, but why do we still classify the learning as a “treatment” for a disorder?
This fundamental variation in intensity is at the the root of many of our “differences” and when not recognized causes misunderstanding and over time can lead to such extreme frustration and anger that people become very abusive to each other.
Intense people themselves are usually unaware of how different their experience of life is from most people and their descriptions of how they feel are often not believed by others. Consequently, instead of learning how to cope with intensity, it is invalidated and people try to repress it. The repression leads to build up and eventually meltdowns, tantrums and other forms of emotional outbursts. My intention with this article is not to “excuse” anyone’s rude behavior, but rather to move us forward in understanding so that we can find more productive ways to deal with our differences. Like learning more about the ways people are different and how to resolve the inevitable conflict in respectful ways. We have a culture where most people seek to avoid conflict or confrontation. If we learned early on how to see conflict as an opportunity to learn to become more accepting of differences, more patient, more emotionally agile, mentally flexible and less certain that what we think is right, perhaps we wouldn’t have an epidemic of social anxiety and depression.
Back to the article that inspired this article — I wonder if Mr. Johnson is familiar with the literature on giftedness and intensity and, if he were, would he still choose to use words like “egomaniac” so easily?
EVERYTHING we do is with the intention to make our short-term, present emotional lives either, less painful / stressful, more tolerable, or more meaningful / pleasurable in some way.
We are always coping with the imperative of making the NOW bearable as we pursue our longer-term ideals. How to integrate our short-term intrinsic rewards with our long term goals/desires?
I learned a lot about how to AVOID inner war by reading the “Art of War” by SunTzu. I read the book because I wanted to better understand why “war” is so commonly used as in our culture as a metaphor for personal growth. In my opinion, gardening and cultivation is a far more accurate metaphor for how personal growth really works.
To my surprise I found that he actually teaches war as a last resort. Yes so many people have distorted his work and use it to justify using war metaphors as a primary way of interacting with themselves, like “Conquering Your Inner Critic” or “Battling your Inner Demons.” Another popular example of this is the book, “The War of Art.” Sun Tzu actually teaches the utter brilliance of winning by never going to war – it is a far superior strategy to avoid war and if possible, turn your opponents into allies.
Another common myth is that The Art of War is about how to deal with enemies. Interestingly, I found that he used the term “oppositional forces” and “opponents” rather than enemies. According to Sun Tzu, hate or disrespect for your opposition actually makes YOU weak…not them.
Think of your resistance as your natural opposition to “over-controlling” or “over-pressuring” or “not listening” to some part of yourself that isn’t yet “READY” for what you are proposing.
When you are resisting doing something you think you “should” be doing, instead of fighting it, try asking yourself one of more of these questions that help you “agilize” rather than go to war:
- What would help me feel more “ready” to do this?
– What time of day might I more naturally be inclined to do this?
– What’ would make this feel easier?
– What is the really value of doing this?
– What will the impact be? in the short term?
– How little of this could I do and call it good enough?
– What assumptions am I making about when, where, how, how much, how long, with who, how perfect, how many?
– What could I redesign to make this more attractive?
Focusing on readiness to do things rather than “pushing” or coercing yourself is much more satisfying in the long run. Try it a couple times.
See how your resistance changes when your creative brain kicks in. : )
http://www.artofwarsuntzu.com/SunTzuEBook.htm
RELATED POSTS
Although I prefer the term “Lifelong Disorganization“, the established industry terms are “chronic disorganization” and “challenging disorganization” this is not intended to imply a medical condition, nor an “incurable” condition.The intention of the terms are to distinguish an ”ongoing pattern of disorganization” from the ”short term situational disorganization” and clutter that is the normal result of grief, illness, having children, and other life events, transitions, and changes. That said, it is quite common for what started as “stituational disorganization” to evolve into “chronic” or “challenging disorganization”.
______________________________________
When life throws you a curveball, most of us tend to accumulate clutter and become rather disorganized for a while. It’s happens to everyone. We become ill, a family member becomes ill, we are assigned a project at work that requires a lot of travel, or has a ridiculous deadline. Our lives change. We move, get married, have kids, or start a new job. During times of transition, a certain amount of chaos, clutter and disorganization is natural. This is what we call “Situationally Disorganized”: Disorganization that is a normal side effect of a life situation.
