by Lisa A. Riley

Have you stopped to notice how we have conditioned ourselves through our senses? Repeated connections to smells, sounds and our surroundings slowly train our brain to respond automatically. It could be the aroma of coffee in the morning that prompts the mind to begin to awaken. Or a song on our iPod that gears us up for working out. It could be the way the ambient light softens our mood in a candle lit room. What we often take for granted, slowly become triggers. In the same way, our senses can also become a vehicle to arouse creativity. Because many creative individuals posses an attuned sensitivity to their environment and experiences, this can be an effective tool to utilize for creative productivity. Read Full Article

by Lisa Riley

It’s as if Valentines Day is treated like the Sabbath. Using that day out of the year to make good with our loved one. It’s an attempt to make up for those weeks or months when we weren’t so attentive or fell short of expectations. It’s the one day we have permission to find ways to reconcile. So we grasp at the bouquet of roses with the cellophane heart shape balloons and fight for the reservation at the hot restaurant in town. All in hopes of reconnecting with our partner and just maybe fall in love all over again.

Then this morning I thought of a different perspective around this holiday. What a perfect day to reconnect with ourselves and most importantly reconnect with our most beloved art. Maybe it’s been months since you’ve picked up the paintbrush or revisited the unfinished poem or half done sculpture.  It’s a day to spend reflecting on the reasons you fell in love with that particular art to begin with, similar to reminiscing about a first date. Carving out some time to do what you love allows the exchange of giving and receiving. It nurtures the heart of your soul. To express one self creatively is expressing a love and appreciation to your true gifts. So spend some time on this day to honor your original love by honoring the essence of your creative soul.

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Mary Rocamora is known for her extensive knowledge and experience counseling gifted and talented adults. She founded The Rocamora School, Inc. in 1984, where she offers programs she customized to help gifted adults optimize their abilities. She has developed workbooks to assist the gifted individual in developing a better self-awareness of themselves and the beliefs that hinder their full gifted potential.

Mary developed a self-test that would help to determine if you are creatively and intellectually gifted. Click on the link below to take the test.

Creativity & Intellectual Giftedness Self-Test

For more information on Mary Rocamora visit Rocamora.org

Based on the work of Alex Osborn, co-founder of world renown advertising agency, BBDO and Sidney Parnes, co-founder of the International Center for Studies, the creative process could be broken down into a series of steps. They developed a form of problem solving called the Creative Problem Solving (CPS) Model. It was a technique developed not only to reframe the problem, but to also shift one’s mental state in order to cultivate a more innovative solution. Part of the process was to increase the quantity of possible solutions in hopes that one or two would be a unique way of approaching the problem.

Below are the six steps developed by Osborn and Parnes:

1. Objective Finding
   What is the goal, wish, or challenge upon which you want to work?
2. Fact Finding
   What’s the situation or background?
   What are all the facts, questions, data, feelings that are involved
3. Problem Finding
   What is the problem that really needs to be focuses on?
   What is the concern that really needs to be addressed?
4. Idea Finding
   What are all the possible solutions for how to solve the problem?
5. Solution Finding
   How can you strengthen the solution?
   Whow can you select the solutions to know which one will work best?
6. Acceptance Finding – What are all the action steps that need to take place in order to implement your solution?

It was believed that if the CPS process were practiced over time, it would begin to become second nature in one’s own way of thinking and working when it came to problem solving.

For more information on the Creative Problem Solving Process visit Creative Education Foundation

“Curving back upon my own nature, I create again and again.”- Bhagavad-Gita

In the gifted person the calling to create can frequently be a relentless yearning. Innate characteristics of the gifted individuals such as seeking a deeper meaning and purpose; immense satisfaction in problem solving; constant curiosity and viewing a creative task from different perspectives, naturally urges them towards creativity. It’s as if all these traits merge together and become a compelling force from within to seek out creative challenges. In Mary-Elaine Jacobsen’s book, The Gifted Adult, she best describes this drive as never really ceasing, but instead oscillates in intensity, always to return.

“Everyday Geniuses’ need to create the best that they are capable of is not something that goes away with time. It’s not something we can excise, or a job from which we can expect to happily retire. To be sure, the intensity of creative pressure does ebb and flow, but like the tide, it always comes back. Unless we are extraordinarily hindered, sooner or later we must comply with the creative spirit’s urgings, because it is more persevering than any attempt by our thinking mind to ignore our gifts. Living everyday with the need to create is like sharing a room with a hyperactive little brother who elbows you, tugs at your shirtsleeve, and tweaks your ear repeatedly until you give him your undivided attention.”

Perhaps what fuels this drive is the tremendous satisfaction, the gifted person experiences during and after the creative process. Resulting in a release of such overwhelming pressure to utilize their talents and skills. Annemarie Roeper, founder of Roeper School of the Gifted and the Roeper Review, best describes this aspect as a “feeling of aliveness.”

“Gifted adults may be overwhelmed by the pressure of their own creativity. The gifted derive enormous satisfaction from the creative process….the whole process is accompanied by a feeling of aliveness, of power, of capability of enormous relief and of transcendence of the limits of our own body and soul. The ‘unique self’ flows into the world outside. It is like giving birth. Creative expression derives directly from the unique Self of the creator, and its activation brings inherent feelings of happiness and aliveness, even though they may be accompanied by less positive emotions, such as sadness, fear and pain.”— Gifted Adults: Their Characteristics and Emotions (Advance Development, 3)

She also touches on what can happen if the gifted person is suppressed or hindered from releasing such creative energy. “Just as the creative process creates a feeling of happiness, the greatest unhappiness can occur if it is interfered with or not allowed to happen. In that case the inner pressure cannot be released.”

It is common for the gifted person to suppress his or her own curiosities and creative urges as an attempt to avoid being perceived as odd or different. However doing so, can bring about a deep dissatisfaction in one’s life. Instead the gifted person should honor and embrace such natural forces and channel them in ways that will express his or her creative potential.

“Every gift contains a danger. Whatever gift we have we are compelled to express. And if the expression of that gift is blocked, distorted, or merely allowed to languish, then the gift turns against us, and we suffer.”
— L. Johnson

In the previous Blog entry I briefly mentioned some of the general traits of being Gifted. To further expand, the characteristics are usually broken down into six categories: General Intellectual Ability, Specific Academic Ability, Creative Ability, Leadership Ability, Affective/Social-Emotional Characteristics and Psychomotor Characteristics. Again keeping in mind that the Gifted person doesn’t have to display all of these traits to be considered Gifted.

The following information came from Duke University Talent Identification Program.

General Intellectual Ability

Specific Academic Ability

Creative Ability

Leadership Ability

Affective/Social-Emotional Characteristics

Psychomotor Characteristics

The more I learn about Giftedness, the more I have discovered an overlap amongst the creative, highly sensitive personality and giftedness. It appears the characteristics and traits run side by side. Inspired by the information I’m discovering, I’m beginning a series focused on Giftedness. I will explore such aspects as What is Giftedness, the different characteristics of being Gifted, the emotional challenges, misconceptions and so on.

What is Giftedness? Although many specialists have attempted to define Giftedness, due to conflicting definitions, there is still much confusion. One of the causes for the confusion is that Giftedness doesn’t always appear in a single skill, but can show up in a multitude of talents as well as emotional characteristics. Giftedness was once measured by academic achievement or extreme intelligence. However, traits such as highly empathetic, very observant, creative, highly curious and even underachieving are also part of the gifted person.

Stated in the 1972 Marland Report to Congress, gifted individuals display high performance in areas such as general intellectual ability, specific academic aptitude, creative or productive thinking, leadership ability, visual or performing arts and psychomotor ability. Giftedness doesn’t necessarily appear in all of theses areas, but can appear either in one or multiple of areas.

Joseph S. Renzulli, an Educational Psychologist, viewed the gifted as individuals who are capable of combining all three characteristics of above-average abilities, discipline or motivation, and extreme creativity and applying them to any area of human performance (1986).

Some of the basic gifted traits can be described as the following:

Highly motivated
Perfectionism
Sharp sense of humor
Highly sensitive and empathetic
Imaginative
Problem solving abilities
Very perceptive/observant
Intense interest
Insightful
Understands abstract concepts
Creative
Superior reasoning abilities
Highly curious
Unusual long-term memory
Contemplative
Learns rapidly
Overwhelmed easily by interests/abilities</em

If you think you might be gifted, you can run through the Gifted Self-Test found on Rocamora School’s website.

Other links:
NSGT (National Society of Gifted & Talented)
SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted)
Gifted Adults
NAGC (National Association for Gifted Children)
Gifted 101