Conversations on Gifted Trauma

In this episode, Jennifer Harvey Sallin and gifted therapist, coach & improv instructor Gordon Smith explore how humor and play are essential elements to our healing path. Healthy humor and the authenticity and spontaneity of playfulness allow us to connect to ourselves and to others in unique and deeply grounding and meaningful ways. We explore Gordon's journey from gifted kid to gifted therapist and why and how humor became a key focus in his work with the gifted population. You'll hear lots of stories from his gifted improv groups, learn a bit about humor theory, and laugh with us as we play around with some improv in the episode.

In episode 13, Jennifer Harvey Sallin and gifted coach and leader Eva Bruchez take listeners’ questions on healing from gifted trauma. They explore the role of “little t” trauma in the life of a gifted person, the long-term effects of childhood emotional neglect (including a lack of loving touch), and the complications of narcissistic parenting on gifted children in developing a strong sense of self in the world. They also discuss the sense of imprisonment gifted people can feel when they’re constrained to the neuronormative box, as well as the creative trauma that can come about as a result of schooling in a capitalist system. In addition to addressing what kind of support and involvement gifted people can expect from others in their lives (friends, professionals, colleagues, family) as they progress on their healing journey, they emphasize the essential role of innate creativity, self-responsibility, and a willingness to embrace one’s own unique experiences and path as an act of healing. We hope you enjoy it!

In this episode, Jennifer Harvey Sallin talks with Dutch giftedness specialist, coach, lecturer, trainer and author Lotte van Lith. Jennifer & Lotte explore the types of loneliness a gifted person can experience, including intellectual, emotional, family, social, physical, existential, creative, physical and more. Giftedness is about exchange, and when we cannot share our giftedness, it can feel as though it isn’t real or doesn’t exist, and that can lead to feelings of deep isolation from humanity and from ourselves. Given our modern cultures have pushed us toward emotional disconnection and relational separation through restricted narratives about what life is, who we are, and what giftedness is, it is our work as gifted individuals to open up our minds and hearts to a broader understanding of ourselves, life, and our relationship to the various forms of intelligence that exist throughout the earth and beyond. The Art of Gifted Connection is, in other words, deep work that we do to become aware of, in humble awe of, and in grateful and generous communion with the complexity in and all around us - biologically, emotionally, philosophically, cosmologically.

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In this episode, Jennifer Harvey Sallin and ecotherapist & coach Eric Windhorst explore our connection to our inner & outer nature, as well as to fundamental consciousness. When fragmentation caused by trauma keeps parts of us disconnected from what is true within us and around us, we can provide conditions to welcome the fragmented parts back home. Time in outer nature, compassionate attention to our inner nature, connection to fundamental consciousness, and importantly, support from loving people in our lives are the ingredients for healing and growth. Eric shares moving stories of clients' healing journeys, as well as deep insights for listeners on their own healing path. 

In this episode, Jennifer Harvey Sallin & Karin Eglinton conclude our three-part episode series on healthy boundaries by exploring the cultivation of inner organization. Particularly important in this discussion are educational trauma and various dominant ideologies which, when unnamed and unnoticed, make it difficult for us to show up in the world in an organized, generative and well-boundaried manner. We explore the process of self-reeducation and unlearning that many of us must commit to in order to recover our inner organization, employ healthy boundaries, and inhabit our place and role in the current world.

In this episode, Jennifer Harvey Sallin & Karin Eglinton continue our exploration on cultivating healthy boundaries by looking deeply at individual, social and collective coherence and its role in helping us to be generative and boundaried adults. This is one of our longer episodes, and it reflects the importance of this topic in our world of quickly compiling and accelerating crises and conflicts. This is part 2 of 3 in our cultivating healthy boundaries episode series.

In this episode, Jennifer Harvey Sallin & Karin Eglinton explore how gifted trauma predisposes many of us to strong and painful - and sometimes debilitating - reactions to the climate emergency. Karin shares her personal story of how she was affected by this and worked through it, and we explore together what a gifted person can do now to heal from the inside as well as to contribute to the healing of the planet. It is a raw and real, and honest and hopeful conversation. 

In this episode, Jennifer Harvey Sallin & Karin Eglinton explore gifted-specific needs. In response to gifted-specific trauma, we often get distanced from a present-moment awareness of our gifted-specific needs and enter into a negative feedback-loop of self-alienation. We explore how this cycle gets started, and how we can interrupt it and exit it by becoming dynamically aware of and responsive to our own gifted needs.

In this episode, Jennifer Harvey Sallin & Karin Eglinton explore how gifted-specific trauma is often felt as a disconnection from the world, due to feeling socially out of place, misunderstood, unappreciated or exploited. Thus, healing requires forming nourishing and healing connections with others - especially others who are gifted and share similar minds, needs and experiences. We explore how you can know who to connect with, how to find them, how to connect with them meaningfully, and how to create a network of generative connections that will contribute to your healing and thriving.

Welcome to our first podcast episode. In this episode, Jennifer Harvey Sallin & Karin Eglinton explore how gifted trauma can result in feeling shame about our unusual minds. Many adults with gifted-specific trauma also feel shame about the need to heal and redo more basic developmental tasks in the healing process. Healing is a complex journey, one that requires us to have self-compassion, clear self-understanding (including clear understanding of our gifted minds and our gifted-specific needs). With clear self-understanding and self-compassion, we heal our shame, and can fully embrace our unique healing process.