More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
My emotion of not being good enough overshadows my reason.”
“I’ve always wanted to know everything before I learned it,”
She struggled with extreme anxiety which hindered her ability to fulfill her goals, as well as create lasting relationships with friends and family.
Though she had never been identified as gifted in school, she explained that she was frequently called too sensitive, too serious, and a show-off because she was highly emotional and intense about living life to the fullest.
I suspected that some of her anxiety was due to her sensitivities and ability to sense other people’s feelings.
Even though Janice experienced serious anxiety and depression with suicidal thoughts due to her early trauma, she was insightful and articulate during sessions. Her perky energy might have masked her deep despair if I had not seen this pattern many times before. In part, her cheerfulness was a coping strategy, but it was also a reflection of her idealism and resilience, typical RFM characteristics.
seems that RFMs can deeply appreciate the beauty of an ancient redwood or the wonder of the ocean even while experiencing the fear of abandonment and intense self-hatred.
As is true of most clients, Janice carried a lot of self-blame. She told me that she felt “defective” and “weak and stupid.”
Grieving childhood losses takes time, particularly when you are a highly sensitive, intense, and empathetic individual.
Existential depression can result when you feel powerless and overwhelmed by sociopolitical issues and events and when you do not know how you can contribute adequately.
Gwen deeply felt the suffering of humans, animals, and plants. At times she felt nearly paralyzed by despair. It can be hard to be that sensitive and aware. But this considerable sensitivity and high awareness seem to be the reality of the RFM.
Try the Buddhist tonglen meditation practice of breathing in the suffering of others and breathing out love, as described in Pema Chodron’s book and at pemachodronfoundation.org.
Use your privilege as an opportunity to serve. Realize that if you had to work to find food or shelter, you would not have the energy to contribute. Because your basic needs are met, you can find your ways to be of service.
You yearn for intellectual challenge while simultaneously fearing it. If you do not succeed, it will prove what you have known all along, that you are an “impostor.”
Alongside our greatest longing lives an equally great terror of finding the very thing we seek. Somehow we know that doing so will irreversibly shake up our lives, our sense of security, change our relationship to everything we hold as familiar and dear. But we also suspect that saying no to our deepest desires will mean self-imprisonment in a life too small.
I have learned to give up my high expectations in the interest of good interpersonal communication and positive working relationships.
Because you are super-sensitive, you are deeply affected by the choices you make. What you choose matters. And because you often consider how other beings will be affected by your choices, you put pressure on yourself to get it right.
If you choose a path that includes being a stay-at-home parent, be sure to configure ways to drink from a variety of wells so that your child receives a fully nourished you.
Knowing that you take longer to make decisions because you are a divergent thinker, have perfectionist tendencies, are sensitive, and care deeply about your impact, can allow you to dis-identify as a flip-flopper or an obsessive-compulsive, careless, weak time-waster.
I keep hoping to meet people with whom I can relax and be just me, all of me, unafraid to let them see who I really am, in all my dorky, questing, art-loving, social justice obsessed, bibliophile, rebellious, intersectional feminist, world-changing glory.
I am definitely a fast thinker and this has become more apparent to me over the years. I get frustrated when I have to stop and explain things to people that seem very obvious to me. Being able to think at my own pace is such a relief. Finding someone who enjoys exploring a topic at that pace is exhilarating.
If you have trouble making small talk and you are in a situation where it is required, start by asking questions about the other person. People usually enjoy talking about themselves.
You will want to explore your fears by talking to them and listening closely. Your fears may give you valuable information.
First, you may not realize that some RFMs do not do well in school. In fact, your schooling experiences could have been a source of great pain and confusion.
I would hear over and over again that I had potential but I just didn’t work hard enough. That wasn’t true. I’ve always loved learning new things and exploring new concepts. I would read through my textbooks excited with the prospect of learning something new, even before school started. It was when classes began that I got bored and frustrated. Things went too slowly, and often I felt that teachers ignored what I said or wrote me off. And I’d always end up with teachers who would take it upon themselves to fix my slacker ways, using tough love and meanness as a substitute for real human
...more
Tom could not slow his radiant rainforest mind down enough to get through college. There was just too much life in the jungle.
And I also recognized that RFMs know how much they do not know and often underestimate their abilities.
But I hoped that, in time, I would convince him that success in school may not be an indicator of advanced intellect so he would gain the confidence he needed to recognize his strengths and appreciate his zeal—even
He then said that he experienced anxiety around achievement in school and had been depressed off and on over the years—but he was unsure why. He described high standards and pressure that he put on himself.
Students with a more random and creative learning style actually do better working on more than one item at a time, but this can look disorganized and distracted.
He asked detailed questions, especially in science, that the teacher either would not answer directly or would totally ignore.
“I have a pattern of going at maximum velocity then running out of steam. I can’t relax, I’m anxious about the future, and I’m generally overwhelmed because I over-think everything.”
I told him that the rainforest mind often runs nonstop, on more than one track at a time, and typically worries about the wellbeing of others and the planet.
I told him that an 18-year-old girl I was seeing described how overwhelmed she felt by “the unbearable suffering in the world” and how she felt “desperate to take...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
In addition, for a mind that thrived on complexity, mundane tasks could be very difficult, almost painful, to complete.
Find ways to get intellectual stimulation. Go to lectures and art galleries, travel, read, take a scientist or an artist or a retired college professor to lunch. Learn a new language, study musical instruments. Look online for people and projects you can join.
Let curiosity be your extreme sport.
Get out of the box, let go of normal, and stop trying to climb into the box.
I wonder if much of your day-to-day motivation stems from your deep desire to live an honest, real, and meaningful life. You may go to great lengths to examine your actions, statements, emotions, and thoughts because you want to speak and live your truth.
I believe that finding your true voice and living your real life is among the most important work you can do.
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
“Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.”
A school system that sets children against each other creates competition by expecting them to do the same thing at the same time.
Creativity is one of my big struggles. I spent my whole first year in therapy getting myself to draw, finding triggers blocking me from expressing my creativity. I passionately wanted to do visual art and I wasn’t able to. The fear of disapproval, fear of expressing my true self in the world because at the root I believed I was bad. Fear of doing the wrong thing. All stopped me from drawing. Trusting and valuing my core self gave me the confidence to draw. Then art fell to the side and music came and brought me back to the damn beginning. I’m going through the same process with song writing!
“[T]rust isn’t about gathering all your strength and taking a big leap across a chasm. . . . Trust is really about knowing there is no chasm. There is no other side. You’re already there.”
Keep searching for yourself. Do as much therapy, reading, writing, obsessing, questioning, crying, analyzing, creating, dancing, exercising, building, snowboarding, and rebelling as you need to do to get to what feels like your soul’s song. Then sing it. No matter what anyone tells you, sing out. The Universe will thank you.
Finally, understand and appreciate your rainforest mind so that you can, more happily and effectively, do what you are here to do.
