How to Ride Out Life’s Tough Times: Hang Loose in the Washing Machine!

Sharon Barnes CASIGY, Creative Coping, emotional resilience, Gifted, gifted children, Highly Sensitive, highly sensitive child, Overcoming Adversity Leave a Comment

Adversity is something everyone faces at some time in their life. Adversity often has a greater impact on CASIGYs™ (Creative, Acutely Aware, Super-Sensitive, Intense and/or Gifted You-s) than it does on neurotypical people. So, for the CASIGYs™ in your life,  here’s How to Ride Out Life’s Tough Times: Hang Loose in the Washing Machine! Several years ago, I was helping one of my counseling clients learn how to cope with overwhelming emotions connected to the adversity he was going through. As we discussed this, I mentally searched for a better way to help him. Suddenly a picture popped into my head: ocean …

Being an Empath – When you Feel Emotions That are not Your Own

Sharon Barnes CASIGY, Creative Coping, Emotional Intelligence, emotional resilience, Empath, Highly Sensitive, highly sensitive child, overexcitibilities Leave a Comment

Ten year old Aiden (not his real name) dissolves in a puddle of tears. Once he has calmed down and can actually talk about it, you discover that he has no idea why he feels sad. No, he is not hurt physically.  No, no one said or did anything that hurt his feelings. No, he is not afraid or scared about anything. You -and he- remain puzzled. As a parent, what do you do? And what is going on here? One possibility is that Aiden is totally disconnected from his emotions and therefore has no idea what is going on. …

Remembering Columbine: Helping Creative, Highly Sensitive & Gifted Adults Heal from Trauma

Sharon Barnes CASIGY, Creative Healing, Gifted, gifted children, Grief and loss, Highly Sensitive, highly sensitive child, trauma Leave a Comment

Remembering Columbine – healing trauma for creative sensitive gifted people. Nineteen years ago this Friday, April 20, 1999, my husband Gary and I connected for a rare lunch together. As we munched on our sandwiches under a restaurant patio umbrella, we saw police car after police car roaring south through Lakewood on Wadsworth Blvd, sirens wailing . Chills went up and down my spine as we also heard the rumble of big military type helicopters overhead. We saw that they were all heading for Columbine-our new neighborhood, where we had lived for only six weeks.  We knew something BIG and BAD …

How Creative Sensitive Gifted People Can Cope with Trauma

Sharon Barnes CASIGY, Creative Coping, Highly Sensitive, highly sensitive child, trauma Leave a Comment

New Year’s Eve, 2017 started with a bang in Highlands Ranch, my home town. Before sunrise, police answered a domestic dispute call. Before it was all over, one officer was killed and other officers and citizens were wounded, according to the Denver Post. This photo shows law enforcement officers gathering by Littleton Adventist Hospital to form a motorcade in honor of the fallen officer. Tragedy such as this, natural disasters, terrorism and mass shootings may impact all of us, even when we are far away from the action. When we are directly involved in a life-threatening situation, we experience direct …

FREE Webinar: How CASIGYs™ Can Thrive Through the Holidays

Sharon Barnes CASIGY, Creative Coping, Creative Healing, emotional resilience, Existential Depression, Gifted, gifted children, gifted relationships, Highly Sensitive, highly sensitive child, Holiday Advice, Inspiration, Jungian psychology, Self-Acceptance, Soul Care Leave a Comment

Are you Creative, Super-Sensitive and/or Gifted, AKA a CASIGY™?  Have Previous Holiday Seasons left you feeling frustrated or hurting emotionally? Are you Thinking, “THIS YEAR the Holidays MUST be BETTER!”? Here’s Hope and Help from Sharon M. Barnes, MSSW, LCSW, Therapist for Sensitive and Gifted.  I’m giving a Free Webinar: How CASIGYs™ Can Thrive Through the Holidays! Join me in this Free Webinar, where you’ll learn: Life Lessons We Can Learn From Classic Holiday Movies That Can Help Us Improve Our Holiday Experience as CASIGYS How To Bring Soulfulness In, So Your Holidays Have Depth And Meaning How To Sensitively Navigate Difficult …

What Can a Creative Sensitive or Gifted Person Do When You Don’t Feel Grateful

Sharon Barnes CASIGY, Creative Coping, Gifted, Highly Sensitive, highly sensitive child, Holiday Advice, Self-Acceptance Leave a Comment

What can a Creative Sensitive or Gifted Person do when you don’t feel grateful, especially on the annual day set aside for giving thanks? If you’re like most CASIGYs™, you probably feel guilty about it. Beyond that, the short answer is that you can feel what you feel! And then you have the opportunity to deal with how you feel.The long answer is, well, the rest of this post. What do I mean, “you feel what you feel”? When you don’t feel grateful when you think you should, that usually means that you’re feeling something else. Maybe you’re feeling anxious, …

How to Face Bad Dreams – for Highly Sensitive or Gifted Children & Adults

Sharon Barnes Contemplative Handwork, Creative Coping, dreams, Gifted, gifted children, Highly Sensitive, highly sensitive child Leave a Comment

Not long ago, two sensitive, gifted children came in on the same day telling me some recent bad dreams.  These were intense sessions. It was hard for them to tell their bad/scary dreams. Their moms were also worried about what these dreams might reveal – about their child’s psyches, about their parenting, about what the dreams might mean. Bad, scary dreams are hard for anyone to deal with, especially children. And when you add sensitivity and intensity into the mix, well, strap on your boots, we’re getting serious here! We did unravel these dreams, and their possible meanings. I helped …

Pandora’s Box of Emotions

Sharon Barnes CASIGY, Creative Coping, emotional resilience, Gifted, gifted children, Highly Sensitive, highly sensitive child Leave a Comment

As you may recall, the myth of Pandora’s Box involved a Forbidden Box which was not supposed to be opened, but of course WAS opened, and then unleashed Evil . . . . and finally, Hope.  We each have similar boxes; ours are often boxes of emotions. I remember standing with my father in his home office when I was a young adult. We were talking about life, and coping with emotions. I told him that getting in touch with my emotions had not helped me feel better at all! Instead, getting in touch with my emotions was making me …

CASIGY Coping Tools-Steps 5, 6, 7

Sharon Barnes CASIGY, Creative Coping, emotional resilience, Gifted, gifted children, Highly Sensitive, highly sensitive child Leave a Comment

Here’s More CASIGY™ Coping Tools This continues Strategy #4 in the series, “7 Strategies to Cope With the Differences of Being a Creative, Highly Sensitive or Gifted Person”. We’ve been talking about CASIGY coping tools (CASIGY™ = Creative, Acutely Aware, Super-Sensitive and/or Gifted You-s). CASIGY coping tools are ones that are suited to your creativity, sensitivity, intensity and intelligence.   In my previous blog post of this series, I introduced the Personal Power Pyramid, a collection of CASIGY coping tools. They help CASIGYs develop Emotional Resilience and build Emotional Core Strength™.   In that post, we then discussed the first 4 …

Creative Coping Tools for CASIGYs

Sharon Barnes CASIGY, Creative Coping, emotional resilience, gifted children, Highly Sensitive, highly sensitive child Leave a Comment

Creative Coping Tools for CASIGYs and Skills to Use Them. This begins Strategy #4 in the series, “7 Strategies to Cope With the Differences of Being a Creative, Highly Sensitive or Gifted Person” Creative Coping Tools and skills to use them comprise Phase I of the CASIGY Cycle of Encouragement that I mentioned in my previous blog post. As a CASIGY, you may feel the need for coping tools suited to your creativity, sensitivity, intensity and intelligence. You may have tried many other coping tools for yourself or your children, only to find them ineffective or even aggravating to an …