Reflections on How to to Heal our Lives, Feed our Souls, and Grow our Dreams I hate Mother’s Day. Awful though it sounds, I’ve hated mother’s day for a very long time. I’ve also felt guilty that I hated it. I also know it’s not politically correct, so I’ve not said it out loud. But it’s time to admit it. I hate Mother’s Day. I first hated it when I was in my twenties. I felt hurt and angry at my mother for many things that she had done or not done that I felt hurt me when I was …
Sensitive Gifted New Years Tools
Is Facing the New Year as a Creative, Sensitive or Gifted Person Daunting? Here’s Inspiration and some Creative, Sensitive Gifted New Years Tools – As one year ends, and a new one begins, we tend to ponder our lives. We ask, “Is my life where I want it to be? Are my relationships the way I want them to be? My finances? My spiritual/soul life? My work? My health?” Just in case they’re not, and you, too may sometimes wonder if you (or your creative, sensitive, or gifted kids) can actually craft a life you (or they) love to live, here’s …
FREE Webinar: How CASIGYs™ Can Thrive Through the Holidays
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
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, …
Happy Holidays – as the light returns to the North
Happy Holidays! No matter what religious holiday each of us celebrates this time of year, we all share the change of the seasons. CASIGYs (Creative, Acutely Aware, Super-Sensitive, Intense and/or Gifted You-s) may feel more connected to this phenomenon and be impacted by it than do many others. For those in northern climates, the light of the sun begins to increase again. In ancient times, this was often celebrated with outdoor bonfires. In winter’s deep darkness, we humans celebrate the light, as if to reassure ourselves that the light of the sun will actually return. Likewise, when we are in …
Happy Halloween
Today is Halloween – the one day in the year that we dress up in costumes, put on masks and . . . . well, we pay attention and even homage to parts of ourselves that we hide and put away the rest of the year. Psychologically speaking, this is a very healthy and an even necessary thing, especially for highly sensitive people, which, of course, includes many creative and gifted people as well. For it is when we repress, or pretend that we don’t have darkness within ourselves, that it goes underground. Pretending that we have no darkness inside …
How to Prevent Holiday Meltdowns!
Have past holidays been a nightmare due to ‘inevitable’ holiday meltdowns? Do you dread upcoming holiday family gatherings? It may not be a fun thing to admit, but there wouldn’t be so many movie and sitcom comedies about disastrous holiday family gatherings if it weren’t so common. So if you’re not looking forward to holiday family gatherings, know that you’re not alone, and that if you wish, you can let go of any guilt or shame you feel around dreading them. The perfect family does not exist on this planet, from the very first family to the First Family in …
Keys to Preventing or Overcoming Holiday Overwhelm
The holidays are coming. Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanza are racing towards us. Just saying this starts a sense of overwhelm to creep into me. How about you? Let’s explore together how to prevent – or overcome – holiday overwhelm. When we were children, the wonder and magic of the holidays filled us with eager anticipation. As adults, it’s quite another story. There’s gifts to make or buy, homes to decorate, inside and outside; relationships to consider-both interconnecting family relationships and friendships; food to prepare, including considerations of who’s allergic to what, and who’s on which diet this year; budgets to …
Valentine’s Day can be painful for CASIGYs with Broken, Hurting Hearts
Many CASIGYs feel lost in the Sea of Despair on Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day can be painful for CASIGYs (Creative, Alert-Aware, Super-Sensitive, Intense, and/or Gifted You-s) with broken, hurting hearts. When we have lost a loved one, when our marriage or love relationship is in trouble or has broken up, when we despair of ever finding someone to love and truly love us back, our deep pain can be magnified even more than usual during this time when the whole world seems to focus on romantic love. It can also be tough for us when we have financial challenges and …
CASIGY’s Secrets to Overcoming Holiday Blues – Creative, Sensitive, Introverted Gifted People
In the northern hemisphere, December brings darkness, and for some this brings the blues, AKA depression. As the loss of light progresses, veils of separation may also thin, connecting us more easily to our inner depths. Old issues we have dealt with can resurface, sometimes with an intensity that belies the work we have already done with them. Typical CASIGY (Creative, Sensitive, Acutely, Aware, Introverted, Gifted) issues such as inferiority, perfectionism, and a feeling of not belonging rear their ugly heads with a vengeance. New ones may wiggle in, too. Then there’s the waning economy; the holidays; you name it. The …