Nine Lessons I Learned on Road to First Grade

Sharon Barnes CASIGY, Creativity, emotional resilience, Highly Sensitive, Inspiration, Overcoming Adversity Leave a Comment

Inspiration for Parents and Teachers of Creative, Sensitive or Gifted Children: Here are Nine Life Lessons I Learned On the Road to First Grade: My little quilt, finished except for the label, was a burgundy, mauve and ivory ‘watercolor’ heart-shaped wall hanging. It had taken me many moons to make it, and I was tempted to skip the label. Painters sign their work on the front; quilt artists make a label for the back. But I just wanted to be done with it.  I hate making quilt labels, partly because I never know what to say on them, partly because …

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 …

My Scrap Angel: Life Lessons Learned While Quilting

Sharon Barnes Contemplative Handwork, Creative Healing, emotional resilience, Existential Depression, Grief and loss, Hero's Journey, Overcoming Adversity Leave a Comment

Have you ever started a creative project that went so badly you trashed it? I have–more times than I’d like to admit. I had heard that mistakes can be our finest learning experiences, but I’d not relished that idea until I reclaimed one of my discarded pieces, and unexpectedly discovered how to reclaim my life, too. An hourglass quilt block I had made from scraps contained too many mistakes to use, so I pitched it. The triangles didn’t have points; I could have done better when I was nine years old. The parallel lines weren’t parallel–they would have made a …

I Hate Mothers Day

Sharon Barnes CASIGY, Creative Coping, emotional resilience, Gifted, gifted relationships, Grief and loss, Highly Sensitive, Holiday Advice, Inspiration, Overcoming Adversity, Perfectionism, Self-Acceptance, Soul Care Leave a Comment

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 …

How to Get Unstuck

Sharon Barnes Highly Sensitive, Overcoming Adversity Leave a Comment

Do you ever feel stuck? Does one thing after another in life pile on top of another? I can relate. Sometimes we don’t realize we’re getting stuck until we’re immobilized. For Creative, Super-Sensitive or Gifted people, AKA CASIGY’s, this can look like over-committing time, having too much to do with all of it seeming equally important, or being interested in so many things that we have trouble choosing among them . This can take many forms and can easily lead to getting paralyzed  and being stuck. The question then becomes, how do we get unstuck when we’re stuck? Working with my hands often …

5 Intuitive, Creative Steps to Heal from Life’s Hurts

Sharon Barnes Creative Coping, Creative Healing, Overcoming Adversity Leave a Comment

An Intuitive, Creative Approach to Healing from Life’s Hurts Or, How to E-E-E-K-K Your Way Through Adversity to Destinations of Delight When tough times hit and our life’s path seems to disappear in the fog; when we are faced with illness, loss, financial reversals or other adversity, it can be easy to feel like we have lost our moorings.  We may struggle to keep our feet under us, or to change the metaphor, to keep our heads above water; we may be overwhelmed by it all or we may want to pretend that all is well even when we know …

Happy Halloween

Sharon Barnes Creative Coping, Creative Healing, Grief and loss, Holiday Advice, Inspiration, Jungian psychology, Overcoming Adversity, Self-Acceptance, Soul Care Leave a Comment

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 …

Balancing Your CASIGY™ Life

Sharon Barnes CASIGY, Creative Coping, Gifted, Highly Sensitive, LifeCraft Events, Overcoming Adversity Leave a Comment

If You Can Balance a BIKE, You Can Balance Your LIFE!    One Sunday afternoon in the spring of 1999, I had just drifted off to take a nap when my husband Gary put his hand on the calf of my leg and gently shook it as he said these encouraging words: “What’s wrong with you? I’m worried about you. All you do is sleep. Are you depressed?” The searing bone pain that had kept me up most of the night had finally lessened enough that I could relax and sleep, and now he was waking me up. “I’m NOT …

Compost is Nature’s Original Recycling Project

Sharon Barnes Overcoming Adversity Leave a Comment

In Processing Complex Emotions, Nature’s Original Recycling Project Shows Us the Path to Healing: Composting in our gardens transforms organic material like grass clippings, food garbage and tree leaves into fertilizer. Transforming manure into fertilizer is nature’s original recycling project. Complex emotions need composting. First, we gather them together and pile them up in one place, like we do with compost or manure. Then, we mix them up, expose them to the air, sunshine, rain and then we leave them alone while we go on with our lives, before repeating the mixing process over and over again, until the compost or …