7 March 2015 was a big day for me.
It wasn’t just the day I finally learned why my son was so different from other kids.
Nor was it only the day I discovered that my daughter’s passion went hand in hand with her empathy.
It wasn’t even ‘just’ the day I felt fully understood for the first time ever.
No. At that workshop nearly two years ago, I stepped into a whole new world.
A world where quirkiness is cherished and supported. Where I no longer feel like a bad parent. Where I don’t feel anxious that my kids and I are too much, or too sensitive. A world of kindred spirits who understand my struggles and celebrate my joys.
The Embracing Intensity podcast
One of those kindred spirits is Aurora Remember Holtzman, the delightful woman behind one of my favourite podcasts, Embracing Intensity.
‘Each week, Aurora interviews a strong, creative, and sensitive woman who embodies what it means to embrace intensity in order to show you how to embrace life in its fullest. Listen to unlock ways to unleash your fire – without getting burned!’
Over the last few months I’ve enjoyed listening to Aurora chat with some of my favourite women. She’s interviewed Your Rainforest Mind author Paula Prober, My Little Poppies blogger and podcaster Caitlin Fitzpatrick Curley, and InterGifted founder Jennifer Harvey Sallin, among many others.
And last week it was my turn!
Here’s how Aurora describes a slice of the episode we recorded together, Kindred Spirits Welcome: Intense Women Raising Intense Children:
- Explore the differences in the use of the word “Gifted” in the US and UK.
- See how Lucinda decided to leave the Law and embrace a more creative career in cognitive hypnotherapy.
- Hear Lucinda’s desire to show parents how to enjoy parenting more.
- Experience along with Lucinda her journey in uncovering her son’s Giftedness, only to discover she was gifted herself!
- Learn how excitability manifests itself in an introverted sense.
- Discover how to appreciate who you are to propel you to who you can be!
I’d love you to listen along!
A podcast about raising intense and sensitive children?
Speaking of podcasting, I’m thinking about recording my own podcast. I’d share bite-sized stories about family life with intensity and sensitivity.
Do you listen to podcasts? Would you like to listen along?
What would you be interested in hearing me talk about?
It’s a bit strange talking to oneself in front of a microphone, so I’d love to know there are a few friendly folk out there I can imagine I’m chatting with. 🙂
* * *
Don’t forget to leave your email address below to receive my regular posts about life in an intense and sensitive family direct to your inbox. You can also like Laugh, Love, Learn on Facebook.
Goodness, Lucinda, you are a complete natural!! It was a great interview and you were obviously talking about something very close to your heart.
Can I ask you to do a post about sharing what you learn with your children about OEs? I’d love to know what you share and how much you share, and when in terms of maturity.
Listening to you talk was very much like listening to Charlotte talk. She does not ever write one list of new year’s resolution, she writes nine pages 🙂 Life excites her to a much greater extent than the rest of the family (bar me – I am just as easily excited!).
Looking forward to the pod casts you will be recording x
Ahh thank you, Claire! I thought just the same when I listened to your interview in the autumn. 🙂
I think I’d get on very well with Charlotte. I definitely relate to the 9 pages of resolutions!
That’s a great suggestion for a blog post. I talk about OEs quite differently to Jasper compared with to Cordie because they’re such different children. I also use different metaphors depending which type of intensity/sensitivity I’m referring to.
For instance, when I talk about psychomotor OE with Jasper we talk about how his engine is more powerful and runs faster than most people’s and so it’s taking him a bit longer to learn how to ‘drive’ it, and how he sometimes has to slow down to accommodate other people and society’s expectations.
I think Simone of PowerWood would have some interesting insights on this subject, because she’s worked with so many OE families. I’ve spoken with her and she’s agreed it would be great if we both wrote about this, so watch this space!
Lucinda,
I can’t wait to listen to your podcast interview. I shall bookmark the link and listen later this evening. I also can’t wait for you to publish your own podcast. I’m one friendly person who’s definitely interested in listening along! (I hope we don’t have to wait too long until your first episode!)
Lucinda,
I really enjoyed listening to your interview. Claire is right: you are a natural!
I have a couple of questions: Are all kids (and adults) with OEs gifted? Is a diagnosis of giftedness based on particular talents or abilities?
Sue, Thank you for listening! Aurora was so easy and fun to chat with.
Thank you for your great questions, too.
No, not everyone who has OEs is gifted, but they are more common and more intense among the highly able. Simone de Hoogh has an interesting way of putting it. She says that, ‘Nature plays at the edges of the bell curve’, which is why we find more quirky traits among people with a high IQ.
Because of the prevalence of OEs among the gifted population, much of the research done and books written about OEs relates to giftedness. Perhaps gifted people with children with OEs are more likely to study the subject. But I once heard a comment that prisons are probably filled with people with OEs too, which sadly is probably true.
Although schools and governments still focus on achievement and IQ scores to define giftedness, most people I know in the gifted community prefer the Columbus Group definition:
Paula Prober’s book Your Rainforest Mind is a wonderfully accessible description of how giftedness looks. I think you’d enjoy it. The book I’m listening to at the moment, Ungifted by Scott Barry Kaufman, is a fascinating exploration of how society has defined giftedness throughout recent history up to the present, told from the perspective of a (clearly gifted) psychologist who was frustrated to find himself in ‘special ed’ (remedial) classes up to his senior school years.
Thank you for asking such great questions, Sue!
Lucinda,
This is such a wonderful answer to my questions. Thank you for the info and links to the books. They are now on my reading list. I always learn so much from you. I love pondering new ideas. No doubt some of what you direct me to will end up in my podcasts just like Puttylike and Deep Work. I will have to add another tagline to my episodes: Inspired by Lucinda Leo!
Sue, Your comment really made me smile. It’s wonderful when we can share what inspires us with friends, isn’t it? I have so many ideas going round my head that I don’t manage to share in blog posts (or the podcast that hasn’t happened yet…) so I love that you’ve mentioned things like Puttylike and Deep Work in your podcasts. A friend once described me as a maven (from Malcom Gladwell’s Tipping Point). I wonder if you are a persuader? Whatever the explanation, we’re a good team!
I really do highly recommend Your Rainforest Mind – I think you’d like Paula’s friendly writing style. Ungifted is quite different – very interesting, but much more academic and research-based in style. Funnily enough I discovered Ungifted through an episode of Pam Laricchia’s podcast.
Sue, Thank you for your encouragement. Please keep on at me until I overcome my anxiety and come out with it!!
Wow, Lucinda, you were wonderful!
You spoke with passion, knowledge and fluency. As said above, you really are a natural.
I will definitely be a friendly ear listening in to your own podcast.
I also plan to listen to the rest of the Embracing Intensity podcast now too. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for listening, and for your encouragement, M! I really appreciate it. 🙂
I think you’ll really enjoy listening to Aurora’s other interviews, too. (Did you see that our mutual poppy-mum friend, Cait, has been on?) I find it so fascinating hearing the different ways intensity looks in different women, yet Aurora brings out brilliantly the common experience so many of us have had of feeling like we’ve to tone ourselves down. She’s doing great work. 🙂 The world is going to be a friendlier place for our daughters thanks to people like her.