
Some thoughts from Ricardo of Portugal:
“All my life I was driven, motivated, sensitive, intense, and hyperactive. I always cried easily with music, a memory, a movie or a person or animal suffering. I have always searched for beauty in my life and I always felt different, emotionally and cognitively. I always liked the positive things about myself – the energy and intensity of feeling, the intelligence of my out of the box arguments – but I always wanted to eradicate my anxiety and my worries. In a way, I guess that I have been afraid of my brain – its intensity and its hyperactivity in making so many driven thoughts…”
“I’m afraid to lose all the intense feelings I have about all the things that make me happy: the love I feel with my beloved wife, my sense of wonder about the world, my joy about beauty, my deep feelings about others, etc. My perfectionism makes me put my standards high enough to protect all the things I love. I need to feel always very good, I need to feel always connected to the world and with the people I love, I need to feel always alive at full throttle, I need to be the best in everything I do, I need to feel always deep, I need to feel always with energy. If I don’t feel good, I wonder if something is wrong with me. I have to be always high, never low. If any problem emerges in my life I can fix it with confidence and trust but if some fear (about disease or an idea about losing my joy and my positive intense feelings) get in my head, I worry and worry and start to get anxious…”
“Are you saying that rainforestminds can develop a perfectionism linked to the way that they need to feel, enjoy life and protect the emotions that they value? Why do I have such intolerance to anxiety, pain, diseases, sadness, and everything that can make me suffer?…”
My Response to Ricardo:
Dearest Ricardo. Because we haven’t met, I shall respond to your questions in general terms. Take what resonates and leave the rest.
Afraid of Your Own Brain
As odd as it may sound, being afraid of your own brain makes sense when you are such an intense thinker and feeler. So driven. So full throttle. Imagine that your capacity for intelligence, for thinking, feeling, and knowing, means that you might experience worry and fear at a similar scale. Full throttle worry and fear. Understanding what it means to be gifted will be important so you don’t mislabel yourself. Also, you will likely need to practice self-soothing and relaxation techniques. This won’t eradicate your anxiety but it can contain it and reduce it. Some sort of regular spiritual/meditation practice would be important if you also have trauma in your background. (or even if you don’t) Trauma stays in your body over time so a daily practice would be beneficial, along with some type of therapy, to reduce and reconfigure unhealthy patterns, beliefs, and habits.
Intrinsic (Healthy) Perfectionism
There can be two types of perfectionism in the gifted. The type that is innate can be described as the deep need for beauty, balance, harmony, precision, and justice. This is not something dysfunctional that needs to be healed. It needs to be understood and appreciated. There will be times when prioritizing and compromises will be needed, though, because on many occasions, something just needs to get done, and it can actually still be excellent, if not perfect. Emails to plumbers, for example, don’t need to take three hours to write.
Pressure to be Perfect
If you have a rainforest mind, you’ll often find a self-imposed or societal expectation to be gifted at all times at everything. This is impossible. There is nothing wrong with you if you make a mistake, can’t solve all problems, or if you are not the best at everything. You will have many moments of doubt, fear, failure, and confusion. There will be talents that you do not have and people who know more than you do about certain things. For example, narwhals.
Loss, Empathy
It may be a universal human experience to be afraid to lose what we have, in particular, for many people, losing love or material wealth. For the gifted, that might include fears of losing wonder, intensity, joy, and passions. Losses of freedom to question, to find beauty, and to be intellectually fed. We can’t avoid pain and grief in life but I suspect that, even so, you will maintain your intensity and your sense of wonder and your love of beauty, and more, regardless. When you are gifted, you can not become ungifted.
Chances are, though, you are also dealing with an abundance of empathy. That might be a reason you can be overwhelmed by sadness and pain. Perhaps you are feeling more than just your own grief. Maybe you are tapping into the suffering of others. It will be important to find ways to nourish yourself, develop healthy boundaries, and appreciate the loving presence that is you.
Thank you, Ricardo, for showing us your big-hearted, beautiful, complicated rainforest mind.
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To my bloggEEs: Do you relate to what Ricardo is saying? Let us know your similar or different experiences and also can you tell us where you are from? I suspect that these experiences are international in scope. I’m thinking that I might include more examples like this from emails that I receive. Do you like that idea? If you want to send me your questions and thoughts for possible blog posts, you can contact me through the form on the About page. No guarantees that I’ll post your questions but let me know if I have your permission. Thank you, as always, for being here. And, thank you for reviewing my books on Amazon!
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