
What if learning has always been easy for you. What if you are successful at pretty much everything you try.
How might that be a problem?
Well, sweetie pie (may I call you sweetie pie?), here ya go:
If you have been recognized as gifted, the one with great potential, and so lucky to be so smart, this may result in some unintended consequences. Even though it is very important that you know you have a rainforest mind so that you understand more clearly who you are from this perspective and what it means, it is tricky terrain to navigate.
Why? Here are some possibilities (in no particular order). Which ones fit for you?
~ If your family and teachers always praised you for being the smart one and emphasized your accomplishments, your identity may now be dependent on achieving. You avoid trying anything that threatens that identity.
~ If something is not easy to learn or achieve, you conclude you are not as smart as everyone says. This can lead to procrastination, questioning of your self-worth, and to lack of motivation.
~ You believe that smart people should not have to study or practice, so you never learned how to study and you resist practicing. As a result, confronting something difficult is overwhelming or terrifying.
~ You have to hide your frustrations and fears because people keep telling you how lucky you are. You feel guilty when you don’t always feel grateful for your capabilities.
~ You can not admit that you need help because you are supposed to know it all.
~ It is hard to find anyone to help you when you finally do admit that you need it. Because you already know many of the answers, you need to find people who are smarter than you are, and that can be difficult.
~ When you do experience success, it is hard to celebrate. Either you feel like you have not earned it because you were born gifted or you do not want others to feel bad. Or you are too busy raising the bar. Or you then feel extreme pressure to always be successful. At everything. So any success just makes the pressure worse.
~ You feel like an impostor. You have managed to accomplish a lot but you do not know how you did it.
~ Learning has always been easy. You think: Can’t anyone do what I can do?
~ How do you explain how you know what you know? You can see it or hear it once and then you know it. You have a high level of intuition as a way of knowing, too. How do you talk about all that without sounding arrogant?
~ You may have grown up believing you are either smart or you are not smart. This mindset can lead to unhealthy perfectionism, particularly, extreme fear of failure. Even with an inborn level of intellect or capacity, there is room for growth, skill development, acquiring new knowledge, expanding creativity, developing sensitivities, mastering talents, studying new material, spiritual expansion, trauma healing, building relationships, and strengthening neural pathways.
~ You have been told you are arrogant too many times so you hide your achievements.
~ School may have been terribly frustrating, year after year, if you already knew what was being taught in your classroom and if your teachers did not appreciate or understand you.
~ If you knew the material in school before it was taught, you may have believed that you always have to know something before you actually learn it. This can create confusion and avoidance particularly in college and beyond.
~ You feel like a total failure if you have not had any particularly spectacular achievements.
See what I mean?
So, darling (may I call you darling?), you are not alone if you feel discomfort, angst, anxiety, and grief over the expectation that it must be wonderful to be so smart. To learn so quickly. To be so successful.
Like my teen client said to me when I tried to understand his discomfort, angst, anxiety, and grief, “It’s not that simple. It’s never that simple.”
Indeed.
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To my bloggEEs: Has learning been easy for you? What has that been like? Which of the above descriptions are familiar? Let us know your experiences. Your comments add so much. Sending much love and appreciation to you.
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