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Embracing Intensity

Use your fire without getting burned.
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Now displaying: September, 2021
Sep 27, 2021

I’m excited to introduce you to today’s guest. She’s a highly esteemed expert in the area of neuroscience and twice-exceptionality. Join us to learn more!

Dr. Nicole Tetreault is a compassionate author, meditation teacher, and international speaker on neurodiversity, neurodevelopment, creativity, mental health, and wellness. Her book, Insight into a Bright Mind, explores groundbreaking research examining the experiences of unique, creative, and intense brains while advocating for new directions of human diversity and neurodiversity. Nicole is the founder of Awesome Neuroscience and translates the most promising neuroscience and positive psychology for people to live their best life. She is on the faculty at Bridges Graduate School of Cognitive Diversity and Education, and she leads a new generation of meditation practices by fusing novel discoveries in neuroscience with the ancient art of meditation. As the recipient of the Milton Career Exploration Prize from CalTech, she founded the novel nonprofit, Beyond the Cell, a transformative program to rehabilitate incarcerated women through guided meditation, neuroscience, literature, and expressive writing. Nicole believes we have the ability to wire our minds for positive plasticity through compassion and wisdom to live the life we dream.

Show Highlights:

  • Why Nicole is intensely passionate about neuroscience, positive psychology, and understanding diversity with compassion
  • How Nicole knew from a very young age that she was different than others and greatly affected by social injustices
  • How Nicole struggled when her intelligence didn’t match up for her in the classroom
  • How Nicole spent her adult years rewiring her brain with new patterns, thoughts, stories, and ideas
  • What Nicole would tell her former teachers about how they were “missing” each other
  • How Nicole experienced stereotyping and white privilege growing up as a blond Caucasian girl in a private school in a part of Los Angeles with a large Latino and Chinese population
  • How Nicole had to tone herself down in phases in her life, mostly by learning to hide in middle school and again in grad school
  • How Nicole’s intensity got out of control in grad school when she felt pressure and anxiety to be perfect
  • Nicole’s transformational meditation practice to regulate her intensity and emotional intelligence
  • The challenge in balancing a good mindfulness practice with what goes on in today’s world
  • Nicole’s take on spiritual bypassing and toxic positivity
  • How Nicole uses her fire for good in connecting and partnering with others who are passionate about equality for neurodiverse people
  • Nicole’s habits that help harness the power of her intensity: giving herself breaks for investigation, creativity, and curiosity; meditation; writing every day in a journal; and partnering with other creatives in the community
  • How Nicole helps others use their fire by helping students see their magic and helping other people see their individual gifts
  • How Nicole’s book: how it came about when she listened to her gut, how it inspires others, and how she wants to change the language about being twice-exceptional

Resources:

Nicole Tetreault 

Find Awesome Neuro on Instagram and Twitter

Insight into a Bright Mind: A Neuroscientist’s Personal Stories of Unique Thinking by Nicole A. Tetreault

Connect with me: 2E Connection

Sep 13, 2021

Today’s solo episode is about a topic that I’ve thought about for a long time, so I’m happy to bring it to you. We will discuss getting an assessment as a gifted or twice-exceptional adult, so I hope you find it helpful for me to share my thoughts and tips.

Show Highlights:

  • Considerations that are universal to all assessment types:
    • If you think you are gifted, you probably are.
    • Make sure the person doing the evaluation has experience with giftedness and twice-exceptionality.
    • Realize that every assessment will have limitations and strengths, and every evaluator will have personal biases.
  • Five types of assessments:
    • Diagnostic assessment
      • This will be done with a trained professional who can give a diagnosis. Always look for someone with experience with giftedness and neurodiversity, and ask what tools they use.
    • Psychometric assessment
      • This evaluation can give valuable information about your strengths and weaknesses, and it’s very standardized for comparison to others. It has limitations, like false lows and big gaps in highs and lows.
    • Qualitative assessment
      • This evaluation looks beyond just the numbers with things like observations, records, interviews, etc. It gives very useful information.
    • Self-assessment
      • The challenge in this evaluation is that there is a lot of information to take in.
    • Multimodal assessment
      • This kind of evaluation can be any combination of the other four types; it uses a variety of tools all together.
    • Helpful books: (See Resources for more information.) The Power of Difference, The Dyslexic Advantage, The Gifted Adult, and Your Rainforest Mind

Resources:

Connect with me: Aurora Remember 

Find out our upcoming group call on Overexcitability with Chris Wells:  Embracing Intensity 

Check out the following resources:

Cognitive Processing Inventory at LDinfo

Gifted Adult Checklist at Gifted Development 

Paula Prober’s Giftedness Checklist from Your Rainforest Mind

Books:

The Power of Different by Gail Saltz, M.D.

The Dyslexic Advantage by Brock and Fernette Eide

The Gifted Adult by Mary-Elaine Jacobsen

Your Rainforest Mind by Paula Prober

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