This is the final rerun episode for December before we launch into a new season of interviews, solo episodes and amazing guest speakers!

Love is the very fabric of the universe, and I get so excited when I see someone using their intensity to spread the love around. My guest this week is Alexandra Loves, and I actually approached a year ago to be on the show. I’m so glad we decided to wait until now, because my connection with Alexandra has grown and bloomed during that time, giving us plenty to talk about! Alexandra is a Love Attraction Coach, Intuitive Spiritual Guide, and Entrepreneur. She is on a mission to catalyze creative power, and use her intuitive spirituality to guide her clients into their best existence. In everything she does, Alexandra is all about harnessing the power of that abundant universal fabric from which everything is made, Love.

Today, Alexandra and I are talking about how intensity can be a force for good, for love, and for large-scale transformation. Because of her international upbringing, Alexandra feels comfortable talking to just about anyone. Added to that, she never felt the need for all the labels and stereotypes in the world today, yet the world seems inclined to want to place them on everyone. Rather than let that be the reason for toning herself down, Alexandra has fully embraced who she is and what she stands for. Now she is using her gifts to help people find love, find meaning, and find who they really are.

Alexandra is teaching us today how to use our intuition. Once we begin listening, nothing can hold us back, and we can only increase our impact on what is going on around us. Alexandra says it best, “We are changing the world right now.”

More in this episode:

• Alexandra shares why she is so committed to understanding her gifts and using them for a higher purpose.

• Alexandra is on a search of Absolute Truth, and she is OK with that definition evolving over time.

• In love, Alexandra embraces the “Wise Beyond Her Years” label.

• Much of Alexandra’s practice deals with reconciling gender expectations within men and women.

• Alexandra is on a mission to help us understand the dangers instant gratification.

• The cultural factors that have shaped Alexandra’s ability to embrace her intensity and her racial identity.

• The segregation and racial terms that put shackles around Alexandra’s neck.

• Alexandra toned herself down in terms of dating and intensity.

• How Alexandra realized she couldn’t tone herself down anymore.

• Everyone struggles under assumptions and stereotypes, and we need to be aware of that!

• Alexandra was able to heal from a damaging relationship because of her incredible support system and her own intuition.

• What habits Alexandra uses to fuel her fire.

• Alexandra helps women do the hard work of diving deep within themselves.

• Learn to recognize when you are being diminished.

Visit my Embracing Intensity Patreon Page for weekly reflection questions and other self-exploration tools!

Links:

Alexandra Loves

This December I’m sharing reruns of some of my favorite episodes from 2018. This one is from one of my all time hero’s René Brooks of Black Girl, Lost Keys. She was super amazing when I interviewed her and since then her following has absolutely blown up! I remember being excited for her last Christmas time when she hit 10 K followers on Twitter and now she’s grown exponentially with over 36 K. She’s also lined up a book deal and has a ton of other amazing projects in the works.

She’s also created 6 amazing workbooks on topics relevant to folks with ADHD including cleaning, time perception and “Guarding Your Yes,” and added a variety of great products to her store from T-shirts to fidgets and more! She now started gift cards just in time for the holidays. You can find it all on her website at blackgirllostkeys.com

What I’m most incredibly grateful to René for is bringing awareness to the topic of Twice Exceptionality.

Did you know that you could help somebody by just being honest and transparent about who and how you are? It's such a validating experience to know that somebody really gets you. Today's interview is with René Brooks. René's been a typical ADHD personality for as long as she can remember, losing keys, books, homework, and even her glasses sometimes when they were on her face! Although she was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of eleven, she never received any treatment for it until she was twenty-five. So her experience of learning that she had something real and that it could be worked with, started at that point. Listen in to find out what René has to share today, about growing up as a gifted person with ADHD.

René created a blog, Black Girl Lost Keys, with the intention of sharing the experience of receiving a diagnosis of ADHD later in life, while being part of a demographic that is still mostly skeptical about mental illness. ADHD and giftedness are not mutually exclusive, and many people don't realize that, so it was often hard for René to be understood while growing up. Listen in today to hear her talking about the ups and downs of her life growing up with ADHD, and how she channels her intensity, her fire, and her passions.

Show highlights:

• What's lacking in the world of neurodiversity.
• The similar experiences of people with ADHD within René's particular cultural dynamic.
• What René Remembers most vividly about being a gifted child.
• Being understood, and taken in context, has become more important to René than whether she's liked or not by someone.
• René discusses her ethical stance regarding politics, power, and the abuse of power.
• René has had to learn to pull herself back at times, as she can alienate people with her 'correctness'.
• Why René doesn't speak about the experiences of other people.
• What ally-ship in action really ought to look like.
• We tend to make things so much more complicated than we need to.
• René had a difficult time growing up as gifted, with ADHD.
• People often don't understand that giftedness and ADHD are not mutually exclusive.
• We really need to make space in the world for people who don't follow convention.
• The ridicule that can come from not conforming to cultural norms.
• The story of Henrietta Lacks.
• The way that black people have been exploited and made to suffer in the past by the medical community.
• More honesty and transparency in people would ultimately result in less suffering.

Links and Resources:

René on all social media: Black Girl Lost Keys

Black Girl Lost Keys Blog

ADHD Essentials Podcast

Books mentioned:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot.

Far From The Tree, by Andrew Solomon

Embracing Intensity Community

Embracing Intensity Store

Continuing reruns for some of my favorite episodes from season 2 for this December! This week, I'm sharing my interview with Kate Arms!

I met today’s special guest, Kate Arms, at the SENG conference recently and was so inspired by her talk entitled "Thriving with Intensity: Mining The Magic From Your Overexcitabilities” that I knew Kate would be the perfect fit for the podcast. Kate is a classic overthinker, high achiever, and multipotentialite who exudes intensity. She gets bored easily as evidenced by a career that includes being a lawyer, an arts administrator, a coach to parents of gifted and twice-exceptional kids and gifted and twice-exceptional adults, and an Agile Coach in a high tech company. She is an eager student of western secular developments from Buddhist philosophy and practices and the Theory of Positive Disintegration and the author of the Extreme Resilience Workbook, L.I.F.T.: A Coach Approach to Parenting, Unblock: Writing Prompts for Works in Progress, and award winning short stories in the literary fiction and horror genres. She hosts two podcasts: Kate’s Nuggets features short episodes with advice on living well drawn from the worlds of coaching, leadership development, and psychology; Leadership Arts Review features conversations with leadership coaches about books about good leadership and the ideas in them. But what really lights her fire is being silly with her four amazing kids.

More in this episode:

• Kate’s shares details about her personal intensity.

• Factors that affected Kate’s intensity while growing up

• Kate describes ways her intensity could feel out of control in the past.

• Channeling ways of questioning others

• Using leadership thinking to question self

• How theater can help intense individuals.

• No one person will have all the answers for you.

• Kate’s personal practices

• The personal passion that fuels Kate's intensity

• The magic question

Resources Mentioned in the Show:

How to donate to help keep the podcast going via Patreon

website: Thrive With Intensity

website: Parents of Twice Exceptional Kids

website: Signal Fire Coaching

Signal Fire Coaching on Facebook

Signal Fire Coaching on Twitter

Undoing Depression, by Richard O’Connor

Making It All Work, David Allen

This December, I'm continuing the tradition of sharing reruns of some of my favorite episodes, this time from Season 2. This episode is with Arianna Bradford. Since I last spoke to her, Arianna has been busy. She has dissolved the NYAM project and now writes and speaks to groups of parents for a living. Her book, Shame on You, Big Truths from a Bad Mom, was independently released July 7, and it’s been widely regarded as a fun, honest book for parents. She’s currently working on her second book, and is in the midst of relocating to Florida. You can find out more about her book, schedule her for events, and more at: theariannabradford.com

Is your personality way too big for most people to handle? And do you find yourself sometimes trying to become smaller than you really are? Today we're super excited to have Arianna Bradford join us on the show! Arianna was the founder and lead editor of the Not Your Average Mom (NYAM) Project, which is dedicated to celebrating strong women outside of the role of motherhood. Arianna really loves to talk and to express the ideas that she has going on in her head. She often found herself trying to curb the amount of talking she did when she was in high school, but it seldom worked for longer than ten minutes. Listen in today to find out what Arianna has to share about her passion and her fire.

Arianna was raised in a small town in Florida and spent the first twenty years of her life there. She thought that she would never leave. Due to unexpected circumstances, however, she moved to Texas and stayed there for about six years. During that time, she met her husband and they had two children, Miles and Charlie. Arianna, her husband, and their two young children now live in Happy Valley, Oregon. When she's not busy writing something or photographing people, Arianna enjoys reading, playing video games, or trying to sleep. Listen in today to find out more about Arianna and her brand of intensity.

Show highlights:

• During the time that she was living in Texas, her desire to capture images of her small son rekindled Arianna's interest in photography.
• Arianna loved the creative direction portion of photography when she started taking photos again, towards the end of 2014.
• The hard part of photography for Arianna then was that there was not a lot of money to be made from it in Austen.
• Discovering that she has a passion for working one-on-one with people, as a photographer- especially with women.
• Arianna's main focus is on helping women realize their own individual power and strength.
• What growing up was like for Arianna.
• Arianna was raised to think past what people would tell her.
• Being raised in a household with the attitude that you may as well be straightforward because people are going to judge you anyway.
• It took Arianna a long time to realize that sometimes it wasn't her chasing people away. It was their own prejudices and problems that did that.
• Arianna had to really try to curb her talking at high school, but it seldom worked for longer than ten minutes.
• Wanting to be smaller than she was.
• Most people believe that they need to be liked by as many people as possible.
• An anxious moment that Arianna had back in college when she was struggling socially.
• An incident that caused her anxiety and OCD to get out of control.
• Arianna believes that all emotions, even negative ones, can be channeled into something positive.
• She has made some of her greatest things in times of intense anger or sadness.
• The NYAM project was born of intense anger in Arianna.
• There are people who really identify with Arianna's writing.
• Art has really helped Arianna with harnessing the power of her intensity.
• Working hard on communication and trying to understand where other people are coming from.
• Remember that there's nothing wrong with being firey. People don't have to love you and it's okay for your fire to warm some people more than others.

Links:

Arianna’s Website

Arianna’s on Instagram

Arianna on Twitter

Embracing Intensity Community

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