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Aloha La Texan and All here

Ahhhh indeed, listening with the heart ~~ ahhhhh ~~~~ the best feeling of all. Thanks for mentioning this ~Sheer Bliss~ La Texan. I Love that kind of ear best of all when its my h-ear-t that is listening. Its grounding for heads in the clouds and oh so healing ~~ and helps peel off fear. Love Love Love how it slows down the breathing, and dilates the eyes and mind. Free Bliss for intense gifted adults. I give it ***** five stars, a Big Thumbs Up and Free Rent in my Head. It opens door and windows and veins that don't exist. A 74 degree temperature relaxing sweet scented breeze. Great for lovingly massaging in love into ourselves, for we too often give and give and give, and then give out.

I Ditto your entire post actually Annette.

Let's clink our wine and or lemonade glasses together and give a toast.
What would you like it to be?

Another "challenge" I experience is that whomever I vote for (or write in) for US president never wins.

Is this a thread where I could post my story and see if it makes sense to anyone? I'd hate to sound like a whiny self obsessed so and so, unless this was the place to do exactly that

Travelator,

I think this would be a good place for that.

In Hawaiian cosmology, you don't think with your head and feel with your heart. You do both with your gut. I was just listening to a singer whose Hawaiian surname means "daytime stomach" or "enlightened one". The opposite, "nighttime stomach" has been translated as "ignoramus". I guess the implication is that you can't think properly on an empty stomach.

And actually, there are neurons in the heart, so...

"The cardiac neuronal hierarchy can be represented as a redundant control system made up of spatially distributed cell stations comprising afferent, efferent, and interconnecting neurons. Its peripheral and central neurons are in constant communication with one another such that, for the most part, it behaves as a stochastic control system. "

http://ajpregu.physiology.org/content/287/2/R262.full

I have started to get involved in local business groups and I'm feeling pretty good. I'm still in my 20's and when I take part in things like this, I'm typically the youngest one there. The business leaders (or the people trying to be), seem to mostly be in their 40s-50s, with people on either side of that, too. They treat me as an equal. My age doesn't matter. It is such a relief after dealing with an entire lifetime of not being taken seriously because of my age.

I'm also enjoying it because I seemed to suck at social stuff for most of my life, but I feel like I'm getting better. I'm actively making the effort to get better. Learning how to network and "get along" is sort of a fun game for me. Learning when to talk and when not to is also a useful skill. I can be persuasive, friendly, outgoing, and get along with the group when I want to. The truth is that I was capable of this all along, but I lacked the patience and maturity to do it. I never saw any benefit to doing it, either.

I'm reading Exceptionally Gifted Children by Miraca Gross and there is a quote in here - "The highly intelligent child must learn to suffer fools gladly - not sneeringly, not angrily, not despairingly, not weepingly - but gladly if personal development is to proceed successfully in the world as it is." (- Hollingworth p 189)

You know... it is very true. I am hanging around educated folks these days and I genuinely like talking with them. So that does make things easier. My husband can get along with absolutely anyone, though. He knows how to bring himself to the other person's level. I can't do that yet (or I don't always want to.) He thinks this is a fault in me and he may be correct.

This is the worst!

I came back to clarify I described a process that the conversation brought to mind and not that I was trying to say that somebody knows more than somebody else (about what anyway?). I just meant to describe when I find it useful to "play devils advocate" or my "contrarian" side comes out and trying to describe at what point that becomes less useful although the switching point is an automatic function like breathing and I have only thought of it in reflection.

[quote=islandofapples][quote=annette]

Yes indeed. The example below can be an excruciating problem:

"If friends in my group have a debate, I might play devil's advocate, but others don't understand that I don't have a fixed position. They have trouble conceiving the idea that you might argue a point very well, not because you have any interest in winning a debate, but because you want to see the merit of the ideas being presented, so you can then decide what to believe. The idea of debating to acquire knowledge is odd to them. Using the socratic method in daily life is seen as an attack (which it's not!) The way I think and the reasons I do things are very different from others, and at first they attribute their motivations to me, but occasionally they see how different I am, and it confuses them."

Here's a solution that can help prevent other people from feeling confused with our behavior during a discussion. This is when and where we need to pause and slow down (often hard for us to do). This is when we can preface our contribution to a discussion by explaining ourselves first. We can say something like and this is just one example, and it can be adapted to fit any situation:

"Before I get started in this discussion, please let me explain myself first. I am open to changing my mind about what we're going to talk about, so I'd like to hear different ideas before I make a conclusion. And even then, I may change my mind later on too as I get more information. I'm just trying to find the truth that's comfortable for me. So if you don't mind, I'll be asking some questions and even be saying some ideas that may sound like I'm certain, but I'm really just probbing for what's true for me. Does this make some sense to you?"

This kind of introductory explanation before jumping into a discussion will help others understand where we're coming from better. Taking control of this, we can help provide ourselves with less feelings of being misunderstood by others. Sincerely, we do need to take full responsiblity for how we are perceived by others by explaining ourselves when needed.

~~~~~~~~~