Contemplative Praxis for the
Gifted Journey
The Gifted Mindfulness Collective's approaches to mindfulness have been developed over many years of practice with gifted and multi-exceptional adults. They bring together contemplative practice, depth psychology, and a holistic understanding of giftedness to support ways of living well with uncommon intensity and complexity.
Lace + Flow
Lace + Flow are the core frameworks that guide our practice at the GMC. Together, they cultivate the awareness, skills, and embodied presence that support not only everyday gifted living, but also the developmental processes of individuation (Jung) and positive disintegration (Dabrowski). With roots in the contemplative and depth traditions, Lace + Flow also invite us to re-member our participation in the larger field where psyche and nature meet.
L.A.C.E. is an acronym for the four foundational skills* we cultivate at the GMC:
Lovingkindness - the foundational ethic of our practice. It is the embodied capacity to meet our gifted selves, others and life itself with wise compassion and shared joy.
Attention - with minds, bodies, and hearts pulled in myriad directions, agency of attention is the fundamental skill of choosing where and when to place our attention.
Clarity - with the multi-layered nature of our gifted ecologies, clarity is the cultivation of in-sight that enables us to detect, discern and gain wisdom into the nuances, depths, and ebbs and flows of our sensory experience.
Equanimity - the capacity to maintain inner steadiness and spaciousness amidst intense experience―whether pleasurable or painful―without grasping, resisting, or trying to change it.
*Aspects of the LACE framework were inspired by the work of Shinzen Young
F.L.O.W. is the practice through which the 4 capacities of LACE become lived experience. It supports us in moving beyond the gifted tendency to get caught in complex thought patterns into an embodied presence that is grounded, spacious, and wisely compassionate. Over time, the practice fosters an authentic, sustainable experience and expression―a flow―of gifted being that restores our relationship with the natural rhythms of life.
Finding the ground. Practice begins with re-sourcing in the body and the earth ― the ground of our lived reality. In steadying the intense mind-body through connection with the physical world, we're better able to access the deeper layers of our gifted nature.
Looking, listening & feeling into sensory experience. Here, we shift our attention from the thinking-mediated content of our thoughts, feelings and physical sensations to the unmediated contours of our direct experience. We attune and differentiate the flow of these energies ― their qualities, dynamics, patterns, and interactions. With practice, this enables more complete ways of knowing our unique experience.
Opening awareness of mind and body to what is arising. Many gifted and multi-e people have learned (unconsciously) to 'existentially grip', clinging to intellectual pursuits, achievement and other expressions culturally valued and suppressing the parts of themselves deemed too much, non-rational and non-productive. Becoming conscious of our inner gripping and beginning to open to the fullness of our gifted experience fosters spaciousness for the flow of life energy and the emergence of possibility.
Welcoming gifted experience and self. Here, we receive all the parts of our experience with the wise, caring attention they have long needed, remembering that all things, including ourselves, have a place. From this relationship, we begin to inhabit the wholeness of our gifted being.
To explore the LACE skills in greater depth, you can read Kelly's published article in the Journal of Advanced Development here or join a cohort of gifted peers in our Art of Gifted Mindfulness program.
Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.
― Dōgen Zenji
Compassionate Alchemy
Compassionate Alchemy is an embodied transformative practice rooted in Buddhist psychology, C.G. Jung's approach to active imagination and an entelechial understanding of giftedness. Gifted adults are often highly capable of gaining intellectual insight into their experience, yet can find themselves stuck when thinking, and even emotional processing, have gone as far as they can. For those with a strong inner drive toward transformation and becoming, the gap between understanding and lived change can be deeply challenging.
Drawing on our FLOW process, complete insight brings thinking, feeling, embodied awareness, and imagination into relationship, allowing understanding to be inhabited rather than remain conceptual. In Compassionate Alchemy, difficult or unprocessed experience is brought into relationship with compassion―the mindful capacity to meet painful truth with the intention of restoring wholeness. By holding these energies together, something new can emerge offering meaning, possibility, or life-forward direction.
Compassionate Alchemy is introduced in our 6-session Art of Gifted Mindfulness course and explored more fully in our Mindful of Gifted Anger (& Rage) workshop.