song + dance

On Happiness, Success, and Fear

This past Saturday, I presented a mini lecture from my workshop: "What do you really, really want?" to ASU undergraduate leaders. This video is the first of several.

Enjoy!

SWIHA Developmental Psychology Notes (Week 5: Positive psychology & culture)

Enjoy!

Slides for SWIHA Developmental Psychology (Week 5)

SWIHA Developmental Psychology Video (Week 5, Part 2: Positive psychology & culture)

SWIHA Developmental Psychology Video (Week 5, Part 1: Positive psychology & culture)

The CLEOS Project: Part II (Gathering)

Hello my fellow Creative Ones,

Earlier this week, I posted the first in a series of reports about the CLEOS Project. In today's entry, I offer the second facet of our mission:

 

Gathering

A gathering of CLEOS protégées is originality in action. Class clowns banter with budding actors. Young inventors erect towers from the Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys, meant for younger children who use the space on other days. Musicians nod to the beat emitted from ear buds attached to their MP3 players. And the creative writers? They just take it all in from a quiet place in the corner.

CLEOS facilitators and counselors enter the room and we tell them:

 

“Your talents and interests are similar to those of famous writers, artists, musicians, and inventors when they were 16.”

At once, the energetic room becomes still. We have their attention.

 

 

More to come...

 

All my best,

Robyn

The CLEOS Project: Finding the Creative Ones (Part 1)

“I have a small daughter called Cleis, who is like a golden flower...” ~Sappho

It all began in the fall of 2005, when Dr. Barbara Kerr and I decided to create a research through service project within the Department of Psychology and Research in Education at the University of Kansas. At the time, I was a graduate student in counseling psychology and Barbara was my faculty mentor.

We named our project CLEOS, an acronym for the “Counseling Laboratory for the Exploration of Optimal States”. Creativity was the first optimal state that we chose to study. Imagine our surprise as the meaning of CLEOS began to unfold. Translated from Greek, kleos means “fame” or “glory”. And you’ll notice that just below the title of this article, I’ve included a line from a poem by the Greek writer Sappho, in which she likens her daughter Cleis to a golden flower.

Inspired by Sappho’s words and the field of golden sunflowers that we visited one hazy summer evening, we adopted the sunflower as the symbol for CLEOS. An apt name and symbol, Barbara and I agreed, for CLEOS would become the vehicle for our shared mission: to make the world safe for creative people.

As we embarked on our mission, the CLEOS vision became increasingly clear: we would find, gather, guide, and heal creative people. We began with specialized career counseling for creative adolescents, which emphasizes creativity and flow. Now, we are widening our work to incorporate modalities that heal blocks to creativity. 

Now, let me introduce you to CLEOS. In this 4-part series, each blog entry will uncover another aspect of CLEOS. I hope you enjoy reading about this powerful program...because I absolutely love writing about it!

Part I: Finding

It all started simply enough. First, we had to find the creative ones. In keeping with counseling psychology’s strong ties to education and vocational development, we targeted teens and young adults to participate in our first career development project. We decided to develop a method to identify creative students without the use of time-consuming and expensive tests of creativity.

First, we researched the characteristics of eminently creative people possessed when they, themselves, were teenagers. To do so, we drew upon Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s study of creative people, as well as research from Kay Redfield Jamison, Nancy Andreason, and CLEOS co-founder Barbara Kerr. Our profiling method also was guided by Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences.

As it turns out, there are clear patterns that distinguish creative people, even as adolescents. Based on this finding, we generated profiles for key creative domains, that included linguistics, interpersonal/intrapersonal, spatial/visual, musical (including dance), and mathematical/logical. For example, a profile of a linguistically creative adolescent looks like this: she is an avid reader with an extensive knowledge of literature. She will be a sophisticated writer with quick wit and humor, and demonstrate an advanced ability to learn languages. Finally, she scores high on verbal achievement tests and has excellent grades in Language Arts, English, or her native language.

For a student to be nominated for a CLEOS workshop, gifted education coordinators, teachers, counselors, and in some cases, the students themselves complete the checklists. Our research indicates that most students’ abilities cluster around one or two of the creative domains, and there are also those multipotential young people who demonstrate excellence in every domain. 

Coming soon...Part II: Guiding

PS: Here is a photo of me in the very field of sunflowers that inspired us!

All my best,

Robyn

Life: Out Loud

Recently I attended a leadership training intensive where the focus was on connecting with one's passion and enthusiasm in order to lead from the heart and inspire others. I emerged from that training with new-found, feel-it-in-my-bones understanding of who I am, not just as a leader but also as a human being with a mission and purpose.

French writer Emile Zola wrote, "If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, I will answer you: I am here to live out loud."

In my final, from-the-heart speech, I told my audience this secret: For the last 10 years, my personal mission - what I really, really wanted - has been to live my life out loud. Flying on the trapeze is one of the best examples of how I am living my mission:

Reflecting on the lessons from my leadership training, especially on the feedback that I received from my beautiful teammates, made me realize something. There's a second part to my mission: to teach other people how to live their lives out loud, too. In retrospect, I know that I've been doing this part of my mission for a long time. My work with my clients and students has always been about reconnecting people with their creativity. And here's the thing I realized: once you're connected with your creativie spirit, you automatically live out loud! (I love that!)

Neuroscience and clinical research tells us that real and lasting change takes place at the intuitive/emotional level. The method of goal setting (or dream catching) that I have developed drills down to the heart of what you really, really want to access your most deeply held values and dreams. I teach people to harness their creativity, intuition, and emotions - because each provides the essential rocket fuel to achieve one's goals and dreams.

The slides that I'm providing here tell a little bit of the story. But the magic happens when you actually experience the creative power of putting your dream into overdrive. Here are the slides: What Do You Really Want?

And when you're ready to start living out loud, call me. I'll help you remember how to fly!

Love,

Robyn

"What's Right with You?" A Retreat & Team Building Experience

At the end of July, I was invited to provide a workshop for about 35 professional staff at Arizona State University. The topic: "What's Right with You? A Positive Psychology of Human Strengths". And man, we had a good time!

Before the workshop, everyone took StrengthsFinder, the online strengths assessment by the Gallup Organization.  If you haven't taken it yet, I strongly recommend that you do. It's a great way for you to start thinking about how you can build your talents into strengths.

A major lesson is this: People at the top cultivate their strengths; they don't focus on their weaknesses. And by the way, being well-rounded is over-rated. The best people are decidely not well-rounded. Rather, they build upon what's right, good, and interesting. They capitalize on their talents.

Here's an example: When I think about the best people, I think about my friend, golf instructor and author Jeff Ritter. This guy is totally focused on helping people improve their golf games (and their lives, too). He's inspiring and very interested in other people's success. I have personal experience with Jeff's visionary approach. In one 10 minute conversation about the book Smart Girls that Barbara and I are writing, he generated more marketing ideas that I can even begin to implement. Talk about inspiring! Now I can see where I'm going after we finish the book. I can see the gear and the dolls and the videos that will emerge from this project.

As for Jeff, I'm guessing that if he were to take the StrengthsFinder assessment, he would be one of the Queen Bees that I talk about in the slides below. And, by the way, being a Queen Bee is a good thing! That means that he's a leader, a visionary, someone who is helping to advance our culture and make the world a better place. Check out our Beehive Model of Talent, which happens to overlay very well with Gallup's StrengthsFinder catetories of talent. Here are the slides...See for yourself.

What’s right with you

Enjoy,

Robyn

 

Smile. It gives your face something to do. And it changes your brain.

Did you know that smiling (even the fake kind that you do when your grandma wants to take your picture at the family reunion) helps to change the neurochemistry in your brain?  

In my work as a positive psychologist, I teach people about the best of what it means to be human. As a fashionista, I'm always on the look out for clothing that reflects who I am as a person. It's a bonus when my clothing captures the attitudes and emotions that I value. On a recent road trip meant to escape the oppressive summer heat in Phoenix, I found this pink "Smile" ball cap at the Life is Good store in Flagstaff, AZ. I practically wear it every day because I just feel good when I wear it, and it's really hard to stay grumpy when I'm wearing it. 

When you practice smiling, your brain produces more of its feel-good chemicals.  And *you* feel better as a result. 

Have a happy day!

love, Robyn

Postcard: Vortex Hunting + Cairn Building

Tom and I simply had to escape the oppressive heat of mid-summer Phoenix. Luckily, escape is pretty easy: just drive north for about 2 hours to Sedona. So we did. 

In my positive psychology research, I'm concerned with creativity, intuition, and spiritual development. My favorite facet of spirituality is called spiritual intelligence (the capacity to alter one's consciousness in the service of one's self or another person).  

You see, there are some people who can create the conditions of human consciousness that lead to profound healing experiences for individuals and groups.  In indigenous cultures, there are people who are the designated healers of the community - who are called medicine men and women, curanderos/curanderas, shamans.   During my training in psychology, a clinical trainer once said, "research is me-search". And as tends to be the case for most social scientists, my interest in spiritual intelligence comes from my own life experiences. 

For the past 10 years, I have been learning everything that I can about healing the mind, body, and soul. And along the way, I have studied the methods and technologies of indigenous and alternative healers who practice, in some ways, far beyond the bounds of Western medicine. 

Anyway, this is all a really long way to telling you that I love to visit holy places, sites that are associated with healing and mysticism. Around Sedona, there seem to be a series of vortexes, subtle energies that are thought to have healing properties. Tom and I found a vortex map went on our own hunt. We discovered the extraordinary beauty of the red rocks, the "good tired" feeling that arrives after a long hike in the sun and wind, and we found many, many cairns.  

A cairn is, simply, a manmade pile of stones, created to mark the way. Fascinating, I thought, the number of cairns that people had built at the vortex sites. Though some had tumbled, many others remained, the upper stones teetering precariously atop the lower ones. 

And the stones did seem to whisper, it's here, it's here.  

I built my own cairns, too: each with seven stones, which to me represented the seven chakras (also subtle energy vortices) of the body. 

In Sedona, there are quite a few reasons to be skeptical. Take for instance, the UFO car that drives around town or the myriad psychics who hang their shingles in the quaint uptown district. It can be difficult to discern what's real from what's a hoax. 

Did I feel anything distinct while at the sites? 

Yes. I felt something. 

Was it a vortex that I felt? I can't say for sure. But I can say that I felt that these are special places. And in the way that a church or a grotto has a peaceful, quiet vibration, the sites that I visited in Sedona had a similar quality. At the two sites that we visited, I found that each had it's own unique vibration, just as two varieties of chardonnay grapes might be similar to and distinct from one another's flavor. 

Here's what I think: what we give our attention to draws our energy. In my heart, I believe that visitors help to keep the vortices active and alive. 

I loved our escape from heat of Phoenix, and I'm glad that we went in search of the vortices. The natural beauty of the red rocks was breath-taking, and the rock climbing, exhilarating.  The cool canyon air nearly sang as it whipped at my hair and skin. Briefly, I meditated upon a great rock formation and a raven flashed his wings as he flew past. 

Do I feel different? Yes, of course I do. How could I not?

Love, Robyn

 

(Photos by Tom Kirsch + me)