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Browse every published article connected to Douglas Eby, with exact attribution and full-archive search.
Articles
Browse every published article connected to Douglas Eby, or search within this exact expert archive.
Arianna Huffington has been described by her friend and author Sugar Rautbord as “probably one of the most intellectually seductive human beings on the face of the planet. She has such a powerful brain, and she exudes an intellectuality that is almost sexual." Does that sort of ...
"The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something we make happen." Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihaly Athletes call it the "Zone" - an optimal ...
Do people with multiple talents realize their abilities as readily and as fully as they want? A high level of achievement and fulfillment is not an automatic outcome for all gifted and talented adults. In her book Gifted Grownups, Marylou Kelly Streznewski notes, "For too long society has ...
Healthy criticism can help refine our talents and creative projects in the pursuit of excellence. But when it is based on a excessive perfectionism or an unrealistic self concept, criticism can be destructive and self-limiting, eroding our creative assurance and vitality. Many creative people, ...
Age and maturity can bring a new level of passion, ability and insight to creative projects. Many women affirm it is the best period of their lives. Anthropologist Margaret Mead once commented, "The most creative force in the world is the menopausal woman with zest." Novelist and poet Maxine ...
"You either had to be willful or risk losing touch with yourself." Actor Judy Davis made that comment in an interview, saying, "To pursue acting... needed a fair degree of willfulness... I grew up in quite an oppressive Catholic society. In order to survive that, you either had to be willful or ...
Many talented people sometimes use and abuse drugs and alcohol, and engage in other self-destructive habits to deal with painful inner or outer experiences. Best Actor Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman [“Capote”] admitted that earlier in his life he used “Anything I could get my hands on. I ...
Telling lies to others to gain power, money or whatever is one thing. But what about the dangerous lies we tell ourselves? Psychologist Abraham Maslow helped define the field of personal development and the concept of self-actualization as the "ongoing actualization of potentials, capacities ...
"I hope I'm becoming more eccentric. More room in the brain." --Musician Tom Waits A number of artists acknowledge that being unconventional is something positive. Reese Witherspoon has said her parents supported her ambitions to be an actress, and that, growing up in Nashville, "Being a ...
Engaging in a creative venture often brings up questions and uncertainties related to personal identity: Am I qualified? Do I have enough experience, strength, talent, skill? Will the work be good enough? Will I be good enough? Creative expression is based on both our inner selves and our ...
"As a child, I was very shy. Painfully, excruciatingly shy. I hid a lot in my room. I was so terrified to read out loud in school that I had to have my mother ask my reading teacher not to call on me in class." - Kim Basinger Many of us were shy as children, and continue to be. In more extreme ...
Writer Pearl Buck commented, “The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive.” Winner of a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938, she also added, “By some strange, unknown, inward urgency they are not really alive unless they are ...
Peggy Orenstein noted in her book "School Girls.." that, although they may now have more role models for high achievement, and apparently fewer barriers to equality, girls are still part of a very hierarchical society. Power is often seen as "who is higher up" - and for women, that has ...
Children with outstanding talents sometimes get rewards and acclaim, but many are overlooked or unsupported. Adults with exceptional abilities can also live on the fringes of recognition and contribution, which may result from mainstream discomfort with many outsiders. One example of ...
To avoid being seen as too weird or different, and to fit in better with others, gifted children often learn to cover up their unusual abilities. As adults, many still follow a pattern of hiding. When she began directing in the forties, Ida Lupino sometimes claimed not to know the best way to ...
Even if you are an experienced actor or other performer, you may still experience stage fright or insecurity. But there are effective ways to deal with anxiety so you can work with more power and creative satisfaction. The list of people who experience stage fright includes Kim Basinger; Barbra ...
Even for those with high potential, making positive contributions to the world is not automatic or assured. Malcolm Gladwell and others describe some of the key aspects that affect how gifted and talented people realize their abilities Dr. Linda Silverman, director of the Gifted Child ...
"If the dimension of presence or awareness is missing, then you are lost in the reaction. Then you become the reaction, and you don’t know who you are." - Eckhart Tolle Being very reactive to life, with high sensitivity, can be a distressing and disorienting experience. Probably starting ...
Doing anything creative often brings up fears, anxieties, insecurities. Courage may be defined as going ahead in spite of fear. But many creators not only live with their fears, they welcome them. Fear is perhaps the most basic emotion we have. As Leonardo da Vinci reportedly said, "Fear arises ...
"When negative self-talk robs us of our enthusiasm for our dreams, we're suffering from the classic creative block... Self-criticism can seriously injure potential talent that wants to be expressed." These quotes from the book "Putting Your Talent to Work" by Lucia Capacchione and Peggy Van ...
Perfectionism can be a virtue in the pursuit of excellence and mastery, but it may also have a dark side, with unhealthy obsessions or chronic dissatisfaction getting in the way of creative imagination, healthy relationships and life satisfaction. Filmmaker Jerry Bruckheimer has been called "a relentless perfectionist who never allows a single detail to go by without notice." Martha Stewart calls herself "a maniacal perfectionist," and says "If I weren't, I wouldn't have this company. It's the best rap!" Psychologist Stephen A. Diamond, Ph.D.
Creative expression can transform painful reactions and situations, providing strength and understanding to change how we feel and interact with the world. And works of art made by others can remodel our inner realities. Some think art needs to have that kind of impact to be worthwhile. Franz ...
Being exceptional - unusually skillful, smart, creative or otherwise more capable than the norm - may include a judgment both by others and ourselves as being an “outsider.” Gifted and talented people can experience a self-defeating aversion to expressing talents that might separate ...
The experience of optimal functioning called flow enhances creativity, and can be nurtured in our own lives, says the psychologist who developed the concept. Author of "Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience" and a number of related books, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced me-high ...
"Courage means feeling the fear and doing it anyway." One of the major themes that keeps showing up in material about personal development and increasing creativity is the idea of risk-taking. The possible consequences are what may hold us back: whether it's the frowns of that teacher when ...
Everyone has some sensitivity to inner experiences and emotions, to the moods of others, and to many other sensations. But highly sensitive people have unusually strong awareness and reactions. Artists, including actors, are often highly sensitive and use this personality trait to be more ...
"When you begin to act on your creativity, what you find inside may be more valuable than what you produce for the exte al world." That quote from the book "Claiming Your Creative Self: True Stories from the Everyday Lives of Women" by Eileen M. Clegg is a reminder that creativity is an ...
Wunderkind, genius, prodigy. Freak, geek, nerd. How we label exceptional people - including ourselves - affects our identity in many ways and what we think about the reality and value of our talents, and the possibilities of expressing them in the world. Being part of a clique outside the ...
"Creativity comes from a desire to express the true self." Art has often been isolated and considered precious, something only official artists do. In her book "Revolution From Within" Gloria Steinem notes that "most art in the world does not have a capital 'A,' but is a way of turning everyday ...
Responding to a magazine question: "What kills creativity?" - actress Gillian Anderson once replied succinctly, "Ego." One sense of this word "ego" is a distorted self-regard, what psychologist Carl Jung referred to as "inflated consciousness... hypnotized by itself." Many people recognize ...
Are people fascinated by so many things in the world because of their intellectual development, or does consciously feeding our mind stimulate high level thought and creative ability? Writer Steve Pavlina poses that idea in his book Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit ...
"I only know that summer sang in me a little while, that in me sings no more." That excerpt from one of her sonnets expresses how much poet Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) probably knew of depression. Actor Brooke Shields noted in her book "Down Came the Rain : My Journey Through ...
The lyrics of Bobby McFerrin's song include: "Don't worry. It will soon pass, whatever it is In your life expect some trouble But when you worry You make it double Don't worry, be happy" Being happy and positive in general is a preferable stance toward life, better for our health, creativity ...
It isn’t just about “looking good” or eating disorders; body image relates to our identity, and how we think about and accept ourselves, which directly or indirectly affects how we access the awareness and emotional energy we need for creating. Body image issues can be especially significant ...