If You’re Gifted and You Know It, Clap Your Hands
What Happens When You Grow Up?
Does your childhood memory include learning this song in school or singing along with Big Bird or Elmo?
If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands. If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands. If you’re happy and you know it, then your face will surely show it If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.
As a child, this song might have brought you joy. But as a gifted adult, discovering your giftedness can lead to a different kind of realization—a grieving process for the opportunities you never had.
Gifted children become gifted adults. If you found out about your giftedness later in life, you may have experienced a strong sense of loss for things you never did. You might wonder how different your life could have been. Many accomplished professionals, especially those nearing midlife, hesitate to talk about how complicated, over-thinking and isolating it feels to know too much, live intensively, and still have so much energy and potential to create more than they did in the first half of their lives.
Why Is It Important to Listen to Yourself and Seek Out Others Like You?
The best part of my day is receiving emails and stories from brave and brilliant people in our community for Gifted Professionals and Communicators. They share why it became so compelling and life-affirming to discover the truth about their exceptional talents and traits.
A recent series of articles by Lily Jedynak, Ph.D., in "Discovering Giftedness, Parts 1, 2, and 3," exemplifies this journey.
Lily’s gifted journey began in 2019. With six university degrees, including a Ph.D. in creative writing, she had long been curious about whether to undergo an evaluation that might quantify her experiences.
When trying to validate our thoughts and experiences, most of us immerse ourselves in books and articles, searching for others who use words similar to our own stories, LinkedIn pages, emails, websites, and conversations.
So why don’t we hear from these kindred souls and benefit from their research? We guess that too many do exactly what Lily did:
“So, what did I do with this exciting information? I did what I always did. I highlighted and underlined and asterisked the books with my trusty pens, even dog-eared a bazillion pages, and felt deeply nourished for quite a while. Then I ever so quietly put the books on the bookshelves to gather dust. Amen.”
What Pushes Us Past Our Inertia?
What helps us overcome our fears that others will reject us for using the word “gifted,” which may be perceived as a sign of superiority?
Sia Papageorgiou, the co-founder of this community, said three years ago, exactly what Lily wrote in her current article: “For the first time in my life, I entertained the idea that there was nothing wrong with me.”
Instead of Tripping Over Definitions, Can We Identify the Gifts the World Needs Us to Bring?
Lily addresses another theme essential for communication and forming connections. She writes:
"I still don’t like the word ‘gifted,’ and I’m not alone. The term ‘neurodivergent’ has been embraced by many. The gifted have different brains, different wiring. Every gifted person is different. It’s not about being better than anyone else. In some ways, it can be a challenge, even a burden, a ‘tragic gift,’ as one endeavors to navigate the neuronormative world."
Why Do I Need to Convince You That You Are Gifted?
Paula Prober, psychotherapist and creator of Your Rainforest Mind newsletter, books, and blog posts, helps us unravel the mystery of excessively curious, creative, smart, and sensitive humans. Everything Paula touches is gold because she’s so clear and deeply experienced with what we might be thinking, even before we admit it to ourselves.
Bookmark this one for your monthly review of journal thoughts or lists of projects: "Why Do I Need to Convince You That You Are Gifted? Why Do You Need to Know?"
“Besides the fact that it’s so much fun. And it’s my mission in life. Because you need to know this so you stop pathologizing your traits, so your experiences start to make sense, so you can do a little less ruminating, and so you can relax and finally love the you that is all that.”
What Is Your Gift and Who in the World Needs to Receive It?
And there it is! That is the question that keeps us up at night. What is your gift, and who in the world needs to receive it? What do you have that is so special, and who is searching everywhere for you and your gift? Who are you supposed to serve who will never abuse the gift?
This is the question we ask our subconscious to help us answer in all our waking moments. Think of an iceberg—90% below the surface is your subconscious. The 10% at the top is the conscious part, what you have been calling your brain. The puzzle compounds when you realize that you are barely using your brain at all, and an enormous pile of potential, wonder, genius, authority, and power is all yours, sitting in a safe deposit box you constructed as a child and buried so far away only you can lead us to it and unlock it.
One of the best thinkers and writers on this topic is in our community and right in front of your face. It’s Deborah Ruf, Ph.D., a specialist in high-intelligence humans. Find her at Gifted Unlimited and subscribe to her Substack, Gifted Through the Lifespan. She identifies as “Now that I’m 3/4s of a century old, I find I still need to keep learning.” We encourage you to take deep dives into her writings and start with her latest book, The 5 Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up: What They Tell Us. How refreshing and enlightening to discover a thought leader who followed the stories and lives of 78 individuals for many years, bringing us a unique perspective on the complex issues that face gifted children and the impact of their backgrounds and opportunities on their adult lives.
If you are wondering how your story goes or how it might end, pay attention to Deborah Ruf. She speaks to all of us—gifted or otherwise—when she says, “I believe in collaboration and sharing and don’t see wealth or credit as finite entities. The world is not a pie where we run out of pieces. We can work together. Follow your heart and moral compass. You will make a difference and find ‘flow’ and purpose and your true calling when you realize what your passion is, what really makes you feel alive. To feel fulfilled.”
If you’re curious about how sensitive, creative, intense, multi-potential, professional, ethical, expressive, and clear you are about your intentions, wants, and needs, check your GPC score.
Learn more about Gifted Professionals and Communicators via:
👉 Our Community
👉 Our LinkedIn page
👉 Our blog (GPC Journal)
If you enjoyed this article, the greatest compliment you can offer is to share this article with a few friends and encourage them to subscribe. Maybe it’ll start an important conversation. It’s super simple and your friends (and I) will thank you. You can make sure I keep writing and focusing on what matters to you by sending people to the main website. There you see how to collaborate and work with me, professionally (beyond free).
Clapping my mind, and I know it.
Thank you very much, Georgia, for quoting my work and tagging my Substack. I'm honoured to be among stellar exponents of giftedness such as Paula Prober and Deborah Ruf. They both continue to inspire me, as do you. I particularly enjoyed the last quote, urging us to 'follow our heart and our moral compass.' So important. Deeply appreciate your work and the vital need for collaboration and community.