Personal Mastery with BrainStyles

Marlee Alex, an Oregon writer, begins an article entitled “Listening,” by describing how her self-inflicted criticism turned her natural gift into an adolescent curse.

“I am a listener.  Natural born.  But I didn’t always value this gift.  In my teens I desperately wished to be like everyone else: bubbly, chatty, effusive.  I even questioned if something was wrong with me because I was curious and quiet.”  What a discovery when she began to see what she could do with the very ability she used to disparage.  “I am beginning to see how my ease in listening is an art….  It’s active, involving, participative…” She lists what marvelous things being a listener provides.  Without effort, she elicits stories, revealing the inner worlds of others just by being herself and doing what she does most naturally.  The difference between Marlee and most of the rest of us?  She is just being herself with purpose; she does what she does on purpose.

Marlee volunteers at a women’s prison.  What does she do? She is “present,” literally she just sits around, being available, as she communicates her acceptance of the women and where they are in life non-verbally.  Mastering her gift of being a quiet introvert, she has developed her own art. Applying a gift in this way, she is a Master, in the fullest sense of the word.

And there’s more.  Previously dreading social events, Marlee says, “Now before going to a party, I just tell myself to listen with affection.  My attitude is ‘Tell me more.’  The result is [that] a person shows me his soul.”  Social life now holds no fear.  Marlee has discovered a career, a way to serve in the community, a whole lifestyle of being confident in what she has to offer.  With a simple shift, what was invisible is now a celebrated asset.  Her true colors, the best of her, are in the spotlight making her own and others’ lives richer and more satisfying.

It would seem most of us just stumble upon our gifts — without training, extra stimulation in pre-school, or even a very supportive environment.

There is a shortcut to a personal awareness of the gifts that can take you to your own personal Mastery.  It’s called BrainStyles®, a systematic approach to identifying your natural, hardwired, brain-based gifts that need attention rather than work and stress to nurture and grow.

BrainStyles teaches you how to reframe your “curses” into the blessings that they are, just as the introverted listener became a writer.  The approach establishes a framework for opening doors in your life, creating new awareness, and leading to loving, respectful relationships.  This approach that I live and teach, a philosophy and the tools to apply it, builds self-acceptance that can set you free to create a universe of people whom you appreciate for who they are and, just as importantly, for who they are not.  As you do so, you live at ease with your own gifts and limitations.  You expand out into life, fearlessly, by using your new wisdom to transform critical or fear-based reactions into more authentic, accepting responses.  You give up expectations that just won’t happen.  You stop trying to change anyone, especially yourself.