The Eye of the Storm: Re-Centering Oneself amid Intensity

We are all busy living life. Families perpetually juggle the have tos with the how tos. They oscillate, meeting a variety of needs and neurodiverse styles. Moving quickly from one demand to another, most of us take little time to reflect on what we need in our lives, as parents, or as children, to feel centered and calm- the state from which we can make optimal choices, can be our most creative and connected selves, especially with those we value most deeply. Discrepancies between how we act, or react, to others, and our desires to present ourselves as our best selves, often hinges on the degree to which we can enter situations, and reclaim, a sense of balance, and centeredness, even among chaos. In this session we will spend some of our time in communal conversation about the nature of feeling centered, and the actions one can take to re-center oneself. We will spend a large portion of our time revisiting some examples from one’s own life of feeling centered, an example of being thrown off center, and we will deconstruct a ‘storm’ to identify and access our calm center in the midst of challenges. Participants will leave with at least one point of action to take to re-center themselves in their intense lives.

Heidi Lack, Ph.D. ATR-BC, HSP is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Board-Certified Registered Art Therapist, with varied training, work, and supervisory experience in Behavioral Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Dept. of Psychiatry; as a Senior clinician at the Hallowell Centers; as adjunct faculty at Lesley University; currently in private clinical, coaching and consultation practice. 

She helps adults, college-aged and some teens, families, parents and elders juggle the joys and challenges of their neurodivergences stemming from their giftedness and multi exceptionalities, anxieties, attentional and executive functioning issues, social thinking, and sensory processing differences such as Misophonia/Misokinesia. She is trained as a SENG SMPG/SCG parent group facilitator, facilitates the GHF Professionals Networking group, has been a Dialogues author, and is currently in partnership with Dr. Gail Post offering the Gifted Parenting Journey Workshop series. 

Dr. Lack sits on the MAGE (Massachusetts Association for Gifted Education) Board of Directors, co-founded and facilitated "Intentional ParentingTM" support groups at educational institutions and offers SoulCollage® and ethical values character trait-based workshops in the community. 

She is also a multimedia artist, intermittent writer/poet, environmental labyrinth creator and engaged parent of her multi-exceptional young adults who required creative parenting and scholastic innovations. See https://drheidilack.com, HL@DrHeidiLack.com or https://www.thegiftedparentingjourney.com