Talent and Narcissism

Talent. We speculate about its origin. Neuro scientists study the cerebral cortex looking for where it comes from, but come up empty. Human potential specialists spout coffee mug homilies about tieing our sweat to our big dreams, or something equally banal. Those who rely on their talent to earn their living wonder at its ephemeral nature. At how it can be so easy sometimes, and so painfully, tortuously difficult at others.

Today on Healing Through Consciousness, Talent and Narcissism.

I myself have wondered about the role of talent in my life, and the lives of those talented people I've admired. Like everyone, I've been impressed at the dominance over time and under phenomenal pressure of a Jordan or a Gretzky or a Federer or a Woods. I've played my share of sports - pretty competitively into my early '20s - and observed the rise and fall of the level of my own game. How I could be the best guy on the court when there was no pressure, and a mere shadow when the lights were on.

But it wasn't until I came to Brazil to Norberto Keppe's International Society of Analytical Trilogy and started my intense study of psychopathology that I began to understand this a little deeper. That performing at our best means being tuned in to our essential nature, ourside our worries about how we look and how we're doing. It means being freed up from our self-consciousness, and available for our talent to manifest. And that's a position of humility.
Strange, isn't it, to be confident in your talent and humble at the same time. But that's the formula.

I remember Neil Young on the Charlie Rose show talking about his gift to write, and how he would answer the call to create whenever it hit. No matter where he was or what he was doing, if he felt the creative muses stirring, he would leave what he was doing and write. Honoring the gift, he called it.

Well, we'll look at that today, but we'll get into it a little bit later, a few minutes into our call today. Our program is a place you can call and really get help, and we always invite you to call and do that. Dr. Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco is a very skilled psychoanalyst, and her Trilogical perspective really gives us a new view on any issues you're dealing with in your life. I invite you to join us. joneshealing@gmail.com is how you can set that up.

Today, Dr. Pacheco and I take another call and get into Talent and Narcissism.

Click here to listen to this episode.