The Gift in You: Discovering New Life Through Gifts Hidden in Your Mind by Caroline Leaf Read Free Book Online Page B

and using words to build her temporary memories in the networks of her mind. Jessica is a very deep thinker, and as she has matured (she is now 18), she expresses herself through poetry and devours classic novels as her soul food.
    She loves people, but needs lots of space to have alone time to intro- spect . Sometimes when her brothers and sisters invade her space too much she gets frustrated and in their words "bossy." She also loves order and cleanliness, which is largely a part of the third type of think- ing in her order - Logical/Mathematical. She consolidates her thinking with logic and order.
    Intrapersonal in the top position will often be the person who is the quietest in the group, the one reluctant to say much but who comes up with pearls of wisdom and deep insight when you least expect it.
    Dominique
    My second daughter, Dominique, has Visual/Spatial and Interpersonal as the top two in her order. An interesting pattern because Dominique's doorway into her mind consists of picturing what people are saying in her mind's eye and then asking loads of questions to build her temporary memory. She shifts between seeing, questioning, seeing, questioning and so on as she receives and builds the memory.
    When Dominique was little and I spoke to her, she wouldn't look at me while I was speaking, and before I could finish, she would start asking questions. That was before my research on the gift was fully developed, and sometimes I would get quite frustrated because I thought that in order to really pay attention, eye contact was necessary. This is the thinking I had grown up with. But more than that, this is the way I begin to process - through eye contact and direct Interpersonal questioning. But this is not true and is actually an example of a perception being a gift-blocker, because someone who has Visual/Spatial in the top of his or her order sees things in his or her mind's eye, often making eye contact distracting as they receive the information. As she shifts to her second pillar to build the temporary memory, which in Dominique's case is Interpersonal thinking, she then begins to ask questions.
    I'd always say, "Dominique, look at me and let me finish" - until I better understood the Seven Pillars and realized I should profile her. I'm so glad that I profiled my children early on. It really helped me understand who they are as individuals so we could understand who we are as a family.
    After profiling Dominique and learning she had a very strong Visual/ Spatial pillar, I understood why she doesn't look at me when I speak. She sees things in her mind's eye and mental map as she is being spoken to - that's how her brain processes. This enables Dominique to be very in control and think clearly in a crisis situation - she is a star at this because she "sees" solutions and communicates them, calming everyone.
    In a classroom, Visual/Spatial children are often the ones looking down at their paper and drawing and doodling, even staring out the window while they listen. Visual/Spatial children might be very distracting to work with, until you realize that they are processing the information at the deepest level even when they don't make eye contact. When they look away, they are able to visualize in their heads what you're saying - looking away actually helps them build memory.
    Recently I was working with a teacher in a school and midway through her lesson she commanded all the children to look at her and would not move on until they all did. I watched the class and noticed a couple of children look but their eyes glazed over, and I knew immediate- ly they were looking but not seeing and were moving into their own mental maps to process what the teacher was about to say.
    As you can see, when we can recognize these things, we can recognize how best to operate in our own gifts and how best to help others grow in theirs.
    Jeffrey
    My son Jeffrey has Logical/Mathematical and Visual/Spatial at the top of his thinking cycle. So,