Unique Traveler

One late fall afternoon in the early 90s, I walked into the office of my college career counselor to get the results of my Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) inventory, and she opened with, “How does it feel to be an alien?” The counselor, also an INFP, empathized with me as a human attempting to thrive in a world where we were unlike 95% of the population. A few years later, a mentor I was working with told me to read about the work of Elain Aaron in her book The Highly Sensitive Person. Here I checked off descriptor after descriptor of someone with a more highly developed central nervous system–only about 15-20% of the population. I began to understand why I often felt overwhelmed after being around groups of people, even if I’d enjoyed myself, that I had a hard time shaking the shame of making a mistake, and that I needed to learn to set boundaries around my tendency toward empathy. Add to that an intense intellectual curiosity, acute sensual awareness and an imagination that could hijack me for better or for worse (all potentially experiences of a gifted adult), and you have an individual who often feels out of step with the rest of the world.

So, why tell you all of this? I don’t particularly like labels, and it’s a pretty vulnerable set of claims to make.  I share because I’d like to introduce you to you my concept of the Unique Traveler. Choosing to walk a path that is not well-worn and that lacks a fairly predictable outcome (as if any really are guaranteed), can leave one feeling a bit outside of what is presumed to be normal. It can leave you feeling, well, somehow wrong. If you have found your way here and connect to the pondering and the searching and the feeling and the depth of experience, you may well be a Unique Traveler.

No two travelers are alike, and our compelling need to always be growing inevitably leads to the change that accompanies evolving.  However, I believe, in some combination of traits and experiences I will share, you will see yourself here. I have been a meaning making machine all of my life, and it has been my career passion (24 years’ worth) to understand the social-emotional aspect of the gifted individual. Let me be your companion in discovering and understanding your unique self on the path less travelled.

I’ll have a great deal more to share about the Unique Traveler in coming posts. For now, though, know this: You are not wrong. You are having a qualitatively different experience of the world. It is the path you are meant to travel.