The Rocamora School, Inc.
Are you Spiritually Gifted?
These self tests present a broad spectrum of personality characteristics that describe the unique human prisms through which giftedness radiates. While not all of the categories in the three tests will resonate with all gifted individuals, most find themselves described perfectly in many categories in their arena of giftedness.
"Spiritual intelligence is a somewhat
neglected area of investigation in the community of
researchers focusing on the personality traits, processes and
achievements of the gifted. Some of the most often observed
characteristics of the spiritually gifted are empathy, integrity,
introversion, autonomy, vision, commitment, and moral courage. This
self recognition test is based on more than thirty years of my own
immersion in researching, counseling and teaching gifted and
talented adults to optimize their abilities and fulfill their inner
development. Complete the Personality - Giftedness Self-Test first. Then
proceed with these questions. Behind each of your yes or no answers
lies an area of introspection for you to pursue in greater depth. I
hope this self test is helpful to you to see your life path more
completely and therefore commit to it more fully.[Mary Rocamora, founder and director of the school]
1. The Search for Truth and
Meaning
_____ Have you always wondered about the meaning of life, and of your life in particular, without easily arriving at satisfactory answers?
_____ Have you had a spiritually transcendent experience in your lifetime that left you permanently changed?
_____ Have you contemplated God, death, reincarnation, good and evil, justice or other spiritual or moral concepts since childhood?
_____ Are you an autonomous person, a curious and intrepid adventurer who must find his or her own answers?
_____ Are you puzzled by others’ seeming obliviousness to the inner world?
_____ Have you tended to trust your own instincts in the face of strong opposition from others?
_____ Has your inner searching brought you into contact with people of extraordinary accomplishment, either in person or through their writings or teachings?
_____ Have you yourself become accomplished spiritually?
_____ Are you able to feel compassion for people whose problems are clearly of their own making?
_____ Was your inner life more interesting to you than your external life?
2. Asynchronous development
_____ Have you felt like you were “on a path” or felt “called” to something transcendent from early childhood?
_____ Were you introspective and sensitive by nature as a child and more aware than others around you?
_____ Did you reject the offerings of your peers, preferring a divergent path that was more socially isolated?
_____ Did you experience an inner knowing that protected or guided you?
_____ Were you emotionally overwhelmed with empathy when you saw people or animals suffering?
_____ While other children played with dolls or participated in sports, were you communicating with imaginary friends or otherwise in your own world?
_____ As a child, did you believe in unseen forces and were always looking for evidence that they were at work around you?
_____ Were you ridiculed by other children or adults who were wedded to a more conventional view of reality?
_____ Did you seek out heart-opening alliances like having a pet or a favorite relative, or become attached to a treasured story book so you could feel those feelings as much of the time as possible?
3. Selective Resistance to Socialization
_____ As a child, could you distinguish between what you learned to be good behavior and genuine, spontaneous goodness?
_____ Did you know the difference between “shoulds” and authenticity, and prefer authenticity in your feelings and actions?
_____ Did you rebel against the imposition of external standards and values when they didn’t feel right to you?
_____ Did you have a source of mirroring as a child, someone who actually saw who you were, or have books or movies that you saw yourself in?
_____ Has a socially individualistic mentor been crucial to your becoming who you are as an adult?
_____ Were you exposed to religion or an alternative belief system as a child and found yourself skeptical or resistant to wholesale assimilation?
_____ Have you ever had a “crisis of faith” that left you wiser after it had passed?
_____ Do you possess the courage and strength to make life choices that may engender disapproval but feel authentic and fulfilling to you?
4. Tolerance for Purposeful Pain and Sacrifice
_____ Have you sought therapy or some other introspective process knowing in advance that growth would be painful?
_____ Do you have the skills identify your ego material and see its direct correlation to your psychological discomfort and pain?
_____ Have you been willing to work through psychologically based suffering, such as fear, guilt, loss, abandonment, or isolation, to get to a greater freedom?
_____ Have you been able to embrace the pain in your heart that comes up when you are making hard choices on the path to spiritual advancement?
_____ Can you cite specific circumstances in your life where you were willing to sacrifice aspects of your personal comfort to attain inner freedom?
5. Trust in Inner Awareness
_____ Have you placed a high value on developing your inner awareness?
_____ Do you trust your inner knowing more than any other source of information and guidance?
_____ Have you ever had an experience where you had no time to think and had to rely exclusively on instinct in order to save a life or take control in a crisis?
_____ Are you fascinated by the nature, qualities and workings of your inner awareness?
_____ Do you have the skills to discern your inner voice from the offerings of the ego voice in your head? Rationalization and justification, accepting what “makes sense,” listening to fear-based voices are just a few that try to masquerade as the true inner voice.
_____ Is following your inner awareness a path for you?
6. The Ecstasy of Oneness
_____ Are you attracted to literature and films in which an inspiring hero transcends the ordinary, where wise people are depicted as having achieved mastery of an unseen world?
_____ Have you been magnetically drawn to mass social events where inspirational speakers, like Martin Luther King or Barrack Obama, galvanized an overpowering oneness of spirit in people?
_____ Do you crave intense musical concerts that transport the audience to a shared state of emotion?
_____ Would you seize the moment where you could make a real connection with another person, regardless of the seeming incongruousness of the situation?
_____ Have you developed your sexuality so as to experience the ego death and the profound opening that follows?
_____ Have you experienced your heart breaking with beauty, patriotic pride, compassion, grief, and other types of emotions that overwhelm and dissolve the self?
_____ Do you aspire to become an instrument of what you have mastered for the benefit of others?
7. Capacity for Sustainability
_____ Have you discovered for yourself the process of conquering your own inner patterns so that they don’t come up anymore?
_____ Do you fully understand that peak experiences are only a taste of what is possible, and the real spiritual journey is about being able to access and sustain these expansive states on your own?
_____ Do you have a clear spiritual vision and practice that guides your daily life toward your own inner goals?
_____ Have you adapted or created your own tools for mastery?
_____ Do you contribute toward a social vision for spiritual mastery that transcends race, religion and other separative concepts within society?
_____ Have you gathered insight about the spiritually inductive role of language, mythology, music and natural beauty?
_____ Do you periodically assess your ability to stay open and present, especially in challenging circumstances?
8. Willingness to Inhabit the Unknown
_____ Are you willing to face life’s challenges by allowing needed changes to be revealed to you rather than trying to impose solutions out of fear?
_____ Are you curious about what is really here to be lived in this lifetime?
_____ Can you suspend logic and reason in favor of intuition and insight?
_____ Can you think of examples of intersections in your life where you were in the unknown and were able to observe life’s natural unfolding?
_____ Do you have enough cumulative experience accepting “what is” to be able to describe the true nature and purpose of your life?
9. Cultivation of the Open Heart
_____ Has your understanding of love evolved past romance, attachment and belief systems emanating from our culture?
_____ Can you draw clear distinctions between what your heart feels and what you have been taught about love?
_____ Do you pay attention to the genuine emotional states that you feel when your heart is open?
_____ Are you fearless about feeling everything in your heart, even if it is intense and overwhelming?
_____ Do you encourage and support others to allow the fullness of their feelings. even when they are painful?
_____ Have you felt spontaneous compassion and have developed a deeper sense of what that word really means?
_____ Have you pursued the feelings of the open heart to discover the secrets of life cached within?
_____ Are you committed to your heart’s spiritual journey?
_____ Have you always wondered about the meaning of life, and of your life in particular, without easily arriving at satisfactory answers?
_____ Have you had a spiritually transcendent experience in your lifetime that left you permanently changed?
_____ Have you contemplated God, death, reincarnation, good and evil, justice or other spiritual or moral concepts since childhood?
_____ Are you an autonomous person, a curious and intrepid adventurer who must find his or her own answers?
_____ Are you puzzled by others’ seeming obliviousness to the inner world?
_____ Have you tended to trust your own instincts in the face of strong opposition from others?
_____ Has your inner searching brought you into contact with people of extraordinary accomplishment, either in person or through their writings or teachings?
_____ Have you yourself become accomplished spiritually?
_____ Are you able to feel compassion for people whose problems are clearly of their own making?
_____ Was your inner life more interesting to you than your external life?
2. Asynchronous development
_____ Have you felt like you were “on a path” or felt “called” to something transcendent from early childhood?
_____ Were you introspective and sensitive by nature as a child and more aware than others around you?
_____ Did you reject the offerings of your peers, preferring a divergent path that was more socially isolated?
_____ Did you experience an inner knowing that protected or guided you?
_____ Were you emotionally overwhelmed with empathy when you saw people or animals suffering?
_____ While other children played with dolls or participated in sports, were you communicating with imaginary friends or otherwise in your own world?
_____ As a child, did you believe in unseen forces and were always looking for evidence that they were at work around you?
_____ Were you ridiculed by other children or adults who were wedded to a more conventional view of reality?
_____ Did you seek out heart-opening alliances like having a pet or a favorite relative, or become attached to a treasured story book so you could feel those feelings as much of the time as possible?
3. Selective Resistance to Socialization
_____ As a child, could you distinguish between what you learned to be good behavior and genuine, spontaneous goodness?
_____ Did you know the difference between “shoulds” and authenticity, and prefer authenticity in your feelings and actions?
_____ Did you rebel against the imposition of external standards and values when they didn’t feel right to you?
_____ Did you have a source of mirroring as a child, someone who actually saw who you were, or have books or movies that you saw yourself in?
_____ Has a socially individualistic mentor been crucial to your becoming who you are as an adult?
_____ Were you exposed to religion or an alternative belief system as a child and found yourself skeptical or resistant to wholesale assimilation?
_____ Have you ever had a “crisis of faith” that left you wiser after it had passed?
_____ Do you possess the courage and strength to make life choices that may engender disapproval but feel authentic and fulfilling to you?
4. Tolerance for Purposeful Pain and Sacrifice
_____ Have you sought therapy or some other introspective process knowing in advance that growth would be painful?
_____ Do you have the skills identify your ego material and see its direct correlation to your psychological discomfort and pain?
_____ Have you been willing to work through psychologically based suffering, such as fear, guilt, loss, abandonment, or isolation, to get to a greater freedom?
_____ Have you been able to embrace the pain in your heart that comes up when you are making hard choices on the path to spiritual advancement?
_____ Can you cite specific circumstances in your life where you were willing to sacrifice aspects of your personal comfort to attain inner freedom?
5. Trust in Inner Awareness
_____ Have you placed a high value on developing your inner awareness?
_____ Do you trust your inner knowing more than any other source of information and guidance?
_____ Have you ever had an experience where you had no time to think and had to rely exclusively on instinct in order to save a life or take control in a crisis?
_____ Are you fascinated by the nature, qualities and workings of your inner awareness?
_____ Do you have the skills to discern your inner voice from the offerings of the ego voice in your head? Rationalization and justification, accepting what “makes sense,” listening to fear-based voices are just a few that try to masquerade as the true inner voice.
_____ Is following your inner awareness a path for you?
6. The Ecstasy of Oneness
_____ Are you attracted to literature and films in which an inspiring hero transcends the ordinary, where wise people are depicted as having achieved mastery of an unseen world?
_____ Have you been magnetically drawn to mass social events where inspirational speakers, like Martin Luther King or Barrack Obama, galvanized an overpowering oneness of spirit in people?
_____ Do you crave intense musical concerts that transport the audience to a shared state of emotion?
_____ Would you seize the moment where you could make a real connection with another person, regardless of the seeming incongruousness of the situation?
_____ Have you developed your sexuality so as to experience the ego death and the profound opening that follows?
_____ Have you experienced your heart breaking with beauty, patriotic pride, compassion, grief, and other types of emotions that overwhelm and dissolve the self?
_____ Do you aspire to become an instrument of what you have mastered for the benefit of others?
7. Capacity for Sustainability
_____ Have you discovered for yourself the process of conquering your own inner patterns so that they don’t come up anymore?
_____ Do you fully understand that peak experiences are only a taste of what is possible, and the real spiritual journey is about being able to access and sustain these expansive states on your own?
_____ Do you have a clear spiritual vision and practice that guides your daily life toward your own inner goals?
_____ Have you adapted or created your own tools for mastery?
_____ Do you contribute toward a social vision for spiritual mastery that transcends race, religion and other separative concepts within society?
_____ Have you gathered insight about the spiritually inductive role of language, mythology, music and natural beauty?
_____ Do you periodically assess your ability to stay open and present, especially in challenging circumstances?
8. Willingness to Inhabit the Unknown
_____ Are you willing to face life’s challenges by allowing needed changes to be revealed to you rather than trying to impose solutions out of fear?
_____ Are you curious about what is really here to be lived in this lifetime?
_____ Can you suspend logic and reason in favor of intuition and insight?
_____ Can you think of examples of intersections in your life where you were in the unknown and were able to observe life’s natural unfolding?
_____ Do you have enough cumulative experience accepting “what is” to be able to describe the true nature and purpose of your life?
9. Cultivation of the Open Heart
_____ Has your understanding of love evolved past romance, attachment and belief systems emanating from our culture?
_____ Can you draw clear distinctions between what your heart feels and what you have been taught about love?
_____ Do you pay attention to the genuine emotional states that you feel when your heart is open?
_____ Are you fearless about feeling everything in your heart, even if it is intense and overwhelming?
_____ Do you encourage and support others to allow the fullness of their feelings. even when they are painful?
_____ Have you felt spontaneous compassion and have developed a deeper sense of what that word really means?
_____ Have you pursued the feelings of the open heart to discover the secrets of life cached within?
_____ Are you committed to your heart’s spiritual journey?
For further information please call (818) 582-3325 or e-mail mary@rocamora.org
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© - The Rocamora School, Inc.
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