How To Understand Your Mind

As a child Genevieve Dawid had learning difficulties. No one realised she was dyslexic. Nor could anyone have foreseen that her parents’ creative intervention, which helped her deal with this condition, would end up assisting many others, not just dyslexics.

Her parents showed her how her unique mind worked: her specific patterns, strengths and weaknesses. This allowed her to understand herself better, which helped her to cope more effectively with ongoing daily challenges, particularly those that challenged dyslexia. Recognising the value and adaptability of the methods, Genevieve experimented and expanded upon these, resulting in a system of effective techniques for overcoming obstacles and achieving desired successes in all aspects of life.

A few words from Genevieve :

“When I look back, I was quite a privileged child. I had a wonderful family, a tight group of friends and I lived in a lovely house. We enjoyed marvellous family holidays, both in England and abroad. I didn’t have a private education but I was lucky enough to attend a beautiful modern ‘state of the art’ school.

However, for all this idyllic childhood, and the wonderful facilities the school offered – learning was a nightmare for me. It puzzled me how other children knew the answers to questions, and understood numbers, and I didn’t. I couldn’t progess from the same school reading books for weeks on end!

One of my worst struggles was writing my name. One Christmas, I borrowed my brother’s drawing set. Instead of creating a picture, I drew the letters of my name across a page – though not in the right order nor in a straight line. My mother asked me if I could order the letters correctly and place them in a straight line, I shook my head. She took a ruler and wrote the letters in the right order in a row, showing me just one word at a time. Instantly, I could now see each word perfectly. Using a ruler I copied the letters in order, again and again, until I got it right. I had finally learnt to spell my name! Next my mother took my school reading book and covered the page, again revealing one word at a time. I could now start to make sense of it and learn each word, one by one. I progressed to holding a card under each word so I only saw one word at a time. In this way, during the school holidays, Mum actually taught me to read.

I returned to school thrilled that I could now read and write and was instantly taken out of the additional remedial classes. With practice at home, within weeks I could read any book for my age group. It was like a miracle.

I continued to have difficulty with spelling and grammar, my mathematics was poor and everything new that I had to learn was incredibly difficult. But my parents had shown that there was always a way for me to achieve as much as my peers. They simply helped me to identify the problem and together we found an alternative way to learn. This was a revelation to me.

The following Christmas, my parents taught me to draw the way I saw my mind. This enabled me to see a solution to something that I knew was a problem, but previously couldn’t fully comprehend or move beyond. From then on I kept a notebook and pen nearby, and by using the page like a mirror to reflect what was in my mind, the problem was copied as a visual image. Seeing it on the page helped my parents and I to identify and resolve the problem.

As I got older, I started interpreting my mind through writing and drawing. It was really interesting that many other people found it useful too, including those without learning difficulties. What a revelation to discover that others didn’t really understand how their minds worked either!

As my education continued I still found the school’s teaching methods impossible to learn, and virtually gave up, learning in secret at home. Then I started to share the benefits of transcending the mind, and spontaneous words and drawings using paper and pencil, with my classmates.

By the time I reached senior school, the education of my peers had progressed well. I was now helping them through various teenage problems, encouraging them to achieve more by getting to know themselves better, and finding creative ways to develop themselves, their future lives and career paths.

Without realising it, I had begun to mentor others. Much of this involved writing and drawing spontaneously. Little did I know then I was in training for my own future work as a mentor and consultant.

Although I did not achieve good qualifications at school, by the time I started college at sixteen I was fortunate that the lecturers quickly identified my learning difficulties and gave relevant support I needed to progress. I thrived at college and did extremely well in my examinations.

Since then, whether working with people starting out in their career or those at the very top, I have used this same technique of transcending the conscious mind through spontaneous words and drawing. Everyone has benefited from understanding and getting to know themselves better on paper, through this method; sometimes this has completely changed people’s lives. Interestingly, the process of putting thoughts down on paper in words and images is now recognised as a highly effective tool for personal development.

For the past decade I have assessed, selected and mentored senior personnel. Now I work as a mentor, lecturer, and also give Interactive Seminars which include exercises like ‘Transcending Your Mind.’