#81 - Valerie Livesay on Adult Development Theory and Fallback: Shining Light on Our Shadows and Embracing All of Who We Are

2023-07-16

For more than a decade, Valerie Livesay, Ph.D. has been thinking about and inquiring into the phenomenon of fallback — when despite our optimal developmental capacities, what we often refer to as our developmental center-of-gravity, we make meaning, feel, and act from a smaller, less complex, less capable form of mind. Following a career in higher education in both administration and faculty roles, Valerie’s present endeavors seek to extend the concepts and experiences that she studies, teaches, and writes about outside of the halls of academia, to the lives of all people trying to navigate the tricky business of sho...

For more than a decade, Valerie Livesay, Ph.D. has been thinking about and inquiring into the phenomenon of fallback — when despite our optimal developmental capacities, what we often refer to as our developmental center-of-gravity, we make meaning, feel, and act from a smaller, less complex, less capable form of mind.

Following a career in higher education in both administration and faculty roles, Valerie’s present endeavors seek to extend the concepts and experiences that she studies, teaches, and writes about outside of the halls of academia, to the lives of all people trying to navigate the tricky business of showing up in alignment with their intentions in the many contexts of their world.

As Chief Illuminator at Ghost Light Leadership, Valerie accompanies individuals through their discovery of self using the analogy of theater to set the stage for their historical and unfolding story. She serves as documentarian, bringing to light the lesser known, lesser loved, and occasionally forgotten roles and scenes that make up one’s full ensemble and storyline.

Through her writing, speaking, coaching, and workshop offerings, Valerie invites the many characters that comprise the full ensemble of one’s self to dance together in order to better meet their intentions.

Valerie is the author of Leaving the Ghost Light Burning: Illuminating Fallback in Embrace of the Fullness of You in which she reveals both the despair and ecstasy that accompany a knowing of the fullness of one’s self through the stories of four individuals and their experiences of fallback. This longitudinal study (which was actually never intended to be a longitudinal study) allows the reader to find the fullness of themselves in the journey of development and the experience of being human.

Valerie holds a Bachelor’s degree from Indiana University and earned her Master’s in Nonprofit Leadership and Management and a Ph.D. in Leadership Studies from the University of San Diego. She lives in San Diego, California with her two cats, husband, and two children, with the latter three serving simultaneously as the most frequent protagonists of and audience to her experiences of fallback and the greatest source of her desire to do better.

Additionally, I’ll be donating to and raising awareness for the charity or organization of my guest’s choice with each episode now. This episode, the organization is The Monarch School in San Diego. Any and all donations make a difference!

You can connect with Valerie on:

Website
Book: Leaving the Ghost Light Burning: Illuminating Fallback in Embrace of the Fullness of You
LinkedIn
YouTube

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Resources/People Mentioned:

Leaving the Ghost Light Burning: Illuminating Fallback in Embrace of the Fullness of You
Nadjeschda Taranczewski
Internal Family Systems
Monarch Schools
Vivek Murthy
Jennifer Garvey Berger
Joshua Waitzkin
David McCallum

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