Guest blogger Stacy Bender shares her life changing experience as a result of Lumina Spark.

Stacy Bender has worked in education settings in North Dakota, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Scotland. She began her online high school career at Wolf Creek Online High School where she was mentored by Tracy Quarnstrom, a pioneer in online education in Minnesota.  Stacy narrowed her focus to online attendance and truancy while serving as the Director of Student Services at Minnesota Virtual High School.  With a six month stint in the Charter Center at the Minnesota Department of Education, Stacy worked with charter schools and their authorizers.  In her current life, Stacy leads the online high school at Crosslake Community School. Be sure to check out her personal blog and/or her new adventure.

Over a decade ago, I met Jane Schuette for the first time.  I worked for Wolf Creek Online High School at the time. The hybrid online school, led by a driven director, provides its staff with job-embedded professional development and continues to work with Jane to this day.

The concepts that Jane shared with our staff clicked with me, and my profile became a guiding document for my professional and personal life. Every year that she would come back to provide us with more information, I would beg to take the assessment again because it seemed to change every time I took it. I looked forward to seeing “who I was” each year that Jane returned.

Lumina Spark

When she transitioned to Lumina Spark, she invited me to be a part of a practice focus group to provide her with feedback as she developed her presentations with it.

At the same time, my personal life had taken quite a turn. For years, doctors had incorrectly treated me for depression.  I tried several different anti-depressants, counseling, and practicing self-care.  Everything would work for a while, then things would go really, really well, and then I would end up in bed for days with horrible migraine headaches.  About six months prior to Jane’s practice group, a psychiatrist determined that I struggled with an energy based bipolar diagnosis rather than depression.  They changed my medication, and I started to understand who I was better and better each day.

The day of the practice focus group changed my life for the better.  As Jane walked us the through the Lumina Spark results, tears flowed down my face.  In the past, assessments had told me that I was either an extrovert or an introvert; Lumina told me that I was both, how much of each I used, and what situations called on the different aspects and their strengths.  Rather than being pegged as a thinker or a feeler, I saw that I was both.  As we went through the list of aspects and saw each of them being polarized – often 90% of each – I realized that my bipolar struggles did not have to be struggles.  They could be strengths.  What I had taken out of my psychiatrist’s office was stigma.  What I took out of my session with Jane was strength.

I continue to take medication to mitigate the impulsive side of my struggles, but I spend more time these days calling on my duality to produce great work, to engage better with others in positive communication, and to inspire others to see their personalities as gifts.  Of course, we can all make changes to improve ourselves; however, that improvement may be rooted more in understanding than actual change.  Instead of changing who we are, Lumina Spark helps us to understand who we are and how we relate to others.  These principles have guided me through three job changes, promotions, and increased responsibilities.  As an employee and as a supervisor, I find this knowledge more valuable than any other training I have had.

 

Lumina Spark Qualification in Minnesota

Lumina Learning will be offering a qualification course this summer (August 9-11) in Crosslake, MN. The skills covered in the course will help us to develop our leadership abilities in a variety of settings. Once fully immersed in the curriculum, participants will have more developed emotional intelligence skills because they understand themselves and others better.
I encourage you to consider how this three-day training could enhance your personal and professional life. In my own life, I have seen the concepts from Lumina Learning change the way I way interact with others at work as well as at home. I look forward to seeing you at the course!

Click here to register for the MN Lumina Qualification  or contact Jane for more information at Jane@janeschuette.com.