The Ego and Learning/Studying

In a teacher training class for Level 2 Hatha yoga, we talked about mental blocks and how the ego gets in the way of teaching. If you go in with a set idea of how things will go, then you will never see what is really happening with your students and with the class as a whole. One of our teachers is also a physical therapist, and he reminded us that neural pathways are formed through repetition. These patterns might not be serving you well.

The problem is letting judgment get in the way. "What you resist persists." This comment hit home with me. Well, maybe some things you can focus on something else to let go of the original problem, but depending on what it is, you might not let go of dependence in general. What I am seeing is the challenge of not thinking in polarity; the labels "good" and "bad" are judgment calls and carry potential for creating blinders to reality. What helps is recognizing when something works for you, and then letting go of what doesn't work for you.

Is it easy? Hardly. We resist change, even for the better and sometimes even when we know we have to. My challenge is to not work on too many things at once. One or two small things at a time is plenty, and to accept when you slip and simply get back on track by starting over.

This reminded me of a decade ago in scholastic chess tournaments. I had a lot of emotions invested in the game, which made losing harder to handle. My dad sometimes made me shoot hoops for at least 30 minutes after a loss; physical activity often helped shed the stress. I don't remember how I got to the point where I was calm until the tournament was over and then did I let my emotions have free reign. (Of course, it was my first tournament win.) Emotions help us make decisions, but attaching too much to them is where we slip up.

I see a similar problem in learning. If we assume something must be done in a particular way or on a particular timeline, then I feel that we increase our mistakes and make the work harder than it has to be. And a lot less enjoyable. Who says that having fun means not thinking?