Reconnecting with my old ways

In looking at ways to make my life better, I was doing an exercise that asked me some interesting questions. One of them got me to thinking how did I live on a daily basis when I was at my happiest point in life. It was over ten years ago, and I was - among other things - reading about pretty much any subject I wanted to on my own initiative.

More of an unschooler's approach, but sometimes that label is much more accurate to how I was taught. There really wasn't a lot of formal education in my life until I started college.

I'd forgotten how much I loved that lack of enforced structure. It made me have to become accountable to myself a lot. Even with my parents checking in on me, I had a considerable amount of freedom of choice.

I lost track of that a bit in going to college. I was suddenly truly on other people's schedules - and not feeling like I was getting good reason to be okay with it. It didn't feel like a job. Not at all...

So what am I going to do about it? I think I'll pick some books, put them in a pile, and go through them all. Once that pile is finished, I'll start over again with other books. Besides, I have so many books to get through that it's worth picking somewhere to start! It gives me a place to move forward from...

I think I will include some of the career exploration books I've yet to read... After all, they can't hurt!

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?