Our Continual Crossroads

A friend and former colleague shared with me that she recently had a breakthrough in her work as an educator. The last couple years had been very challenging for her, and she was very close to quitting. She felt as if she had come to a crossroads: either quit or figure out how to have a better experience of her job. She chose to transform her experience.

She started a new practice of beginning her days with a meditation, a spiritual reading, and prayers; she also closed out her days with a meditation, reading, and prayers. She used these tools to ground her in what matters most to her. With these simple practices she was able to get in touch and stay in touch with a core part of who she is, her love for the people in her life.

By calming her mind, she began to live more commonly in a state of relaxed well-being, a state from which she could hear the whispering of an internal wisdom, a universal intelligence guiding her to well-being.

In the midst of a challenging situation with a parent who was yelling at her on campus, she was unfazed. With the seeming endless demands of the constituents with whom she works, she is at peace and in action. Throughout her day she’s able to settle her mind and foster a consistent appreciation and enjoyment in being alive. At the end of the day she’s able to turn off work-mode. (She's also much more effective in her work now.)

We think we must stress our way to productivity, think our way to ease, or complain our way to changes. We think we need to worry our way to safety, struggle our way to growth, or sacrifice our way to success.

All of that is untrue.

It’s also detrimental - to our own well-being, to the well-being of our family and loved ones, and to the well-being of our colleagues and students.

When Gandhi said “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” he didn’t mean to work at it so that some day you could be that change. He didn’t mean to stress and worry over it. He didn’t mean to analyze all your problems and shortcomings (or those of others) until you could feel yourself as the change. He meant to actually be the change here and now.

What if that were possible for each of us right now? What would you like to bring into your own life as a way of being?

Chances are, the best path to that way of being isn’t the path of stress, fear, worry, contempt, discord, or frustration.

My friend observed that she was at a crossroads and she chose to actively engage with her life in a new way. She now lives life from intention, gratitude, enjoyment, and love, and that’s all she needed to transform her experience.

What if you are currently standing at a crossroads in life too? What’s your choice?

One perspective we could take is that we’re always at a crossroads, moment-by-moment. Do you choose fear or love? Do you choose desire or integrity? Do you choose worry or ease?

The more often we make the choice that's in line with our inner knowing, the easier it gets to choose it.

(By the way, sometimes the best choice is to not make any choice at all, at least not right now.)

Thanks so much for reading. ❤️

Curiosity

Curiosity is an exploration that happens in this moment.

Curiosity is putting attention over there.

Curiosity is asking questions, and then more questions, and then more questions.

Curiosity is an invitation to others to engage and explore with us.

Curiosity is taking another look even when we know we're right.

Curiosity is checking things out and looking at objects, people, feelings, and ideas from different angles.

Curiosity is a way to understand something differently, to learn something new, to shift who we’ve been and who we’re becoming.

Curiosity is joy-inducing, enlivening, and freeing.

Curiosity is letting go of the (often) arrogant and limiting notion that we already know something.

Curiosity is an easy and powerful access to insight, wisdom, love, and clarity.

Curiosity is a gift we give to ourselves as well as to others, much like love, compassion, trust, and generosity.

Curiosity is looking out into the future and being willing to see much more than what we know from the past.

Curiosity is a path to breakthroughs.

Curiosity is safe.

Curiosity is not what killed the cat; lack of awareness did that.

Thanks so much for reading. ❤️

Don't Go Back to Sleep

There was a whisper that I heard in class that day...

I was frustrated and starting to get angry as I stood in front of 32 juniors in one of the best public high schools in Baltimore. I was introducing a new topic and while most students were attentive and interested, there were a couple distracted students much more interested in discussing something completely different.

So I called the kids out - couldn't they see that they were squandering an opportunity at this school? Couldn't they see that this education was a ticket to a brighter future, a good job, a better world? Couldn't they see that they need this education in order to make good money and be successful in life?

As I heard those words coming out of my mouth, though, I also heard a whisper: those words weren't mine. It would have been easy to ignore the whisper and go back to sleep. I'm glad that I didn't.

These kids weren't conforming to what students are supposed to be like, and I couldn't think of any other way to engage them than to manipulate them into conforming. Armed with a gradebook and self-righteousness, I was using my authority as the adult in the room to reinforce society's perspective on what qualifies as proper and successful behavior.

In allowing society to speak through me in that way, it's as if I had gone to sleep and some conditioned perspective reared its head and spoke through my mouth.

How often throughout our day are we speaking and acting as if from a script? It's as if we've put our own consciousness to sleep and allowed auto-drive to take over. At these times, we roll through our day, oblivious to our surroundings, our colleagues, and our loved ones except to channel some pre-determined approach to being and living in the world.

And some of us have gotten pretty successful at playing our role. Many of us start off in our careers with an evident desire to conform to convention, the driving force behind impostor syndrome. Over time, though, we no longer try to fit the mold - we become the mold.

Many of us teachers are reinforcing these societally constructed and reinforced norms throughout our day. Norms and conventions in our subject matter (like solving physics problems and learning programming syntax) of course, but then also norms and conventions for behaving, speaking, and acting. Heck, even norms and conventions for thinking.

It's really okay that we all do this; it even makes a lot of sense. Our modern societies have been sustainable because of a willingness to conform to convention. It's personally comforting to an extent, and it's certainly safer knowing that society approves of our actions, that our parents and their friends would likely approve, and that our teachers would be proud.

But it's not always authentic or what's best either for us adults or the kids that we impact. In fact, it might be detrimental.

Most of us know when we're reinforcing someone else's perspective or conforming to someone else's standard of behavior. Most of us hear the whisper of wisdom within when there's a better way or that it doesn't have to be this way.

It may feel a little scary and be a little uncomfortable to say something we've never said before or to be honest in a new way, especially if it's against the grain. The impact, however, can be profound.

As soon as I felt that internal dissonance in my classroom 15 years ago, I made a promise to not disrespect my students anymore by manipulating them into conforming. I also made a promise to be authentic with my students, even if I wasn't sure the best way how. I, they, and the world needs that level of authenticity - it's the only soil in which integrity, creativity, and transformation can grow.

When you hear that whisper talking to you, don't go back to sleep.

Thanks so much for reading.❤️ And thanks to my friend, Eric, for reminding me of this message.

Don't Go Back to Sleep by Rumi

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth

across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don't go back to sleep.