Liana Merrill
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Elizabeth, I can so relate to your second paragraph! Even though I have had ideas/visions of how I might teach and in what context, I really tried to push that aside for this course and just focus on being in the moment, as you wrote. Letting go of the maybes and staying in the present, letting the course be a standalone for now. I gave myself permission to put any planning aside and just see how the course goes. Once it’s done, then I can start to contemplate what may be next (if anything). Thank you for sharing your perspective and reminding me of this intention for myself.
Rosie, thank you for distinguishing between preparedness and readiness. There is definitely nuance there, and is something I’ve definitely experienced yet never really thought about and would not have been able to put words to, so your essay gave me a bit of an a-ha. Thank you for that!
I really resonate with your essay, Stina, and I love your teaching nuggets. Thank you for sharing them. They reminded me 1) of how I learned early on in teaching a cadaver-based anatomy lab to medical students in a high-paced, high-stress environment, that it was SO much better to just say you don’t know, even though it felt scary and uncertain as a young teacher. However, I found a trick that worked especially well for anatomy lab, where I could just say, “You know, I actually don’t know that either off the top of my head, let’s look that up together!” There were so many benefits here: I deepened my relationship with the students by taking the time to look things up with them, I showed them it was ok not to know, and they got to see how I would go about finding the information myself. I remember it feeling like a huge breakthrough at the time. And 2) I’ll never forget a fellow teacher coming up to my AFTER a lab and telling me she didn’t know an answer, so she made something up, and she’d realized now she had gave the student the wrong information. She asked me what I would do. I said I would go to the student and tell them you’re sorry and give them the correct information. We’re all human, and I felt the student would respect the teacher more for owning up to the mistake rather than not and having the student (god forbid) go on thinking something that was incorrect. Btw, I don’t know how it turned out, but she did approach the student and explain.
So much to contemplate and unpack in your essay – thank you!Even though I don’t intend to offer 1:1 instruction (if I do teach, I plan to do so in a group setting), I do feel prepared if I did want to offer this. In my mind right now, I think I would only consider offering 1:1 instruction if someone from the group I was already teaching approached me and asked for this option, and then I would only say yes if it felt right to me at the time. I think I feel prepared because when I think about teaching, I feel at ease in my body. It’s hard to describe, but it is really mostly a feeling for me. A sense of peace, a wave of comfort washing over me. It just feels right, and I take that to mean I feel prepared. In addition to this feeling I have in my body, I have felt extra reassured from partners in class as well as Susan, which has helped solidify my feeling of preparedness. I feel confident in the instruction, and at ease at the same time, in that I’m really just also sitting there doing the meditation and instructing myself. So even though I may be teaching, I’m also a student at the same time, if that makes sense.
If anything makes me feel unprepared, it is really just all the “unknowns”, but this is a feeling I’m well aware of now in my life, and I’m used to working with it. Meaning, it’s almost second nature now to have doubts/feel squirrely about the unknown, and to just tell myself that these feelings are normal and they don’t mean I have to shy away from something, especially if that something is really important to me. I can have the confidence in myself to know I won’t be perfect and yet have the trust in myself that I can handle any situation as it arises. My heart warmed this week in class when Lauren was sharing her vulnerable feelings at the end about not feeling ready, and Susan shared that she almost always feels that way when she’s about to do something really important to her. I can 100% relate to this. Despite all the doubts/thoughts that may arise, I feel ready and called to introduce others to the instruction.MaryBeth, thank you for your essay! I loved reading about your experience in Ireland. How fun! I can totally relate to having a gift/something that sparks you like that and wanting to protect it. Keep it for my own/not letting it snowball into something I don’t recognize, which I’ve always been fearful of happening if I were to charge/bring money into the mix of something I do that speaks to my heart. I so appreciate your candid essay and think a great summary is a sentence you actually wrote: “Context, again, is everything.” So true! Even though you have no idea what the future will hold after the class, I’m betting that the universe will speak to you again just as it did in Ireland 🙂 Grateful to be on this journey with you.
Virginia, I completely agree that the decision to charge for meditation instruction would likely depend on the situation, and I’ve been thinking a lot more about this since our last class. I can see how some situations might lend itself better/might feel better in my body to volunteer/not charge, and others might feel differently (I had the same thought about a rec center, as we have one in our town and I had the a-ha that maybe, someday, I would want to teach there). I, too, have the luxury of a “day job” to pay the bills and so it isn’t as important to me as well, but it is really interesting to think about and brainstorm. Thank you for your thoughts!
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts in this essay, Dawa. I really enjoyed reading it. I especially loved the line “I know I’m a good deal, and if that isn’t enough for someone, they are not my client.” I can so relate to this and feel like I say something similar to myself in my head when I’m trying to hype myself up. My husband owns his own business (he’s a carpenter) and I often encourage him of this too when he’s doubting himself. We all bring so much to this world, and we deserve to be (and feel) valued for the gifts we bring!
I would say I started off on the “ick” end of the spectrum when it comes to charging money for teaching meditation. It’s a bit more broad than that though, as I’ve had this thought many times surrounding things I want to do/bring to the world that I feel like I am giving from another part of me than I give at my “day job”. It has always been difficult for me to imagine charging for things I consider my gifts, giving back, things that light me up that I’d be doing whether or not I was paid for them. This has started to really become more of an imminent issue, however, as I am scaling back from my traditional “job I do for income” and doing more volunteer work/things that light me up. I have really struggled with the idea of charging for these things I feel like come from my heart, that I would do regardless of pay. And for me, teaching meditation falls in this category. With that said, I can relate to what Susan said last week about wanting food and shelter. I was really encouraged to hear several different folks talk in our last class about how they had started off wanting to offer things for free/volunteer, and yet found it nearly impossible to do so. This was SO helpful to hear and really blew my mind honestly, and I think will really help with my mindset as I figure out what this next path will look like. I don’t have a whole lot of judgements or philosophies either way, just more of my own visceral feeling that is hard to describe and even thinking about, so I’m looking forward to just starting as they say, paying close attention to how I feel, and making small changes along the way as I see fit/depending on what feels good to me.
MaryBeth, I wrote my essay before reading any others, and also was taken upon reading afterwards that I had gone straight to classroom for learning environments and never strayed in my mind from this narrow tunnel. At the same time, I am so enjoying reading all the other essays and having my mind expand to these possibilities! Being a part of this group is so wonderful.
I chuckled at your less-than-ideal learning experiences because they sound so unfortunate, almost not possible (because – corporate), and yet I am totally not surprised (because, well, corporate). I’m glad you were able to take a lense of humor in those unfortunate situations. Sounds like you really made the best of it (and I’m sure your learners appreciated that!)Melanie, wow, I have ALWAYS wanted to attend one of Susan’s retreats, and reading your essay has just solidified this even more! Thank you for sharing these reflections! Honestly, I don’t even really picture retreats when I think of learning environments, so thank you for opening my mind to this! I have been to many retreats, and of course they are learning experiences! Interesting how I go right to the classroom…something to ponder for myself. I have been to many less-than-ideal retreat environments, which makes me always really hesitate before taking the leap on one (especially monetarily), but now I am confident that if ever the chance comes again to attend one of Susan’s retreats in Austin, it would be very worthwhile!
What beautiful, vulnerable, sharing Kat – and a nice written addition to some of your spoken thoughts at the end of class the other day <3 I love getting a little more of a window into your mind 🙂 I can relate and think it’s perfectly natural to have those thoughts at the beginning of the class, and I’m so glad you’ve found the “warmth, magic, and clarity” again (hooray!).
Although I missed out on seeing Grateful Dead live, I have come to love their music as an adult (through my husband) and totally experience the warmth and kindness there, although in different ways (I know it never will be/can be the same!). Through their music is how I, too, “learned how to let music move my heart, body and mind” – love this so much! Thank you for sharing.Glenn, it was so wonderful reading about your ideal learning experiences during your PhD. I’m so glad you had these experiences of feeling included and valued. I had the exact opposite experience during my PhD in America (as well as many of my colleagues) where we were ridiculed and often shamed/blocked if we ever dared to provide an idea outside of our mentor’s “way they’d been doing it forever.” How refreshing and wonderful that you had these experiences, that I’m sure shaped you immensely from there. Thank you so much for sharing!
When I think about a personal experience with a less-than-ideal learning environment, two examples immediately come to mind. Interestingly, both involve male, in my opinion inappropriate, sometimes even aggressive teachers. I went to a semi-private high school, known for its great education, and in ways I am very grateful for this education, but when I think back on some of these examples it makes me sad and even a little mad. The first example involves a chemistry teacher. The main reason I think of his class as a less-than-ideal learning environment was because of his demeanor and the way he made us feel – always inferior and like we weren’t good enough. He would often call out students in front of everyone, quoting something from their homework or essay that was incorrect and explaining why, rather than making his point more generically without name calling. He would often, when he was lecturing, say things like “As I’m sure you all know…” or “You already know this but…”, just making me feel constantly like I was behind or didn’t know but should. He once caught the girl sitting next to me in the front of the class staring off into space, and he stopped teaching midsentence to ask her, in front of everyone, “Is he naked?” I’ll never forget the look on my classmate’s face. I basically always felt uncomfortable, anxious, and like I had the heebie jeebies in this class.
A math teacher I had evoked similar discomfort, but for different reasons. It wasn’t really his words but more his actions that made me comfortable. He was known for walking around the classroom while we worked on math problems, silently strolling from desk to desk, and occasionally marking an “X” on your desk in chalk, for reasons he would never explain. He also once picked up and flipped a girl in her desk when she answered a question incorrectly. Uncomfortable chuckles would echo throughout the class – it was clear he was trying to do things like this as a “joke” and yet made everyone uncomfortable. To make matters worse, this was a well-known characteristic of this teacher, even among other teachers, so there was no one really to “tell”. It was made clear that everyone knew this teacher was like this and at the same time that there was nothing to do about it.
When I think of ideal learning environments, two examples also come to mind. One had to do with a specific professor, but it was more than that. She also ended up being my undergraduate teaching advisor and taught many of the courses in my major. From her I discovered my love of Neuroscience and the brain in undergrad, leading to my major and eventually my PhD research. Not only did I love her teaching style, she was also a mentor and a teacher of the subjects that lit me up. I worked with her in the lab and in the classroom, and I consider all of these experiences under one ideal learning umbrella. I can see now that all of these components mix in to why I think of this as an ideal learning environment.
Another ideal example is a college chemistry class. After the horrible experiences I had in high school with example number 1 above, I had written off chemistry as a subject I simply couldn’t learn, would never be good at, and I was surprised at how easily the subject came to me in college. Looking back, I feel I have to credit the teacher, but I also don’t have specific memories of her the way I do of the not-so-ideal examples. I don’t so much remember how she made me feel or much about her teaching style, more that I was just so happy that a subject that had seemed impossible at a younger age was now coming so easily to me.
I’m realizing in reflecting via this essay that the less-than-deal teaching situations for me involve the way the teachers made me feel, and the ideal examples were less about how the teachers made me feel and more about the environment they created (although I guess the feelings I felt from the less-than-ideal situations were sparked by the environments created by the teacher).
This has been a very interesting topic to reflect on!Thank you for your essay, Melanie. Your words made me think about my role as a hospice volunteer. In that role I take on many hats, but probably one of my favorites is being a “matched companion” – basically someone who just visits with and listens to a patient who is at a sort of “end of life” time (I’ve learned this can mean many things). However, one of the most difficult parts (to me) about this matched companionship is in the practice of remaining connected but separate. I always want to jump in to help, and sometimes I have to stop myself when I know a boundary may be crossed if I keep going. It is so difficult to maintain clear boundaries when “working with such lovely and vulnerable people”, to use your words which really hit home for me. Thank you for sharing!
Natalie, I love the idea of finding more balance between being too friendly and too rigid at work. I so relate because I am also the type to make jokes or engage in frivolous conversation (I love the way you put this). I want to be able to not worry and just be myself at work, but I’ve learned there is definitely a place (and sometimes a need) for distance as well. However, I find that if I stifle my authentic self too much at work, I get burned out in a sense/feel disconnected. So I struggle with this too. I love the idea of remaining curious about it all – that is a very helpful frame I look forward to leaning into.