Growing Up is Not always Easy

Taking a deep breath in - why does it seem so difficult to see the beauty all around. As a child wakes up, everything is magic, and i crave that sensation once again. Taking care a of a new k-9 friend has reminded me of the joy of the outdoors and play and to stop being so serious. This change in pace is truly the perfect shake up which i needed. It seems so easy to step back into old mind habits and I am reminded to stay neutral. Just getting up and exercising every day and then writing is such a joy. Work too seems still to have this looming effect, but i know that i can transform that internally. I have such a wonderful opportunity to grow this program i run and to watch it blossom, and yet there is all this doubt and anxiety i carry inside. This is exactly what i am learning to transform. When I feel doubt and anxiety, or a sense of guilt or whatever, I need to stop, ring the bell and see it. I can choose to transition out of it. I am not powerless to it, only then will my creative potential arise - not out of guilt - that is just an old habit. And I am so thankful to have the teachers I do to help see this. I am so used to functioning in the old, overly thinking the past - and craving and visualizing/fantasizing about others lives. This sucks my creative potential - this consumes me. I can't jump to the other side until I look at and transform each emotion as it arises. To take it slowly and really visualize myself in the future as a teacher - always learning about herself! What joy! What a wonderful opportunity to be with children and enjoy, every day, the challenges of learning. I have forgotten what a struggle it is to learn things for the first time. Growing up is not always easy. I remember school often times being the worst possible place to go to, doing homework the last thing i wanted to focus on. My father would help me in the evenings with my homework and I needed to scribble and draw every 5 minutes. So he set a timer for me - five minutes of homework and five minutes of scribbling and drawing. It is funny how freshly this memory sits with me because I can understand, even at that age, how important this change was for me - my father was working with me to help the discomfort of learning something new. And in fact - i have no idea what i was learning at that time, but i do remember that scribbling!

Being in a new home is really really really helping me get out of the old. I think I am still going through this seasonal shift, this out of summer and into winter. thank goodness for Fall, thank goodness we have this transition season. It is so helpful to go through this dying process, letting go and again sinking in for the winter to visualize what next I will create in my life. There seems like so much ice everywhere energetically. Like I have to warm myself with enough love and understanding to melt this ice. My creative potential is just now flowering again with all the work I am doing in school to refire my music, voice, art, writing, acting. These things really are so important to the developing mind and I am so thankful to have Waldorf education and Anthroposophy to develop my waking mind.

I really feel it is necessary for myself to recognize when i am not in a space of neutrality. When I am constantly judging myself, I can't get anything done and everything I do is wrong. I am so grateful to have all this free time to study, learn, write, reflect, enjoy my time. As a teacher my time will be limited. And so to have this life right now, which seems full at times, but others, just the right amount of work - I feel so grateful.

There are things in the school which are complicated. My work school I mean, and it is hard not to constantly think i have to figure them out. I blow everything out of proportion and I forget that parents and teachers are really quite thankful and grateful for my work. I think I am always looking for something "to do" and not just being present in my heart, which is what children need. The doing is just a distraction to not feel emotional, or guilty - and these feeling are only coming up because they want to show me something. I am not sure just what it is I feel so guilty about all the time, like I am not capable at my job. I have such a deep desire to serve, and it is very new for me to be in a place of creative leadership that often times i just get overwhelmed. I really need to start giving myself more credit, and it is ok to just let the kids be and enjoy the time with them. The few ideas which are arising are taking a slow time to take effect, but that is ok too. Being in my power at work means being in myself, enjoying my presence as a force of love, attention and respect to the children. Conflict resolution and care giving. These two things are enough and as long as the kids are still being registered, there is nothing to stress about all the time. thank goodness for clarity. amen.