about this blog

I enjoy encouraging people toward the wonder of their inherent potential to be at peace and in productive relation within themselves.

Early in my teaching, students came to my resource room for special help-usually in language arts or math generally accompanied by emotional challenges, having been bullied or shamed. They all spent at least a half day with me, so the group of ten grew close. They had all been diagnosed with particular “disabilities” and both they and their parents were informed of them, though curiously, not of their relative strengths. They were considered irrelevant and not part of the solution. I found that practice destructive, and was determined to make their time with me fulfilling, enlightening, restorative and successful. 

I was attracted to the idea of focusing on helping my students become familiar with the process of learning, which is after all, one long trek through not knowing, then learning, then knowing, then not knowing, over and over again. We discovered that resistance was a common reaction to our unknowns.. Insecurity, fear of failure, frustration and anger sometimes played a part. After all, each entry into new terrain meant a possible loss of some imagined control. Vulnerability. Possible failure and humiliation. Low self-esteem. Aren’t we supposed to KNOW?

We thought about ways we might make learning easier for us all. First, we learned how to deal with our selves when we were having a hard time. What did we need at that time to help ourselves feel better? We shared our discoveries over time. We learned how to identify our feelings and share them with others. We learned how to help each other out when we became aware that one of our friends was having a rough minute. 

We broke down the phases of learning by looking at recent experiences and tried to recall our feelings and thoughts tied to those experiences. Where did problems arise? Some feared the experience of not “knowing” and imagining they SHOULD know before they even approached the new problem. Some were so fearful they simply resisted in order to avoid the POSSIBILITY of failure. Some realized they were more comfortable with failing for sure than going through the anxiety of the possibility of failure. 

Simply communicating with each other about these experiences and their thoughts and feelings was enough to bond them to each other and elicit sighs of relief.  They learned to find thier own words in the moment, which required listening to themselves with patience, in order to feel clear, which is different from knowing the words.

I learned a lot from working with those kids. (I have shared in other places that I had a sign in the classroom closet, “You teach best what you need to learn”.) And I have found inquiry into our interior lives fruitful, grounding and life-affirming.

So now I am in the process of doing something new that I know nothing about : writing a book related to what I have learned in my classes and workshops. But because this is the most daunting project I’ve done related to this work, sometimes I do exactly what my students did to avoid it! And, when at my best, I do what I taught my students to do when they faced thier unknowns.

These aspects of listening that lead us to discover our voices are essential to each of us. I have discovered that we are each born with a nature unique to us, and a life that grows to maturity if we only learn to listen to ourselves. When we do, we find a deeper empathy, a deeper belonging and a deeper need to share the voice that grows within.

I am using this blog to help me with my project, I will continue to ask for your stories here and in my workshops.. Hearing them helps me understand both how clearly I am communicating and how I need to educate myself in order to modify my thinking and language.

My intention, through exercises of inquiry and insight, is to spark the wonder of being human, the mystery of our unique paths and natures* and the desire to connect with our own inner experiences through which we also discover our belonging to the whole of life.

Thanks for being here, Laura

If you are interested in joining one of my workshops, please do get in touch.

*James Hillman’s 1997 book, The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling, outlines what he calls the “acorn theory” of the soul. This theory states that all people aleady hold the potential for the unique possibilities inside themselves, much as an acorn holds the pattern for an oak tree.