Days 360-361: Fear of parents - a teacher dilemma

2911&01122013

Neither approach really works - and might not even really exist.

I commit myself to explore performing situations from the perspective of allowing others to witness my learning process through whatever mistakes and misgivings I manifest.

I commit myself to continue mapping out who I believe and perceive I should be and how I apply myself according to this belief/perception, and to thus investigate what is causing me to feel burdened, resulting in the pain/friction in my shoulders.

(From Day 358: SF on "Who I should be")

I return to the commitment statements above in the light of recent events. We had a little theatre show for the friends and family of the participants of the children's theatre course I am directing, and I had to talk to the audience, direct the situation and present myself as the director (“the one who carries main responsibility”). I was nervous and burdened by this, and it was visible in me as a general restlessness, seriousness and stabs of pain in my shoulders. I spoke to the audience from within the nervousness, but thanks to what I had written before I didn't take it as a self-judgement point, but realized that if nervousness is who I am right now, why not let others see that. I am young, inexperienced and new to many things, and I have in no way claimed to be a master at what I am doing, so exposing myself within my process of growing into a “professional” serves me better than attempting to hide it when it can't really be completely hidden anyway.

So the main points here are 1) my relationship to performing / being visible / gathering attention and 2) who I believe and perceive I “should be” as the director of this course.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel nervous about performing in front of an audience because I was afraid I would not fulfill the expectations the audience (the parents – authorities/”owners” - of the course participants) and that my incompetence would be exposed.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe that the parents of the child “own” the child and thus have the right to dictate what the child is exposed to and how the child is educated, not realizing that this perception is extremely shortsighted as within it I accept and allow and excuse parents to raise their children as it pleases them even if the results would be destructive to the reality as a whole, simply because I am afraid to face the reaction of the parents when I question this paradigm of parenting and education.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not consider children as the future creators of our common world, not realizing that even if a child is raised shut out from the world according to what the educator believes and perceives the world to be, the child will still affect all of our shared reality as what is real is undeniably HERE no matter how much one would try to protect another from it.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to play along with the parents' fear of their children becoming messed up by “apologizing” for my position as a person of influence in their children's lives. (This point needs elaboration.)

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if the parents actually do have expectations towards me that I do not fulfill as who I am now – which I cannot know as this subject has not been discussed with the parents – it is not my responsibility if they react to their world not being what they wanted it to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for not being what I believe and perceive others to want their world to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my belief/perception of “what parents want” out of the adults who direct their children is based on the assumption that parents are possessive of their children and afraid of the world “screwing them up” - because if I had children right now, this is who I would be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that with this assumption that parents are authoritative, possessive and protective I support parents to live this way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my assumption of parents being authoritative, possessive and protective is visible in my actions as I am afraid of interacting with children as who I am but instead try to be who I believe and perceive I am expected to be (a “good educator”), thus not interacting with children relaxed, breathing and present but instead interacting through tension, fear and from a distance – thus allowing my fear of failure / fear of judgement flow directly to the children and through them into the world.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “director” to mean “the one who carries responsibility above everyone else”, within this charging the role of the director with expectations and assigning a single person work and responsibilities that should not and don't have to be carried by just one person but can in fact be shared among many individuals and some even by the group under directing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that if the course “fails”, I am to blame, not realizing that there are numerous factors contributing to the outcome of the course, not just myself, and that I cannot thus pass all the responsibility of the outcome on myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that the course will be a “failure”, with this meaning that the kids will not learn anything / “enough” and that the kids will not enjoy the course, this resulting in the parents thinking it was a waste of their money, my seniors thinking I am not suited for this work and the children perceiving me as a failure.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that the kids will not learn “enough”, with this meaning enough to proceed into actual theatre projects and/or enough to understand what being an expressive human being is about – not realizing that especially the latter is quite the humongous goal to be achieved in just 9 months even if I'd meet them every single day.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to “save” these children from the influence of the world, not realizing that I cannot save anyone as everyone ultimately makes their own choices.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to “save” others standing within and as the statement “don't be like that because you're ruining my world for me” - don't be a mess because life would be a lot more enjoyable (for me) if everyone got their shit together.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust that the kids will learn something of value during this year as I have not realized that a human being's learning process is always running and cannot be switched off, but that what they learn might not be what I want them to learn but what I show them through my own living and application.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself for not being “ready” for teaching children and thus only teaching them my patterns of nervousness, not realizing that I am also showing them (indirectly through my application) my struggle and learning process with my misgivings, thus giving an example in self-correction, self-attention, self-forgiveness, self-responsibility and self-care. *

* Realizing this just now brought me to tears, because I don't really give myself any credit for the process I have already walked, but only blame myself for all the things that are yet unresolved. I've sometimes gotten feedback from others that they would love to have me teaching their children, or that they would have loved to have a teacher like me when they were children themselves, but I have never really understood why people say that and what on earth they see in me, and I have shoved this feedback aside by thinking that “I'm a fraud, they don't know that I really just suck as a person”. But I guess that admitting to being imperfect is a commendable quality in itself, as well as actively doing something about it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that the kids will not enjoy the course, not realizing that they have shown no signs of such, quite the opposite: almost everyone attends each and every meeting and participates in every rehearsal we do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to be able to read the signs of dissatisfaction that the kids do express and to act accordingly by addressing the issue and mapping out possible solutions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make it a point of self-judgement when/as/if a child expresses dissatisfaction during the course, not realizing that the dissatisfaction a child expresses is nothing personal towards me even though I am the one who has designed the activities but rather disdain towards the activity – a point I can then assist and support the child with.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as no set of rehearsals can function perfectly for a large group of individuals, it is close to impossible to reach everyone's most potent learning zone with the same structure, and that in order for me to teach a group of this size within the time limit I have got, I need to adjust, re-evaluate and re-design my rehearsal structures according to the circumstances as I go: every meeting needs to be thought again.

I commit myself to focus on relaxing myself when I am directing the children by focusing on my breath.

I commit myself to investigate what I'm trying to hide from the children when and as I interact with them, for example by looking at what I avoid.

I commit myself to further investigate my fear of the children's parents.

I commit myself to map out the responsibilities I believe and perceive myself to have as the course director and to share what I can to others and let go of those that are imaginary.

I commit myself to design the course by mapping out through listening and communication where the children are standing, structuring the course on my basic principles but keeping in mind that process is a lifelong journey that might not show immense results in just a few months.

I commit myself to reserve myself an hour for reflection after the course meetings and an hour for planning before the next meeting.

Day 294: Dressing up

20082013

 Me in 1993 (?) and 2012 dressing up the best I can!

I was asked to be one of the judges in a children's singing contest and I agreed to go. The night before the event I was thinking of what to wear to the contest because I realized that these children will look at me as a role model: I would be appear to be in a position of authority, plus for all the small girls a young woman like me does show an example of a kind – and as it turned out, I was the only 20-something in the jury, which makes me the person there that the children most likely relate to, as everyone else was the age of their mothers.

So I thought to myself: I am giving these kids the model of a woman, the model of a grown-up, the model of a human being. What do I want to show them? Or in other words: If I wear this and this, who am I while wearing those clothes and do I want kids to see that?

I realized that in terms of clothing there were many bad choices I could have made. I thought about a really neat black dress with a business woman type of feel, and I realized that I would wear a dress like this to gain authority, to appear powerful, and I would thus set an example that women have to be intimidating and serious, or even man-like to be appreciated.

I concluded that I would wear colour, I would be feminine and that I would show kids that one doesn't have to be serious about clothing – that it's OK to play around with what you wear, because what you wear doesn't define you. With the clothes I wore I felt comfortable, light, mobile, girly and silly. I noticed that I was nervous/anxious about “setting an example” so I kept myself in breath throughout the contest, trying to keep myself as “me” as possible. It was a little challenging with so many eyes following my movements and drinking up everything.

After the show I received feedback not only about my clothing but also about how I carried myself: I had appeared “graceful like a movie star”. That comment showed me that it's the combination of wearing clothes as self-expression and the way you carry yourself within the clothing that creates your appearance – not just one or the other. Sometimes clothing becomes an armor behind which I like to hide, as if the clothes would make me “bigger” than I am (this is the case with the black dress), and I have to start paying more attention to what I wear and why, so that with every piece of clothing there would be no fear but only self-expression – and practicality, duh, lol.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that with what I wear and why I set an example for the future generations on what the purpose and use of clothing is.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I wear clothes out of fear, I teach the future generations that clothing is used so that we may hide behind them and thus present an image of who we would like to be, believing our own fabric facade and hoping that everyone else buys into it too.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I wear clothes out of practicality I teach the future generations that clothing is used to help our bodies adjust to the conditions of our living environments and to assist and support us in our activities. (This is why I never wear jeans, lol)

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I wear clothes out of self-expression I teach the future generations that clothing is used to express ourselves to the world as who we are, not as our self-image, and that this can be fun, enjoyable, lively, not serious and non-personal.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that what I wear does not define me – that I could wear goth, hippie, business, farm, hobo, hollywood or prisoner clothes and remain the same within all of them – that I am not the costume I wear but the being within those clothes carrying those clothes and moving within their limits.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself according to what I wear, morphing my posture and personality to “fit” the clothes I am wearing, not realizing that real life is not about theatre stereotypes and that I can in fact re-define the clothes and disassemble my image of what a person carrying them must be like by stopping, breathing and through the touch sensation feeling what the clothes are, testing their qualities, how they move, stretch, weigh and breathe and carrying them according to who I am / who I become through creation within and as breath as self-expression within these kinds of clothes.

I commit myself to pay attention to what I wear and why.

When and as I see myself thinking of wearing a piece of clothing out of fear – to present an image, to gain power, to be a character – I stop, I breathe and I realize I am not utilizing clothing for practicality and self-expression but for fear and hiding. I ask myself what I am trying to convey with the particular clothes and why. I realize it is not necessary for me to present a dishonest appearance in order to gain something. I forgive myself for the fear and I release it by facing it and breathing it out. I re-assess the situation I was dressing up for and I choose my clothes based on practicality and self-expression asking myself what I would actually want to convey in that situation without fear driving me.

I commit myself to explore clothing by slowing myself down when dressing up to actually feel the clothes on me and what their qualities and limits are, and to re-shape the clothes if it serves a purpose; I have scissors and a sewing machine, so better make use of them!

Days 222-223: Fear of committing myself to working with children

02-03052013

My decision to study education sciences and a recent commitment to a project/task concerning directing a group of children made me realize today that I am actually committing myself to work with children “for real” - that as I continue on this “path” I will be working closely with children and concerning children in long-term. I realized I am frightened by this. There is something in how I relate myself to children that needs to be sorted out.

Firstly, I know myself to be afraid of children. I have defined children as “those who see through the lies” and have become wary in their presence, wanting to please them and have their approval and of course not getting it because my fear has been obvious. As I have been working through my insecurity and the roles/characters I have used to “survive” interaction with children I have been able to actually make contact with children, which has been awesome, although I still have ways to go.

Another thing is that I perceive working with children to be a “tiresome” and “effortful” “burden” because activeness, openness and energeticness hasn't been a “natural” state of being for me – I have been more used to solitude and passiveness. The position of being the one to get others moving or to direct the movement of others has seemed like an awful lot of work. Every time I have been doing directing work – even though I have volunteered for it – I have faced a huge resistance to face the group and activate myself and others. I have often required a year in between directing projects to “recover”.

And one more aspect, although I recognize this to be an excuse, is that I am afraid of the responsibility of directing children, of being a person who intimately influences a somewhat helpless being. What I actually fear here is that the children will revolt and “not respect my authority”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that it is not in “my nature” to be active, open and in motion because I have been more comfortable alone, closed and passive, not realizing that my current state of being is simply the result of how I have lived my life so far and what I've gotten used to, and that this is in no way permanent or inherent.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to stay within my solitary, introverted and passive state of being because it has been comfortable for me, not realizing that if I do not move beyond my comfort zone I will never expand nor change.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is “my nature” to be solitary, introverted and passive because it has felt comfortable, not realizing that it only feels comfortable because it is a “safe zone” I am used to.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive comfort to mean that things are “how they should be”, never looking beyond my self-interest to see that my comfort results in the discomfort of many.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that things are “how they should be” when I feel comfortable, never mind the rest of the living beings in this reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive working with children to be “burdensome”, “tiresome”, “effortful” and “a lot of work” because it has required me to step out of my comfort zone, not realizing that walking myself out of old habits is not going to be a comfortable process as this expansion requires me to do things I am not used to and which feel new and strange to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the discomfort of doing new things I am not used to as this has required active presence, adapting and learning and thus meant stepping out of my comfort zone of passiveness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist walking myself out of my old habits because that would mean I would no longer “get to” be within my comfort zone, not realizing that expanding myself means that my comfort zone will get wider and that what is now uncomfortable will no longer be uncomfortable in the future.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear letting go of what I am used to because I have feared changing into something that would no longer “have permission” to be passive – not realizing that as I change for myself the “old me” that wants to be passive will not be there in the future, and that I thus fear change because I believe my “future self” to want the same things as my “current/past self” - or rather use this as an excuse.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear committing myself to something “for real” because I feel like I would then be “tied” to doing something – not realizing that in order to get something done thoroughly, properly and carefully it is necessary to devote one's time and effort to one's task, because if not fully committed one is not giving one's fullest effort and is thus “half-assing” the task – and that this “tie” is not something one is forced to act upon but one that is willingly chosen.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being “tied” to working with children because I am not sure whether it's the right profession for me – not realizing that my doubts mainly occur from the discomfort I am hesitant to walk myself out of and the fact that I do not know what exactly I'm “throwing myself into”, not realizing that nor does anyone who has not yet lived their future (no-one!).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear making choices and living in the moment because I have feared that my choice will end up being a mistake, thus never making choices nor committing to anything, not realizing that by being afraid of possible future scenarios I stop myself from moving, and that the only way forward is through the uncertainty of not knowing – by living as certainty within and as breath.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear choosing the “wrong” profession, not realizing that if this would prove to be the case even after self-honestly looking at the problems/conflict I face within the profession – I could simply choose again and re-direct myself to do something else.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that there are no “right” or “wrong” professions – only choices of direction, re-habitualizing oneself and getting oneself familiar with the subject and the conduct of its field.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define children to be “those who see through dishonesty” and thus become afraid of them as I have known myself to be dishonest.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself through my definition to see children as “more than” me as I have “given them power” to define me through their acceptance/rejection (defined myself according to my self-judgement as projected through others).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to please children by being something they'd “like” and “appreciate” because I have been afraid of their judgement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to appear as something that I believe children will “like” and “appreciate”, thus living as a character instead of being myself, not realizing that I am wearing a mask to hide myself as I believe myself to not be “enough” to be liked.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that for people to actually see me and like me for who I am I need to show myself for who I actually am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want the acceptance of children because of the position I have placed them in, not realizing that this position is completely imaginary and within my mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame children for being “scary” when in fact the position from which children “judge others” is completely imagined by me and that experiencing children as “scary” is thus wholly my responsibility.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive the self-honesty of others to be judgement towards me as I have seen myself reflected from others, felt ashamed of myself and, rather than facing myself, blamed my uncomfortable experience on others, believing others to be the cause of my experience.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a fear of children and avoid their presence because of the discomfort I experience in their presence – not seeing the discomfort as an opportunity to look into myself with self-honesty but rather seeing it as a threat to my current state of being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself to be “bad with children” when I have failed to win their approval by appearing “likable”, not realizing that getting another's approval through appearances will not last even if it were to momentarily succeed and that this is not a constructive way of approaching children (or anyone).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself to be “bad with children”, believing myself to be inherently “incapable” of connecting with children, not realizing I am basing this belief on my dishonest approach to children the natural outflow of which is that my interaction with children is dysfunctional.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by interacting through appearances I create dysfunctional interaction as I do not stand as one with and equal to who I actually am in matter in the physical reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when and as I stand separate from who I actually am in matter I will conflict with each end every being I face unless they are aligned with my dishonesty.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear children because they are not aligned with my dishonesty and thus conflict with my dishonest state of being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a worst-case scenario where children will “not respect my authority”, act against my direction and create chaos, seeing myself as a “failure” in the midst of this.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to have authority with children as I have been trying to “win back” the “high position” I have assigned to children in my mind, trying to be “more than” children so that their perceived judgement would not touch me – not realizing this inequality of power to be completely imaginary and that I am trying to beat my fear with actions of fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to “save” myself from the judgement of children by claiming authority over them, not realizing I am actually just avoiding facing my insecurity and doing myself a disservice.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to exert power on children because I have been afraid of them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abuse my authority position over children because I have been afraid of them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to control children because I have been afraid of them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to claim superiority over children because I have feared that if I didn't they would assume power to themselves.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe interaction with children to be a power struggle which I have to win and am entitled to win “just because” I happen to have been born before them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assume my perception of the “authority” of children to be true and never question this perception, thus positioning myself to children as if there was a battle to be fought instead of seeing children as my equals and interacting with them as my equals.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear treating children as my equals because I have perceived and believed there to be a risk that children would abuse this “moment of weakness” where I am not exerting my power to “keep them in check”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that there is a difference between abusing power and utilizing power.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive being stern in my consistent direction of children to be “too rough” on children and that they will end up disliking me, thus “softening” my approach to be “likable”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that giving into the desires of others is not the same as doing what's best for them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to compromise myself in my search for the approval of children.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to be capable of directing and teaching children in a respectful yet steadfast manner – in a way that would not abuse children but also be effective.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to avoid chances to learn to become a better director/teacher through trial and error as I have feared making mistakes, not realizing that mistakes are a part of all learning processes and that they are thus “OK”.

I commit myself to do my best in the directing project I will begin with children in September and to embrace this opportunity to learn new skills, work on myself and interact with different people.

When interacting with children, I commit myself to breathe and release myself of desires, fears and survival mechanisms and to lay myself bare within and as the realization that a child will see me for who I am whether I show it or not, and that it is thus useless to even try to hide.

I commit myself to stop “trying too hard” in the presence of children by stopping, breathing and becoming aware of the insecurity that drives me.

I commit myself to support and assist myself to move myself out of my old habits of passiveness and introvertedness when and as I direct a group (be it children, youth or adults) by resting myself upon my breath, allowing all tension to melt away from my muscles and engaging in eye contact with all participants.

I commit myself to look for myself in all the children I meet in order to realize we are as much human and as much alive and that in this we are absolute equals.