Head and Heart Open Wide

Gaizabonts writes so well. I can’t help but read him. It’s really more like listening and seeing. Sometimes I stay for a while to read the same piece over and over . . . the way a small child might take in a favorite tale.

It’s not just the writing. It’s the truth and the wisdom. This thought about learning has been with me since yesterday.

The tool can do only as much as the skill allows. The skill can be honed, only as much as the mind can train. The mind can train only as much as the heart believes.

Each of us has blind spots, those places in which we’ve placed a fence on our growth. One of mine for the longest time was that I didn’t know how to learn by being taught. I learned by watching and by following my curiosity.

When I needed to learn something that required lessons, I was sure I couldn’t do it. I would get stuck. I would freeze, imagining the universe watching, imagining me failing miserably. Maybe that’s why I became a teacher — so that I could learn with no one watching.

In all of these years, I’ve taught many people — people of every age. I’ve taught so many kinds of things. I met many folks who believed that they could not learn some simple thing.

I can’t draw a straight line . . .

I’ll never be good at folding shirts . . .

Even simple numbers confound me . . .

Just last week, someone said, “I have faith that other people can . . . ”

Why do we do that? Why do we believe more in other people than we do in ourselves?

I never met one person for whom I believed all of their limits were true, yet I’ll argue until Sunday why mine are. Sure as I’m sitting here, I can see the fallacy and the loss there.

Why was I afraid to admit to not knowing for that moment? It was a scary thought on some level — It sounded like what if I try and I don’t learn? Now I so value the beginner’s mind. Teachers are everywhere.

I have lost nothing. I’ve gained a lot.

The world is so much more exciting when there is so much more to learn.

I’ve learned that trying didn’t fail me. I am learning to learn.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss