I was having a really interesting, deep conversation with our kids’ teacher and her husband yesterday. It was one of those conversations that covered so many different topics and areas of life.
I’ve been feeling for a while now that we hit the jackpot finding this teacher. Her ability to see the true gifts of the kids, embrace them where they are, and support them moving forward has coincided with a flourishing of our kids. Their creativity has taken off.
Something we spoke about was the ability of the kids that have worked with her for three years to not need a solution or “the answer” to begin creating. This contrasts to her experience working in mainstream classrooms. In those environments, kids are afraid of getting it “wrong”. They want to see what they’re “supposed to” create before they begin.
Myself, I’ve gone through a relearning, or deconditioning, for the need to have the answer told to me before I can begin.
In school, I loved math. There was one answer to a problem. If you figured out the answer, there was no debate about whether you were correct.
Then, in college, I recall very vividly a moment on my bedroom floor while in the mist of many hours of advanced calculus problems where I realized I didn’t want to come up with the same solution as everyone else. I needed something less black and white.
I went on to study psychology and then naturopathic medicine, which are both areas that are much less black and white. However, what I’ve come to see is that most of the education I’ve received involved a giving of the solutions. Many courses were taught to a test versus encouraging me to create and trust my solutions that came through my unique perspective.
When all my schooling was said and done, I felt the least self-assured of my life. That way of existing spilled out into all aspects of how I lived. I had learned to look outside of me for validation and answers. I had been trained to discount my own creative process and inner knowing.
This meant that taking a path that felt quite good and exciting, like living abroad with my family, also felt extremely scary. I didn’t believe I was capable. I had learned to trust the answers outside of me. There didn’t seem to be an answer about how taking my unique path would turn out. What if I made the “wrong” choice? What if I made a “mistake”?
What I’ve come to see for my kids is that cultivating their sense of trust in themselves and the belief that they can create solutions is what’s needed. To solve the problems we face, we need out-of-the-box thinkers that don’t require the answers to the tests given to them. We need young people that don’t feel afraid to look “foolish” for creating another way.
We need for ourselves and our children to be fearless about not knowing how things will turn out before trying. We need to trust ourselves and attempt those ideas that may feel foolish because they are different than what’s been attempted before.
???? What do you feel called to create?
???? How can you let go of needing to know how something will turn out before allowing yourself to begin?
**The spiral path represents the idea that what comes next in our path oftentimes cannot be seen until we begin moving. It’s not uncommon to feel we want to see what’s to come before we can begin moving. However, we have to trust that we will create what comes next only through beginning.