Tag Archives: Compassion

Education

Building Peace: Know Thyself

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It has been quite a while since I last wrote about peacebuilding. Frankly, there have been other things on my mind, like the US presidential election, living in New York City, and trying to feel better on a daily basis. I recently returned from a much-needed trip to Southern California where, among other things, I remembered what I used to feel like and who I am capable of being. My mum recently told me that I’ve lost my sparkle. I hadn’t phrased it in such stark terms in my head, but I know that I felt sparkly in California.

I felt like me, which hasn’t happened in a long time.

In struggling to feel like myself and understand the changes I’ve been seeing in the world, I’ve been finding it difficult to continue the work I love. I love writing about education, peacebuilding, and working to make the world a better place. It has been difficult to focus on those things when so much of me is caught up in other trains of thought.

But I’ve been thinking a lot. Reading a lot. Time has passed. I went away for a week. According to the calendar, a tough year is over.

So it’s time to start over.

Being
“Write down three adjectives to describe yourself.”

“If asked in complete confidence, what would your students say about you? Your friends?”

“When you think about being happy, what comes to mind?”

I have asked and been asked many varieties of the questions listed above. But rarely when I was a student. My employers and the friends I’ve made as an adult have been much more interested in how I would describe myself than anyone ever was when I was in school. Back then, it was always about what I wanted to do after college. People talked about the future. Rarely was anyone interested in the present.

Continuously looking towards the future seems to reduce or eliminate a focus on today, specifically in making changes today to benefit the world of tomorrow. I think this is problematic for several reasons:

  1. We need to believe in our abilities to have an impact in the world.
  2. We need to evaluate our present options in order to set ourselves up for a sustainable future.
  3. We need to decide today (actually, really yesterday) what kind of better world we want for tomorrow.

I see peace as the keystone in the arch of what comprises a better world. If we cultivate peace within ourselves, it is easier to see what we can do to make the world better because we are in the process of doing it, in our own lives. This means understanding ourselves in order to know why we want what we want and why we’re making the choices we’re making. To what ends, as my advisor in grad school used to ask. Indeed.

If we haven’t decided who we are, we can’t create the world we want to live in.

In working with students, I’ve found that it’s difficult to get young people to articulate who they think they are. Some are confident in themselves, which is great. But many laugh their way around the question, reluctant to sound too self-assured. Some truly don’t have anything kind to say about themselves and are crying out for help to whoever is willing to listen.

I think that one of the reasons for this uncertainty is that we don’t often ask young people what kind of people they want to be. We tell them what they should be. We tell them to be good, kind, strong, courageous, hardworking, polite, respectful. But do we provide them with opportunities to develop those attributes in themselves? Do we ask how they think they’re doing and where they want to improve?

One of my favorite activities with students in any grade level is when everyone sits in a circle and each student writes his or her name at the top of a piece of paper. They pass the papers around the circle, spending about a minute on each student’s page, anonymously writing down something they appreciate about that particular classmate.

To their credit, every group of students has taken this seriously. My favorite part is the minute or two of silence once each student has received his or her own paper and begins reading the anonymous messages. I love seeing their eyes move rapidly through the message, flipping the page over, returning to their favorite notes. I love the small smiles that spread unnoticed across their faces, the eyes widening in surprise and pleasure. I love the warmth that suddenly fills the room and the uncertain giggling when the nervousness breaks and students try to figure out who wrote what. Even when they begin to tease each other again, they keep the most personal messages private. No one really wants to spoil the moment. In every class, there are at least a few who whisper, “I didn’t know everyone thought that about me,” or “Oh! They think I’m funny.” In every class there are a few whose eyes just shine.

We learn what others think of us. But how does that align with what we think of us?

To build peace in the world, we need to understand that about ourselves. We need to know who we want to be and how to become those people.

Learning
In my ongoing quest to figure things out, I picked up The Hero Handbook by Nate Green. I’ve had a copy of it sitting in my GoogleDrive for so long that I honestly don’t remember how it got there. But I’m currently going through a self-exploration period and opened the book in my search for answers. As Hermione Granger aptly stated, “When in doubt, go to the library.”

Green suggests coming up with a list of personal rules to live by, which is something I’ve never actually done. I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions and ruminating over the answers. I’ve learned a lot about myself. There are decisions to make. Determining my guiding principles will hopefully help clarify how to live going forward.

In coming up with these rules to live by, I’m creating a moral code, such as it were, that I hope will help me take responsibility for my decisions, trust my instincts where appropriate, and stand by what I believe to be the best courses of action for myself.

Rebecca’s Rules to Live By

  1. Take care of myself by eating well and exercising regularly.
  2. Practice compassion to myself and those around me.
  3. Connect with friends and family by reaching out, sharing experiences, and acting from a place of love.
  4. Seek out and do things that scare me.
  5. Learn at least one new thing every day.

The five rules listed above are what I need to do in order to feel the best about who I am. This is what I require of myself in order to do what is important to me, which is to make the world a better place.

If I were to ask my students for their rules to live by, I wonder what they’d say? I wonder what I would have said five years ago, or ten years ago, or even farther back. If I’d had to come up with rules years ago, where would I be now? What rules would have changed as I changed? What would have stayed the same?

I’ve tried to make these rules as flexible and pragmatic as possible, but also constrained in the sense that these are five things I will not compromise. Come what may, if I can take care of myself, be compassionate, connect with others, push myself, and keep learning while doing New Thing X, New Thing X is worth it. If I can’t do those things, New Thing X is not worth it and shouldn’t happen.

Peacebuilding
So what?

That’s the question my students are required to answer at the end of any argument, written or oral. So what? Why do we care? Why does this matter?

This matters because I always want to be better. Better at being who I want to be and doing what I want to do, which is make the world a better place. I hope that creating these rules for myself reflects my current (and fluid!) understanding of what I need, what I am willing to do for the work I love, and the level of importance I ascribe to helping improve the world we all share.

I have done a lot of stumbling over the last months and that has distracted me from what really matters. Right now, I’m working to get all of that back on track.

Because the world needs it.

Because I need it.

Peacebuilding requires an understanding of what peace is and what we can each contribute to it. Knowing who I am and deliberately giving myself guideposts to continue growing as that person will help me do the work that I believe needs to be done.

Falling down is part of life. Getting back up is living. – José N. Harris

On My Mind

On Love, or Why I Decided to Go to Therapy

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I’m building walls again.

I thought I’d kicked the habit, but I guess not.

I’m building walls so I can hide. I’m looking for ways to feel safe, to protect myself from a constant feeling of hopelessness. I’m buildings walls that scream, “I don’t care,” because if I don’t care then I can’t hurt. If I can build my walls tall enough, if I can hide behind trap doors and drawbridges, maybe I can avoid the feeling of nakedness that comes with the deepest forms of human connection.

Because I’ve lost that connection with people I love. And I don’t know if I’m courageous enough to seek it out again.

I’ve been thinking a lot about love lately. The fluidity of how we use the word love to describe emotions about people, animals, things, and ideas. I’ve been thinking about what it means to fall in love, to be in love, to stay in love. All of those are different, and it’s fascinating to me.

Love is a verb. We never talk about that.

Along the way, that’s what I forgot. I forgot that love means doing. It’s a demonstration, physically or verbally, of becoming part of someone’s life and allowing others to become part of one’s own life. It is a way of being towards oneself and others. I think that I haven’t been very good at loving. I have certainly not been good at loving myself, which I think is why I’ve lost track of what it means to love.

I’m building walls because I’m in a process of coming to terms with my choices. And it’s hard.

I was 17 when I fell in love for the first time. The subject of my affection sat on the couch next to me, talking about something that I have since forgotten. I remember that at one point I stopped listening because my breath had caught in my throat, there were butterflies in my stomach, and I was filled with an instinctive drive to hold, protect, and give the world. I’d never felt anything like that before. Oh, I thought. This is love.

I was 18 when love brought me to tears for the first time. When I cried, it was out of despair at not being able to hold tightly enough, do enough, give enough, and adequately express all of my emotions. I was simply not ready to give up what I was giving up.

I was 21 when love scared me for the first time. I realized the feelings I’d called love had taken a different tone. They nagged, reminding me that they were not what they had once been. Those feelings had changed. I learned that with love sometimes comes rejection. I didn’t know how to respond and I didn’t know how to keep asking.

I was 22 when a coworker helped me make the connection between love as an idea and love as a verb. Love became action. It became deliberate demonstration of meaning, of care, of kindness. Love literally grew and blossomed because of attention to the way that thoughts become feelings, feelings become ideas, and ideas become actions. Love was not just evident, but tangible.

I was 24 when love scared me for the second time. I hid behind walls that love had steadily been tearing down from the time I was 17. Afraid of hurting and being hurt, I put up walls to avoid the former. I tried to forget about the latter.

At 26 I realized that I’d forgotten about a key element to love. I’d forgotten about loving myself. And as a result, I couldn’t act in love the way I needed to. All the hurt I’d hoped to avoid came crashing down and manifested in ways I never imagined.

A friend once called me guarded. I am. I have spent 26 years trying to do what is best for others. In doing so, I neglected myself.

Sometimes I remember to approach myself with compassion, which can be really difficult for me. But I have learned that without being good for myself, there is simply not enough of me to also be good for others.

So I’m trying to be good to myself. I’m trying to do what is right for me, at least when I think I know what that is. I’ve taken probably three steps back for every step forward, but at least there’s still forward momentum.

This is why I decided to go to therapy.

I decided to go to therapy because I’d reached a point where my inability to cope with the sadness I’ve been feeling in my personal life was interfering with my ability to direct my efforts towards areas that truly matter to me. Things like the state of the US right now, or developing a more peaceful world. Thinking about, learning about, discussing, and working towards change is the work I want to be doing. That’s the work that gives me the greatest sense of empowerment and self-efficacy.

I’ve been struggling to direct my energies towards that with everything else on my mind, so I’m going to therapy as a way of getting outside my own head and back into what matters.

This may be the most compassionate thing I have ever done for myself. It is also likely one of the most important.

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. – Buddha

On My Mind

Gratitude, Forgiveness, and Listening

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Yesterday was Canadian Thanksgiving, which my family has not celebrated since we moved to the US and the US version of Thanksgiving became my mum’s favorite holiday. It has been years since I started keeping track (sorry about the photos!) of who or what I’m grateful for on a daily basis, and this is as good a time as any to make some of those thoughts public.

I am grateful for the family and friends who have held me up over the past year during which I’ve made some really hard choices and have restarted everything – twice. I am grateful to those who stand beside me as I continue to make choices about what to do next.

I am grateful for the technology that allows me to keep in touch with people all over the world from anywhere in the world.

I am grateful for the people I’ve called at all hours when I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, and couldn’t see tomorrow. I am grateful for those who have reached out just to see how things are going.

I am grateful for everyone who has helped in the three big moves that I’ve made over the last twelve months. Sorry that my book boxes were so heavy!

I am grateful for all the people who make me laugh, certainly including my students. I am grateful for the compassion of those who have seen me cry (including a group of grade ten students in Cambodia).

I am grateful for everyone who has helped me learn and grow, and who believe in me when I don’t believe in myself.

I am grateful for my travel experiences and all the travel partners I’ve had along the way.

I am grateful for the roof over my head, clothes in my closet, food in the fridge, and for getting paid to do my favorite thing – teach.

For all this and more, I am grateful and I thank you.

These reflections leave me acutely aware that today is Erev Yom Kippur, the night before the Day of Atonement on the Jewish calendar. (I’m a huge fan of this website for all things Judaism, so have a look if you want to investigate Yom Kippur further.) Since I’m teaching at a Jewish day school this year, I have time off for all the Jewish holidays, which is the first time that has happened since my own day school days. Overseas, I struggled to get the time to be part of a religious community, which is really important to me. With the tumultuousness I’ve been experiencing lately, I’m glad to have one fewer thing keeping me up at night.

Yom Kippur is considered the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. It is a day of self-reflection, connection with others, and an exploration of individual spiritual relationships. Judaism teaches that the only way to be forgiven for wronging other people is to seek their forgiveness. The goal is to begin a new year with a clean slate based on the new connection formed between both parties.

Forgiveness changes who we are because we are required to relate to each other in uncomfortable ways. Not only am I admitting what I have done wrong, but I am asking your forgiveness because I care about you, about myself, and about our relationship. It’s easy to brush off a negative conversation, walk away, and never mention it again. Acknowledging that someone has been left hurt, when that happens, means looking outside yourself to the impact your actions have on others.

It is very important, however, to keep in mind that many things that we do cause harm, pain, or discomfort. There’s a huge difference between actions and words that are malicious and those that hurt because of misunderstanding or miscommunication. While I am by no means advocating avoiding challenging and uncomfortable conversations, I do believe that my responsibility over the course of these conversations is to talk with you rather than at you, listen to and hear what you are saying, and respond to your ideas without attacking you personally.

When I don’t do that, I will ask your forgiveness. I will not apologize for my ideas or perspectives, but I will apologize for the way I treated you during our conversation. I have learned that the most difficult conversations need to be had sooner rather than later, with open minds and care towards others.

I believe this is important, especially in such a corrosive political climate. There’s a lot to be said about Hillary Clinton’s experience and policy proposals over Trump’s shockingly violent, hateful rhetoric. But there are also ways to have these conversations so as to actually hear one another.

On our way home from school last week, my carpool friends and I discussed our own failures to listen to and hear the other side. In our case, we’re too quick to dismiss Trump supporters as “crazy” or “ignorant”. What we need to do instead is provide evidence for why we believe what we believe and ask for their evidence in return. When political conversations move towards facts and evidence and away from personal feelings, we all learn a lot more. And we’ll cause a lot less anger, hate, and violence towards each other as a result.