Once in a while I find myself inspired yet careful to thread the fascinating space of the Spirit in my teaching. “Are they ready?”, “Are they willing to listen?”, ”Do they just want poses?” And when I finally speak “Does it resonate?”, “How much of it landed?”
I remember that as soon as I started teaching, I had to learn to ally with Creativity to help me with what I should do with the empathized information I’d predominantly received through my eyes. It was as if I was learning a new language. My tongue moves at the same speed as my brain so usually I’d drop the bomb unconscious that I did. All that I’d say was the truth though you get the impression, it was lacking grace half the time. So as a new teacher, I had to train myself: “How much of what I see do I speak?”, “How do I speak it in a way that doesn’t put people in shock?”. I soon became more fluent, and more often, I’d say it with a gesture.
Today, I took a leap of faith. It was the third of eight in a series and I had no time to waste. It was important for these students to learn to connect to their heart, learn to listen to it, learn to give voice to it, learn to nourish it, learn to feed it with delight and good energy, learn to receive love, not only give, learning to be compassionate with oneself.
These are lessons that are hard. We weren’t properly taught to. More often than not, we are living up to other people’s expectations. We reprioritize our own interests for the sake of others. We sacrifice ourselves, in the name of service to others, dictated by the roles we were born with or took on, voluntarily and involuntarily.
When speaking to the hearts of a class full of breast cancer survivors, some of whom were still in their treatments, it felt much like taking the wallpaper down from the walls in which a crack appeared after an earthquake. When you take down the wallpaper off the walls, the walls are left naked. The crack on the wall becomes much more visible, like scars on someone’s heart. It doesn’t look nice. It is awful and it hurts – like a bandaid is removed: the wound is wide open, as if being prepared for an exhibition. One feels vulnerable.
At the same time, in the vulnerability lies the evidence of tremendous courage. Remember that not I, but they themselves have slowly torn away the wallpaper around their hearts. They could just rip off just a corner and be done with it; literally turning their backs and leave in order not to have to face that gasping wound.
But they didn’t. They were willing to sit with the nakedness, their vulnerability, their pain. They didn’t turn around and they didn’t leave: they will be able to use the naked wall as a new canvas, onto which they can draw what their hearts most desire to see.
That was the beauty experience. In how far or in which depth something has shaken loose in them will be different for each one of them. But the question if something has been stirred up is answered. “How do you care for yourself?” Tears flowed, deep breaths, blocks in the throat of suppressed tears, everyone was in their body. That… is amazing.
