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May 04 When "Human-ness" throws us curveballs...
Today, I allowed Ego, Pride, and emotion dicate how I saw myself. I allowed anger and pride talk to me, and convince me to doubt myself. I write this, so that my students can remember that I'm human. All too often, we put our teachers (in any art or skill) very high on a pedestal. I must remind my students that the higher they place teachers and mentors on a pedestal, you won't be able to reach them, and the only way the teachers can teach you is to shout (which results in misunderstanding a teacher's words), or to drop ther knowledge down to them (which results in an unpredictable place where it may fall). For a little while today, I went through a little bit of a struggle to keep Ego and emotion in check, but somehow they convinced me to doubt myself. The subject of this struggle is not important....what is important, is what I learned from it... I've always known that "anger" is a secondary emotion. I usually check myself, asking "is this primary emotion i'm feeling, a good reason for me to feel anger?"...and either I let it go, or seek to dissolve the reason of my anger. Sometimes, though, no matter how grounded we may think we are, how balanced we think we are, it is ultimately us that makes or breaks our groundedness. Just like martial artists learn to defend against attack, we must remember that every defense has a counter attack. In my case today, I defended, and got angry that my defense was weak. As a result, I counterattacked with too more force than was necessary.....I countered with an emotion. (of course, I'm not speaking literally of me defending against a kick or punch....) So, what did I learn from this? Self doubt can be a good way to hurt yourself. Anger is a great way to blind yourself, and negative emotion is the fastest way to lose your groundedness. So, students......I'm human. Get me off the pedestal and realize I'm merely farther along a path, NOT way above you. Besides, I'm afraid of heights! :-)= |
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