The Primary Controlling Lie of Life

It's confusing to live in relationship to others.

Right now, I just ended a relationship and I feel sad, depressed, slightly used and confused. And it's all a lie I tell my Self.

Firstly, people do things. They say:

"I want to leave you. I am in love with someone else."

We react. Then we think:

"My reaction I had is because of what they did/said."

It's a lie. A lie I believe - we all do - to be true. And this lie infuses into our teaching.

When a student doesn't understand, who is responsible for that?

The conventional answer is "the student". Isn't is obvious? If the student doesn't understand, he is the one who is not understanding. He didn't do his homework, didn't listen, didn't practise, missed too many classes.

Or her. Whatever.

However, this does not serve you to evolve as a teacher.

Seeing students as slow, uncommitted and confused, leaves you, the teacher, as being the one who is slow, uncommitted and confused.

1. Slow - because you see the student as being the cause.

As a child, I thought of my Self as slow at mathematics, even though there is a lineage of mathematicians in my family. Then in my third year of high school, an ex-alcoholic and dedicated teacher stunned me, by explaining maths in a way that was crystal clear.

I could not even understand why I had believed I was slow.

When you see a student as "slow to learn" you become incapable of recognising that their "slowness" is their response to the way you are teaching them. Your blindness to this causation robs you of the ability to learn.

Stand and Deliver is the story of how Jaime Escalante taught inner city kids at Garfield High - one of the worst schools in LA - to do college-level calculus. Together, they rocketed to the top of the national charts in maths.*

Were these fast learners, or did they have flexible teachers?

Teachers who simply refused to see them as "slow"?

My maths teacher would only ever explain one thing in a lesson. Mostly, he'd entertain us with stories of his chequered past. We would laugh, listen - be on the edge of our chairs. Then he would recap the maths, and it would penetrate our whole being.

2. Uncommitted - because you give up on the student.

Have you got a student now that you think of as "uncommitted"? I do.

And I know, when you see her as uncommitted, she can never appear otherwise.

Years ago, a good friend took a lot of money from me. I had been giving him our rent, and instead of paying it to the landlord, he was pocketing it. After 3 months, we got an eviction notice.

"I don't know why!" he said to me, "I paid the Landlord."

I didn't give up on my friend.

Usually you give up, because you think the other person has given up on you. But who is giving up? You are. You say it is "because of them" and again, it is this way of thinking that blocks new opportunities…

One evening - 2 years later - my friend appeared at a bar I was working at, and put down a fat envelope:

"I believe I owe you some money."

"Yes you do." I said.

I took the envelope, and nothing more was said. We stayed friends. And I chose never to give him any of my money ever again. (I am not an idiot)

3. Confused - because you think the world affects you.

And this is the crux of it.

We have no control over the events and actions of others around us. It happens, we react. And because our reactions are in sync with these random events, we mistakenly lie to our Self:

"It is those events that cause my reactions."

This is the primary lie that controls our world.

For years as an Alexscovery** teacher - I would think that it was my job to change my student's co-ordination. I'd think:

"Oh, when my 'direction' is stronger, I will get better at changing them."

And it was exhausting. A constant frustration. An unceasing challenge.

Then slowly I began to see - change is their job, not mine.

I do not train people, I help people who want to be trained.

And sometimes, I have to help them be helped. These are ideas I present to my trainees in ThinkingBody, my counterpart to BodyThinking. If BodyThinking is the sciences, then ThinkingBody is the humanities.

I made an online course for ThinkingBody, and over the next few weeks I will be writing more about it. You can get a preview by registering your interest here.

ThinkingBody Online.

*From Carol Dweck's Mindset book
**I got sick of writing "teacher of Alexander's Discovery" or "Alexander Technique teacher", so I coined the word "Alexscovery Teacher" which is what my AT stands for. Maybe there's a dispatch coming about that?

Pciture Credit: Pixabay.com