Image by John Althouse Cohen via Flickr
Self-Care Tip #240 – Be a student to yourself.
The PossAbilities Triathlon today was the best. It was the first triathlon for my young niece. Doing it with her made it so much more than just a triathlon. She is someone who works hard on what she loves.
Her father, who is my brother Vance, and I had more time to chat today, thanks to my niece’s excellent pacing. Vance is a natural teacher as well and he’s been practicing on me our whole lives together. The fact that we are old now doesn’t change the dynamics much and I think we are both just fine with that.
Today we talked about teaching directly. Vance said,
To teach well, first you have to understand what their fears are, and waylay them. Then you inspire, but you can’t inspire until the fears are examined at some level and trust grows.
Isn’t that lovely? So my question for us today, is how do we do this for ourselves? Sure, we want to be humble students as well as educators in the teams we work with involving others. However, reducing this to the basics of self-care, we finger the idea that this can start right here, where things start and end with “Me.”
Understand our fears and let them lose their power over us. Then spend our time and energy on what inspires us. This is how we can teach ourselves and learn from ourselves! What a delight.
Questions: What do you think about the idea of being a good teacher to yourself? Is it ridiculous? Arrogant? Possible or not? How do you teach yourself? Is it the same as a “doctor-heal-thyself” trap, or as described in this bl0g-post, “teacher teach thyself?” Is there still self-care potential in this, despite its obvious limitations? Please tell me your story.
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