Classroom Talk
Fifth and Sixth Grades Archive
Welcome to the New Semester. What shall we make of it together?
Posted by John on 01/10/2003 21:14:30
Welcome and warm greetings to anyone who is dropping in here now. I'm still getting my bearings on how we are to proceed with this class.
This is the beginning of another new semester here, but I have a feeling I'd like to see it be somewhat different this time. During the last few days, as
I've been catching up with six weeks of undone household chores, errands and such, that had piled up during the time I've been mostly absent from
home, and from class here, I've been wrestling back-and-forth with the question of how to proceed with another new semester here in Classroom
Talk.
I'd like to "change the mix," and do it differently this time. But how? During the last couple of months, I've wondered at times if the class may have
come to its natural end. The number of daily visits to the class was down to a quarter of what it used to be for a number of years, less on many days,
and the ones of you that I'd been used to seeing posting regularly had dwindled.
I didn't know what to make of this, but I've been willing to flow along with it, however it goes. Perhaps I had coached enough. Perhaps I had
coached too much. Certainly I had demanded a lot of those students who participated in our "Sixth Grade" in 2002. It may have had to do with me.
It may have had to do with each of you, living the full lives that you each have. I know that some of you have "had your hands full" with challenges in
your lives.
In trying to get over "not being tough enough" as a coach, perhaps I had become too tough, and set the hurdles too high for some of you last year. . .
. . . . Yet . . . . . just as it's true that all things are built up in life to be what they are, so it is that all things decay—as a general rule in the Universe—so
I've sometimes felt that maybe our class had just "lived out its time."
Yet, during the last few months, there has been a brief flurry of new faces around here, Klaus in September, and lately Student Dennis, and Shandy,
and Barbara . . . . . and here, some of you old-timers have been popping back on the scene . . . . . Eon, wonderful! So . . . "diving for the space" seems
to have worked out pretty well for you after all!!!—posting from Vienna and back again in the arms of the dear woman that you love . . . after that
long and difficult adventure. How goes your new drafting career?
Hello, Deirdre, back here in late October and giving support to Sally. Hello, Sally, with so much admiration for you in what you're facing. Eddie, it
seems you've introduced a fine potential student to our group in your friend Dennis. Last time you posted, Dennis, you recognized some "Doormat
music" in your opening paragraph. That shows me that you're off and running with the kind of understanding that this class is about—becoming able
to recognize the music of the eight personality types, the eight ways that all of us ordinary humans get in our own ways. It's too soon to tell if that is
one of your primary personality types, Dennis. But in those moments, you caught the sound of those remarks true.
As a general rule of thumb, any time that we hear Doormat music, we can know that the person is underestimating who they really are and what they
can really do. And so it seems in your posting, Dennis, when you spoke of "not finding the right words to go with your thoughts." My impression
(and if you go back and read that "game tape," that posting, again) . . . I felt you were being very articulate in what you were saying, throughout that
post. The words you used were all clear to me. They were fine!
>I'm feeling a little uncomfortable, vulnerable, writing this knowing it's going on the Internet and out there in cyber space. I guess that tells you a lot about me.
Well . . . to be candid, I admire the way you are able to be open and honest in sharing that feeling of vulnerability. I do understand, of course. And
one of the things this class is about is teaching students to *be able to be* open and honest in that very way. This is a place where we can all be *
authentic* like that, and share the realities of our human experiences together. You did that very well (as far as the awareness game perspective
goes).
There are awfully few people in the world of the Internet, after all, who even know about this little school of ours, let alone follow along with our
thousands of pages of class postings in Classroom Talk. I would say our privacy is pretty safe here in that way. And other students who may be
prone to gather with us here actively are learning the values of being openly human about our experiences with other people, too. I understand your
modesty and perhaps shyness about this, yet being open and authentic is *a virtue* around here. What's wrong with being human and teaching
others what our genuine humanness is like? That's how friendly companionship is created. And that process of honest communication *does* "tell a
lot" about each of us, as we work on getting to know who we each really are and learn to know more of our own selves as well. It's okay to be who
we really are—I say!
You described being able to look back on a conversation with your sister and remember how you had a lot of negative thoughts and judgments about
her before you received the call. You saw how "all the emotion came out" when she called you. That is *ordinary human behavior* that you are
seeing there. Good for you, in being able to see that so clearly! We all have patterns like this. Few people are able to recognize their own behavior
the way that you have done here. And learning how to see our own patterns of behavior honestly is an important part of the job in this kind of a
course. It is the first step in becoming able to make the kinds of changes that we'd like to make in our lives.
Perhaps you regret that it happened that way. But I say that you are ahead of the game in being able to recognize how that process happened in you.
Perhaps the next time you two speak you'll be able to remember what happened on that occasion, and you can have the presence of mind to "step
aside from relating with her that way." Maybe you can attempt to just be quiet about your judgments and see how the conversation progresses
without your expressing that.
I'm not saying your judgments about your sister are wrong, by the way. Maybe they're right. I'm only saying that expressing those judgments to her
is likely to "impact her," and cause immediate reactions in her. It gets in the way of harmony with her, and an argument happens. Perhaps if you can
keep those judgments quiet for a change, a different kind of conversation will happen with her. You might even find a quality of peacefulness in
talking with her in which your judgments about her soften. At least you can feel proud of making an effort not to be the one who gets the usual
typical arguments that you two have started. Give her a chance to be friendly with you. Give peace a chance. Life *can* change that way.
And a skillful gesture like that becomes much easier to do when a person has learned to experience mindfulness and has started practicing being
mindful. I hope you did continue with that Kinderspace class in Kindergarten, and that you see fit to complete that basic series of awareness classes
there, so you can see what being centered and awake in mindfulness is. After that—if you like the experience of being awake—with continuing
practice, you will be able to deal with situations like the one you described with your sister with greater and greater skill and poise, as you continue
with your learning in these classes.
As far as I can tell, you are *already* putting the things that are taught in these classes into practice in your life, just in attempting to see what's actually
going on. Keep on with the development of mindfulness and more and more understandings will come to you.
You asked if the conditioned reactive patterns of behavior that come out of "a traumatic, tragic situation" become "gelled harder," as you put it, and if
that means a person "has to work harder to get the same results." That's a really good question. And I don't know how to answer that. It could be
so. In my own life, and in the lives of people I've studied, there are some patterns that are easier to work on and change, and some patterns that are
harder, and do take more work in the long run. The more traumatic the source, the more difficult learning to change your typical reactions to that
trauma may be.
Yet, transformative work is not something that's over and done with in a semester, or a year. Living a life that is being intentionally transformed,
month in and month out, can become "a new way of life," so to speak. It's a spiritual *path*. I'm still working on some of my own patterns of
conditioned behavior, and I try to share about this honestly with the class. But in many other ways, the work I've done over the years has left me
fairly well freed up from many of my old conditioned patterns.
In a sense, you could say successful transformative work is not about having everything fixed and finished, but just in living the kind of life where one
is regularly addressing the things that come up, and making little progress in little ways every month, and even sometimes every day. That's the
spiritual way. It is just becoming the kind of person who is on this kind of a path of personal growth that counts. And healing results and welcomed
benefits from this work may accrue all along such a path at intervals.
Whenever you notice something that used to get you upset and reacting (like you did in that conversation with your sister) and you see it isn't getting
you so upset any more and you aren't reacting so much the way you used to react, you are able to see and recognize the progress you are making in
changing from an ordinary person, stuck in the ordinary human condition, to being an evolving person who is becoming what I call "a mindful warrior
of peace and harmony" in these classes, a person who is more and more free of the habits of their conditioning, that is, a person who is gradually
becoming "a master" in the general parlance of spiritual and transformative schools. A master is a person who doesn't react to everything the ways
that they used to do, and who is free to make more skillful choices, more peaceful choices in their relating with other people. A master is a man or
woman who is freed-up enough from their automatic conditioning to play on purpose for harmony instead.
Incidentally, we have a tradition in this school that e-mail to the Coach is called "the Coach's Office," where students can have more privacy if they
need it than here in Classroom Talk. If you'd prefer to talk with me in the Coach's Office privately about what "traumatic, tragic situation" may have
occurred in your life, Dennis, I can coach around it in class, knowing that, without revealing what you wish to keep private, and only you will know
that I'm talking to you about it in the coaching that I do in class.
I do hope, after awhile, as you get to know the others, that you will feel that it is safe here to share that kind of thing with your fellow students in this
class, and that they will feel comfortable that way with you. But anything that any student wishes to be kept confidential can be kept confidential in
that way.
Keep up the good work, Dennis. You're off to a good start in this class.
Hi, Rob . . . in and out in October. I've been trying to respond to your phone messages, but being "a master of clerical disorganization" in some ways,
I've lost your current phone number. Please let me know, so I can call you back!
Hi, Eddie. Hi, Sally. Hi, Student John, I've liked your contributions in November, and thanks for your New Year's Day wishes. Bruce? Do you still
drop in any more? Douglas, I've been missing you, but understand you aren't on-line on the Internet for now.
It's been great to be hearing your voice again, Pauline. The jokes you bring me in the Coach's Office always crack me up, without fail. I wish you'd
share more of them with the class!
Rakesh, same with you. I'm so glad to be hearing you again. These sharings that several of you have made about the Course in Miracles have been
intriguing. I didn't know if the practice of mindfulness was incorporated in that school. I'd be glad to hear more about the precepts that are taught in
that approach. Interesting that several of you in our small group have been attracted to those particular wisdom teachings, and have resonated with
them.
As I started out saying earlier, I'm unclear about the direction our class ought to be taking in 2003. I'd like to hear feedback from any of you about
this. What would you like? What shall we make of what we've got here together?
I don't intend to change our custom that I pay close attention to the postings of newcomers to the class. I'm always glad to be helping any of you from
the beginning who would like to learn to develop a strong mindfulness practice in your life. Being able to practice mindfulness is the foundation for all
the rest of the things that I coach in this school.
What is the change that I'd like to see? Well, for one thing, the class seemed to be "driven" mainly by my own agenda and my own "teaching plan" and
curriculum in 2002. In this new year I'd like to see the class more driven by the questions posted by you students, and the things you share about
your experiences with mindfulness.
I'm not here to lecture on and on about things. Sometimes I do lecture on and on—but that's not the style I'd prefer. I'd much rather cultivate a style
of coaching that is more directly responsive to the specific needs and interests of you students here. Student Dennis's recent postings have been a
good example of the kind of sharings that I most like to work off of. So, please, let me know the directions that each of you would like to see this class
be taking in 2003. And you newcomers, too! Please feel welcome to be speaking up.
It is the questions of you students, and the experiences you share, that are the "life-blood" of Classroom Talk. And every student in the class can learn
new things from the questions of any one of you. Let me know how you feel about this, and anything else that you'd like to share, and let me "play
off of your postings" more in this year that is to come.
As always, I'm here to serve you, in any ways that I can.
Coach
Archived 09/22/2003