Tag Archives: education

03.21.21
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I AM WHAT I AM

I have been thinking it was retirement that has taken the pressure off. The pressure of no longer entertaining the belief that I’m not as smart or as worthy as everyone else…mentally living in my head believing that because I didn’t pursue a college educated career I wasn’t as good as or as worthy as others. That’s not it! I jumped out of bed this morning searching for pen and paper in order to get this most recent download recorded.

I’ve always known that I was raised by common parents…common being dad graduated from high school, enjoyed being with himself fishing or hunting, worked a “job” to make a living. Because of his job choice, he was able to take his art to work with him and create who he was on the job while hourly walking around pushing buttons and checking gages. I have no doubt I’m over simplifying his job. My mother didn’t graduate from high school but spent many of my growing up years taking sewing classes and living the life of a secretary for a lawyer. She always called herself a legal secretary and while I knew that “legal secretaries” were probably credentialed…she was theoretically a legal secretary.

I married into a cerebral family which didn’t help my self esteem at the time …. I just knew I was different than they were and did not fit into this family who I assumed looked down on me because I didn’t know “stuff”….I knew street smart stuff, I knew life stuff but I didn’t know the right stuff. The comparison that I always made was an illusion of my own making….if I had only known then what I know now.

I have always been exactly what I was meant to be…it was the ancestoral or familial blocks that had to be excavated, discarded so that I could understand I was a vital part of the whole of humanity. I contributed but I did not understand my part in the big picture was as important as the next person. So when I woke this morning with this knowing. There is nothing I need to do physically, mentally or spiritually to be who I thought I could be…These are just soul blocks that I’m in this lifetime to work through and remove. Being me is not something I need to aspire to …. it is what I AM.

Namaste

06.04.15
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I just thought I was dumb….

I hesitate to generalize…but going to school in the 60’s and 70’s, I don’t feel that there were as many recognized education markers in place to determine if kids were getting it or not getting it.  There are a lot of baby boomers out there who are very smart and have excelled in all fields…this detail which causes me to pause when lambasting the education system.  I just know in my situation, I didn’t get it – I think I probably started missing out on the basics say about 5th grade. I also had no support at home for excelling in school other than the Sunday night spelling test practice and the absolute fear when report cards came out.  I did not excel – I was average – this was not good enough for my mother – yet she took no steps to help me help myself.  Knowing what I know now, I had a learning disability – never verbally recognized by the adults in my life – I just thought I was dumb.  I know this now because I’ve learned that I have spatial issues and math going through my brain just does not compute.  I can add, subtract, divide and I have my multiplication tables well synced in my brain…but percentages and decimal knowledge that I use now was self taught and algebra or anything more advanced does not exist.  Pretty much the science, geography and history that I know now are also self taught because I have an incurable curiosity.  I think kids are still falling through the cracks, obviously…but I’m not witness to it.  There is a fine line between whether my kids excelled because they were smart, minus a learning disability or because they were taught in a good school system with good curriculum?  God knows I didn’t help them much with their studies…because I didn’t know that I was supposed to help them…if I were to do it all over again, I would have broken that cycle.  Just thoughts – I’m not sure what is more broken – the education system or parents who don’t have the time to enhance the learning curve.

I know, now, that I”m not dumb.  Some of the skills I have can only be learned in life…and I have some inner drive to learn and experience as much as I possibly can.

I’m not dumb – I just took a different route to get here.

Until next time…..