I am finding that the more I’m learning and creating, the more everything starts to make sense.
My passions all start coming together and showing their interconnections.
I’m reading Ken Robinson’s “The Element – How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything,” for the third time.
I love this book so much!
What do I love about it – well, it helps me see, more and more clearly, how our Western culture values such a small variety of experience as being “intelligent” – that is, things to do with writing and reading and maths and science and logical thinking.
And of course all of these things are wonderful. I LOVE reading and writing and logical thinking!
But our culture doesn’t value (as much), other types of intelligence – dancing and athleticism and a sense of balance; deep connection with animals, plants, and the planet; empathy and compassion and understanding other human beings; the imagination, creativity, drawing, painting, music, sewing, and art in all its forms.
And I could go on and on and on about all the other AMAZING passions and capacities that each human being has in unique quantities.
Yet many of us grew up in old-fashioned schools where that narrow band of things that are valued were seen as the most important things.
And for many of us, we internalised judgments, labels, punishments, times we were told we were ‘less than’ another child who was more ‘clever.’
This can really affect us doing things that we love in our lives.
Western culture also still has beliefs about human beings that are based on ideas of ‘should’ and ‘have to’, of guilt and shame, of judgment and comparison.
And again, we internalise these, and then speak them to ourselves.
In terms of being fulfilled human beings, these two things don’t help so much – having a narrow band of what is deemed valuable and is defined as ‘intelligent’, and beliefs about human beings based on judgment, guilt, shame and comparison.
I’m passionate about valuing:
dancing as much as reading,
photography as much as physics,
creating beautiful spaces as much as learning new things,
resting as much as doing,
melodies as much as maths,
playing as much as writing,
feeling connected with nature as much as understanding geography.
I still feel deeply sad remembering watching the movie Schooling the World, about how children in Ladakh are increasingly sent to school, where they are ‘forbidden’ to speak their own language, where they sit at desks learning about geography where there are the most beautiful mountains right outside the window.
One girl talked about how she would be punished if she spoke her native language.
Another teenager talked of the deep grief he felt about no longer feeling connected with his culture and land and family.
Elders talked about no longer valuing their own, generations-old wisdom, and how their children at school’s knowledge was far more important than theirs.
The beliefs of Western culture can have a profound effect on our sense of connection with ourselves, with others, with our own unique journey, and with Life.
Imagine if you had grown up in a culture which valued each interest of each child as equally valuable.
Imagine if you were supported and encouraged and celebrated just as much if you were deeply empathic to others’ feelings as if you were able to read at age 3?
I’m passionate about each of us valuing what we’re interested in, doing what we love, getting free from self-judgment and guilt and shame and comparison and thoughts of ‘have-to’ and ‘can’t’ and ‘should’.
I’m passionate about us supporting our children to follow their own unique passions and interests, and for them ALL to be valued, whatever it is that they love.
What do you love to do? What brings you alive? What helps you feel energised and enthusiastic? What helps you feel most YOU?
And are you willing to do more of that in your life?
What about your child/ren? What do they love to do? What are their unique passions and interests?
Are you willing to support them in doing more of that in their lives?
And My Respond Lovingly to Your Calling Course is still open; just a few places left….
“This course is amazing. It really works 24/7 on all levels of consciousness…wow Marion I feel in love right now!! Expanding! And I know I will have somewhere to go when the contraction part sets in and i get scared” – Titti!
Love,
Marion