When you spend so much time imparting lessons, sometimes you forget how hard it was to learn the lesson you're teaching. Sometimes you forget that learning takes emotional investment. That you have to push past feelings of embarrassment, shame, disappointment, and the "human nature" response of just giving up because it's better than failing again. Looking back, I stopped doing things that were hard or took extra effort once I was done with my gen eds in college. And that was like...5 or 6 years ago. For 5 or 6 years, I haven't had to do anything I was not good at. I took classes in my major, which always came easily to me, and then went into a profession that, while difficult, is entirely within my skill set. And while I've experienced some failure since then (because what teacher hasn't), I haven't failed at something outside my skill set, or something that made me feel vulnerable. You might be wondering where this is coming from, or what I'm talking about at all. I recently auditioned for a burlesque troupe as the next step in trying to own my body and view myself as not just intellectually worthwhile, but physically attractive. I worked for hours on the audition piece, but when it came down to it, I tanked hard. It was a combination of nerves, costume malfunction, and a lack of confidence, and I knew I wasn't gonna make it as soon as the song was over. But I finished the audition. I did it in the first place, which is a huge step forward for me. And if I can get up the courage in the future, I think I'd like to try it again. It hurt more than I thought it would, but again, I think that's because as adults we spend so much time protecting ourselves from failure and calling it "honing out skills" that we sometimes forget how much it really takes to accept failure, move beyond the emotional reaction, analyze the lesson, take something away from it, and then to finally move on and find the courage to try again. Right now, I'm still in the emotional stage. And I'm not going to try to stop myself from feeling it, because ignoring it is so much worse than dealing with it. I know eventually I'll be left with a lesson learned, a new experience, and hopefully I can find the courage to keep learning and try again. So yeah. I'm gonna let myself cry about it. Then I'm gonna put on my big girl pants and move on. And after that, maybe I'll even try again.
jacobvanloon
andulkaphoto
theartofmadeline
2087
snowghoul
tangentwithtanner
kianamaiart
romaincrisis
