Today we are going to talk about how dreaming for a bigger, more full life is great and all but we have to accept and allow for the discomfort of that growth.
So many awesome metaphors come to mind when I think of the discomfort of growth. A caterpillar creating a chrysalis, transforming into an unrecognizable goo then miraculously emerging as an entirely different creature. A baby falling down countless times, bumping their knees, elbows, backs, noggins and chins all in the name of strengthening their bodies to learn how to walk upright. A veteran teacher walking away from a classroom she’s taught at for years in order to up-level her career in a new position. A kindergarten student feeling the fear of uncertainty as they walk into a new school building and a new classroom all in the same hour as having to leave their loved ones for an entire day. Think of the emotions that those students feel during this life-changing event of going to school for the first time. No wonder there are tears and running away, staying frozen in place and arguing with reality! And no wonder they think that kindergarten is over for the year when they get back home after Day 1. Its emotionally exhausting having to process all of that!
But what I’ve noticed and learned about myself and about humans in general is that we usually want to avoid negative emotions at all costs. And, the cost to denying ourselves feeling negative emotions is denying ourselves half of the human experience. The dichotomy of being a human is feeling both good and bad. The point is to have one to define the other. Without the positive, we wouldn’t know the negative. Without the definition of hate, we wouldn’t have the definition of love. Without work, we wouldn’t have rest. Without the possibility of death, we really wouldn’t have the possibility of life. Essentially, the positive stuff that we might say we want all the time, like happiness, would potentially turn poisonous if that was the only component to our emotional vocabulary. And I think society is slowly coming to the realization that expectations of happy all the time is actually abnormal and can be toxic.
If you want to read more of the article I cited in the show, click below: https://positivepsychology.com/positive-negative-emotions/
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