Practice, Practice, Practice
“If you’re not using it everyday, you haven’t really learned it.”
I love this quote. I heard it during a speech at my step-son's college graduation. The phrase conveys a personal truth for me. While I may learn something, unless I am practicing it daily - using it in my life, I haven't fully grasped the teaching.
For example, algebra and Latin seem a distant shadow; but truthfully, there are elements of each that I have incorporated into my systemic knowing for regular use. The information has woven itself so neatly into the fabric of my world; I don't even realize there was a time before I knew it! (read related "Curse of Knowledge" column)
The notion of "using it everyday" extends far beyond school teachings. I remember participating in monthly workshops lead by April Prita Manganiello many years ago. Each time I began to share, my arms would flail in concert with the exasperated phrase "I've done this already!!" And it was true, on some level, in some way I had previously talked about and worked through the issue at hand. So, why was I here...again?
Two reasons spring to mind. For the first, I borrow Beth Sutton's analogy. "Personal growth work is like a spiral staircase. With each step downward, we come closer to our own truth. Every time we work through a piece of our historical experience, we take another step. Because it is a spiral staircase, we notice that the same issue, albeit closer and more clearly, appears again and again. We work with the same themes of our life, but we face them from a new, deeper place within ourselves, with each step." I perceive this as a fundamental truth. Exactly right...except for when it's reason number two.
The second reason relates to the quote. We may work through a personal trauma, and learn that we are not our experience. Yet, we return to our usual habits as daily life strikes again, moving through our days in the same old ways. For example, my childhood experiences inspired my organizational gifts to manifest my inner control freak. With a schizophrenic mom and absent dad, I needed to find a way to make life feel manageable. To feel safe, I assumed that I had power in an untenable situation, and would illustrate it through rigid organizational behaviors. While that never worked, it did mask the undeniable truth that I was powerless in my childhood world.
Fast forward 20 years, to me sitting in one of the workshops I described above, explaining how everything would be fine if people would just fit into my box and follow my rules. Hmph! It seemed I couldn't control my surroundings any more as an adult than I could as a child. In this discovery process, I uncovered why I learned to try to control my surroundings; it seemed like an answer to feeling scared. Then, I accepted the possibility that I might have resources as an adult that I did not have as a child. I recognized, while the controlling behavior protected me from feeling scared, it didn't actually change my circumstances. So, if controlling the world was always going to be an exercise in frustration, I could let it go, right?
Phew! With this new information, I could go out into the world and let things be what they were...without trying to make them what I wanted them to be...umm...in theory. In reality, it took years of practice to integrate this learning into my systemic behavior. Even now, when I feel truly frightened, I might retreat to those learned, rigid ways.
However, I now have tools, a practice, that has uncovered an internal witness. This is my core self who reminds me in challenging situations to: 1) breathe 2) notice if the organizational rigidity that once masked my fears pokes it's head up to be heard 3) and honor that my fear is a feeling, not who I am. This "learned" practice is consciousness in action, and I "use it everyday."
In a few weeks, I'll begin leading the third What's Next?! Workshop series. While I didn't fully understand during the creation of the series, I've come to realize that providing tools to practice, practice, practice is what it's truly all about. We best meet What's Next?! when we are clear and grounded in ourselves. If you'd like support in your personal practice, consider joining me for the series.
With encouragement for your spiral staircase journey,
Joanne Lutz