Magnetic Characteristics

What’s in the magnetism of a good teacher, a good friend, a good colleague, a good neighbor?

Presence of mind. When they’re with me physically they’re with me mentally. While we're engaging with each other, they're engaging their full being and attention.

Listening. They’re hearing all of it - the words I speak, the emotions behind words, and the commitment behind the emotions. Then they think about it. (4 Levels of True Listening.)

Authentic self-expression. They’re honest in their thoughtful and heartful response - honest both to me and themselves. It doesn’t take much to express cynicism or criticism, and that’s not what I mean by authentic self-expression. I mean expressing ourselves from our core, beneath the thinking that gives us cynicism, criticism, and resignation. Authentic self-expression is a window into a person’s deeper passions and commitments, their hopes and intentions, and it comes from the heart as well as the mind.

Integrity. I can trust what they’re saying, and there's wisdom in their perspective.

Compassion. They care about me, and this is obvious in their listening, facial expressions, stance, and eye contact.

Acknowledgement. They let me know that they heard me. They let me know, in one way or another, that I’m worthy of their time and attention. Whether they include these steps or not, the feeling of creative acknowledgment is present.

Fun. They’re at ease, and they’re enjoying their time with me.

Generosity. The entire list above is a very generous way to be with another. True listening is the gift of our thorough attention. Authentic self-expression is the generous sharing of ourselves. Compassion is a gift to whomever we’re giving it, whether they recognize it or not, and it’s also generous to ourselves.

When I put all those characteristics together, what stands out to me is that this person loves being alive and loves people.

What would you add to that list? How would you describe the person overall?

We don’t need to understand the physics of magnets to know that they work. Similarly, we don’t have to know why the above magnetic traits work in order to know that they do work. We can foster and become them regardless of our understanding of neurochemistry, psychology, sociology, and physiology. It’s enough to know that they do work.

It’s also helpful to remember that magnetism is a two-directional force. When magnets are turned one way, they’re attracted to each other; when they’re turned another way, they’re repelled from each other.

Thanks so much for the generous gift of your time, attention, and thoughtfulness in engaging with my work. ❤️

There's Just One Thing to Do

We wrapped up new teacher orientation yesterday at school. There’s a large group of teachers who are new to the school and a few teachers who are new to teaching completely. We all come to the job with our unique backgrounds, our present life circumstances, and our hopes, fears, and insecurities about the future. Somehow, hopefully, we align ourselves with the school mission and ethos and we get the job done.

Not every school does this well. Some schools have highly qualified teachers but no clear and unifying cohesion. Perhaps the school’s mission or ethos isn’t present, isn’t clear, or is simply ignored.

We wrapped up our day yesterday with a final Q&A. “Where’s that room?” “What do I do if…?” “What can I expect from…?”

And it became so crystal clear to me why I’m on this mission to bring to teachers and students transformational self-understanding: when we’re present and engaged with the people we’re with, and when we’re speaking, listening, and acting from relaxed well-being, we’re getting the job done as well as we possibly can.

When we’re coming from relaxed well-being, we’re better able to live from our authentic self and integrity as educators.

Our authentic self, what Parker Palmer calls our identity as an educator, is the source of our honest self-expression, interest, passion, commitment, enjoyment, and insight. It’s that part of us that gets activated in class and we become fully alive and in the zone as educators.

Our integrity is our honest, reflective, trustworthy, and present awareness and action. Integrity means authentically engaging with our whole experience, not just our thinking. Integrity also means honoring and respecting the sacredness of the life within ourselves and each other, as well as the word we’ve given ourselves and others. (3 Steps to Living with Integrity.)

This post is about teachers, but the message is true for all of us: Living with integrity from our authentic self is all we ever need to do. It’s our access to living in the zone, it feels good, and it gets the job done well.

The questions for many of us, though, are What is our authentic self?, How do we access it?, and How do we live with integrity?

Read on through this blog, since that’s what I’m usually writing about, and it’s also the focus of my workshops and coaching.

In the meantime, relax those lovely muscles of yours, bring attention to your breathing and the life within and around you, and foster trust that you’ve got everything you need right now.

There’s no figuring things out when it comes to our authentic self. It’s already there - just quiet the distractions enough to let it come through. And when it comes to integrity, there’s no need to push, but don’t hold back from acting and expressing yourself fully, compassionately, and honestly.

Thanks for reading. ❤️

Village People

I literally freaked out. I couldn’t stop crying “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God…” I was holding our 7-week old in my arms and he was screaming. We had an accident and the poor baby was hurt and confused.

After a couple nights in the pediatric ICU and with a couple fractures, he was back to his normal self. My wife and I, on the other hand, took a little longer to get over it.

When we were in the ICU those couple days, we were immediately humbled and grateful for how easy we had it. We were surrounded by kids in so much worse shape than our baby.

One mother was in with her 11-year-old daughter. They travelled 3 hours each way to this hospital a couple times each month for a multi-day stay due to complications with the girl’s disease. The mother was inspiringly at peace and positive, but she said something that stuck with me: “Parenthood is one guilt trip after another.”

I sometimes judge with regret the father I’ve at times been. I should’ve been better. When my kids act up, it’s probably my fault. As they grow up, they’ll be right to blame me for their problems.

Nearly all of us parents are doing the best we can. We really are. Our parents did the best they could too. After all, we’ve all got chemicals flowing through us (we’re on drugs), we’ve got conditioned ways of being, and we’ve been trained by people in our lives and by culture itself.

Yet, the main job of parents is to keep their kids’ needs met until the kids can meet those needs themselves, and if we’ve made it to adulthood our parents got the job done! So that frustration, pain, sadness, and trauma that some of us experienced at the hands of our parents: we aren’t to blame for it, but neither are our parents. It's on us to now grow up, heal, and let the judgment go.

“You are not responsible for the programming you picked up in childhood. However, as an adult, you are 100% responsible for fixing it.” - Ken Keyes Jr.

As adults, coming from an awareness of our whole, self-healing, and never-broken fundamental nature, we now and forever have the capability to heal, grow, and live our best lives.

Part of being an adult is understanding that whether we signed up for it or not, whether we like the idea of it or not, and whether we think we’re ready for it or not, we are all part of the village raising the next generation and each other.

We have an inevitable and palpable impact on the people in our lives - good or bad, ugly or beautiful. We also have a say in how we allow the people in our lives to impact us. We really are the village for our kids and each other.

Each of us can live as examples of the full potential and possibility of capable, thriving adults. We can be models for our kids, we can be models for others’ kids, and we can be models for each other.

Here are four questions for you to ponder:

1. What kind of impact are you having on the people in your life?

2. What kind of impact would you like to have?

3. What kind of impact do others have on you?

4. What kind of positive impact are you willing to allow others to have on you?

3 Steps to Living with Integrity might be helpful to you in engaging with your village from created intentions.

Thanks so much for reading for my work. ❤️