Part 14. Daily Learning

When I was a child, my mother taught remedial-reading to fourth-graders in an impoverished part of the city. The week before school started, I was allowed to go into her classroom and help her to set it up for her future students. The heat of the summer was tempered only by the whir of rotating electric fans that my mother strategically placed in her non-air-conditioned classroom. The musty smell of the school triggered a sense of excitement for me, because I knew that soon my mother would be rocking the worlds of the children that entered her room!

Before the children walked into my mother's classroom, they'd already had many negative experiences with learning. Learning was associated with pain for them, and in some cases they devalued learning. Some of the children simply had different styles of learning or dyslexia. Others read rarely and simply didn't have enough practice reading. Some came from households where they were given messages about learning which were less than growth-promoting. Others came from loving families but the families simply didn't know how to help them learn. Some spoke other languages in their homes, meaning that they were acquiring both a new language and a new skill. Others simply saw themselves as unintelligent due to multiple failure experiences at school.

I remember that I helped my mother clean and decorate whichever dusty classroom she'd been assigned to. We wanted to create a setting that would encourage the children to look at learning in a new way. One of the ways that we did this was to use posters and bulletin-boards that had special messages for this group of kids. I recall that I had a favorite bulletin board that my mother would allow me to pin up to one of the corkboards in the room. It was a picture of the earth, the sky and a child reading a book. Next to him was another child in a hot-air balloon looking out at the world with a telescope. Above this, I would carefully pick out die-cut letters, one by one, and pin them to the bulletin board. The letters spelled out, "Read and watch your world grow!"

Sometimes during these moments, older students would enter my mother's classroom for a visit. They'd discuss all of the great things that were happening in the student's life. It was very powerful for me to witness the gratitude in those moments, and years later I returned to my own teachers with similar expressions of appreciation!

"What does all of this have to do with inner guidance?" you're probably asking.

If you are selective about your continued learning, then you can empower yourself in ways that you might not realize! Learning can help you to move beyond your present limits and into a journey of growth! It can trigger new ideas, which can then trigger new directions! As you expand your mind, you will also expand your awareness, opening you to your inner guidance! YOUR world can grow too!

How can daily learning help you to tap into your inner guidance?
There are several avenues in which learning can serve as a vehicle toward your inner guidance:

1. Learning can help you to shift into a different energetic state. For example, you might move from discouraged and pessimistic to encouraged and hopeful. When you have shifted to a healthier state, you will be more receptive to your inner guidance.

2. Learning can teach you new skills. If you want to tap into your inner guidance most successfully, it is helpful for you to know how to relax, for example. (This is covered in more detail in The Power of Inner Guidance: Seven Steps to Tune In and Turn On by me.)

3. Learning can keep you open to truths that you might forget due to the pressures of daily life. These truths remind you of who you really are, and your being resonates with greater clarity when these truths are activated.

4. Learning can contribute to your confidence. As you learn new skills and new information, you will begin to develop greater self-reliance. This self-reliance and independence make it easier for you to listen to yourself, even when others are attempting to dissuade you from taking healthy risks. For example, reading Insourcing might be one of the ways in which you empower yourself to walk upon your own path.

Healthy versus Unhealthy Learning? Uncover the truth.
Like most things, learning can be healthy or unhealthy. There are some learning experiences that take you away from your personal truth. While it is good to be open-minded, to challenge yourself and to grow, multiple negative learning experiences are like taking repeated doses of poison--eventually you're toxic. So, as you learn from others, please examine the motives behind the messages.

If the motives are to dis-empower, discourage, degrade, destroy, limit, close, and needlessly scare you--especially if it then tells you to follow one person's opinion at all times--then this might raise a red flag. Social psychologists are well aware that the technique of raising your anxiety and then manipulating you into submissiveness is one that has been used by totalitarian governments and cults alike. Included in this is usually an intolerance of learning--except insofar as it involves reading more of the same--this is called a "closed system". So, be aware of this and use wisdom! You might turn inward and ask, "What does the wise part of me say about this information?"

Healthy learning experiences are laid upon an entirely different foundation! Again, examine the motives behind the learning experience and you'll discover a lot! If these motives are to inspire, empower, uplift, enlighten, energize, delight, heal, develop, stretch, inform and otherwise expand your awareness, then go for it! These are exactly the types of learning experiences that will enrich your life and open you to your inner guidance! In fact, if you are already very tuned into your inner guidance, you will naturally gravitate toward this type of learning!

What is healthy to read, listen to, watch or attend? This is an important question, especially if you have limited time. You might have heard the term GIGO. This stands for two different things (1) Garbage In Garbage Out and (2) Great In Great Out.

If you are in a good mental state, the question of what to learn is actually a question that you can use your inner guidance to help you answer. You can ask, "What topic do I need to learn more about?" and see what emerges. You can begin to observe what you are drawn toward and begin to honor these inclinations. You can ask trusted friends for recommendations, and you can see what you naturally move toward. You can look toward role-models, those who are living as you'd like to live, and you can ask them for ideas.

Learning and Inner Guidance
Remember that learning is actually a big part of your path, whether you acknowledge it or not! The faster you wake up to this fact, the richer your life will become. Some of the wisest people I know use their inner guidance to answer this question: "What lesson is this experience teaching me?"

REMEMBER: This is a process. Keep going to see ongoing results!   ###


Pam Garcy, PhD is a Psychologist and Coach in Dallas, Texas. If you'd like a partner in reaching your goals and overcoming the obstacles that seem to stand in your way, please contact Dr. Pam for coaching at drgarcy@aol.com. Dr. Garcy offers a special 10% coaching discount to all valued subscribers of Cultivate Life and to customers of Trans4mind.com. Dr. Pam's best-selling books - including the bestsellers The Power of Inner Guidance: Seven Steps to Tune In and Turn On and Wake Up Moments of Inspiration
http://www.myinnerguide.com