Day 122: Throwing Myself in the Deep End

I have been observing an interesting point that was briefly mentioned in one of the EQAFE interviews of the "Parenting - Perfecting the Human Race" series in myself: that I have the tendency to first want to 'know' how to do something or get an explanation of how something is done, before I am willing to develop the point for myself. I have very much ingrained this pattern from my schooling years where this approach is how things are 'taught' in school - where you are first told and explained the 'rules' you have to follow and only once you have memorized the guidelines and the 'knowledge' part - do you have you put it into practice. This approach of 'teaching' also limits how things are done, because everyone follows the same format, you are already constrained in your expression through the instructions you are taught to follow. An interesting approach would be, for instance, to give children a task to do and to have each one have their own approach, their own perspective, their own style - and from there suggestions can be given in how things can be done more effectively for each individual student.

And so - for myself - every time I am faced with doing something new, I'll have this idea and perception that I can't do it, just because no-one has given me any instructions to follow. And within this, it is clear that I have very much defined self-trust in relation to knowledge - where 'I trust myself' means 'I am confident that I possess the knowledge in terms of how this is done and that I can effectively carry out the instructions contained within it' - lol - sounds quite robotic, right, lol. It's like I first need to be 'fed' a program or a script, so that I can just mindlessly follow the program or script in actual doing.

And, what I have found when I do push myself to just do it - just start somewhere, throw myself into the deep end - I can simply evaluate what I have done and from there, I can see for myself where I require to take a different approach, or where I can improve something and how to improve it in order to get a better result. And it is actually in those moments that self-trust comes in - because it is the seeing of what requires to change that is not based on knowledge or information that requires self-trust. Obviously, there is also always the point of being able to ask for assistance from someone who has already developed the particular skill or who has experience with the particular task to be able to specify one's own application - where, one can make one's own assessment and then ask another to share their perspective as well - and then the points can be merged and transformed into a plan for improvement.

And these attempts and try-outs don't have to be a dreadful thing - one determines this for oneself - when one can walk through the fear in breath and simply be here within and as the experiment, one can easily enjoy oneself - and even in making the assessment and making a plan for improvement. None of these points are inherently 'dreadful' or 'scary' or 'negative' - yet it's how we've often come to define them through our schooling experience - where it is strongly linked to 'not being good enough' or 'doing it wrong' or 'failing'.

So - here some perspective when one sees this pattern in oneself - to consider not placing trust in 'knowledge', but in and as ourselves - to simply walk here, in the moment from a starting-point of self-support. It's not about proving oneself to others and it's not about getting praise - it's about doing it for oneself and to discover who we are when we walk through our self-imposed limitations, fears and resistances!

To start this process, one can find support on http://lite.desteniiprocess.com, which is a free course where one is supported by a buddy - or one can go to http://forum.desteni.org where a group of people will welcome you and be ready to assist!