Episode 402: Monday Mindset: Margin for Magic

You can look fine on the outside and still feel alone on the inside and that gap can get painfully wide when you’re a teacher expected to carry everyone else. Today’s Monday Mindset is a short reset built around a simple truth: you’re not the only one quietly struggling, even if it looks like everyone else has it figured out. We start with the idea of “three hearts” the self the world sees, the self close people see, and the self only you see and why the hidden parts of us can become the home of loneliness. 
 

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Transcript

Monday Mindset And Belonging

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Well, hello, teachers, and welcome to your Monday mindset. As I always say, these episodes are short by design, you know, a few minutes of reflection or like a single idea that's worth sitting with, something to inspire you, to carry you into your week. And as always, I want you to think about these episodes not only for yourself, but for your students, for colleagues, for the people around you. This isn't just about teaching or pedagogy or ELA ideas, right? These Monday mindsets are really just about being human. And in being human, if we're honest, it can feel isolating at times, right? It can feel alone. In fact, I was having a conversation with someone the other day, and he said something about a Japanese proverb where you have like three hearts, and I haven't looked it up to confirm this, but I thought it was beautiful the way that it was positioned, anyways, regardless of what the actual historical proverb is. And he said, you know, we have three hearts, one that the world sees, one that those close to us see, and one that only we see. And it's like, that's so true. There's a part of us that that we don't allow anyone into, that we don't allow anyone to see. And that creates a sense of loneliness, a sense of being alone in this world. And I just want to remind you that you're really not, you know, when you are quietly wrestling with something and it seems like everyone else has it figured out, you're not alone. These conversations, these Monday mindsets, they're here to remind you that you are not alone in whatever struggles you are going through. There are shared struggles. If you're dealing with a divorce, there are other people going through that. If you're dealing with the loss of a loved one, there are other people going through that. If you're dealing with difficulty in being vulnerable, there are other people going through that, right? You're not alone in this world. And I think when we talk about them openly, something in us starts to shift. And we're letting people in. Share these episodes with others that you love. Talk about them with your students. You know, I see a lot of teachers right now, especially just sharing how there's so much student apathy and students don't care. And it's like, okay, but why? Right? Like, what's underneath that? Like, what is the larger thing that's going on that is impacting our students? And what is something about that that we can have an impact on? And I think a lot of that is just acknowledging the humanness of the experience that we're all going through. So I want to dive into our episode. A little while ago, actually it was about a year ago, I was on a call with somebody who was like right on the edge of something new, right? She was putting something new out into the world, um, like a project or something like that. Something that mattered to her deeply. And she just couldn't do it. She kept getting stuck. And it wasn't because she like lacked the talent or lacked the vision or lacked the actual capability to birth this thing. She was stuck because of perfectionism. And I don't mean that lightly, this the way we sometimes like throw that word around like it's a quirky personality trait. I mean like it was genuinely holding her back from doing something that she'd always wanted to do her whole life. And every time she got close to moving forward, that sense of perfectionism would pull her back. Oh, it's not ready. Oh, it's not good enough. What if it doesn't land the way that I want it to? And so she'd just stay in place, like refining the concept, the idea, the project instead of releasing it. She kept waiting for this quote unquote standard of what it felt like to be ready that kept moving her intended outcome further and further out of reach. And I sat with that conversation a while afterwards, really thinking about it, because I think most of us have a version of this, right? Mine and my life is control in order to feel safe, right? It's a maladaptive behavior that I've established deep inside of me because of my life, right? And we all have this. And like I have this need to manage outcomes, to stay in the driver's seat, to feel like I have a handle on what's coming. Like if I'm aware of it, I can at least, you know, control it and feel safe. I've gotten a lot better at this, I will say. I am still working through it, but I've gotten a lot better because the first step is awareness. And my friends, was perfectionism. And yours might be something else entirely, right? Maybe it's the tendency to stay on the sidelines, to watch life happen rather than to step in it. Maybe it's the fear of being fully seen, of being fully vulnerable. Maybe it's the need for like absolute certainty that the outcome is going to go exactly the way that you want it to before you allow yourself to move. And whatever it is, and I think we all kind of know deep in ourselves what it is, we usually do, right? Whatever it is, it's that thing that when you are honest with yourself, like truly deeply honest with yourself, you recognize as a thing that keeps showing up between you and the life that you really, really want. The life that when you close your eyes and you think about your future, that life is on the other side of letting go. And I came across a quote from one of my mentors that just I think takes this home perfectly for us. He said that when we surrender to our higher selves, right, not the self that is controlling, that's perfectionist, that's scared, that's you know, afraid to be vulnerable, whatever it is, when we surrender to our higher selves, the one of us, the one version of us that knows that everything's gonna be okay, it's all gonna work out exactly as it's supposed to. That when we surrender to our higher selves, when we can do that, we create a margin for miracles or magic in our lives. And I've been thinking about that ever since. There's something like really profound in that word of surrender. Because we tend to think of like surrender, or at least I did, as like giving up, as like a weakness, as like walking away, like I'm done, as losing. But really, what I have found in my life, especially through my injury and the difficulties that I've gone through over the last two years, is really surrender is the opposite. It is one of the most courageous things that we can do. And here's what I mean by that. Like, if you can close your eyes, if you're not driving or doing something that needs your eyes, you can close your eyes and you like genuinely envision a higher version of yourself, like the best version of you. The you that knows it's gonna be okay, the you that you that trusts the outcome, that trusts the journey, that trusts that everything is shaping you into the person that you're meant to become. When you close your eyes and envision that version of yourself, that is a freer you, a more alive you, a you that's fully showing up for the life that you want. And that version of you has already let this part of yourself go. She's no longer gripped by perfectionism, he's no longer controlling and white-knuckling and anxietying his way through every outcome. She's not sitting on the sidelines of her life anymore. That future self, the one that's coming, the one that you want somewhere along the way, had to allow an older part of themselves to fall away. And that's what I mean by surrender, right? That old identity, that old way of being, that old belief that has to be released in order for a new one to have room to grow. And I know that that old way of being, or the one that you are being now, on your way to being the newer version of yourself. As limiting as that old way of being can be, it feels like safety. It's your subconscious trying to protect you, right? It's familiar. It's the thing that we've always done. The perfectionism feels like responsibility, the control feels like it's protecting your heart, the sidelines feel like it's a reasonable place to wait until the conditions are better. But what if holding on to those things is actually closing the door? What if the very thing that we think is keeping us safe is actually the thing that is blocking the space where something beautiful is supposed to enter. When we surrender, when we truly surrender to who we're becoming, we stop clutching on to the old. And in that release, we open up a little bit of space, right? A little bit of margin. We sit in the discomfort, the extreme discomfort of not being able to control an outcome. We sit in that discomfort, and in that space, that is where miracles, that is where magic gets to happen. And so here's your invitation for this Monday, for this week. Get really honest with yourself about what your thing is. What is the way of being that you keep bumping up against? What is the pattern that shows up again and again when you're on the edge of something super meaningful? But you stop and this thing takes over and it ruins it, and you self-sabotage. What is the weight that you've been carrying that if you are honest, you know is not serving you anymore. And you don't have to necessarily have an answer for how to release it, how to surrender. You don't necessarily have to have a plan right now. Just naming it clearly, honestly, without judgment, that's its own kind of first courageous step. And when you figure out whatever that is, I want you to come tell me. If you're an EB teacher, let us know in the community. If you're not, find me on Instagram at ebacademics. I genuinely want to know what you're going through, what you're carrying, what you're reaching towards. Right? These conversations matter to me. And I think that they really matter to you too. So here's to the next version of yourself that you are still becoming. And I'll see you later on the podcast. Bye, everyone.