Everything You Need Is Within

"Everything I needed, need now or will ever need in the future is already deep within myself."

"His/Her divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him/her who called us by his/her own glory and goodness."

I remember during a trying time in my career when I was feeling insecure about my teaching, about the pressures I had put upon myself and about the unrealistic expectations I was trying to live up to, I felt like the answer to any problem I had was always outside of myself. The challenge would go away if I just left the class, the school or even if I had another career. “The grass was always greener type mindset.” At this time I felt what so many teachers feel like, too often - like I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t working hard enough or being "enough" of a teacher. On my way to work I would look at everyone with such jealousy imagining their lives to be so "easy" and carefree. I bet they don’t have to finish 10 assessments before writing report cards, I bet they don’t have students they cannot connect with. I bet everyone else’s lives are just so much easier. Basically, every other person in the world was perfect and carefree. C’est fou non?!

When I took some time for careful inner reflection I realized I was already here! I was at that highly sought after school, working with incredible children, doing what I have a strong passion for doing. I was already where I needed to be! It was only when I looked deep within myself that I found the answers. I need to shift my perspective.

My message here to leaders and educators is that the answers to our challenging problems, or students, or curriculum can very often be solved (not always) with the resources and the human capital we may already have within our schools it is just a matter of us being able to mine our way through our staff, students and ourselves to see what they may or cannot.

What I am starting to learn is that when I am most authentic self, the gifts I have to share with others are pure and not colored by insecurities or fears. How do I do this? Feeling compassion and gratitude and spending time with myself loving myself. We as educators put so much pressure on ourselves we forget we have so much to share and it is a matter of cultivating our own gifts. I do not need a new shiny resource, a newly painted chalkboard or brand new math manipulatives to be kind and caring, or to help my students achieve their potential. Happiness is free.

Living in the moment and remembering, "Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than suffering itself." - Paolo Coehlo's Alchemist

Things... Our classroom clutter… We already have enough.

Listening to financial guru and debt expert Adam Carroll (Episode 104 of Earn your Happy Podcast) I was struck by his comment, "When you first get started in life all you want is stuff. When you start making money you want better stuff and as we get older we want more expensive things, as we get even older we want different things and as we come to the end of the journey all we want is significance." How powerful is this? Can we relate this to education? When we first start out teaching we feel we need posters and stickers and books and lots of stuff  to fill our classrooms but as we age we realize the importance of significance of our words, our actions and the significance our students provide to the physical space of our classrooms.  What can you do today to appreciate what you have within the four walls of your classroom and how can you start putting more value on your gifts and the gifts of your students? Remember you are enough.