28 April 2009

Post date: Apr 28, 2009 6:15:17 PM

28 April (Tuesday – Evening) – 4^th Journey in the Classroom

Ah- it’s Tuesday - my day off from Mango Tree to go work with the kids. It’s difficult to take time away from Mango Tree. There is always an endless amount of ideas for improvements and always a finite amount of time for me assist with their implementation.

The P7 kids were amazing. We got started at 9:30 again, even though their normal class time starts at 10:00. Today, after our morning song, greeting of classmates, and brain gym exercises, we talked about emotional intelligence. I brought educational visual aids from Mango Tree to get us started. We had charts of the external body, the respiratory system, the digestive system, and the heart. We talked about emotions and named a dozen of them. Then I asked them why they thought I brought the charts. After coming up with a half dozen beautiful answers – like because I liked them, I wanted to have good study aids for their test, I wanted to put beautiful decorations in their classroom, etc - they eventually decided - "because we feel emotions in our body". The discussion of not judging emotions to be good or bad took a little longer to grasp. I borrowed some words from the Rumi poem that my housemate Stuart constructed a peace dance from last year. Emotions are like visitors - greet them at the door and welcome them in and they’ll be on their way – resist them and they will persist evermore.

They still wanted to kick the emotions that didn’t feel so good out the door – out of their body. So I had one of the boys stand up and I started pushing into him, lightly at first, then more forcefully until we both were straining not to be pushed backward. Then, I stopped pushing abruptly and so did he. See, I explained, the more I push him, the more I am pushed against. As soon as I stopped he stopped. The more we try to push emotions away, the more they want to stay and get stuck in our bodies. I asked, Have you ever cried and cried until you were done crying with no one urging you to stop? Didn’t you feel better when you were done? On the other hand, have you ever been angry, held it in, until more and more anger built up in you and you almost exploded?

When we refuse emotions and stuff them, they begin to build up and can make us sick or explosive. Our health and actions can begin to become slaves to our unfelt emotions. For years, friends like Rita Haramy, Borden Smith, Margot Zaher, and Steve Bross have been trying to help me learn this. I guess it wasn’t until I began working with The Journey, and was able to really experience the powerful beauty of emotions, that I really began to get it --- I still feel like I’m on a steep learning curve. My Honey Deb encourages me to relate with more emotional freedom and less judgment toward myself or others – and of course I still have The Journey, Network Chiropractic, and Rita’s own brand of whatever to help me too.

Bare with me friends, I realize some of what I speak of is old hat for many of you, but this is all part of the experience of what we talked about today in the P7 class. I explained to them that to fully feel emotions is to enjoy the beauty of being human. Without fear we wouldn’t know safety, without anger we would never know forgiveness, without sadness we would never know joy. We all have a full range of emotions and it’s more than okay to feel that range – it’s wonderfully human – it’s life!

I asked the kids to share their emotions and where they felt them in their bodies. I went first, letting them know that I felt immense joy and gratitude in sharing this teaching with them. A teaching, that although is thousands of years old, modern science is just beginning to realize its benefits. I explained that the The Journey gives people a simple process to become more educated about it. There was so much joy in my heart and they could see the tears in my eyes. Most of the children then shared their emotions and where they felt them. They shared from such open hearts and minds. I wish Pearl could have come with me today. She would have been really blown away – again.

Then, Herman led his first Journey in the classroom. :o) I went to get paper and crayons, then listened at the door from outside of the classroom and could hear as the children were responding with loud ‘whispers’ while he took them on their Journey. They weren’t shy at all – and their pictures seem to get more and more involved each week. For the first time, a handful of kids stood up at the end and really shared about their pictures and their Journeys. I’ll try to get some of the drawings up here for you to see.

To wrap things up, I taught them their first partner peace dance today, "Light in the Soul". They picked it up pretty easily. It’s usually a bit of a challenge to guide a group of any age through their first partner dance.

Kizzah picked me up halfway home and took me to get a haircut. That may not sound like much of an adventure, BUT Ugandan men all keep their hair VERY short and Ugandan hair cutters pretty much only know how to do one thing – cut it all off! Every hair cut I’ve ever had in Uganda has resulted in a look similar to when I was a military officer. Of course Kizzah, however, knew where I could get a Mazungu hair cut. He was an Indian guy, and I know Markus knows that I got a good scalp massage and shoulder rub to go with it. I think it looks pretty good. Ryan thinks it looks a little too short/militant.

I had lunch with Ryan at La Fontaine, then traded in the guitar for my computer and headed into work at 2PM. Gustauf and I have been working on a Failure Modes and Affects (FMEA) analysis for the Inventory System and Master Database, and I wanted to wrap that up today so we could begin putting measures into place to ensure smooth running and checking of the new processes. I’m so grateful for his and Sjoerd's presence at Mango Tree --- it has been an absolute joy to work with/for them.