Meeting myself.

"Ultimately, of course, there is no other, and you are always meeting yourself." from Stillness Speaks

I thought about these words in regards to work in the classroom this week. In very simple terms, we see in others what is inside of ourselves. What we are seeing is always colored by our own experience of it.

In my efforts to be present, calm and still, I kept those words close at heart when dealing with some rough moments in the classroom this week. To be able to receive an angry child without touching on anger in myself. To be able to see the normalized child beneath the confused surface.

It reminded me also of how regardless of how a day objectively turns out at school, it is my own inner environment, my private experience, that qualifies it as a good or not so good day. In other words, in the end, it is only on my own responses and the way I carried myself that I have real control over. They are the only factors that I can change and through which I can effect change in the external world.