Category Archives: USA

The right to exercise

As I finished class on Friday here in Korea, I asked my fifth-grade student what she would be doing this weekend. She answered, “Studying!”

“Oh,” I said, “well, make sure you get plenty of rest and get some exercise!”

“I can’t. I have to study.”

Another friend who has completed high school, told me that her parents don’t want her to enroll in dance or exercise classes, …just study! While it’s true that most kids in Korea get very little exercise, boys do tend to play soccer at lunch time at least.

But, it’s not only Korea that restricts physical exercise. When I was in Saudi Arabia, most girls told me that they don’t walk and they don’t exercise. There, it’s not about time, but instead it is about what is considered proper for women and girls to do.

I grew up spending time outdoors, playing in the neighborhood, on the neighborhood swim team, and later on high school gymnastics and soccer teams. Playing sports and being physically fit has been a rewarding part of my life.

Of course, this isn’t only in some cultures. In general, more and more jobs require us to sit for long periods of time.

Let’s acknowledge the basic fact that human bodies were designed to move.

Our bodies are not simply vehicles for our brains. We can’t expect our brains to be flexible, quick and strong, while not granting our bodies the same qualities.

I am standing up for the human right to move. Everyone, but especially girls and women, deserves the basic right to dance and exercise.

Teaching = Loving

I’m a teacher, but I’m not a perfect teacher.

But, oh how I love my students! This week I had the privilege of teaching students from Korea, Columbia, Japan, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia and Brazil.

It’s pretty hard to juggle cultures, personalities, grammar rules, school policies, and my perceptions and skills. So, I drop the ball. I make mistakes. Lots of them.

Yet, I do best when I focus on being loving first and foremost. Sure, we work diligently to teach the subject matter at hand, but we do this best when we decide wholeheartedly to: Love Our Students

Ch29 Choose Inner Peace and Fun!

At the beginning of this book, I asked you to think about how you would define a successful life.

 

Now, I hope you will see that whatever your definition of success is, it rests on a foundation of, or is perhaps entirely replaced by, Inner Peace.

 

By now you have a taste of the fun part of this transformation. It is that we can immediately eliminate the futile efforts that we’ve been accustomed to: all the worrying, being afraid, creating chaos, and wishing things were different. None of that ever worked, anyhow, but it was a huge energy drain. By giving that all up, you will feel jubilant and lighter instantly.

 

Accepting that we are already everything we need to be is the first step. We are: at our core, we are all Love, Peace and Joy.  All of this is waiting inside of us, it’s a simple, but steady job to stay connected to it.

 

Realizing that it is human nature to forget that or to block it is the second step.

 

Deciding that you can tune in to your own state of inner peace, and take the responsibility to maintain it is the third step.

 

To get there, we must be committed to becoming students of life: our bodies, our minds, and our spirits. We can learn from ancient principles, modern teachers, and from the stillness within. We must practice, practice, practice. Like we undertake our workout plan or regular cleaning projects, we have to keep coming back to build strength or flexibility, or tidy things up.

 

The reward is well worth the continual effort, when you realize that Inner Peace is always within your grasp. The subtle shift from always looking outward to instead looking gently inward is the key.

 

I hope you will agree that Tuning in to Inner Peace IS the Surprisingly Fun Way to Transform Your Life!

 

“Each one has to find his peace from within.

And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.”

- Mahatma Gandhi

 

 

 

 

Ch28 We are Infinite, Connected and Have Big Paws

Not content just sitting in the house or chasing other cats, Pickles always said, “I have big paws. I want to do big things.” When he was adopted by the Firehouse, he learned new skills and finally his dreams came true.

- summary of the storybook The Fire Cat

 

It is only our small thinking that keeps us from the experiencing the joy that is always available.

 

If we believe we are small, separate and finite, then sure, we can have conflicts and get hurt. We can suffer loss. We can hate. We can hold a grudge. We can be outraged. Despair, fear, anger, sadness, grief …all of these feelings are enabled by our view of ourselves.

 

But if we give up this line of thinking, all of that pain drops away. We simply need to accept that we are infinite, connected and big!

 

If we accept that we are infinite, we aren’t confined by the time-space continuum and again, a whole host of suffering falls away.

 

My dad was awesome when he was alive. He still is awesome. I only gained from him. I never lost him.

 

Similarly, my value to you or anyone is not that I will be physically with you every day. But instead it is the way I talk to you, the way I treat you and how that feels to you. If it’s love you feel (as I intend!), then that instance of love can somehow remind and inspire us that love is our true nature. Love is not finite or perishable.

 

I don’t worry about how my family and friends will do when I die. Instead, I know that, like my dad, my essence doesn’t die with my body.

 

The important part of anyone goes on, so there is nothing to lose.

 

 

If we accept that we are all connected, there is suddenly no one to have a conflict with. Misunderstandings, certainly. War, hatred, spitefulness …no.

 

I mistakenly wandered into a workshop years ago. I thought it was about stargazing and constellations, but it was instead about family constellations. In the first few minutes, when the leader was introducing the topic, he made a statement matter-of-factly. He said, “I am my mother. My mother is me. I am my father. My father is me. Until you can accept this, you will live a conflicted life.”

 

Well that was enough to convince me that the leader was crazy! And I slipped out of the workshop. But those words haunted me. I couldn’t say that without stirring up inner turmoil.

 

Yet, I couldn’t come up with a good argument of why what he said was wrong. Because deep down, a part of me knew he was right. Believing that we are separate and need to bicker and disagree is less true than the fact that we are alike and can learn to love each other and ourselves.

“I am my mother. My mother is me.”

 

As I traveled, there were many moments when I felt isolated. Left unchecked, I’d spin a tale of woe. But, I could quickly quell this feeling, by accepting that we are all connected. In a moment of stillness, I connect to that truth I knew as a little kid. People around the world are more alike, than different. From that basis, I can see that we are all doing our best, doing basically the same thing with a different set of conditions and conditioning.

 

“One love, one heart, one destiny.”

- Bob Marley

 

Finally, if we accept our Bigness, life is going to be more fun! If we think we are a menial cog in the wheels of some big machine, or an accident of nature, then we’ll accept a life that is on par with that view. If you think we have to scratch out a meager existence to simply survive, your life will likely feel like a grueling, neverending rerun of an unremarkable day. (Think the movie, “Groundhog Day”.)

 

If instead, we accept that the sheer fact that we are alive is a huge miracle, we can have fun with this experiment we call life! Accept that your unique combination of background, upbringing, body, skills and friends make you a powerhouse. You can see things in a way no one else can. You can pull things together that no one else can. Your place here is to do something amazing.

 

When you own your Bigness you’ll see it coming to fruition. You’re sitting talking with someone, and suddenly they realize something. They remove a block in their path. You’ve just scored one point for spiritual evolution. And in this moment, you realize maybe no one else could have done this. And it was just you, being you. Authentically.

 

Knowing that you have an important, unique part to play in this big game of spiritual evolution, now, this is going to be fun! Accepting your Bigness means taking the challenge of being the superhero of your own life.

 

Don’t curse your fate and consider the situation to be bad luck. Instead congratulate yourself on your progress so far on the bizarre training course which is your life. Know that you are preparing for a purpose yet-to-be-announced!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exercises

  • Are you grieving the loss of someone who has died or moved away? Are there ways that you still feel connected? What feels truer to you: that you lost someone or that you are fortunate to have known them?  Is it a stretch to say that the essence of that person is infinite? Or, that you are?
  • Have you felt a deep connection with someone you’ve never met: children from another country, an artisan of a piece of pottery, a songwriter or someone in a photo? Does it feel natural or strange?
  • When you think, “I am my mother. My mother is me.”, how do you feel? Is there a valid reason, you can’t accept that?
  • Sketch out a path of your life. Notice the unique conditions that have shaped you. Did you initially consider some of these paths to be mistakes, but later saw some value in them?
  • Think of examples of insights you have had that have escaped others. Think of people whose lives you have touched profoundly.
  • What ‘big’ things have you done in life that have surprised you or others?

 

“You are the universe, expressing itself as a human, for a little while.”

- Eckhart Tolle

 

I’m Going to Hay House Writer’s Workshop! (…or H-E-L-P is not a four-letter word)

I have to admit, my ego often gets the best of me. I usually think “I’m all that!” (Just ask anyone close to me and they’ll concur.)  So, when you’re a card-carrying egotist, it’s hard to accept when “I’m NOT all that”, and what initially seems worse, that I need help.

Here’s what I mean…

Over a year ago, my sister and other encouragers started sending me emails about the Hay House Writer’s Workshop. “You should do this!” “This is a perfect fit for your book!”

Like most people, I like to argue with good advice. But, since I’ve said, “I want to grow up to be Louise Hay,” and I’ve been writing a book that actually would be a perfect fit, I was intrigued.

But, when I was reading those emails, I was in South Korea and later, in Saudi Arabia. The workshops were in San Diego or New York.

So, it was just a couple weeks ago that I remembered about the workshop, as I was imagining myself as the next version of my hero: sweet, inspiring, lovely Louise Hay. I checked the 2012 Hay House Writer’s Workshop schedule and saw that the next workshop was in Denver on April 28-29. Hey, I’ll be in Denver those days too, because I live here (for now)!

Slight problem. I’m cash and credit poor at the moment. Hmmm. After mulling it about for a couple days, I realized, I have two choices:

1 – Give up. This is the results of this thinking, “I can do it later.” “I don’t need anyone’s help.” “Now’s not the right time.”

- OR -

2 – Ask for help.

Argggghhh, how I resist asking for help. I loved being that person that had her financial sh!t together, who could help others. I bristle at being the one that has to ask for help.

So I bought lottery tickets for a few days, but no luck! After a few days, I threw up my hands and asked God/universe, “Really?” Okay, I’ll do it.

So, I asked for help. I decided if I could get 11 $50 sponsors, I could do it. I called on friends and family, and invited them to join the “Inner Peace Circle”. Well that was a week ago, and I already have 8 sponsors and am confident that 3 more will turn up.

I agree with how Byron Katie says it, that anything that we think, “I could never bear that”, is probably something we should just do. And that’s how it feels. I thought it would be hard to humble myself and ask for help. It was just a little. What’s been better is feeling the reciprocal nature of growth, when someone that I ask, actually wants to help.

And together, we’re walking along this very fun, exciting, inspiring path of life.

And I’m again learning that when you need help it’s okay. And H-E-L-P is not a four-letter word.

I hope you will join me in spirit!

- Hay House Writer’s Workshop April 28-29, Denver, Colorado

Love Your Students

Change your lesson plan. Renumber your objectives for the day and make number one: Love your students.

I’ve taught English to students in the US, Korea and Saudi Arabia. One thing’s for sure. You can’t always teach your students what you want to teach them. Or what you think you’re supposed to teach them.

You can try. You can do your best, but things go awry in our own plans. We lose papers or experience technical difficulties. Or a student is simply not able to or motivated to learn at that moment.

But, in those moments, you can still love your students. You can unconditionally love your students.

Even if they just failed the quiz, or just disrupted class. Even if you’re writing up the “Step 3″ discipline form or you have no idea to connect to a student. Even if she thinks you don’t like her or he won’t return your smile, you can unconditionally love those students. Even if you lost your cool with him previously (actually, especially if you did), you can unconditionally love him.

As teachers, we must try. Always.

Of course, we’re human. We can’t always pull this off. Some days, or some moments, we’ll fail miserably. (I have documented my failings in earlier posts!)

But we must try.

A fellow teacher was telling me how bad her class was.

“What should I do?”, she asked.

“Love them”, I replied.

“Ohhhhh no, not these students”, she said. “You don’t understand. Especially the worst ones. No. But really, what should I do?”

“Really, love them.”

“I can’t,” she said. Ohhhhhhhh no, I thought.

“You must,” I said.

“I wish I could!” she said, as she walked away. But unconditionally loving our students is a choice. So, we can.

Teachers are taught to be very objective-focused. If our objective is to ensure that each students knows we unconditionally love them, we can make that happen. Certainly everything you say or do is important, but sometimes this connection can be established or kept alive with only a few seconds per student per class.

Why is it important to love them?

Well, when we think about it, what is the point of being a student? Students are there to learn. Why? Because they want to make life somehow better.

When we unconditionally love our students, even for a second, we transport them and ourselves to that endpoint instantly.

We make life somehow better, complete and wonderful for our students and ourselves, in that moment.

And if there are still problems with the class, we at least know that we can make whatever changes are necessary (in the classroom or in our lives), from a state of groundedness …and love.

Fast forward to “better life now” by committing to love your students.

Home of the Free

Walking around on the streets of Denver, I’m in awe of our freedoms.

I just got back from two months in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Wow, look at that lady walking alone, head uncovered, no abaya, walking a dog!!! A big dog!

And over there, people sitting outside. Women sitting outside with men.

And on the bus. Well, first, there is a bus!!!! Then, high school kids get on the bus. Young women, without abayas or headscarves, talking to boys. They’re talking about Coke vs Diet Coke, Democrats and Republicans, and which stop they get off at.

And on the bus are women who are coming home from work. Jobs of all kinds, I imagine.

There are churches and synagogues and mosques. Cinemas. Plays. Outdoor musical performances and music playing in Chipotle. And women eating dinner with their kids, right next to a man or two.

And there are homeless people. And single moms talking about being on welfare. And guys talking about getting out of jail again.

This is the land of the free. Free to succeed or fail, but definitely in comparison to Saudi Arabia, free.

E2 Visa arrives!

Delays seem to creep in to fill any open time in a schedule!

After getting a VISA number from my employer in Korea, I sent my documents to the San Francisco Korean consulate: passport, 2 more passport photos, and a couple more forms.

I received my passport with my E2 visa for 13 months on the Saturday prior to my Thursday flight to Seoul!

Phew!

Using video, audio and art in Denver English classes

Wow! It has been so fun discovering ways to use audio and video in my classes. If you think about how we learned our language, you have to confess it wasn’t from studying grammar. Instead it was just hours and hours of input in the form of direct experience with people. Video and audio are rich forms of input. Having classrooms with a computer and internet make using Youtube and other sites and easy way to enrich the learning experiences easily.

Classrooms often focus on written materials and consider audio and video as somehow lesser. But why?

In the past few weeks we:

- Did a ‘Friends’ TV episode using an episode free on hulu, with a script found free at friendscafe. Each student played a character and we rehearsed it all week. It was hard to speak that fast, but with practice, they did it and we had fun! If you think this is easy, try it yourself:

- Friends TV Show: The One with all the Resolutions: video transcript

- Even ‘kids’ books have a lot of difficult vocabulary. In our reading class, we often use audio books as a partner to books: Harry Potter, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and Walk Two Moons are examples. ReadAloud.com has free samples and some free audiobooks that can help students get a flavor of a book they are reading.

- We also did diaries with drawings, as the Diary of a Wimpy Kid does, to help the writing inspire the drawings, and vice versa. Listening to music, coloring and writing in diaries was a magical class! Diaries can get stuck in a rut: yesterday, i got up at xxx …..yawn, boring! Drawing helps launch it out of that pattern somehow.

- Watching a movie trailer is another helpful way we used to ease understanding for a challenging book like Harry Potter.

- Teaching a Grammar class? Search the internet for ‘good songs for teaching past tense’ …or whatever grammar point you’re teaching. Favorites include:

- Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better (1950 Annie Get Your Gun)

- What Did You Do Yesterday – Cartoon video

Dying Easter Eggs with students in Denver

It’s been really fun teaching my Saudi students in Denver. It’s my first chance to get to know so many people from this part of the world.

With Easter coming up, I’ve been trying to include lessons about spring and the many symbols of easter: blooming flowers, bunnies, chicks.

But I didn’t expect that I would have to explain what the season of Spring is. Or that I would do it so poorly. After several discussions, I’ve determined that there really isn’t such a thing as Spring in Saudi Arabia. I guess that makes sense!

Anyhow, we had a great time dying Easter Eggs and then doing an Easter Egg hunt in the halls.

All these students are Muslims. But some of them visit churches with their homestay family. I like how open-minded and respectful students are about each other’s cultures and religions.

When we all forget that we are studying English, I think we are doing a good job of teaching it.

Cooking Class at 20th Street Recreation Center

Today I took my Speaking and Listening class to a cooking class. It was more of a community cooking experience than a cooking technique class.

It was $7 per person and included lunch, eating the spaghetti, spaghetti sauce and garlic bread we made. The class is called “Cooking with Lou” and is offered at the City of Denver 20th Street Recreation Center.

Teaching English in Denver

I lucked out! I was first asked to substitute but then got to teach full time from March through mid-May, while waiting to go to Korea.

My students are awesome! They are adults that hail from Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Japan, Brazil, Thailand, Japan, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia and more!

What it lacks in prepared materials is made up for in an environment that encourages creativity.  There are general guidelines of what the students need to learn, but teachers are allowed to teach using whatever materials or concepts they like.

It’s a bit overwhelming to plan but pretty fun!