building blocks of change

The anticipation of today had been growing deep inside me all semester, but suddenly hit a growth spurt last week. The moving pieces of today floated around in my mind: aesthetics of the lecture hall, technology necessities, set up of chairs, properly formatted invitations to admin and parents, the collection of titles, perfectly designed schedule, and on and on and on. All while ensuring that my students do not panic as they prepare the final touches to their scripts.

Today is day one of Genius Hour Showcase, an event where my amazingly talented students share a new idea that was inspired by their semester long project in the medium of "TED talks". The nerves filled the lecture hall, but were diminished by the posters and signs hung throughout the open room in an effort to duplicate the environment established in my classroom where a sense of community was built throughout this year. It was a success.

Afterwards, I jetted home for a serious nap which was only paused by the sound of my alarm set for an evening session of Hatha with the northerner yoga teacher who allows her nerdiness and vulnerability to guide the narration of each class. Upon arrival, I forewarn her that I am in desperate need of some re-centering. With her laughter she jokes "no pressure" which of course I understand because obviously each teacher wants to guide and assist every yogi that enters the studio, so I am just asking for the obvious but there is no guarantee. You can't just show up to yoga and expect results. You have to put the time, the work, the effort, the focus, and the belief into the practice in order to feel it within yourself.

We paid attention to our necks today and the opening of our chest with the extension of ourselves. Each stretch and pose builds on top of the next until we reach the end of class. As we move into our last pose, neck extended and resting on a block and mid-back extended with a second block to conclude the opening of our chest, we are instructed to focus in on our bodies and become aware of the change within ourselves from the first pose of class to the last.

"The awareness of change within yourself," she says.

Class is not about reaching a specific goal. The design is the process and the act of setting aside time just to recognize the change within our bodies, minds, spirits, and emotions after the journey. As a society we glamorize the "end goal" detracting from the beauty that is within the journey we take to attempt to achieve the "end goal". This perpetuated ideology destroys the concept of progress and encourages a more forceful approach to achievements. In turn, an achievement becomes a fake representation of growth. And at the end, this lie of progress only hurts ourselves.

If we allow ourselves to become so consumed with the building up on the blocks for change that we do not acknowledge and recognize the value of each block within the structure, we are cheating ourselves out of true growth.