If teaching is not a primary method of learning, then I don’t know what it is.

Sharing with learners what I learn from teaching them, is as important as what I am teaching.

Most recently I learned to practice what I teach (preach). Not a new lesson, by any means.

Busying myself with preparing lessons and teaching them, I gave away the time I normally harbor for self care, while the importance of self care was what I was teaching.

When things fall apart and out of alignment, and ducks get out of their rows and all that, I need to return to myself. Return home to myself. Backtrack a bit.

I need some sweet self talk, some silent breathing, deep long stretching while listening to excellent music, deep breathing and yoga breath work, well made food, candlelight at bedtime……..I need these, or my teaching suffers. I have now reclaimed them and time for them.

I want to blame myself for a less-than-adequate job teaching. Instead, I will share with students about my learning experience, my seeming failures.

Maybe some of them share this sort of merry-go-round of doing good/feeling good and doing bad/feeling bad. Maybe owning that I am by far imperfect is supportive, because perfectionism and judgement may land hard on us or on others, and of all that we learn, the most important lesson of all is kindness to ourselves in the face of our experience. If we are learning, we will falter occasionally. If we do not falter, we are not learning.

Owning what is difficult is the first step to healing ourselves, our bodies, our relationships, our world. Transparency, even exposure of our true selves is often the next step.

If I did not believe this, I would not teach. My ego simply could not keep up the game of being superior or infallible in some way as a teacher.

Gratitude to all of the learning community at the Harmony House Las Cruces Community School of Natural Medicine. Though I have taught before, I am cutting my teeth on this new era of learning and teaching, where all the technological systems I have used before are obsolete. That in itself, I was unprepared for and a pretty big deal, and learning just that has eaten up hours I could have used elsewhere in my preparations. The class participants have been kindly supportive.

I received some helpful feedback, and I hope to fulfill some class goals that we did not yet reach, in the coming month. I am asking students to continue so that their expectations can be met, even if not in the all too short 13 hours we spent together. I hope that students/participants will tell me what they need in order to feel complete with our initial two months as a learning community.

I look forward to lots of kitchen labs, gardening medicine and food, growing our knowledge base of self and family health care. I can tell you now, it is neverending.

Onward! 🙏💃