One week

The last week has flown by but at the same time, given how much I've learned, accomplished, realized, and discovered in that time makes it seem like a much longer journey to date. The time that I've taken (we've taken) to devote to this so far is such a little amount of time in the larger scheme of things.  It is time set aside to really get to know ourselves. To peel off the layers of the onion, one at a time and get to the inside.

I've wavered back and forth while here so far and in the past 5 years (+) contemplating my insecurities and fears, as well as my contentment and gratitude for the many amazing things in my life. Aspects of me are confident and know how they serve me or not; others are still not quite 'me' yet - in some cases, I don't understand them, in others I don't know they exist. And this is part of what I'm trying to begin to resolve for myself while I'm here.

At the end of the day yesterday, we were asked to identify fears that we might have regarding teaching (or otherwise). Then we had to ask ourselves, in the face of that fear: "what's the worse that can happen?". Then, to the answer that came out of that question, we were to ask ourselves "so what?". I didn't have many concrete teaching fears right then and there, and came up with a non-teaching one. It was sky-diving. I have a fear of that. The worse that can happen is I die. And, um, that would suck. Is that a strong enough "so what?"...

Anyway, I was a little disappointed that I couldn't even articulate what my fears were post class but then I went ahead and dreamt them last night. Cool right?! And that was amazing to me because I don't usually remember dreams and this was vivid and was speaking to me, telling me what I have to resolve. Now I just need to figure out how.

One layer down. Many more to go.

PS: I add this photo, taken a few hours ago in Toronto by my friend Kasia for three reasons. Firstly, I love me a good storm. Second: this very much parallels what I feel this journey is about. Third: if you look closely, it looks like there are dementors in the middle of the cloud, about to swoop down to suck our souls, and OMFG, the last installment of Harry Potter is out in just over a month. Eeeh!