Being taught...

Perceptions and filters.  Every person has 'em!  They are brought about by the type of life our mother lived while we were growing inside her, influenced by family connections - if those existed or not when we were finally born, by the dogmatic and social structures we grew up in, experiences - both positive and negative - as we've grow, finally, to adulthood. Add to this mix, our own adult personal learning, beliefs, choices and education level, we grow up into "grown ups" with our own sets of these things that can either give us great clarity or blind us utterly called filters and perceptions.  So, isn't it interesting in those moments when it is the youth, children and those less educated than we are who end up teaching us the most about how we really should relate to others or to act, in general?
I have found, as I've gone through life and become a teacher myself that it is most often my students I learn from the most.  Alot of teachers find this to be true.  Their fresh perspectives, their struggle for their own sense of strength and individuality, even their mistakes all remind me of lessons long forgotten or teach me entirely new ones on almost a daily basis. 

My own youngest daughter was a prime example of this sort of teaching when, at the ripe old age of 7 or 8, in first grade, she had a disagreement with a fellow school mate about her spirituality.  My daughter was raised 100% pagan, but was also taught to be educated about and respectful of other people's religious views and not to cast aspersions on those that didn't believe or practice as her family did.  Another child in the class, upon hearing she didn't believe in the Christian doctrine, said, "You're going to HELL because you don't believe in Jesus Christ!"  My daughter cooly turned to her classmate and said, in a very calm but firm voice, "I'd rather go to Hell than have someone else tell me what to believe!"  This was the end of the "argument" for her.  No back biting, no judgment, no personal vindictive statements to cast aspersions on her classmate's intelligence, faith or beliefs.  What a beautiful example of a child teaching the idea that it is not any one person's right to stand in judgment of us, our path, nor do their opinions of our choices become that which makes our path valid - for us!

I find that my best encouragement comes from those who, upon first glance, would appear less learned than myself or are somehow hard for us to learn from because of our own engrained prejudices.  Young people are awesome!  When their questions are insightful, their statements to me often sound like they came straight from the Goddess (yes, I do believe She speaks to us through our fellow people, animals, plants and other signs so this isn't unusual), and their ability to see past my own personal perceptions into the heart of the matter as they're observing it is truly a phenomenal experience to behold.  They don't have my jaded personal filters to get in their way.  They don't have my personal pains to make things appear as negatives where there are really positive lessons to be learned.  They simply state, without artifice or ego attachments, what they see and voila', in alot of cases, the Truth emerges!  Thus, I turn around and bow to their innate wisdom and the Universal Knowledge that flows through them and return myself to a far more humble, grateful place from which to live.

As a teacher, I also have experienced the students in life who simply refuse to learn a given lesson.  Whether it is because they simply think they are right and I'm wrong, whether they have been taught they are "stupid" because they simply learn differently and thus, have a negative slant on all learning because of it, or they have a direct personality conflict with myself or other classmates, the result is the same - no learning.   Whether they hate the subject we're talking about or are having a hard time following or absorbing the lesson, or simply because they are having a really bad day on a personal level and are finding it hard to pay attention, the result is the same - no understanding is gained.  Instead, anger, resentment, stomping around, yelling (sometimes) that they aren't being treated fairly, aspersions cast upon my own person, my knowledge, or my ability to teach or even, sometimes, my manner of address - all these things come out of their mouths without a thought to what they are truly saying.   However, at the end of the day, neither the student or myself are truly at "fault."  These times are simply opportunities for both teacher and student to Learn that go unseen or unappreciated until after the fact or they fail to teach at all, if we refuse to see the lesson.  Upon review of situations like this, I often find that some negative perceptions of mine change, if I simply apply a bit of balanced thinking and adjust my own perceptions and see what I can learn from the experience, instead of just resenting that it happened in the first place.  Balance, afterall, is a state found upon the midline - not on any polar extreme.

Negatives are rarely total negatives.  That is not to say that horrible things don't happen in this world -- of course, they do.  But, what we learn from them is the key.  If we are, ourselves, abused as children and then turn around and either become abusers ourselves or go to the other polarity of that equation and become fanatics about the topic of abuse in defense of the victims, we still remain unbalanced in what we could learn from those experiences.  Afterall, does not the original abuser deserve the same compassion that those they abused are receiving?  Most of them did start out having these experiences themselves and, like every other person on the planet, deserve to heal, if they can.  This is the difference between hating the person and hating their actions, reacting appropriately to the person and assisting them to correct their actions.  There is a HUGE difference, there, folks!  Does this mean they shouldn't go to jail if they broke the law?  No.  The journey to prison may even be part of their healing process - a way to gain the help they've never had under a structure they can't buck or run away from.  Is jail pleasant?  Oh heavens no.  Is it necessary in some cases?  Yes.  Like all painful, uncomfortable experiences, they can lead to great things - even if the initial face is distasteful on some level.

What is right for us is not necessarily the right for others -- even if our own experience is exactly what theirs has been.  What is "correct" for one person's perspective is not "right" (or wrong) for everyone on the planet.  We cannot allow ourselves to become totally enslaved to one view or the other and expect to grow from our experiences to be able to one day offer others a spectrum of solutions from which to choose that is truly best for them.  Balanced living lies on the middle road. 

The point here is this.  The next time you see a person or lesson or experience as a negative, look a little closer.  See the lesson, not the person.  See all that is being shown, not just what your human filters and perceptions want to place on the situation.  Look past the immediate reaction to what you're being taught and you may find, in the end, the lesson was well worth the teacher the Universe chose to use to teach you that particular lesson.