Forgive Yourself

"Forgive Yourself."  These are words written in a blog post by Dana Clark that I recently and thoroughly enjoyed.  We live in a lifetime where there is a lot of pressure to achieve greatness.  Whether you are a student, teacher, parent, or any professional, there is a constant feeling of judgement in our world.  As a parent, I constantly fear that I am not disciplining my children enough, or maybe I'm being too harsh.  As a teacher, I fear that that I taught that lesson wrong--I said too much; I didn't say enough.

For instance, when we have new curriculum to teach, it puts us in a place of major discomfort as teachers because there is so much unexpected; when by default we need to feel in control of EVERYTHING!  It's discomforting to say the least.  When a lesson doesn't go just right, we feel guilty and analyze it over and over.  But then, the kids end up okay, because we go back and try it again, a different way.  But the pressure of fitting this all into the small amount of time we have with these kids, in the grand scheme of time, can be discouraging.  Flip this over to the student, and I worry...  if I am putting all this pressure on myself, what pressures are these young minds feeling each day?

I think the answer here is that we need to forgive ourselves.  We need to accept imperfection.  Get back up and try again---or, let something go.  After all, this is what we should be teaching our kids, our students, and our peers.  But, we have the hardest time doing it ourselves. I always find that I give really good advice to people, but I don't always follow my own advice.  Sometimes we have to stop and listen to that inner voice telling us, "it's okay,"  just like we do for our students and loved ones. 

A few years back I had decided to go back to school, and my biggest concern was time.  How could I possibly fit more into my day?  But, when I thought about the impact it would have, I convinced myself that I needed do it, and that something else would have to give.  Maybe I would have to order dinner out more often (no problem--I don't like cooking anyway!); or maybe the dishes wouldn't get done; or, maybe I would have to skip that birthday party.  In the end, I did make it work because I was able to forgive myself--allow myself to have a pass.  Every so often I give homework passes out to my students to allow a break when they need it; and this time I gave one to myself. We all need a break with something, at some point.  Something has to be skipped to fit something else in.  We need to allow this, and accept it.  It's impossible to do it all, and that is okay!

Truth be told, I started writing this post several months ago.  I was ready to abandon it because I couldn't even remember what I had started. But, when I looked back at it, I realized it truly is something we need to work hard at reminding ourselves of every, single, day.  Forgiving yourself is not a one time act.  It's ongoing.  It's important.  It's a way to survive.  It's taking care of you.

With this said, please check out the STUDENT GUEST BLOG POST by Raima and Zola about Wellness Wedenesdays.  It's a great reminder of how to take care of you.

Student Guest Bloggers: Zola & Raima: Wellness Wednesdays

Wellness Wednesday

By: Zola Ray & Raima Rawal

Wellness Wednesday, take care of yourself, go to the spa, play outside, read! There's so many things to do for yourself! This week there was a  wellness wednesday, but remember, that doesn't mean you only have to do it this week. Here are some tips on how to keep yourself “well” all year!

Let's start with activeness. You can be active in so many different ways. First of all you can take a bike ride with your family! Chose a date where your whole family is free, probably on the weekend. For instance, Zola, goes out for a walk with her dog or a jog with her family. Then, talk to your family about a plan and what your gonna do during  the ride. Then,on the day of, pack your bags and start a new adventure!

Another thing that you can do is just sleep early! Most kids get in bed by 9 maybe 10 and the kids get mad in the morning and then get tired in school! That’s almost the reason why everybody is always like “ugh I hate school!” That’s only because they go to sleep so late!

So as you can see people do different things when they need a break. What things do you do when you need to calm down or take care of yourself?

Guest Student Blogger, Raima Debates: Should We Explore Space or the Oceans?

I think that we should explore space not the ocean. Did you know that space can tell us about our past AND future! Actually scientist found slight ripples in space that might tell us how the earth was created!! Amazing right?! But that's not all read on to find out.

People don't understand how important space exploration is. They think it's just to see what's out there, yes it is also about that but there's so much more! First off all, your phone doesn't just magically have WIFI, it comes from a router, and that connection comes from a satellite from space! Space study can alert us about asteroids or any threat that's coming our way! Also if the earth dies because of the way we are treating now, we would have to colonize somewhere else, like for example, Mars!

We have learned many things from studying space so far. We've learned thing like, how mars might have been a colony because of a discovery of frozen water (ice). There are many things most of us can't live without and some of those things are because of space! Wireless headphones, they were actually created to let astronauts to be hands-free while on a mission. Another thing that was made for space exploration was artificial limbs, they were created to perform extravehicular (activities that need to be done outside the ship that's to hard for the astronauts to do) activities.

As you can see space exploration is important and we should take it seriously. We can learn new things and revolutionize the earth with new technology! We can also save the human race from threats that come to the earth.