I remember being on my first day in college, a long time ago .... Psychology 1. I was so excited and eager to learn. I was on my way to become a psychologist!
What I remember from that day is the word onion. Yep, not much I'm afraid. All right, I also remember the teacher trying to explain how our brains are like an onion. Lots of layers. Let me tell you something: I've been feeling bad about that course for a long time. It was the only course I didn't have an A. Yes, I was a straight A's student. But that's a subject for another day.
Back to Psychology 1, I just couldn't understand what the teacher was saying. I remember the first exam... and I got a C. The exam had only one phrase for us to write about it: "If you think you know psychology you know nothing about psychology".
Well, needless to say, I thought I didn't know psychology and I still got a C. I've been carrying this memory full of uncomfortable feelings like failure, for a very long time. However, I finally understood and was able to process that memory.
Recently I was talking to my friend Karen Montanaro and she was explaining to me about this concept that she came up with and she is trying to implement it into the education system: Arts in Education. Imagine we have two wings. In one side we have our reference value and on the other side we have our absolute value. The outside world and the inside world.
Weeks after I had this conversation with Karen, I was walking my dog Lea. This is the time when I let my mind wander and practice meditation. It's amazing how much lighter I get after these walks. So, surprisingly, I see myself back in that psychology 1 class! And I can see the teacher saying something about how we are like the onion. Then, I have an epiphany! or as Karen likes to say, a revelation. I finally understood. Yes, our brain "functions" like an onion because of the hierarchy of how the thoughts are processed and how we can get 'stuck' in some layers of it. But, we are not like the onion because when you remove all the layers of the onion you have nothing. And we are certainly something!
So this is when Karen comes in. I remember her concept of the wings and how we are an absolute value.
It doesn't matter what you or others think. You are an absolute value, even if you don't believe! So... we are a seed!
Take a sunflower seed for example. Inside that seed there is a sunflower even if we can't see it. It needs a fertile soil, water, air and light to open and grow and become visible. But even if it doesn't grow, inside it has the absolute value of a sunflower. It will never become a tulip or a pumpkin. The quality of the soil, water and exposure to sun may contribute to how big or strong the sunflower can grow. Isn't it the same for us? What surrounds us may impact how much or how little we can expand. It may even trick us in thinking that we need to be or become something other than what we are. That may be because we don't know who we really are.
We are like a seed. We are born with this absolute value that is not changeable. It is discoverable. We need a fertile soil like the nutrients for our body. We need water and air just like the plants. And we need light. I'm going to interpret this as our mental and emotional state.
So, we may get lost and stuck on the layers of our brain like the onion. As Karen says, we may "fly" with only one wing, being the life that we live based on others. what we believe we supposed to have or what is expected from us or based in fear.
Or, we can discover what we are really made of. We can nurture our true nature with the belief that we are and have always been perfect and whole. Like a seed. With two wings.
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