You ain't got time for your schemas.
Your girl has lived three full decades, as of last month - and is back in Vancouver after a month of living (and birthday princess-ing) in a cute other city. I’m feeling full of beauty, kiddos. One paradigm shift I experienced that shadowed all others, and one that I still work through everyday:
Let go of the need to be right, or all-knowing.
A cute little story.
I love cute little stories.
I teach dance cardio classes at our local Y. In my first weeks teaching, I noticed one YMCA attendee that wasn’t having a great time. Whenever she attended class, she would leave in a huff halfway through, and would rebuff all of my attempts to get to know her.
At first, I was concerned - was I doing something wrong? Did I say something to offend this lady? During my bike rides over to class, I’d mull over these questions. After a few moments of going through the same thought process, I found myself shrugging. I’d done what I could to get class feedback. Beyond that, there could be a million reasons why she left halfway each class - maybe she had a weekly dinner to attend. Maybe she only liked to do cardio for half an hour. Who knows. In general, I also knew it’s unreasonable to expect EVERYONE to like the same class. Sometimes, you just gotta do what works for the people who love what you do.
With all this in mind, I kept doing my thing, while making tweaks in response to feedback where appropriate. I chose to focus on the positive moments of class with folks that loved what I did, having faith that I was building in a way that felt deeply beautiful.
Lo and behold… months later, said initially frustrated lady has become one of my favourite attendees. She now attends every class from start to finish, whooping along on top of the soundtrack, often yelling “I love you, Raha!!!” at the end of class.
To this day, I’ll never truly know what caused this change. Looking back, my initial thoughts were actually probably well-founded (she actually came up to me one day saying, “I used to hate your class - but now you’re my favourite dancer and teacher on the planet!!!”) Looking back, I’ve also realized that my time was so much better spent not worrying about what was out of my control, and instead building in the direction of what was.
Encountering Our Lil’ Schemas - the fun part!
As we get older (in my case, into my 30’s), we’ll trot along with our trusty schemas tucked under our arm… and then we’ll begin to notice something. The fun part of life begins. We’ll notice ourselves running into the same triggers again and again, year after year, as situations change. There are two ways this can go:
A. We decide to create self-fulling prophecies.
We conclude that these repeated triggers reinforce our perception- regardless of the situations, we’re doomed to live in a world that fulfills our schemas.
B. We break. (Trust me when I say that this is the best option possible.)
If we’re lucky - at some point, we’ll sense that the coping mechanisms we’re using aren’t really serving us. We’ll observe two things:
Situations change, but the same issues may arise. For us well-intentioned folks, who wield our perspectives as a sword to protect ourselves from the world’s hurt, we might be surprised to see that the only common denominator between our painful situations is… us and our choices, not the people or forces that we initially thought caused our hurt. What gives? (Note: This isn’t to say that the world isn’t unfair. It’s a hot mess, as a look at the news will show us. Shitty stuff can and does systematically happen more often to certain groups of people who don’t deserve it. Today, I’m talking about how we can orient ourselves towards light, so that we can meaningfully call out the world we want. Creating systemic change in the face of injustice is a whole other topic, but starts with the same principles.)
We might also catch glimpses of beauty and lightness in moments outside of our coping. In the presence of our authentic selves, we’ll feel lightness, depth, peace and well-being in a way our always-alert coping mechanisms don’t seem to allow us.
After running into the same repetitive walls over… and over… and over… again, if we’re moved enough by both of the above points, we will finally have no choice but to decide that our beautiful selves don’t need to waste our lives being bogged down by such boring and repetitive worlds as our own reactions. Often, this will lead us to part ways with the armour that we’ve stacked around us in our life. It can be a confusing, frustrating, but incredibly liberating experience.
Two ways you can confront your schema in the everyday.
Ask yourself the Why question. The next time you find yourself jumping to a conclusion about the meaning behind a situation or its implications for you, remember to question it. “What else could explain this situation rather than my theory?” “Even if my theory wins out, what’s the ultimate importance of it?” To litle logician Raha, this might seem like an affront to our intellect. Yet, the purpose of this is less to be right than to refocus our perspective. Perhaps there’s more to life than needing to spend it focused on situations or people that… don’t do much for you. Direct your energy away from your reactions, and see how beautifully the world opens up.
Focus less on what might dim your light, and more on what makes you come alive. This is less so to protect yourself from bad outcomes, but to refocus your perspective. Build in the direction of your light, so that you can say that you spent your life embracing yourself, rather than spending your entire life trying to protect yourself. The right input, oriented with your light, will always land on your ears when you’re attempting to build and listen meaningfully in line with your light.
For that which matters most in life, we don’t have to be right or all-knowing. We just have to choose to build in the direction of light with those we value, and let all else fall to the wayside. What is meant for us will build alongside us, if we have enough faith in ourselves to drop the noise. There is so much growth waiting on the other side.
Much <3,
Raha