One of the first things you learn when you start training to do any kind of energy work is that you first have to do your own personal work. The second thing you learn is that that personal work never really ends. And the third thing you learn is that personal work can really suck. But in a good way. Well, sort of.
As I’ve mentioned before, I am a student of Danielle MacKinnon’s School of Animal Communication. I’ve taken all of my Animal Communication classes with her and continue to do so. Last week, we started a Masters level class that will officially certify us to teach both for her and on our own away from her organization. It’s really something that I love doing, teaching others how to step in to their intuitive power or just their personal power. But, again, there’s that personal work… And for some reason, I didn’t see it coming in this class. Silly me.
On class day I was totally psyched. Feeling all “Yay, more learning! I love this stuff!’ And all was well until about an hour in when we started focusing on our strengths (yay) and our weaknesses (oh yuck) when we’ve taught over the past year. Our homework was to go over the videos of the classes we’ve assisted in and list both of those. Have you ever noticed how hard it is to pick out your strengths and how amazingly easy it is for you to pick out your weaknesses? By the end of the first class video I watched of myself I had half a sheet of paper filled with weaknesses and about two bullet points of strengths. And I was starting to cry.
A fellow student and I spoke before we dug in to our homework that day and thought how great it would be if we did it for each other. In other words, I tell her her strengths and weaknesses and she tells me mine. But that would kind of defeat the purpose of the exercise I’m assuming because we would both end up being way too nice to one another and sugar coating the weaknesses anyway. But then I thought, is that such a bad thing?
What I found as I sat there listing all my weaknesses was that criticizing myself is probably my BIGGEST. No, I’m not criticizing myself during classes, but I am pretty much any other chance I get. Especially when I’m watching myself on video. What is that all about!? Why, when given the chance, do we choose to tear ourselves down as opposed to pick ourselves up like we would a friend who was asking for constructive criticism? There’s nothing constructive about how I was feeling about myself as I watched these videos. Why can’t we look at ourselves in the mirror, or on video, and just be nice?
Which brings me to an old SNL skit with Al Franken called ‘Daily Affirmation with Stuart Smalley.’ Stuart is sitting in front of a mirror saying “I’m going to do a terrific show today. Because I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. And dog gone it, people like me!” And you know what I realized?
Stuart Smalley had it going on.
Let’s all be Stuart.
Live and learn in Munay.
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