Howdy August.

This is an interesting August for me as I have NOTHING planned or booked for the whole month and I am sitting on my hands so I don’t fill the space too quickly (which I have a tendency to do).

We are just back from our annual camping trip and it was eye opening to see how happy and easier going my family was. The children were HELPFUL and content to chat and play with each other far more than they ever have (last year was hell for “co-operation”). I was also happy to go on all the traditional trips my husband likes to do at the lake (trail walking day, cliff jumping day, canoe to the neighboring lake day ) when usually I am grumbling about own space, own time and generally snarly and exhausted. NONE of that this year – I was happy to come and didn’t feel the need to collapse in the tent and wish everyone would leave me alone.

I am not EXHAUSTED.

I am not worn out with all the usual “summer fun”.

Social activities have been at an all time low – and I think my family is the better for it.

Not my husband sadly – he has been working really hard and I can see the strain on him and his slightly broken body and mood – for that I feel very guilty. However when the children and the wife are in better moods at least he is saved from us!

Now how has some Storie calm helped me creatively?

Well my output is still small – I have yet to finish a picture – but I am gaining some clarity on where I might be heading.

Having a less cluttered, tired brain has given space for some clear cutting of what I am doing and what works best.

Last year I could get as far as telling you I was happy to be your cuppa tea during the chaos of the day.

I am still happy with that thought, but I can put more words to it.

I am your encourager to find your version of a “cuppa tea” in your day.

I am here to tell you, you can do this when your ego keeps saying no.

I am putting out pictures and words that hopefully let you know there is a calm out there if you are feeling lost and getting swept in the negative swirl of now.

I want to support anyone that is trying to connect to that need inside them that the lack of has been causing some of the sadder coping skills we have (believe me I have them!)

My mind has been drifting back recently to a Vancouver Island Parent Conference I went to a couple of years ago. I had signed up for a “creative thinking within the curriculum” workshop.

I was so excited to learn where we were heading with encouraging creative thought for students and more personally for my son who has a brilliant mind and is not finding a way at school to tap into that.

The “ice breaking” question was what is the role of school for our students?

There were lots of terms thrown out from the room:

Critical thought

Social conscience

Core competencies

“helping children connect to the things they love to do” – I called out all inspired.

SILENCE

Total room air vacuum.

Pencil shifting sounds.

After a free energy of scribbling on the whiteboard from the facilitator a hovering – “hmmmmm” he says – he doesn’t REMOTELY want to put it on the list.

I am crushed.

I am soooo embarrassed.

We’re not there Caz.

It isn’t “that” kind of creative thinking.

The workshop continues on about what big corporations are looking for from candidates.

We’re still chasing that one? I think.

I am hot and flushed – I think it is from a mixture of sadness, shame and anger. I am really angry – because I see how unchanged our so-called call for creative thought is. It isn’t creative – it is specific thought they want. If possible all ways of brain thinking combined into one person. We are asking for the near impossible and what is going to happen to all those poor souls who aren’t these rare breeds?

How are they going to feel connected in the rocky waves of future?

How are they going to build their self-esteem and confidence in just what they are good at?

How can those who don’t yet know, tap into the amazing adventure of finding what they are talented in if they are chasing this rather ridiculous bar we are now setting for students?

We kind of know what happens.

Most of us are doing it ourselves.

That is really what negative coping strategies are all about.

If someone had shown me some of the things that I have found painfully and slowly for myself in these recent years as I have made this my focus, could I have had more years feeling better, feeling more worthy, feeling more anchored?

I am of course the privileged one – the lucky one for sure.

I had the time to pursue.

I had the ability to travel, which lead to my questioning things more of what is important to me. Travelling took me out of my “alright” comfort spot.

I have huge support from my husband.

I have some financial means to take this time.

What of people that don’t have this?

What if we could spend some time in education whispering – wow I love what you’re doing here. What if we had the time to see the inner dreams and sparks and joys of each child? A lot of what we pursue as joy as an adult, definitely planted it’s seed in our childhood pursuits. You only have to scrape the surface a little to find it somewhere there, somewhere in a slightly different form.

There are sooo many talented teachers I know, who often spot that special gift, or encourage through the work of ways gone well, but what if children were given small courses on this tapping, this following your gut idea …what could that bring to the feeling of autonomy to a person?

Would that make an interesting future?

Would that make any social improvements for people, for our communities?

I don’t honestly know – of course I don’t.

But I am enjoying wondering and questioning and hearing from others what they might think.

Because something we all know – is this system isn’t really working.

There are too many lost people in the world.

What if they felt anchored?

How would that look for them?

How would it look for you if you felt lost too?

I know it sounds lofty.

I am sounding naïve – like I did in that room at the creative thinking workshop.

There are reasons Caroline, there are courses in place, there is reality, there is own way, own decisions.

There are for sure.

Yet it keeps coming back to me.

Saying that we could encourage each child to tap into what they love to do was the WORST thing I could have said in a room discussing education.

And that still makes me sad 2 years on.

If you are wondering yourself what you can do?

If you have a nagging inside you that something is missing, something inside you has been untapped or a specific desire that still flares up even as you have grown older and more content with things. Isn’t that worth pursuing now? A start is a start…and can bring more that you can ever intellectualize without just starting, questioning, musing what you could do.

That is what I have been drawing closer to with the space that has opened up in my calendar. I want to be that naïve, why not voice who holds out a cuppa tea for you and whispers… “I love what you’re doing here.” Just really because I think it matters…I think it matters for any age.