Always Learning

I've been blessed to have learners in my workshops who are twice my age. For those who don't know my age, that means some people in their 90s have attended my workshops. When those students are present, I feel a little intimidated (what can I teach someone with so much more life experience?) and inspired (however long I live, I want to keep learning, too). When I feel secure and grounded, I know I have something to teach them precisely because we don't share life experiences. I also know even more deeply that I want to keep learning until the day I die. There is so much to know and no possible way to know it all- a daunting and beautiful notion.

Lately I've been repeating the phrase "Never failure, always learning" (from adrienne maree brown's Emergent Strategy) a lot. A conversation didn't go how I'd hoped: never failure, always learning. A class or service promotion didn't take off the way I wanted: never failure, always learning. That thing I had to do that took waaaaaaay longer than expected: never failure, always learning. The lessons rarely happen in a library like in the picture above, but rather as we experiment with living life. Always learning...if we choose to engage with the lessons.

Last week I very excitedly signed up for an International Intensive Training (IIT) in Nonviolent/Compassionate Communication in Palestine. Within hours of signing up, I had a gut feeling that I shouldn't have signed up, despite the enthusiasm I'd felt while filling out the application. Curious, I sat with the feeling for a few days. It didn't go away. In fact, the more I thought about not going, the more relieved I felt. I am not going to attend the training.

What I came to is this: I believe I have a role in that IIT, but my role isn't to be there, but to support the work happening there. I invested some money in it when I signed up, and I'll give more. I also invite you to support the work by donating here and choosing "2020 IIT in the Middle East" where you are asked if you have a special purpose for your donation.

I could have seen my sign-up and retraction of my sign-up as a failure to follow through. Instead I see it as learning to trust myself more, a reminder that most decisions we make are reversible, and that it's ok to make those reversals. I feel pleased that my not attending may facilitate someone else's ability to attend. Never failure, always learning.

A few days ago I had a private Compassionate Communication session with someone seeking clarity before a difficult conversation. She left the session with the clarity she'd sought, as well as tools for the conversation. Later she told me the conversation had gone really well! Always learning.

Last week I offered my first Heart Talk monthly offering. The group was small, the sharing was rich. At the end, during our check-out, I shared that one need met for me during the session was adventure (an answer that surprised me at the time). The reality is I never know how people will respond to the concepts I'm sharing, the stories that people share as we put the concepts to use, or the vulnerability it takes to share of oneself. Adventure. Always learning, never failure.

Learning is an adventure; sometimes we take it on with willingness, sometimes with resistance. My hope for myself, and for you, is that we can approach our learning with willingness and openness, that we can approach missteps with compassion, that we can get comfortable with discomfort, that we can embrace the idea of:

Never failure.

Always learning.