Our semester is beginning to wind down and, with it, our time with the blog is also coming to a close. While my hopes and expectations for my own output on the blog were both reasonable and doable, I now find myself in a prime place for reflection.
If haven't kept track, allow me to fill you in: This is my second blog post... you know, number 2 out of the required 5 posts... For the purposes of continuous reflection, ongoing engagement, and (for the sake of the practical) time management, each pedagogy student should've posted to the blog periodically. *deep sigh*
When I'm proud of my work regardless of struggles or difficulties I’ve incurred, reflection is fulfilling, satisfying, and productive. I can take the pride for my successes and take the lessons of my failures as I stride forward. When I've sorely disappointed myself or when I’ve missed the mark of my own goals, I can struggle to feel any sense of achievement in what was accomplished. I struggle to find the modicum of success that I might celebrate. When mindlessly "reflecting" (perhaps the more accurate term is ruminating) I'm met with the most overwhelming feeling of shame.
Running the risk of sounding too self-assured, I am fairly confident in my ability to recognize what I’ve done wrong––be it my ineffective approaches, my permittance of bad habits, or my lack of commitment to re-examine my methods and make changes. I am less confident in my ability to utilize my awareness productively and apply my observations to future attempts.
Thankfully, I am also met with ideas–new or familiar–that allow me to move forward.
Enter (or, re-enter): Brené Brown. Brown is known for her work on courage, vulnerability, empathy, and shame. I was previously familiar with her ideas on vulnerability and empathy, but somehow I had allowed my mind to store what I learned on shame into a place I didn't remember to look.
As I rested near the bottom of my shame spiral this morning, plotting out my approach for today, I reached for my phone and searched for a YouTube video I recalled as helpful. It was the short clip of Brené Brown on Oprah's Lifeclass that my therapist showed me years ago. During the 2-minute clip, Brown explains effective behaviors of individuals with high levels of shame resilience: knowing their shame triggers, reality checking those triggers, and speaking their shame to a trusted individual.
"Secrecy, silence, and judgment–those are the three things shame needs to grow exponentially in our lives. The antidote? Empathy." -Brené Brown
By now, it's no secret: I've been struggling this semester. I've failed to keep up with the blog requirements; I've failed to keep up with grading; I've failed to engage with the course content on a level that is meaningful to me. While I've made slight mentions of my struggles here and there, to this person or that friend, I've largely remained silent. I haven't been articulating my struggles with the volume they warrant. I've definitely been judging myself about the blog posts, the slow grading, and the lower-than-desirable-quality of my work.
Though I know what sends me into a shame spiral, I allow myself to overlook the steps I must take to overcome it (perhaps the most impactful failure of them all). By talking to myself like someone I love, reaching out to someone I trust, and telling them my story, I am met with empathy. Met with empathy I need to decrease my shame, I can even (*gasp*) forgive myself for the mistakes I made and the subsequent judgment I hurled at myself.
"Failure is not learning gone bad, it is not the opposite of learning. Failure is part of the learning process. I believe that could change everything. It could change the learning process, how we work when we get out of school, how we live around the world." -Brené Brown
Sometimes I put myself in positions that force me to review the same lessons I’ve learned again and again. While I’m tempting to ask if I ever truly learned these lessons, I must remind myself that I am a human. I am messy and imperfect (and often far too defeatist), but I am learning.
I’ll likely return to the same general areas in which I continue to struggle––that's the work of my life! I find comfort and hope in reminding myself that although the struggle may be ever-present, it can also be ever-changing. I can struggle with productivity better. I can struggle with mental illness better. I can struggle with shame better. As a lifelong learner, I can make better mistakes. The work of self-improvement has no end-point, no finish line, no due date within the course of my existence.
The great resonating truth I find today is that I must recommit myself to promoting my own well-being. I cannot teach in a manner that empowers students nor can I promote students' well-being without attending to my own holistic growth. I cannot look at my failures as testaments against my own capabilities. My struggles, unmet goals, and failures are evidence that I am learning. It's far too easy to beat myself up and vow to just do better next time. Today, however, I embrace the challenge of allowing myself to fail and granting myself empathy in response.
In the spirit of vulnerability and empathy, my fellow pedagogy bloggers, I ask you:
When you think about failures you might've made this semester or the resulting shame you might feel, do you ever struggle with secrecy, silence, and judgment? Do you find yourself ruminating, rather than reflecting, over specific moments as a teacher or as a student? How can you allow yourself to embrace failures as necessary to your learning process? #deepbreadths
When you think about failures you might've made this semester or the resulting shame you might feel, do you ever struggle with secrecy, silence, and judgment? Do you find yourself ruminating, rather than reflecting, over specific moments as a teacher or as a student? How can you allow yourself to embrace failures as necessary to your learning process? #deepbreadths
hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge.
Hi Becca,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing a raw, honest, and emotional blog post. I've been thinking a lot about failure and how, specifically speaking, society discusses failure. I want you to know that I am always here to talk if you ever need me to listen. I've also been thinking about failure in the context of self-care. What I mean is, it is so easy to take care of our own assignments, students, and others around us that we forget to care for ourselves. We don't forget as much as we fail to care for ourselves. To that end, I love what you said about engaged pedagogy and the ways in which Bell Hooks emphasizes the importance of self-care if you are going to be a good teacher. I also believe that we are all just doing the best we can in graduate school in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, so make sure to go easy on yourself and know that you are only doing the best you can!
Best,
Kendal
Hi Becca,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing a raw, honest, and emotional blog post. I've been thinking a lot about failure and how, specifically speaking, society discusses failure. I want you to know that I am always here to talk if you ever need me to listen. I've also been thinking about failure in the context of self-care. What I mean is, it is so easy to take care of our own assignments, students, and others around us that we forget to care for ourselves. We don't forget as much as we fail to care for ourselves. To that end, I love what you said about engaged pedagogy and the ways in which Bell Hooks emphasizes the importance of self-care if you are going to be a good teacher. I also believe that we are all just doing the best we can in graduate school in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, so make sure to go easy on yourself and know that you are only doing the best you can!
Best,
Kendal
Hey Becca,
ReplyDeleteFirst I want to start off by saying that I admire 1) how strong you have been all semester and 2) for you willingness to speak up about your struggles now. As one of your friends that you have told some of the things that have been going on in your life this semester, I complete understanding not being able to be caught up on everything. Additionally, I think you make a good point about recommitting yourself to promoting your own well-being. In a lot of ways we are the role models to our students that our instructors were to us.
When you bring in Brené Brown as you talk about vulnerability and courage, I go to two separate places. I first think about my therapist, who also made me watch Brené Brown's TedTalks. Secondly, I thinking about hooks and disclosing to students. Personally, I already knew that discloser was something that is odd for me. I either overshare on things that are not socially acceptable or I do not share at all. I ran into an interesting issue with my students in COMM 2060 because it has been a hard semester and I wanted them to know that I understand that it has been hard on them too. I appreciate your vulnerability, Becca.
-Alyx
Hi Becca,
ReplyDeleteThank you for offering such thoughtful and vulnerable words. I'm going to jump right in my take on a response.
I've found that shame and resentment go hand in hand, and they are both closely linked to our capacity to set boundaries and how we set expectations. Shame, resentment, boundaries, and expectations are all interlinked with our mental health and the way that we construct our place in the world and whether we (and others) deserve to inhabit that place. Shame and resentment are nearly always consequences of boundaries and expectations being overridden or unmet. Thus, while it is productive for me to grapple with my sense of shame or resentment and to verbalize those things, I have found that the most productive work that comes out of recognizing those emotions is to understand what boundary or expectation was messed tf up in a way that brought me to that state.
This is not to say that the verbalization step isn't important. Not only do I have to verbalize with myself and with a therapist (or a therapeutic friend, if I have that social grace), but I also need to break down what it is I need to communicate to the person who caused me that shame or resentment - even if that person was ME. Taking this third-person approach to the issue allows me to see the ways in which I have frustrated myself and to offer some of the same grace, AND the same gentle but firm criticism, that I might offer a friend. The other thing it lets me to do is to consider: if a friend or family member had disappointed me in the way I disappointed myself, what would my response be? Do I want to keep putting energy into that issue? Do I think it's a big deal at all? Is that something that I can see them actual adjusting their behavior about? If the answer is no, then I'm obliged to at least consider, for myself, what it looks like to not give a shit about the thing I'm ashamed at myself for.
This is, obviously, easier said than done. Sometimes it's just not possible and I keep beating myself up about something and go back into an anxious, carb-filled place in my head. But, when I can offer myself empathy and grace, and rationality, I try to remember that THAT is a victory too.
I hope you feel better soon, as hollow as those words may sound. I'm here if you want to talk.