All Criticism is Self Criticism
Who is the I that sees through the Eye?
Dirty Windows
Sister Veronica, looking out of her office window on to the school yard below, began to frown. She turned to the teachers gathered there for the morning briefing and began:
"Something will have to be done about the dirt of our students. What kind of image are we presenting to the public? It's no wonder our numbers are dropping. In my day parents took pride in the appearance of their children. What is the world coming to?"
Dottie, the veteran teacher who had been at the school for longer than she would care to remember and had watched many Principals come and go, walked calmly to the window and with her handkerchief began to clean the glass. When she had finished she beckoned to the newly appointed Principal who approached in bewilderment and said:
"As you can now see the dirt was not on our children but on the window through which you were looking at them ma am."
Wake Up Teacher man
I have been a teacher for most of my life. In all my years of teaching there is one thing I have learned and which I consider to be of utmost importance in all my dealings not just with children but with everyone in my life:
How I see a person determines my expectations of that person and it influences how I react to the person.
After many years of teaching I one day finally realized that for me to be an effective teacher and I would have to stop sabotaging myself . How could I ever expect to draw out the best from a student whom I had judged, for whatever reasons, to be incapable of succeeding?
On a daily basis I make the effort to remind myself of the story above and look for the best qualities in each child under my care and each person who crosses my path.
I found that time and time again my students rose or fell to the expectations I had of them. Only when I stubbornly held to high expectations of even the ones deemed "weak" by my colleagues did I make any progress. It was as if my internal thoughts were being played out and the children gave me back exactly what was really in my heart.
Tame the Monkey Mind Teacher Man
I realized that my thoughts were creating my reality and unless I took charge of my own thoughts it was the innocent children in my care who would suffer.
Unless I decided what thoughts would be the most constructive to think and to constantly keep a check that they did not stray from what I had decided to think I would be like a boat on the ocean without any oars and at the mercy of random currents. There is effort involved but the results are worth it. I start by looking for a quality I can admire in each child and in focusing on that quality I find it easier to notice more positive traits until I create the best expectation I can have of each child.
Your attention is the fuel that powers your thoughts. The thoughts you entertain affect your feelings and your feelings attract to you all the people and circumstances that reflect how you feel. A criticism is a criticism and it is born of judgement. Love is unconditional and judges not. Be careful who you judge lest you be judged. The boomerang returns regardless of your motive for judging another. Feeling bad because the words of a bigot upset you is no reason for you too to enter into his world of criticism. You are sucked into criticism every time you choose to fuel criticism by giving it your valuable attention. Whenever you feel tempted to become upset by something another says or does ask your self the question. What is so important about this criticism that I too must fuel it?
Criticise Less love More
It is no easy task to be constantly so vigilant of ones own thoughts of others and though I often fall short, I have found the exercise extremely productive not only in the classroom in school, in my private clinic, but in my daily life with my wife, children, family and friends.
Like everything new you have ever learned it takes time and effort for you to make something new your own. It took time and effort for you to learn how to walk, how to talk, how to drive a car and all the millions of things you do today that you don't have to think about any more. You learned how to criticise yourself and others to the degree that you now do it automatically without thinking. Every time you criticise another you are throwing a boomerang that will surely return.
You criticise every time you choose to see bad in yourself or another. You criticise every time you refuse to see good in yourself or another. All criticism is self criticism because though we imagine continents to be separate we are all joined by the oceans of our subconscious. We are waves on the ocean of love. We rise in splendour, reach a peak and eventually we return to the sea. During our brief time as waves we have the opportunity to realise who we are and spread the love that we are.
Look around at the waves that surround you and appreciate their essence. We are all made of the same stuff and our Higher Consciousness is watching without judgement but always with love.
>>> Shipwrecked is a beautiful poem that teaches us how it is never too late to change. Follow this link to read the poem to unlock your heart. <<<