“Everything is falling apart, and I can’t hold on.”

“I find myself being a collector of other people’s bad feelings.”

“I worry about being invisible.”

These statements are all metaphorical. The circumstances they are describing cannot be literally true (except that the first one could perhaps be true in an earthquake or tornado).

Read More

The fear of criticism prevented me from sharing my writing in the past.

Especially scary was the possibility that someone might tell me how wrong I was and be right about it, sending major cracks through the foundation my work is based on.

In fact, this fear didn’t just prevent me from sharing my writing — it prevented me from writing in the first place. That may have made me blameless, but it also made me bland. I wasn’t committing to a point of view, which meant that I wasn’t clear on what my point of view actually was.

Read More

This American Life, the long-running public radio show, had a great piece about people who didn’t realize until adulthood that they believed something that wasn’t true.

One woman, having seen “X-ING” signs on crosswalks, thought “x-ing” was a word, pronounced “zing.”

Another didn’t know that you could have variety in your meals — her family had chicken every single night.

We all have beliefs and conventions that we consider normal and correct, and we will defend them if challenged. However, it makes sense to evaluate whether our ways are still working for us.

Read More

There are a couple of key beliefs that get in our way when we’re trying to learn something.

The first is the belief that we’re not capable. The second is the belief that it’s going to be unpleasant and time-consuming.

Even when the first is tackled, the second can cause a lot of problems. Students who are trained to be dutiful won’t question whether there’s a better way to go about the task at hand. They assume that no matter what they do, they’ll be loaded down with a bunch of boring homework to slog through, year after year.

Read More

With wide-eyed innocence, a ten-year-old student shared the words her mother had used to comfort her when she had hurt herself.

“She sad there are always bad things swirling around, and sometimes they land on you.”

I was flabbergasted. I imagined a world in which evil butterflies have the power to curse hapless humans with a touch.

Read More