So, my dear CLFers, you and I have been on this fabulous journey together for over 2 1/2 years! Isn’t it amazing? And I have a confession to make, I haven’t been following my own advice.
That’s right, Fearless Leader, has not been taking the medicine she has been so liberally prescribing! (Though I never really claim to be Fearless, since I’m anxiety prone, that would by lying…) I have to say in the two and a half years we’ve been around, the one person who hasn’t taken me seriously is me. To be honest, it kind of freaks me out when I find out people do take me seriously, or listen to what I have to say, or even simply agree with my uppity notions.
So, this week I really took stock of myself, my dreams, aspirations, what I want out of life, looked at where I am going, want to go, wish to do, and since I was sick, I was pretty uninterrupted. I couldn’t use the phone much cause I could barely speak, I didn’t feel like being on-line (a real testament to having a bad cold since I never go this long without checking email or Facebook). I cared that I could get up to make soup, I couldn’t even crochet. I could think. I thought a lot, you don’t need to know what those thoughts were perse, but rest assured there were realizations. By Thursday last week, I was able to get up to make my own soup, and knew I could teach my Friday morning Beginning Crochet Class. It wore me out, but I knew it was important to teach this student whom I’d never met…Don’t ask me how I knew, let’s just call it intuition.
During this class, my student apologized for her lack of skills no less than 100 times. She was taking the BEGINNING CROCHET CLASS. She was neither visual or audial as a primary learning style, but rather kinesthetic, she apologized for not getting the information. I found ways to impart the information, and she apologized.
She refused to acknowledge when I really complemented her genuinely on her work. She has a natural talent for crochet, very even tension, and a very nice hand. So she couldn’t remember the stitch names, so she was having trouble remembering yo, insert hook into stitch, three loops on hook, yo draw yarn through 3 loops on hook (a half double crochet)…So, I made a noise pattern that didn’t require thinking about words…and I had her write down the individual steps…she appologized.
Eventually, I got her to stop apologizing by saying in a very tired and worn out voice after she compared herself to me, ” {Insert Name Here}, I have been crocheting longer than I can remember. I have crocheted everyday for the past 17 years, and I do this for hire. I am my own sweatshop. You are learning and beginning, you are perfectly attuned to your skill set now. Make what I do your goal, but not your measuring stick.”
The minute I said that, she got the stitch she was having trouble learning and we moved on to the next one. We went a 1/2 hr over the class time (which I didn’t mind since she had struggled through the first bit), and she insisted on paying me for the time, which felt weird 
. Most people do not offer to pay me extra, in fact some don’t want to pay for a beginning lesson at all…which good lord, let me tell you beginning crochet is the hardest thing to teach!. I was so moved by her willingness to compensate me for my time, and that she wants more classes, and that when she was leaving she said, “I feel really ready to tackle that project now!” (The washcloth that is the class project)
That statement I made stayed with me, not because I had felt rude, or mean because I hadn’t been either of those things when I said the words. What shocked me most was the fact that really until that moment I had never really believed those things of me, that I am an expert, that I am a knowledge base waiting to be tapped, that I am a highly skilled person; until then, I really hadn’t thought of myself that way. I knew each piece of information to be a fact, but BELIEF is different than FACT. Belief is like inspiration or imagination it’s where the best of what is human germinates and fosters creativity. Facts just are. But to BELIEVE in FACTS now that’s taking our left and right hands, clasping them together and creating a dual hemispheric connection in our BRAIN…and that’s TRANSFORMATIVE!
Sure I’ve written convincing arguments that people need to feel that way, and see what they do as valuable. But, I swear I’ve been writing it to convince myself. So I ask you, do any of us really see ourselves as valuable, talented people? Do any of us? Do any of us really feel like that expert? If you do, AWESOME! But, how many of us, apologize when are tension is even? How many people apologize for not “getting it” “fast enough?” How many people expect instant perfection in something that is never perfect-able? In an ever evolving world, perfection= limitations.
So, join with me people in this fabulous year of 2010, let us dedicate ourselves to stop the”I’m sorry”, and not be sorry. Let’s be content with where we are, and goal orientated to where we want to go…In our crochet, and in the rest of our lives.
BELIEVE in the FACTS of YOU…not the fantasies (both positive and negative), not what people say about you or have said about you…But what you KNOW to be TRUE about you…You are the expert, how so?
I love that I come to epiphanies through crochet. It may be, because crochet is so non-threatening that some of my greatest self discoveries come through my contact with people, or patterns, or stitches. How about you?
