Our last full day workshop was held at the beginning of the school holidays. The year seems to have gone so quickly and I still have so much to do on my project. My goal for the day was to get another page complete on my website and to get more feedback on what I have been doing.
My project has come out of my passions for all learners being able to be catered for in a classroom, and to help support kaiako to do this. As kaiako we are time poor and often just wish that there was a simple way to get access to information rather than troll through a million websites and read a ton of information, most of which is not relevant. My goal is eventually to turn this project into a VR/AR app that people can use to experience what it is like to be neurodiverse, but also to have overlays to show how things can be changed easily to make a difference. As that was a fairly full on project, I cut back to a website to start with, to get some ideas down and to start on this path. Interestingly enough, my new job (Learning Support Coordinator at Papanui High School) slots right into this project so I will be keen to flesh it out more once I am there. Meanwhile I am giving those of you that read my blog the opportunity to have a look at the work in progress and if you can find a bit of time, I'd love some feedback.
We had a short workshop on the inner critic today. I loved this poem that was read to us at the beginning:
Our Greatest Fear —Marianne Williamson
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.
The inner critic in us often stops us from being the best that we can. It also feeds into the imposter syndrome. This is where you feel like you are not qualified enough or not worthy of what you are doing. Many famous people have spoken out about it, including Meryl Streep who said "Why would anyone want to see me again in a movie?" You can read a bit more in this article about how to overcome imposter syndrome.
Fear doesn't go away but it can hold us back from what we could do. This safety mechanism is great when we are in danger, but not so good when we are not. We still need to take risks and make change without being guided by this inner critic.
So what can we do to help conquer this? We can notice and label it first. Know that the little voice is just that, just a voice. Say that "my inner critic says I can't do it" rather than saying you personally say you can't do it. Be compassionate - your inner critic is trying to keep you safe, just say thanks to it but do what you want anyway. Remove the inner critic from the scene. I believe I have boxes, like compartments in my brain, so I would put it in one of those - and shut the lid. We want to be able to tap into our inner mentor - the older, wiser version of the critic and grow into this version.
We had some good discussion around what our inner critic said to us and what we could achieve if we didn't listen to it. We mustn't let our inner critic hold us back from doing the amazing things we are capable of.
The rest of the day was dedicated to doing work on our projects and getting feedback. We had a group of last years Boma Fellows in during the afternoon as well as some of the Christchurch Airport staff. I changed quite a lot of things as the day went on and have been working hard this week to get it to a state that I feel I can send out. There are so many other things I want to add eventually but have to keep it simple for now. I did appreciate all of the feedback though and it certainly made me think about how things look and what is really needed. Hopefully with more feedback and time it will just keep getting better and better.
My goals before our next meetup:
Complete the website for feedback (tick)
Re do and refocus my pitch - we have a presentation in November, that's not far away now.
Get feedback (write a feedback form - tick) and adjust my site
Looking forward to the next meeting in a couple of weeks!
