As we embark on our first week of on-line teaching, I am leaning on the wisdom of Eckhart Tolle. He notes three modalities for living happily and encourages us to check that one of these are always operational when we are embarking on a task. Take Zoom teaching for example:
Acceptance of the situation is the first modality. Tension, which is being here when you want to be somewhere else, is the opposite. Instead of saying: we have to now use Zoom / go on-line for all our teaching (tense), Eckhart encourages us to act as if this was our choice to go fully on-line. I am choosing to go on-line this week (accepting).
The next modality is enjoyment, and I frame it by replacing the phrase I have to, with the phrase I get to. I get to use Zoom, look at all these cool features. I am grateful that I am teaching a group of digital natives who would co-create this learning environment with me.
Finally, enthusiasm. Look at us go! I look great on camera! I practiced my talk with a cat on my lap!
The modalities reminded me of how important mindset is going to be as we navigate our new normal. As I walked to my office over the weekend, I felt bombarded with purple posters about the virus, on every lamp pole: I counted eight in my eye line outside the building. Once I entered the building, more posters. As I entered the elevator, three posters. It is not surprising that by the time Outlook is opened, or a news feed with an empty shelf is accessed, many of us are already stewing in a soup of anxiety.
In order to remain informed, productive and well, we get to decide daily on the source, the mechanism and the interval of our information consumption. It is earth school now for all of us: we get to evolve into awake and aware curators of our own physical, digital and socio-emotional environments. Gone are the days where a thin veneer of calm is acceptable, we get to practice to be calm, and then, as always, we get to lead by the clarity of our example.
Onwards,
Dunay