Have you ever done something that your heart would not necessarily choose but your head knows it's good for your overall health and wellbeing? Here are some examples:
I am overall a relatively physically healthy person, but that does not make me immune to a constant battle between head and heart, especially when it comes to the added layer of anxiety. My heart knows there's no reason to be stressed out, but my head asks are you sure about that? Being an educator has helped me to learn how to balance the relationship between head and heart and I found it to be a lot like running. I HATE running and it's probably because I am really bad at it. It feels like I've been running for days, only to look down at my Fitbit and see it's been 2 minutes and 43 seconds. Each lap around a track seems longer than the last and if my pacing is faster than 11 minutes per mile, WOW it's time for a reward of Taco Bell for dinner. There's an inevitable recursive cycle that happens; I hate running because I am bad at it, so I don't run often and because I don't run often, I am bad at it, which makes me hate it more. Now I am not saying I hate education. On the contrary, I deeply love it because it is my passion and one of my life's purposes, but it is a lot like running and the battle between my heart and my head when it comes to the activity. There are days when a part of me just wants to give in to the frustration a student has when they don't quite understand a concept yet and just give them the answer, but the other part of me knows that purposeful struggle is necessary for true growth. Part of me wants to just stop enforcing inappropriate cellphone usage and just let them Snapchat and Instagram and TikTok time away until the bell rings, but the other part of me knows that as the adult and the facilitator, I have to provide structure for them to see benefits in putting the devices away or structure for them to not have an opportunity to "be bored". I'm sure you have scenarios you can think of based on your experience. On days I run, it usually does not start off with a true heart and head desire to knock out a few miles. A lot of the times, it comes with discipline, knowing that as soon as I get started, I will not regret the choice I made to follow through. The rewards from the temporary pain are small when individually assessed, but 1% daily growth is huge over time versus 1% daily decline. This comes from James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones, a book that I plan on reading in its entirety as part of my educational journey but have stumbled across excerpts of. Education can be a lot like running. You could consider each class period a sprint, each day a 5K, each week a 10K, each year a marathon, your career an ultra. If we keep putting one foot in front of the other, being disciplined enough to tell our heads to push through when the heart is conflicted, we can be so much stronger. Eventually, our hearts start to catch up, beating faster and sustaining the rhythm as it becomes accustom to the situation. Balancing the heart and the head simply takes experience and adaptation while also recognizing some days are better or worse than others and that has to be okay. Something my Lee family and I would do together is watch reruns of Law and Order SVU on the weekends and for some reason, my sister-in-law Stephanie, my husband Scott, and I latched onto a line when Elliot Stabler yells "we got a runner!". I couldn't find a specific clip of this, but this scene from Reno 911 feels more accurate for education at times... We have to keep running so that our lives can be examples to others of what balance between the head and the heart looks like. We should make sure we are taking care of ourselves so we can take care of others. Are we perfect? Absolutely not, but we can keep making those small gains every day, reflect back, and be in awe of what we are truly capable of. Also, if we run together, we can pull people into this race and motivate each other to keep going. What are some things you've done that your heart and head have been in conflict over? What did you learn from those? Do we have a runner in you?
References
Clear, J. (2015). How to Master the Art of Continuous Improvement. James Clear. https://jamesclear.com/continuous-improvement
Eric. (2012). WE GOT A RUNNER! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIrkI43NIIU Tim Robinson “You Sure About That” Green Screen. (2023, April 12). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZOIpsxfzxw
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My husband lovingly teases me when I reflect on my day with him and say "I learned something new today!" because he would be surprised if I didn't learn something new.
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