Knowing

Daily writing experience - day 39

Knowing

How do I know what I know?

“I don’t know much but I know I love you
That may be all I need to know”…

The lyrics of the song “Don’t Know Much” by Aaron Neville and Linda Ronstadt resonate inside my head as I ponder the question.

I don’t actually know how I know about most things that I know.

I’ve only recently started paying closer attention to a huge source of knowing in my life: my body.

I’m at the beginning stages of becoming increasingly aware of how my body speaks to me. Self-reflected consciousness doesn’t happen overnight!

I’m taking time to focus on unlearning many beliefs, behaviors, and values that have driven my life up to now. It’s a commitment I’ve made to my Self, knowing full well the difficulties and the opportunities it presents.

My first ever paying job was as an English as a Foreign Language teacher in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. I was 16 years old, in front of a classroom of up to twenty adults who had paid good money to learn English from a qualified professional.

How did I get there?
The school I worked for had put an English ad in the local Spanish language newspaper for English speakers. My 18 year old sister mentioned she was going, and I tagged along.

The school gave a written test to all the people who responded. They scored the tests right away, and invited those with scores over 80 to stay for a verbal exam. My scores were the highest of the cohort.

Since I’d passed the test, it gave me the opportunity to attend training in their teaching method (I’d now call their method persistent repetition).

After going through the training, I was given classes to teach from levels 1 to 12.

The most difficult students were the ones who thought they already knew some English. And their placement tests put them on level one, or two among those who didn’t know any English. It was a blow to their ego.

I remember one particularly disruptive student who tried to undermine me when I tried to correct him as we were repeating something out loud as a class. He’d learned to pronounce words wrong. He couldn’t hear the difference between what he was saying, and how it was supposed to sound. And he started infecting those around him with the wrong pronunciation.

When I tried to use the correction method I’d been taught during the training, he tried to intimidate me. My boss was going to hear about my mistreatment of him from his influential father.

He didn’t know I’d been facing fear and intimidation for a long time already. He was unaware of the negative impact he was having on those who were uncertain, quiet, or brand new to learning another language. And I felt it was my duty to care for all. He was transferred to another class. I kept my job.

And the lesson I’m recognizing today is that just as that student, I’ve been unable to hear the difference between what my body is communicating to me, and what my mind learned to interpret in order to survive.

“I don’t know much but I know I love you”…

Loving my Self, my body, and my unique experience through this process

“That may be all I need to know”…

Here’s to unlearning habitual responses to experiences & beliefs my mind presents to me as facts, and relearning to attune to my body’s many sensations to uncover surprising knowledge, even when, especially when I can’t explain how I know what I know to others.

Is there something in your life you wish you could unlearn?