Do We Really Want Back to Normal or Is It Something Else?

Tina got up and wandered around the room, looking at books and reading the posters on the wall.
 
Why does she always do that?? I fumed to myself.  How come she’s always done so fast and gets to walk around??
 
In our grade 3 class, this activity was a regular occurrence (and annoyance) for me.
 
My classmate was a smart, curious, and efficient girl who easily did her lessons and would often wander around the classroom indulging her curiosity in the many books, posters, and learning tools that populated the space.
 
Oh, how I longed to get up from my desk and wander around like she did.
 
But I never dared to get up.
 
I had learned waaay back in grade one that this kind of behaviour would not be tolerated.  I learned there were unpleasant consequences to following my curiosity and my need for freedom of movement.  I was trained right from the first days in grade one that my needs, my knowledge and my rhythms were not acceptable and would not be well received in the world.
 
I learned to stop moving my body, that the person at the front of the room was the wise one to look to, that failing a test or assignment meant I was stupid and that making any mistakes meant shame and ridicule.
 
There were many good things that I learned as well, don’t get me wrong.  It’s just that the suppression of my natural rhythms only served me when I was in school.  It didn’t prepare me for being an adult and when life handed me challenge and change, I didn’t have a teacher at the front of the room to look to for the answers.
 
It has taken me many years to unravel this conditioning and I still have a long way to go.  I have been thinking about this so much lately as we shift, yet again, into the reopening of our world.  I’ve been wondering….is it really ‘normal’ that we are longing for?  Or is it something else that we are calling ‘normal’ because the other word is still buried with in us from days gone by?
 
What if, what we are really feeling is the desire to return to ‘natural’?  Or the desire to return to our ‘normal’ rhythm?  The rhythm that we had as children when we honored our curiosity, rested when we needed to rest, played when we needed to play, learned because the world was a fascinating place and people were the most delightful and interesting beings we had ever encountered.
 
Are you longing to go back to normal or are you longing to go back to a normal rhythm?  Do you know what your natural rhythm would be if you could reconnect with it?  What would your life look life when you revived your natural rhythm?
 
This is what I am wondering about these days….I’d love to know what you think!  And now, I’m going to get up from my desk and wander around for a while...

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