rewiring thought patterns – hidden beliefs exposed (part 4)

  Once upon a time, it was believed that our brains were wired by our early experiences as young children and then hard-wired by the time we reached early adulthood.  We bought into this with our exclamations of:   “I can’t help it, that’s the way I was born.“ “I’ve always been this way.” “You…

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words in action – hidden beliefs exposed (part 3)

  Richard Rodgers of the Rodgers and Hammerstein songwriting duo was the creative force behind the sentiments in the Sound of Music classic, Something Good, a song that was not in the original stage version but was written additionally for the 1965 film. Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could. So somewhere in my youth…

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making hills out of hills

  Him:  “No wonder you’re tired. You worked much harder than I did.” Me (thinking): I did? How? We both biked about 30 km on a gorgeous fall day. So how was I working any harder than you? Me (speaking): “What do you mean?” Him: “Your bike is heavier than mine. You had a backpack on…

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check your bags

For almost two decades, students, parents and teachers at my school have annually collected thousands of cans and dried goods for a local Christmas food hamper program with hopes of making a real difference in our community. Student leaders orchestrate the event while teachers work with students to set class and personal contribution goals. It…

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life is not messy

  Life is straightforward; a continuous cycle of beginnings and endings. That’s it.   It’s not messy.  It’s not neat.  It’s not complicated or controllable.  It just is. We’re fond of saying “life is messy” when we forget that. We show that we have forgotten it when we concretely label the ups and downs of…

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exercise science (kinesiology) lesson

The Kinesiology class is also known as Grade 12 Exercise Science and my visit there was in the midst of their unit on the impact of stress and anxiety on athletic performance. I began by dividing the students into two groups. Each group elected one member to participate in a small performance task on behalf…

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