Learning = Liberation

Minds are like parachutes they work best when open. ~ Lord Thomas Dewar

by Denise Palmisano

Think about the above quote. What possibilities show up for you when your mind is open?  Can you feel the energy, excitement and passion that go along with a yearning for learning? When curiosity and wonder are present, your life and the world as you know it  can transform.

I invite you to put down any beliefs that you SHOULD KNOW or that you ALREADY KNOW as we enter into this conversation.  To learn anything, you must first be willing to admit or acknowledge that you don't know. The teacher can't start telling you what they know until you stop telling them what you know. It has been my experience that learning will be a constant and necessary competence to develop and nurture for the rest of one's life. I invite you to go willingly and choose to be a student.

In today's world, change has become a permanent feature in our lives.  Everything as we know it could change in any moment. We cannot escape the necessity to continue to be in the world as students.  Our survival depends on it.  If you do not expose yourself to new learning, you are limited in your thoughts, words and actions.  It is not likely you will find solutions to a problem from the same mindset that created the problem.

Your Next Step is a calling to be better equipped and prepared to navigate, innovate, accept and embrace your ongoing, natural, imposed and designed transformation, evolution and potential.  Why wait around and let things happen to you?  What would be available if you accepted that your Next Step is to become master of your own destiny as you create the experiences and outcomes that feed your heart, body, mind and soul?  The time is now to create an intention and purpose filled life.

Learning is a total body commitment and experience. You don't really know until you can do what it is you have been studying or practicing.  To know is to be able to demonstrate.  This is one reason reading about something doesn't necessarily prepare you for the totality of what you will encounter once you are actually practicing the topic of your interest.

Think about when you learned to drive.  No amount of reading the book of questions to take the test prepared you for what it was like once you got behind the wheel.  You probably froze with opposing energies of fear and excitement at the same time. 

A real life personal experience for me recently was learning how to download or rip CD's on my laptop and become competent at downloading, sorting and building playlists with music from itunes and my CD's.  I can't tell you how long I have avoided learning that. I had all the usual excuses, no time, don't really need that, won't listen to it anyway, costly to buy music, etc.  However, at the same time, by not learning how to do all of this I was was spending time and energy on the consequences of not knowing how to do it.

I was having to haul countless CD's and something to play them on to my workshops.  I had outdated music.  I was limited in choices of songs to play.  Are you getting the picture.  Bottom line is, I was spending more time, money and energy on trying not to learn than if I would have just accepted that it was part of the natural updating and preparation that goes with my life and my business.  Thanks to me for being willing to ask my dear friend Yvette for support and her being willing to take time out of her schedule to teach me, I can now do everything I was afraid of with music.

The really cool part is we had so much fun. I have found that whether I am the student or the teacher an exchange happens that fuels both people. I can be just as passionate about being a student as being a teacher.  I love to learn and I am always in a learning environment.  I have mentors, coaches, friends and teachers that support me in my learning.

I am free because I am have chosen to remain conscious and not limit myself with what I already know to design and create my life. Most of you that know me know that I take risks and I trust that if there is something I need to know, I will learn it when I get to that point.  Until then, I will not limit my choices or my life to the mediocrity and status quo of everything having to fit nice and neat into what I already know.

If you are ready to step out of what has become ho hum for you, you can begin by asking yourself what areas of your life are you currently experiencing disconnection in or less than optimal results?  Are there new areas of learning that would enhance your capacity to experience more of what is important to you?  It might be easier to start out seeing yourself on the other side of having learned a new skill, competence or body of information.  The question to always keep in the background is what would new learning make available to me?  How will my life be different if I choose to be an open and willing student?

I would love to hear what you are learning and what is available to you because of your willing to be a student in your own life. You can make a comment on this blog page. of my website by clicking here or drop me a line at denise@empoweringpotential.com