Sometimes You Just Want To Sit At the Back of the Room…

I joined a group this week where I felt I’d find like-minded souls, and which is being run by two insightful people whose hearts are huge and whose work is wonderful.

I thought to myself, “This could finally be someplace where I can just sit back, and listen, and learn myself.”

And yet the first time I answered a public question about what I want to work on for myself, I got an immediate “I can learn from you now, since you are at that stage, let me know how it works for you, let me know tips on how…”

And I found myself back in a teaching position. My own discoveries were now expected to be shared with everyone else — no chance for privacy, no chance for quiet self-exploration, no chance for holding something close to my own heart.

Give us what you’ve got. Again.

So I may simply step out of that group as well.

Those of us who are natural teachers, or who are charismatics, or who have a big energy profile — we’re used to people asking us for things all the time.

“Teach me.”

“Share what you know.”

“Tell me what to do.”

But there comes a point where (or when) we are burnt out.

Looking back at my own life, I realize that since my early 20s, there is NO group I have ever joined where I didn’t end up either running it outright or taking on a major administrative position in it within 30 days, simply because no one was stepping up. So I always would (or would agree when I was asked to do so).

And I’d fix what was wrong or I’d plant the new seeds or I’d solve the problems or I’d stop the infighting…never having a chance to simply enjoy the group for what it was.

It would now just be so much work. I engineered everyone else’s chance to have fun, while finding myself burdened and exhausted. So I would leave, after having fixed everything for everyone else to enjoy.

I was hoping this would be different.

If it isn’t, I’ll leave this one too — before I’m asked to move from the back of the room to be the teacher again.

I still teach. I choose my place of instruction, and I choose my students. They are deeply respectful of me, my time — and my downtime. Thus, when I am there to teach them, I’m there 100%. And all of us benefit from the experience.

Please — think, friends. Sometimes we who teach need a chance not to have to be everyone’s Magic Bag of Holding (thank you, Hermione Granger). We need a chance to just be for ourselves.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a cup of tea and a cat to commune with.

If you call, you’ll get my voicemail.