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Serving a community of private individuals and professionals
who have the desire to cultivate a life of clarity, compassion,
and creativity. Your feedback is encouraged. Please contact
us at seishindo@seishindo.org.
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Workshops Announcements
The discipline of Seishindo offers you the best
of both Eastern and Western models of health and well-being.
A remarkable system that merges Oriental philosophy
with Western science.
Click on these links to find out about the details.
The
Body of Tenderness–The Body of Fear:
Finding the Wisdom of Love
Wash. DC, April 16-18, 2004
Tuning
Your Instrument:
Seishindo Life Coaching workshop for performance artists
Manhattan, New York City, April 24, 2004.
ADD,
Dyslexia, and Other Learning ABILITIES
Manhattan, New York City, April 25, 2004.
Use
Eastern Wisdom to transform your life,
and thrive in the Western World
San Diego, CA: July 12- 13, 2004.
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1. Starting Line
Have you ever considered how important your ability to "get
the right answer" is in regard to the general sense you
have of yourself as a competent and respected human being?
Here is a story that can give you some insight into how you
perceive your "learning identity" in comparison
to your peers.
Recently I was watching some young children "play"
in a supervised setting. It helped me to understand how important
our ability to learn and perform in group settings is to our
sense of identity. It also helped me to understand how important
adults are in helping give children confidence in themselves
as learners, and a sense that each child is a valued member
of society.
Often when I watch children interacting in a group setting,
I ask myself the following question: "How will the interactions
I am watching now help to shape similar behaviors once the
children become adults?" Here is a case in point.
Recently I visited an after school center in Japan. Three
girls and two boys were being led by an adult to play a game
that involved coming up with answers to questions based on
math calculations. One of the girls was clearly much better
than the other children at coming up with the right answers.
She would call out the answer while the other children were
still busy counting on their fingers. For most children "fingers"
seem to be the first calculator they learn how to use. Pretty
convenient to have such a calculator, but usually not the
fastest way to come up with the answer.
For the first two or three questions all of the children
seemed to enjoy the game. By the time the fifth question was
posed two of the children were no longer really participating,
and a third child (one of the boys) was disrupting the entire
process by shouting, and generally proving difficult to control.
The one girl who was getting all of the answers right became
angry with the noisy boy and she was telling him to behave
himself. Soon all of the children were in a state of chaos.
The adult switched to a game that involved throwing bean
bags into a small container that was placed on the top of
an eight foot pole. Soon the "noisy" boy was having
a great time and excelling in this activity, and the girl
who had done so well in the math competition was sobbing and
off by herself in a corner. Have you had similar experiences
in your own life?
Each child, and each adult, no matter how seemingly noisy,
rambunctious, or clever, possesses high quality skills in
some areas, and a lesser ability in others. The "trick"
in being a good teacher, either as a parent, or as a professional
working in a school, is to help each child to maintain a positive
self image, while teaching them how to think about and perform
the tasks they are currently not competent at. Our school
systems would be much different if learning HOW to get the
right answer, was deemed to be just as important if not more
so, than the actual answer itself. Learning how to learn is
an important task that will either feed us or debilitate us
in our ongoing life. All learning takes trial and error, and
making mistakes needs to be more highly valued. Each human
being needs to be able to appreciate their strengths as well
as their weaknesses. We need to be able to respect ourselves
for what we do know, while nurturing ourselves in the areas
that we find daunting.
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Private Sessions
If you would like to become better able to work wisely
with core issues such as your identity, deteriorating
health, a general sense of well-being, destructive
habit patterns, strained personal relationships, and
various professional concerns, please consider engaging
in an in-person private session with me.
My private sessions in Wash. DC will be on April 20th
and 21st.
My private sessions in New York will be on April 13th
and 14th.
Read
more about what Seishindo sessions can bring you.
Read
what other people say about Seishindo sessions.
If you think you might be interested in a private
session, please contact Charlie directly at charlie@seishindo.org.
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2. Main course
Would you describe yourself as "a successful" learner?
I ask this question because I believe it has an important
impact on how you think of yourself as an individual, and
the manner in which you interact in society.
Do you know that MANY of the world's most gifted people are
blessed with dyslexia? Everyone from Leonardo DaVinci, to
Albert Einstein. Do you also know that MANY of the world's
most successful inventors, entrepreneurs, and self starters,
have been identified as having ADD? If you look closely at
some of the "alternative" yet well founded literature
that is available today, you will find that some behaviors
and ways of learning that have been labeled as "learning
disabilities" are also very much "learning ABILITIES."
Every child falls hundreds of times during the course of
learning how to walk. When watching a child learning to walk,
it is so apparent they do not lose confidence and get depressed
each time they fall. For a young child, falling does not equal
failing, and in fact each fall just seems to strengthen their
resolve! It is only as we grow up that we begin to connect
trial and error learning with a lack of ability.
So often in Seishindo workshops when we are teaching people
how to appreciate their learning abilities we find they wind
up having a touching emotional experience. At first it might
be hard for you to imagine that someone would get "emotional"
simply because they improve their visual memory. But our identity
as a learner is very much tied into how we feel about ourselves
as a total human being.
It is very common for people to relate how as a young child
they made a certain mistake or didn't know the answer in a
particular situation, and from that day forward, they thought
of themselves as "stupid" or "awkward."
When people in our workshops perform a task they do not feel
competent at, they almost always begin by exclaiming how poorly
they will likely do. What a powerful, and truly inaccurate
belief to have about one's ability to learn!
When we help people to break through their belief system and
"just be here and do it" it is amazing to watch
how they perform much better than they ever expected. It is
not so much that they started out not being good at the task
at hand, but rather that they invariably begin such tasks
believing they are incompetent. Many times we have seen people
shed a tear after performing beyond what they thought they
were capable of. A touching example that occurred recently
is the following: A woman in her late fifties came to a workshop
in which we were teaching learning skills. We spent about
an hour in total teaching people how to juggle. At first this
lady said she would be totally incapable of juggling as she
was such a total klutz, and in no time at all she seemed to
be proving herself correct. We slowed down the process dramatically
and taught her the first and most important step in juggling
called "the drop." You throw up one bean bag or
ball and then you purposefully drop it, and congratulate yourself
for doing so well! The act of self-congratulations is very
important here. At first the woman seemed confused when she
dropped the bean bag and was meant to congratulate herself.
In fact what happened was that it was difficult for us to
get her to actually drop the bean bag. She kept on catching
it instead. This led us to understand that she was so concerned
about making a fool out of herself that she did the task "incorrectly"
even when doing so proved that she was quite capable to begin
to juggle! After working with her for about a half hour, we
had her doing a simple three bag juggle and she was ecstatic!
Within a minute or two after we stopped this part of the program
she wondered out loud, "Wow, I might even be able to
dance now!" Well, being that she was at a Seishindo workshop,
one young man in the group jumped up, bowed, and asked for
her hand, some appropriate music was put on, and in no time
at all the woman was dancing away and enjoying herself tremendously.
When the music stopped the woman said thank you to everyone
and then promptly started to cry. After allowing her some
time for her experience I asked her gently what was going
on. She said that as a child growing up on a farm, it was
necessary for her to help out with all of the chores. One
of her jobs was to milk the family's cow and bring the milk
into the house for consumption. One day, as she had played
a bit longer than she should have, by the time she finished
milking the cow it was pitch black out. She was carrying the
pail of milk back into the house, and she stumbled and fell,
spilling all the milk. Her father was furious. The next day
she was so nervous that she was barely able to milk the cow!
Upon finally finishing, she was very carefully carrying the
milk back into the house when her father called from a distance
to tell her to be careful. She turned to hear what he was
saying and she tripped and once again spilled all the milk.
This time her father was really read hot angry. He told her
what a klutz she was and that she would never amount to anything.
He told her that if she was lucky to find some fool to marry
her, she wouldn't be capable of dancing at her own wedding.
Sure enough when she did get married she refused to dance
at her own reception, and everyone wondered why. As she told
her story while weeping she said that for the first time in
close to fifty years, she felt like a girl again, and she
knew in the moment that she had a lot of dancing to catch
up on!
It is important to take a look at what you learned as a child
from various adults, about your identity as a learner. Were
you taught that you were clumsy? Were you taught that learning
is a complex and rewarding process? Were you taught what YOUR
style of learning is, and how the way you learn is unique
and brilliant? Learning requires that we experiment and make
mistakes along the way. Without making mistakes learning does
not take place. If you do not believe in yourself as a learner
then it is unlikely you will do well in the subject you are
studying, or the activity you are performing. If you do not
appreciate the many mistakes you make along the way, you will
rarely get to congratulate yourself for reaching your cherished
goal. If you cannot appreciate your false starts and stumblings,
then it is unlikely you will have the heart to stay the course.
The future of the children of the world, be it your children,
the children of your neighbors, or the child within you, depends
on one's self image of "being a successful learner"
that gets reinforced or torn down along the way. We need to
help each other recognize our unique talents and abilities,
and how we can adapt our abilities to fit various subject
matter and group settings. We need to recognize there are
countless ways to go about learning any one subject. We need
to be able to convert each "mistake" into an opportunity
to learn more about how we learn, and what we need to do to
bring our brilliance to the forefront.
Learning is a creative act of self exploration. Every important
success requires numerous false starts and failures. You ARE
unique and competent! I hope that each one of you will come
to experience this truth more and more in your everyday life.
3. Practice
"Old
Memories, New Learnings"
This Practice speaks to today's topic concerning some of the
negative learning identities we took on as a child. If you
would like to gain a more positive image of yourself as a
learner, you will find this Practice very beneficial.
4. Links
Mid
Atlantic Center for Healing
This site is run by Susan Hough, a friend and supporter of
Seishindo. It showcases a broad range of trainings to assist
people in their healing and help them advance in their personal
and professional growth. It also has several mentoring programs
for people who are interested in developing or deepening their
own healing abilities.
5. Suggested Books by
Charlie Badenhop
"The Gift of Dyslexia"
by Ronald Davis
This is a wonderful book that will help you to understand
much more about "the gift of dyslexia" and how we
can each learn to work with and expand upon our unique learning
abilities. I believe this book is important for anyone that
wants to understand more about themselves as a unique learner,
and it is particularly meaningful to read if you consider
yourself or someone you know, to be dyslexic.
6. Suggested Music
CD: "Sacred Treasures I"
This CD features a powerful Russian male choral group. It
is soothing, serene, and ethereal. With a good sound system
you really get the sense of being in the cathedral listening
to their performance. We often use this CD in Seishindo
workshops.
If you are thinking about purchasing this CD notice that
there are now several versions out (I, II, and III). This
is the only one of the three that I have experience with.
7. Endnote
John Nolan writes:
"Dogs that know when their owners
are coming home and other unexplained powers of animals"
is a great book. And yes, the title is just as it is shown
here. The author is Rupert Sheldrake, and the book offers
a fascinating look at the human-animal relationship and an
interesting theory of invisible bonds between mammals contained
within "morphic fields."
John also recommends a second book:
"Mind Wide Open"
by Steven Johnson. "I think his findings complement and
support those in "A General Theory
of Love" but are interesting in their own right
as well. Johnson explores the workings of his own mind through
the latest neurological testing techniques, from MRIs to biofeedback,
and offers some fascinating findings."
Thanks John!
* * *
We invite you to send in
A) Questions and comments relating
to what you read here.
B) Experiences that relate
to the "Practices" presented.
C) The names of books/music/services/products,
etc. you feel might be of interest to the Seishindo community.
Please include a short write-up about your selections.
Let us know whether it is OK to have your name appear with
the information you share. We will do our best to address
most if not all input. Please
send all input to us.
8. Milestones
Sharry Teague writes:
Since retiring from high school counseling, I wanted to
find a way to encourage parents of high school seniors.
It's a difficult year for both kids and parents. Recently
I completed a quick-guide (only 18 pages!) for parents called
"Senioritis
Prescription, Parents Quick-Guide to a Winning Senior Year."
I also created a website to let folks know more about this
guide. I welcome parents of teens to visit and read a sample.
* * *
We use this section of our newsletter to acknowledge and
honor various members of the Seishindo community. Graduations,
marriages, births, passings, new businesses, accomplishments
of all kinds. If you have information that you feel is appropriate
please
send it to us.
9. Copyright
Unless otherwise attributed, all material for the newsletter
"Pure Heart, Simple Mind"(tm) is written and edited by Charlie
Badenhop ©. All rights reserved.
You may reprint, copy, or distribute "Pure Heart, Simple
Mind” (tm) provided you: a. Receive our written permission
(which is likely). b. Attach the above copyright notice
to our material. c. Do not sell our material to others.
d. Keep the content of our material intact without any editing
whatsoever.
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