Realization Tuesday

Today was filled with self discoveries and realizations for me. Like everyday I got myself ready in the morning and headed out with the girls to eat breakfast. To our surprise, we were notified that the W&L group was going to take the same listening class as the Social Justice group.The most important quote ,,,,,,,,,,  my teacher said was " listening for understanding." Basically this means, to me, that within a good leader, one must have the quality of being able to listen AND understand one another. Listening takes lots of focus and energy as I learned today which made me think about my action plan. I thought first about being able to understand the issues or problems in my community-- and then swoop in with my ideas. Like how can I create a influential action plan without first listening and understanding my communities struggles and needs.

Our class in the afternoon felt very welcoming because we were already comfortable with each other but, that wasn't the case with ourselves as I learned today. I had a huge realization when I was paired up with Amy(a very wonderful classmate) and we were given a set of questions to ask each other. The first question I asked Amy was " Who are you?" and I don't want to expose her privacy but I can say that I imagined myself in her position and I felt a deep connection to her response. She asked me the same question and I wasn't that open to who I was or my personal life as she was. The next question was" Who do you pretend to be?" I felt  that I owed her at least my honesty and some personal information about me so I began with telling her that I always try to please people and put them before myself. Then it hit me, I went so into my thoughts that I had an emotional breakdown just thinking about this person who I pretend to be everyday . I try to act like everything is fine and fun but in reality, sometimes I feel that by me not complaining about my frustrations, I save people from stressing for me. These type of questions made me reflect on my life and  recognize this mask that I put on everyday. 

I think it was fate that paired me with Amy because she felt the same way about herself. She consoled me and gave me some really good advice that I will definitely use. I feel bad although and a bit selfish because I was supposed to get to know her as well during that time but the whole time she was just trying to make me feel better and I appreciate her for that.

Overall, I believe that if I can learn that much in just two days, I can just imagine how much I will have learned after these two weeks. I can guess that everyone in this program probably enjoys learning but I honestly love when I learn something new and then I receive a feeling of pleasure and satisfaction with myself.  Even connecting with anything or doing something different is a chance for a learning experience and you really just need to have the dedication and willingness to want to learn.

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Last selfie for today