More than a catchy phrase
How did September go? Are you through the toughest transitions? Are there more smiles, fewer tears, and easier night’s sleep in your household? Or are the big feels just as big?
I wonder about your transitions too, not just those of the kiddos and students you’re supporting.
Many friends, colleagues, and community members have been letting me know about their own back-to-school journeys, job shifts, and health recalibrations. There seems to be a lot of change these days.
Is there something in the water / air / cosmos?
I've got a big transition of my own to share: I've taken a love-filled leap with Awakened Learning and am going all in. For the past 5-ish years, I've been offering holistic learning strategies to learners, parents, and professionals on the side while working full-time in post-secondary education. Last week, I said an appreciative 'see-ya' to the kind folks at YorkU and have moved into 'go mode' with this heartfelt business.
In doing so, it’s made me contemplate the lines we have on repeat—our looped stories and phrases.
One of my top hits has been some variation of 'I can’t,' or 'not yet,' or, in deep, vulnerable truth, 'other people might be able to do that, but that’s not something I can do’.
Hogwash.
In place of “I can’t,” I’ve been waking up to much more helpful turns of phrase—uplifting, broadening, and resonant.
My friend Grace says, “What’s for you won’t pass you by.”
My colleague Lisa wrote me, “Leap, and the net will follow.”
My new friend Kena mentioned, “All in divine timing.”
My mentor Linda often uses the word “alignment.”
My chosen family Meg speaks of “attunement.”
My champion Alyssa has nudged me with words of spaciousness, ease, and trust.
And so, I’ve kept these words firmly in place, considering the possibilities of phrases themselves as learning strategies.
Advice for the turning tides of uncertainty
Years ago, when I was leading nature-immersive academic resilience trips, a colleague said, "You must lose sight of the shore in order to reach the horizon." I loved this. The invitation to let go into the mist, fog, haze, and uncertainty—and trust that, somehow, a clearer pathway will emerge—felt so inviting, so full of possibility. What permission this compact line provides to take steps, to take skillful action, even if the more distant goal isn't solid or clear.
A beloved collaborator often shared two well-known quotes with our students:
#1 “A smooth lake never made a skilled sailor.”
What an important line for students who identify as struggling in some way to hear. That failed test, that course you have to redo, that probation notice—they can actually make you a better student.
#2 “Water dripping on stone eventually breaks through.”
Again, so significant for students, as it’s in the chipping away, the daily habits, the ‘little and often’, the efforts over time, the aggregates our incremental impact.
So, what counts as a learning strategy? So much more than is usually included. Learning strategies aren’t just study schedules and time management hacks, but also what we do in our breaks, how we intentionally make time for friendships, and how we have clear, consistent, boundaried bedtimes to give our bodies (and minds! and spirits!) necessary recoup time.
Bring on the loving, holistic disorientation of learning strategies! 🙂! School—and life—can go and feel so much better, lighter, sweeter.
So, in this season of shifts, I’m curious about the words and sentences that are landing in your heart and spirit. What expressions feel, in your body, like a perfectly strummed chord, like a cellular reverberation?
And, too, what are the turns of phrase that your learners are repeating to themselves, aloud or within, for which a more space-making, heart-melting, hope-fuelling alternative might help?
The lines that land are so much more than a catchy phrase—they can become a micro-intervention, a guiding reminder, a loving lyric, or an unexpected learning strategy.
Wishing you kind learning,
Deena
Founder + CEO of Awakened Learning (Boom!)