Redefining My Purpose

       At the beginning of the school year 2020-2021, I was disconcerted with the thought of how there would be no physical classes and therefore no students in the school given the precarious situation of the Covid-19 pandemic.  My mind raced. What would happen to my role as a Guidance Counselor if I had no kids to interact with? If I had no parents to engage with, as this was elemental in my work before the pandemic. For a moment there, I lost my bearings and felt useless. But then I looked more deeply and observed more closely what was still present minus the physical presence of the students and parents. It was there that I saw and realized how the very human beings who have taken on the task of nurturing the students, who have willingly taken on the role as second mothers and fathers of the children I have worked with, are with the full force of their entire being, present and still fighting the good fight.

            So since Week 1 up to the present of this first year of Online Distance Learning, with my newly-found and acquired skill and practice of Mindfulness in Movement and Meditation, I decided to interact with the teachers more deeply than last school year and engage with them more meaningfully through Yoga. In the process, I had hoped to support them with the inner resources they need for their physical, mental and emotional health. It is my way of honoring their sacrifice and giving value to what they relentlessly put into every single day without fail into the education of the students.

I find no coincidence that in Yoga Asana, there are three Virabhadrasanas.  Vira in Sanskrit means hero. Bhadra means friend and Asana means pose. It is named after Virabhadra, a powerful warrior in Hindu Mythology. How apt and worthy it is to meld this term into the person and work of our teachers. They are inherently warriors and heroes providing the students the intellectual and mental stimulation and quite possibly life-saving education they most need in these challenging times. They themselves needed to destroy their old definitions of what teaching means and rebuild new ones from ground zero. From the creation of online teaching modules, innovating teaching methodologies and sharpening their assessment strategies to proactively dealing with new forms of academic and behavioral issues that arose in the online distance and modular learning on top of combatting their own mental, physical and emotional struggles, they are in the real sense of these current times, warriors in their own right.

In the past 2 months, new teachers have undergone their training preparing them for the incoming school year. I have been introducing them to the concept of how essential mindful movement and exercise is to efficacy and efficiency in learning and teaching through the experiential practice of Yoga with a space for deep personal reflection after every practice. With every class I teach them, I feel more grateful to utilize the chance to share resources so they may be able to find their own deepest motivation that will enable them to be the teachers they are meant to be. To be the warriors they inherently are. Helping them help themselves. This is after all the real essence of Guidance and Counseling.

Suffice it to say that now, I have anchored myself to my own new definition, just like what our teachers have undergone, of what it means to guide, to provide counsel, to give support through the deeper, more introspective holding of space for others, for our teachers. Because of this I have found more meaning and purpose in the work I do. If at the beginning of the school year I felt so out of my comfort zone, disconcerted and out of place, now I feel I am finding my way and the way is leading me to where I rightfully belong. And I can only be tremendously grateful to the Universe planning this all. There are no coincidences after all. Even if they exist, Albert Einstein once said that they are God’s way of remaining anonymous. So there’s that.