I've been thinking about Lessons Bloody Lessons and decided that the title is a bit misleading. It's a throwback to a time about 5-10 years ago when I thought I had learned enough. And I got really mad, raging mad about the idea of always having to learn more and more lessons and that they would never end. So, I suppose, now that I've realised that I've always had this really cool internal teacher (the Holy Spirit in Christian terms, the Buddha Within in Buddhist terms) and that I can learn my lessons when I'm ready, it's not so bad, really.
The key word in learning from life and enjoying it while you do is "enthusiasm". Whatever you're doing be enthusiastic about it. If it's a boring job, what we call a real chore, then learn to do it on auto-pilot, and put your enthusiasm into thinking about what you really love. It could be something from the past or the future, it could be a place you'd love to be or have been. It doesn't matter what we think about as long as we are enthusiastic about it.
Jim Green maintains that when people become enthusiastic about anything they can actually warm up a cold room. And equally well if other people are knocking the idea they cool the room down. He told me enough stories of his experiences with this to convince me.
The students were complaining last night that the room I was teaching in was cold. I was roasting. Maybe it was because I was moving around a bit more than them, or maybe I was being more enthusiastic about the subject than them. Anyway we did a few exercises and they all warmed up.
In the Way of One course with Tantra Maat and Richard Waterborn (An Tosnu, Carrigaline, 1996) she explained that enthusiasm can be interpreted as "in Theos I am" Theos being the greek word for God.
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