I’ve been asked to blog. What is a blog? I had to look it up. What is my purpose for writing a blog? What kind of blog do I write? What do I write about?
Well, for me, exposing myself with ink and paper is an “edge” for me. I’d like to write about what it means to be “at or on my edge”. For the last few years, I have been working to build a school. Not just any school; but, a school called the “School of Unusual Life Learning”, aka; “SoULL”. Not your ordinary mainstream school! Doing something that’s not mainstream is not unfamiliar to me (if you knew how I grew up!). But teaming up with SoULL’s founder, Jeanne Denney, in developing every inch of the walls of this holistic school, is.
I have loved and been inspired by my colleague’s material. It has definitely enhanced my life from one filled with fear and living in the shadows…. of well…”larger energies”, to one where I just say “Yes” to almost anything I want to do.
So, I have said “yes” to developing marketing. So, I researched ‘how to market’. I have said “yes” to writing a newsletter. I’ve tried my hand at this technology…well… let’s just say I need more practice.
I have said ‘yes’ to fundraising and raised a little over $5000.00 last year with my first try. This year I will try again..
I said “yes” to teaching. Now, I’m a teacher. I have said “yes” to being a board member, a treasurer, and an assistant director! I have said “yes” to bringing in new students, to advertising, to social media and even to doing a live event on Facebook!
And!.…we have grown over the last 2 years. We have been successful. I have been successful. I have grown and expanded in ways I am still figuring out. Sometimes it hurts! I have learned that I have a strong desire to make something great happen that will inspire and free people from hiding their truest self. I like to see things through. I have a strong passion and like for people to believe me and that what I am telling them is something that will benefit and heal their lives.
All of this has had me experience my edge constantly over the last 2 years. The place where stepping back would be comfortable, familiar, safe and easy versus stepping forward which means uncertainty, hard work, and work I have never imagined or thought I had the capacity to do.
Where does my fear lie? Does it lie in stepping back and never fully living and witnessing my own transformations? Or in stepping forward, with everything in me shaking, curious to see what comes?
What is your edge? How far are you willing to go for yourself? What holds you back? How hard are you willing to work for a dream or desire you now believe can’t happen?
Well… life being a series of waves that go up and down, in and out, forward and back offers us infinite opportunities to create new possibilities, or… stay the same... stay safe.
I have watched students explore with wonder over some new revelation they may have intellectually always known, but not felt through every cell in their body. I have seen them go to their depths of personal history and then dance with complete abandon over their new found freedom!
All the way through this journey, I have often questioned myself, doubted myself, and yet the next due date came, the next semester, the next year, and I keep saying ‘yes’. Being on your edge means all this happens and still; I am calling myself forward to meet the next new challenge.
Then, comes a time when I look and see all that has been established and implemented and I realize - that I have been a big part in laying the foundation and the growth of this school. It has been through my experience as a student, an assistant, a teacher, and an assistant director that I have learned about having a life that includes death in it, that has brought my courage, my strength and my gifts forward. My longing to come forward and not hide empowers my life force. I can fail and still say “I did it”!
They say you “have to die into it’ when forging into the uncertainty in order to rise up. This means leaving behind all the reasons to say no, leaving aside the self doubt and the negative self talk in order to see what can be. I continue to move “my edge” further out and can continue to meet it, rise with it, get stuck, or leap forward. The choice is mine.
Once you understand you have roots,
You can let go,
And trust….
Ok. So this is my first attempt at writing a blog, it is, as I acknowledged earlier, an edge for me. What do you think would be an edge for you?
You can dare write it, or not…..
Andrea Pollak,
Assistant Director
