Dump Your Pockets

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

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Please remember, it is what you are that heals, not what you know. – Carl Jung

Dumping Our Pockets

Dumping our pockets is about fixing, saving, and helping. If we are busy dumping our pockets, when do we listen? How do we understand? In what ways do we connect? We don’t. We stay in do mode. Do mode that does not allow reflection. Do mode that does not allow breath. Do mode that is more about reacting than sitting with and holding.

A Good Place

The impulse to dump our pockets comes from a good place, but there is more to the story. It is helpful. It is about alleviating the hurt of others, using our experience to ease someone else’s struggle, and sharing the weight of pain. I am the queen of putting out the fire in someone else’s house while my house burns. I am a glass house stone thrower. It’s just easier. Looking more deeply, dumping our pockets allows us to stay in our heads, judge and critique, and use words like “should” and “ought.” It lets our egos and opinions enter in and close off our hearts.

Instead of Dumping Our Pockets

Dumping our pockets is an easy response. It’s like going to the garage, grabbing a toolbox – finding the right wrench or screwdriver or hammer -and getting to work. Wrenches and screwdrivers and hammers (like advice, “simple steps,” and life hacks) are great, but I want to suggest there are other tools to consider, not simply dumping our pockets, that might work better for complex situations in the long run. Listening is a tool. Breathing is a tool. Creating is a tool. Forgiving is a tool. Surrendering is a tool. Stillness is a tool.

When We Don’t Dump Our Pockets

Good things happen when we don’t dump our pockets. We learn from situations. Our relationships deepen and strengthen. We foster curiosity, creativity, and openness. The cement of our opinions and beliefs becomes less fixed and confining and we allow growth and change to happen. Ultimately, we begin to heal.