Gifts

Well, I think I got another gift from working the steps this week: I was able to try teaching again. This is pretty big. I used to teach, but badly, and well over ten years ago. I didn't think I was cut out for it, but I've been thinking that maybe I just wasn't ready for it. I don't actually want to be a regular classroom teacher, I don't have the drive for it that you need to be a good one, and despite the fact it pays lousy, I still want to be an artist. But I might be able to do some art teaching, possibly in a school or at my own studio, or a combination of the above.

How do the steps help me with this? Well, it's helping me deal with the maelstrom of emotions that teaching conjure up, particularly the big FEAR that has been enveloping my mind when considering it. I can't eat over it any more, I know where that sad storyline goes, and I want to try to pass on some of that information I've collected through twenty years of being an art student. Unlike the studio, teaching is, duh, not a solitary occupation, and that's a nice change. I think I can see that if I can make this work, it could be very rewarding.

In some respects, I think I've been allowed to mature, develop some skills that weren't possible for that scared little kid inside me. Working through the fear, I can start seeing the joy. I used to eat to suppress that fear. Note to self: doesn't work. It might make it easier to nap for an hour but then the fear returns, refreshed by the food, and being stuffed to the gills makes it even harder to deal with it.

The other thing that working my program has shown me is that sharing my fears with some people that I trust (which, BTW, I have learned is not necessarily everyone I meet in the rooms) in OA helps me to work through the fears. They may or may not have suggestions, but by just sharing it, I feel some support, and sometimes while sharing, an idea will leap to mind, or I'll gain a fuller perspective. This is all new stuff for me --- I didn't get it growing up, although I'm sure that if my parents themselves possessed these skills, they would have passed them on to me. It's not their fault nobody told them.

I guess it's true that this way of life is not just about the food. In fact, the more I practice this stuff, the more the food retreats into being a part of my life, not my whole life.