What Are Your Teachable Moments?

I’m one of those people who could spend his life going to school.  My mother has always promised me that if she won the lottery I could go to school for the rest of my life.  Unfortunately she hasn’t won the lottery but I embarked on my latest educational journey two years ago.  I find lots of opportunities for teachable moments sitting in a classroom, but that’s a bit limited in scope.  The real learning happens as we walk in the world on a daily basis.

It’s amazing the lessons you can learn simply by walking down the street and paying attention.  You can learn social skills, develop new interests, and most importantly feel what it’s like to be alive that day!  There is an important question to consider, “how do you learn best?”  When faced with a chronic or life-threatening illness you’ve got a steep learning curve, but that doesn’t mean you have a teachable moment; it means you’re being bombarded with information.

The teachable moment comes when you can take the physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects of the learning and apply them to your life.  It often happens at the most inopportune times and that’s the Universe’s way of having a bit of fun with you, but when it happens you’ll know.  Most likely you’ll feel a bit overwhelmed, flustered, and not quite sure what happened because it happened so fast.  If you pay attention to those moments you’ll come out with the lessons of that teachable moment that are directed at living life beyond your illness.

The biggest of all teachable moments is figuring out how you can learn the lessons you need to live without being faced with catastrophe.  Just because you feel better doesn’t mean you’re done having teachable moments.  If you stop looking for those moments be prepared for what I call the boomerang effect; the moment in time when that big smack on the side of the head shows up once again to get your attention.

Use your teachable moments to their fullest capacity and take each of those moments as a blessing…I know I do!