Allow Yourself To Learn

Allow Yourself to Learn

It was an incisive phrase I snatched from a sparkling conversation. The other person was of more mature years, but time had not dulled their mind or blunted their wit. The glitter of the conversation was nurturing and enjoyable.

‘Allow yourself to learn.’ In a rare moment of lucidity, I caught this phrase and clutched it tightly to myself. A lot is going on with this phrase, and here are just some of the bombs that go off once you light the fuse.

First, you have to own up to the fact that you get it wrong. To admit to the fallout and the bruises that are yours and those that you implanted (hopefully unwittingly) on others. Allow yourself the fact that you don’t know it all; you never will, but you are determined to go gently learning, always being patient with yourself.

Secondly, allow yourself to grasp the stinging nettle that it is OK to fail. It’s what happens after you plummet face down in the mud that matters. Do you lie there feeling sorry for yourself, or do you courageously pick yourself up, seek solace with a beverage and friend, and plot ways to avoid such a mishap?

All too often we don’t allow ourselves the space and massage of allowing ourselves to learn. There are lessons aplenty, and we should have learnt them the first time, but being mortal means that we have to repeatedly go back to some good old one-on-one tutoring.

Listen to that little voice that is too easily silenced ... It’s OK, in fact it is necessary, to allow yourself to learn. The stomping bullies of self-congratulation and self-righteous priggishness are our worst enemies and do us a lot of harm. They can, however, be easily vanquished by allowing ourselves the space to learn.