Teaching and me

When in January I first decided to write a blog I was quite afraid of 'being' out there' with my thoughts. Now I wonder if it has become more about my need to feel approval. My need to 'teach', to feel gratification that I changed another's life in some small way. Not that the teaching itself is a problem, only that my self-esteem depends on this.

Yesterday I became quite agitated when watching a person using a chainsaw. I'm afraid of power tools and am often corrected for using them unsafely myself, despite which, watching someone else do so, I couldn't help myself from pointing out what they were doing wrong and advising on 'the correct method'.

Well Laws of Attraction being what they are, I managed to pick someone who (also) had a big issue with being told what to do. But I kept telling myself that I was justified in doing what I did, that it was 'a safety issue' and in fact it was my duty to do so.

It wasn't until hours later, having recognised I was angry and let it out a bit on the long drive home, that I saw things in a different light. Perhaps my agitation was really covering my unmet need, my strong desire to feel better about myself by showing someone something I knew. What I want to happen is that I show them and they express humble gratitude and I walk off feeling good about myself. And my internal turmoil was all about my not getting what I needed in that situation.

I've taken pride in teaching my kids. How to read, ride a bike, drive a car, play the piano, the violin, how to solve a maths problem, write an essay, pretty much anything I could (even when I was a bit ordinary when it came to doing those things myself!). For years I've felt good about this teaching thing. But my kids haven't; in fact I'm probably single-handedly to blame for them not wanting to play any musical instrument, and this despite what I feel is considerable natural talent in some of them.

That's pretty bad. And pretty shocking that it has all been driven by my need to feel that I am a 'good teacher'. I tell myself I'm doing a good thing but my motivation is self-serving; I have to get approval not for being who I am but for what I can do.

So perhaps my blog-writing motivation needs to be revisited. It will be wonderful one day when I have dealt with all my needs, have felt remorse for what the kids and others have been put through, and talk, write, teach for the joy of it, no strings attached.