What you should have been taught in school!

What you should have been taught in school!

 

Following on from last week’s ‘what you didn’t realise you learned in school, this week i’m talking about what you should have been taught in school.

 

Because if you had been, you wouldn’t be beating yourself up for some of the things you struggle with now.

 

One of my biggest passions is helping people get out of that self blame, self shame cycle.  That need and habit of beating ourselves up.

 

I’ve been there, it’s not pretty!

 

I spent most of my life wondering why I struggled with certain things.  I thought my personality was this fixed, immovable identity.  I didn’t understand that so much of my personality was built around protection mechanisms that I’d learned along the way from other people and my own experiences.

 

That actually, I could change anything I wanted to with a little work.  To strip back the layers of the onion to be who I always have been at my core.

 

That the things I struggled with, patterns I repeated and beliefs I had about myself aren’t ‘who’ I am.

 

And of course the same goes for you.

 

And really I do believe so much of this ‘stuff’ that we accumulate over the years starts as school.  If you haven’t caught last week’s episode please do go back to that one because it might be a bit of an eye opener.

 

There are things, I believe, that if we had learned in school would have definitely prepared us more in knowing how to ‘human’.

 

That regardless of whether we learned them at home, regardless of our background, conditioning, or circumstances, these things are essential knowledge that could have been very helpful in navigating the world!

 

First up is emotional awareness.  We are emotional beings, we should know that it’s normal and natural to feel and communicate our emotions.  Decoding emotions is actually a whole module in my SOS! Success Over Stress course because of this reason.  

 

We just don’t understand them.  When you break them down you have more power over their power so they stop ruling your life and behaviour. 

 

When you can feel them in the moment and know it’s ok rather than judge yourself for them.  To allow yourself to be curious of them.  

 

How different is that experience vs what the majority of us do which is suppression, denial, numbing behaviours.  We aren’t taught the consequences of doing that and there are many. 

 

Emotions get stuck in our body and cause all sorts of issues.  That energy needs to discharge…which is another thing I think should be taught in school too.  How to process big emotions.

 

So many clients, and I struggle with this myself sometimes too, are disconnected from our feelings.  We find it hard to even name them let alone understand why they might be there.

 

How to handle relationships is the next one.  Oh my goodness.  I’ve healed a lot of things in my life but healing in relationships is the ultimate.  Imagine if we’re taught attachment theory.  If I had known in my teens and twenties what I know now I would have saved myself SO much heartache.

 

I would have understood why I was attracting certain types of guys.  I would have known that, yes they were avoidant butt heads but I would have been able to look at myself and say, ‘hang on, where’s my responsibility here’ and realise I was attracted to them because I was avoidant myself!

 

Relationships to be fair deserve an entire episode or 20 to themselves, but a lot of that is BECAUSE we don’t understand how to operate in them.  We follow what other people in our lives have taught us unconsciously.

 

Financial management is a BIG one! I know it changes all the time so it’s difficult but knowing things like where to look for current legislation and changes on it’s own would have been great!

 

Teaching about bills, tax, money in general.  Making it ok to talk about.  Understanding money stories. Understanding investing.  It’s actually a HELL of a lot easier to teach kids investing than it is for adults. As adults our emotions cloud our decisions and self doubt creeps in.  

 

There are people teaching this to kids now outside of school if you seek it. 

 

Emotional regulation is the next thing.  Understanding our emotions is one thing but how to regulate them is another.  Sef regulation and co-regulation.  This is one of the top 3 super powers I believe every entrepreneur needs.  When you can regulate your emotions you have SO much more control over your behaviour and the ability to operate from the parts of the brain you need to be able to do what you need to do.

 

Things like journaling, meditation, EFT, yoga, breathing techniques.

 

Can you imagine as an adult knowing this in advance?  Most people that seek these answers have got to such a point that it’s necessary.  It’s usually not idle curiosity.  Usually it comes from a need for change.  It’s the wrong way round!

 

The next thing is, imagine being taught as a kid that you have choice and agency. Imagine knowing you don’t have to follow this rigid path or set of rules.  Imagine knowing that there is a big wide world FULL of opportunities.Imagine being taught there’s another way. 

 

That you can run your own business, that you could actually only have to work part of the year.  To know that you can make a living from investing, SO many options we don’t know about.  

 

And I’m still useless with my geography and do not know the square root of pi!

 

There’s a TONNE more i’m sure but these are what I wanted to talk about today.

 

This isn’t about judgement of others and how unfair it is or anything like that.  My aim is to help you understand yourself more.  Your behaviour.  Your conditioning.  To not judge yourself for not knowing things you know now because you had to seek the answers.  

 

You can’t berate or judge the previous version of you who didn’t have this information.

 

I hope it helps you make sense of some of the things you may have struggled with, without judgement!

 

BUT there are some fundamental things that I think, I hope, are perhaps starting to come into the curriculum now if you’re lucky.  I’m definitely hearing more parents talk about how meditation is coming into schools which is amazing.

 

I’m hearing more about kids doing yoga and journaling too.

 

So, knowing that most of this stuff is NOT something you were taught, how can you beat yourself up for not knowing it?

 

It makes total sense why we would self blame and self shame ourselves and get frustrated with ourselves. But really, when you think about this

 

Fx

 

Fran Excell, Subconscious Success Mentor – Helping Business Owners Overcome Stress & Self Sabotage at www.franexcell.com

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