The Spiritual Life

"The spiritual life is about becoming more at home in your own skin." - Parker Palmer

I am blessed to teach classes where people want to explore their spirituality.  I have come to believe that one aspect of our spirituality is being fully authentic.  When we are integrous, authentic, vulnerable, and transparent, we are our best selves, we are spiritual.

I have experienced the spiritual holding the hand of our special needs daughter.  I have experienced the spiritual listening to the birds on an early spring morning.  I have seen the spiritual in the dust that sunlight pours through, letting me know miracles are real.

"In the world to come, they will not ask me, 'Why were you not Moses?'  

They will ask me, 'Why were you not Zusha?'"

- Zusha of Hanipoli

Our primary spiritual task is to be all God created us to be.  We do not need to aspire to be like someone else.  We only need to be all that we were designed to be.  Our spirituality resides in our authenticity. 

Being Real

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of speaking to 600 educators from Delaware and Maryland.  This is not an uncommon experience in my life.  Over the past 47 years I have often been asked to give keynote speeches and workshops.  I have never thought that what I had to offer was particularly gifted or brilliant.  I know that intellectually, I am very average.  Something that I express however resonates with most people.  I share my life experiences, my heart, my soul.  I have found that being authentic, being transparent and being real does more good than intellect, salesmanship, debate or force.  I find that being real connects.  My life connects with your life.  We are more similar than we are different.  My only intention is to do God's will and share my truth.  As I speak, I see in the eyes and faces of the audience in genuine connection.  We feel the light of our soul's sun begin to shine.  We are warmed in our authenticity and vulnerability.  We begin to grow together.  Some call this love, some compassion and some empathy.  I feel it as community.

Somehow, through the grace of God, my vulnerability and authenticity gives my listeners permission to be fully human.  We remember our innocence, we remember our sense of purpose.  We remember our joy.

My life is blessed to find the courage to be brave and speak my truth, to share the guidance of the still, small voice.  I pray for the continued courage to be brave, to be real.

Being Human

No other form of life has the depth of intellect and consciousness that human beings are privileged to experience.  The Buddhists believe it is a rare gift to be born a human.  That we as humans have the ability to write these words and read these words and feel connected emotionally through these words is rare indeed.  I never want to take the gift of this human life for granted. 

Today we are alive.  Today we share our precious and rare humanity.  

I am grateful to be here with you.  

So how will we act today?  What will we think today?  

How will we feel today?  Who will we connect with today?  

Today we have much to be thankful for.  Today we are awake.  

We are grateful to feel the warmth of the sun and the warmth of those we love.

True Education- authentic, courageous and vulnerable

My purpose in life is to be authentic, courageous, and vulnerable to the truth of my life.  I am here to follow the still, small voice.  The voice I have come to know as God.  It is that spiritual place in all of us that some call soul and others call unconditional love.  I am here to serve that place in you and in me. 

To know who we truly are, to be authentic, is knowing we are connected to the infinite.  I have come to experience that being authentic requires a lifetime of courage.  This courage, this love of life is like a gentle rain eroding the stone walls of ego. Throughout this process I have experienced moments of enlightenment.  I felt at one with Divinity while in prayer in the mountains of Idaho, praying for healing for our special needs daughter, Ashley.  The message I heard in my heart, head and soul was "She is not here to be healed, she is the healer, let her do her work."  From that moment on, I have shared this vulnerability of my daughter and our life together whenever I speak and teach.

I have come to believe that in therapy and education it is essential to focus on the courage, integrity, authenticity, and vulnerability we need to become fully human.  All the best therapists and teachers I have known help facilitate a learning and discovery process.  The learning is in the process.  The Latin root of the word education is educere.  The meaning of educere, the root of education, is to draw out and lead forth.  Education at its best, has always been about drawing out the best in our students.  It is the passionate teacher that leads forth their students into a life of passion and service. 

True education has never been about shoveling more content into the minds and hearts of children.  True education has never been about one test to find how much content they have accumulated.  True education has always been about those that teach courageously and authentically showing spirit and passion that connects with and draws out the passion and value of their students.

This does not happen with force, manipulation, authority, prizes or rewards.  It is through the integrity, warmth and love of our full humanity that we teach each other to transform into spiritual beings. 

Whole Child Educators...Stay true to our calling

As an educator, teacher, counselor, administrator, and now consultant, I always care about being effective.  Am I getting through to my audience, to my listener, to my students?

As whole child educators, we need to remember to be faithful to our mission. We need to be grateful to the gifts that we share.  We need to be grateful that the world needs our gifts.  I experience a world where children, families, and colleagues need passionate and caring educators now, possibly more than ever before.  We must never allow politics and testing to crush the spirits of the children and colleagues we cherish.

We must stay true to our calling.  We must stay true to the precious children entrusted to our care.  We know in our heart of hearts we will never accomplish our tasks in our lifetime.  When at the end of our time we can say "I was true to my calling" we can leave with a full heart.

Healing

“Healing comes with owning our wounds as the first step in any beyond them.”

- Anonymous

I believe in working together.  All of us, different, unique, abled, disabled, sharing our life stories.  Being together, sharing ourselves, seeing different perspectives, understanding and accepting.  Our pain becomes a teacher.  We become more sensitive, more caring, better able to listen, more compassionate and more empathetic.

Pain is challenging.  There are good days and bad days.  There is mild, manageable, pain and there is crippling, debilitating pain.  It moves me forward.  My priories are clear.  I am forward.  I must do what I can, while I can.  I ask for more help.  I find greater discipline. I seek deeper conversations.  I listen for deeper voices.  I find deeper meaning.

We are all here on this blue marble, hurdling through space, trying to do the best we can with what we know.

I remember one of my dear old friends who had devoted his life to recovery.  He had been abused and beaten as a child by his alcoholic father.  When I asked how he was able to forgive for all the years pain and abuse, my friend said, “He was doing the best he could with the what he knew.”

This for me still rings true as one of my greatest lessons in forgiveness and healing.

Speak your truth

"It is by risking ourselves

from one hour to another

that we live at all."

- William James

Although I do not like conflict and throughout my life, I have often tried to avoid it, there is no way to avoid conflict.  I am a passionate man and I am very passionate in my mission to serve children and schools in Social Emotional Learning.  I have found that when we are passionate in our mission, we will encounter conflict.  When I have avoided conflict with others, I have created a deadly conflict in myself.  When I have not shared my truth and passion, that same truth and passion festers inside me.  When I speak my truth and address my mission, at some point I am in conflict with those who would like me to be someone else.

The cost for being authentic is someone will disapprove.  There will be conflict with someone.  The cost of not being real, the cost of being less than myself creates a series of little deaths inside of us.  Trying to please everyone destroys our authenticity.

At 67 years old, I have to speak my truth.  Life is precious.  

Life is too short to appease everyone and suffer the little deaths that come with societal approval.  

Kindness

"Kindness and compassion are among the principal things that make our lives meaningful. Consideration of others is worthwhile because our happiness is inexplicably bound up with the happiness of others."  - the Dalai Lama

Kindness is essential for our survival.  The qualities of kindness, empathy, trust, gratitude and forgiveness are in urgent need today and every day. The human being is hardwired for altruism.  The giving of kindness benefits the receiver, the giver and all who witness kindness.

There is a great deal of hostility, negativity and hatred in the world today.  We tweet, Facebook, Instagram, email and watch hatred every day on TV.  Mean makes headlines but the human race continues because of kindness.  I see kindness every day.  

On February 19th, I had ear surgery at Hahnemann Hospital in Philadelphia.  I felt kindness all day.  My wife got up at 4:30am to get ready to drive me to and from the surgery.  Before we left our home, she got our special needs daughter ready for the day.  Diaper change and feeding from 4:30am to 5am.  Our youngest son Christian took care of his sister including medicine, breathing treatment and percussion vest so we could go to the hospital for a 6:30am appointment.  We entered the hospital to be shown kindness by the car attendant, the reception desk woman, the surgical center registration nurse, the nurse that checked me in.  Every questions was with a smile.  The anesthesiologist was kind and clear with his questions and the ear surgeon was positive and comforting.  In the surgery room, the women who got me set on the operating table were all warm, friendly, clear and kind.  Until the sedation put me to sleep, all I experienced was kindness.

I awoke to a sweet voice saying "Mr. Stecher, surgery is over, you did great."  In recovery, I continued to be treated with kindness and respect.  Being helped, supported, and guided to the bathroom and to the post op recovery room where I got to see Sandra, my role model for kindness.

I was helped to dress, given post op instructions and a kind man wheeled me to our car.  Sandra drove home and made me soup.  The rest of the day, as everyday, my wife, children and friends showered me with kindness.  My loved ones are kind because it is in our DNA to be kind.  So it is for all of us.  We are born to be kind.

Kindness gives meaning and value to our lives.  It makes us healthy physically and psychologically.  Kindness has an essential impact on our health and well-being.  Kindness can transform us.  Kindness is a universal intervention.  A child treated with kindness grows in health.  A student treated with kindness grows to believe in themselves.

Kindness is giving up revenge and domination.  In kindness, we recognize others perspectives.  We work to understand their point of view and their challenges.  

We are at a critical time in America.  Kindness is essential to our survival as a people, as a nation.

"One nation under God (kindness), with liberty and justice (kindness), for all (kindness)."

Connection

One of the greatest human needs, along with food, water, shelter and touch.  We are biologically designed to nurture, connect, and touch each other.

“We are hardwired for connection” - Berne Brown

It is through the human power of kindness and connection that we will solve the challenges of the world.  I am no longer enammered with intellect.  I know too many very bright intellectuals doing very little to help the world and the people in the world.  I also know countless individuals whose compassion, empathy, and kindness has touched hearts, minds, and saved lives.  We have the power to be warm, caring, sensitive, open and understanding.  These profound human character traits bring a deep heartfelt caring for the value of every precious human life.

We all need compassion.  In our pain and grief we are healed by the loving presence of another human being.  Love is the greatest of all human strengths.  Love transforms our pain into forgiveness, gratitude, and integrity.

We are all blessed with our own personal stories of challenge, compassion and growth.  I invite each of us to reflect back on our lives to a time when we were compassionate.  Allow yourself to remember and feel the warmth of extending compassion and love to another fellow human being.   These are the transformational moments of life.  Those single moments of trusting, listening, saying I love you, holding a hand and giving a hug.  These are the finest moments of human connection.

Compassion

"From your brains perspective, treating people around you with kindness is usually, but not always, the right response." - Dr. Paul Zak, Trust Factor

Compassion improves behavior much more than being tough.  Throughout my 47 years in education, I have often investigated and discussed with fellow educators what is our best intervention for a student who is underperforming or behaving inappropriately.  In my 20's, I sometimes responded with anger and frustration.  Expressing my frustration was a very honest reaction and did allow an outlet for my stress.  It may have stopped the students inappropriate behavior for a short period of time because her or she was frightened but overall it was not helpful.  Generally I have found that punishment is not helpful in challenging behavior.  I have grown to the place that in my late 60's, I preach to focus on compassion and curiosity.

Compassion and curiosity ask "What happened to you?"  Compassion and curiosity moves me from the judgmental place of "What's wrong with you?"

Current research in Trauma Informed Care and empathy tells me compassion will be the better intervention.  Compassion and curiosity will initiate connection, build relationships, and build trust and loyalty.  Students will see their teachers as kind and this kindness "elevates" their trust and loyalty.

"Trust profoundly improves performance by providing the foundation for effective teamwork and intrinsic motivation." - Dr. Paul Zak, Trust Factor

Research also tells us that not only will the student who receives our compassion and curiosity be elevated, but all the students who witness our compassion will also increase their trust and loyalty and be elevated as well.

Compassion increases human beings desire and willingness to trust.  Neuroscience confirms, trust improves behavior and performance.  Compassion also reduces the students stress response.  The reduction in stress and the increase in trust increases creativity, learning and innovation.

Steps to respond with Compassion

- Take a Breath

We need to take a pause and breathe.  We need to control our initial fight, flight, or freeze response.  Pausing to take a breath invites a more mindful response.

- Empathize

We need to see the whole child and be aware of all that is impacting their life and current behavior.

- Forgive

Forgiveness strengthens our connection and relationship with students.  Forgiveness builds trust.  Forgiveness lowers your blood pressure and that of the persona you are forgiving.  Forgiveness reduces stress.

Compassion produces connection, trust, loyalty, creativity, learning and innovation.  

Compassion lowers stress and improves our overall health and well-being.

"We don't have to earn the right to compassion; it is our birthright." - Dr. Kristin Neff

Awareness

The secret of mindfulness is simply paying attention, being aware.  The older I get, I realize that my education as a human being is based on being aware.  Aware of the small, minute details of life.

All of our relationships, thoughts, feelings and actions are enhanced when we bring our awareness to the moment. 

I can easily mentally complicate my life and bring mental clutter and stress into it.  It is simply and profoundly being aware that allows me to be in tune with the warmth of the sun on a cold winter day, the song of a bird on a clear morning, the unique touch of a loved one that touches my heart.  When we are fully aware, our love is enhanced.

Awareness is being in the moment.  Being in the now.  Wisdom is in the moment.  Love is in the moment.  Awareness is sensitivity.  Awareness is being connected to life.  In awareness, we are connected to other hearts and minds.  In awareness, we are connected to our thoughts and feelings.  This internal awareness brings peace.

Love is life

Love is knowing we are connected to everything.

Imagine what a wonderful world it would be if we could walk into every interaction with loving intention.  Love often brings forth a similar response.  Both the giver of love and the receiver of love benefit.  Research into loving kindness tells us that the witness of loving interaction also benefits.  

Love is also healing.  I have witnessed and felt it whenever our daughter Ashley is in the hospital.  The love of her family, friends, nurses, and Doctors is part of her healing process.

Our world needs your love.

Love brings value and worth into our relationships.  Love brings appreciation, joy, compassion, empathy, connection, celebration and life.  Love connects us to meaning and purpose in our life.  Love helps us see the good in others.  Love also helps us appreciate our unique selves.  Love helps us appreciate rather than judge.

Love is life.

Hate will have to dissipate and be broken by love

If we stand up to hate, the world will be blessed with a freedom never known before.  

If we fail to speak our truth, 

if we fail to stand up to hate with love, 

the whole world, 

including everyone we know and love and all those we care for,

 will sink into a depth known in history as the holocaust.  

Let us pray together in love and respect and care,

and believe and accept one another,

no matter how different.

More similar than different

We all reach for different dreams

but deeper within each of us resides

the same Divine spark that reaches

for our unique dreams

Each of us has a unique role to play in life.  Each of our unique roles is essential in building a beautiful community, family, or relationship.  At the core of our uniqueness, there is a Divine seed, a spark of universal love that is in and surrounds all of us.  At our core, we are the same.  We are all seeds of Divinity.  

Empathy teaches us that when we look past our outer shells and when we see deeply into the soul of another, we find ourselves.  At the center of humanity, we all share the same fears and the same joys.  

In my youth, I worked hard to be an individual.  I worked to be creative and unique.  I confess to being proud of my differences.  Now in my 67th year, my primary goals are to build community.  I strive to help all I come in contact with, see their similarities.  I continue to be humbled to be a part of building an understanding and empathetic community. 

Through years of unrelenting back pain and the fear for our special needs daughter's health challenges, I have experienced the vulnerability of my full humanity.  When I was leaving IC, after being with my daughter who was in recovery from pneumonia, I caught the eye of another worried visitor in the elevator.  We looked at each other, tired, worried, and unified in our grief.  In that moment, I realized, we are more similar than we are different.

To love another person is to see the face of God.  

We are more alike than different by Hulya Kara

Purpose

One of the great joys in my life is helping others find and practice their sense of purpose.  I believe that one of the primary reasons for our lives is to find and practice our sense of purpose.  Our sense of purpose is unique to each of us.  We are blessed when we share our purpose with others.  There is no greater joy then to be on purpose.

If you have a sense of purpose, be grateful and practice.  If you are not sure of your purpose, reflect on the moments in your life when you feel joy.  I find that our sense of purpose is difficult to find when we are self absorbed.  When we are being of service to someone else or something greater than us, our purpose is often revealed.

Over the course of my life, I have often reflected and worked on my sense of purpose.  My purpose statement found me in my early days while reading "A Course of Miracles", 1976.