A CONSCIOUS LIVING PRACTICE FOR TODAY – OCTOBER 3

Growth is the only evidence of life.
— Cardinal Newman

THE LEARNING PARADIGM

A learning paradigm offers certain advantages over a therapeutic or healing paradigm. In the latter paradigms, you need to identify something wrong with you before you can get better. While this viewpoint can be useful when you’re sick, it’s not very useful when you’re not. A learning paradigm does not presume anything is wrong with you—it says simply that there are things you can learn to make your life more easeful and productive. The therapy paradigm often focuses on past events, presumably so a more positive present can be attained. While this may sometimes occur, the therapy paradigm often keeps people trapped in the past, perceiving themselves as victims. The learning paradigm invites you to take full responsibility for your life, make commitments in the present, practice those commitments, and identify goals for the future. The act of doing these things may pull past events to the surface, but they emerge in the context of a forward-looking journey to the future, not in a reference back to the past.

A CONSCIOUS LIVING PRACTICE FOR TODAY – OCTOBER 3

Pause for a moment and ask yourself, “What do I most need to learn today?” Be open to any thoughts that come to mind. Today, pause frequently throughout your activities to wonder, “What do I most need to learn right now?”

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