I was contemplating your question and looking at the ways in which I am teachable. I started to think of all the things I know and got onto the gerbil wheel in my head that many of us have where the inner dialog becomes nothing but me, myself and I. This is, I believe, what leads us to become set in OUR own ways. Always ME, Me, me…

When I tried to shift gears and look outside myself for a moment, since I wasn’t getting the answer I wanted when the finger was pointed at me, I picked someone I know who is set in their ways to evaluate. This is just mirroring the things I dislike in others that I have trouble owning up to in myself of course!

This person I know has ALL the answers, ALL of the time about EVERYTHING. I don’t know if it’s just his massive ego or an unwillingness to face his fear of being seen as ignorant. Perhaps the two can’t be separated. This keeps leading me back to me and how I feel about myself. 

I’m a college drop-out, a poor student, prone to exaggeration and consider myself somewhat knowledgeable on quite a few subjects but nobody can be knowledgeable about everything. To be teachable is to admit to not having all of the answers and being comfortable with that.

I guess the best advice I would give myself when I feel my heels digging in is to recognize the underlying fear and conquer it by yielding up my ego to possible criticism or attack.

For those of you who don’t know Andrea, she is the owner of a wonderful Inn, a skilled painter and artist and among the most creative people I know. Just goes to show that book learning and school (said as I enter into the 3rd day of my first PhD residency) are not the only sources of education and that we all have much to learn from one another regardless of degrees and pedigrees.