I don’t know if it is because I am just getting older or that there seems to be so many more opportunities, so many resources and information everywhere to feed our interest and our professional development. Who you are is part of that discourse, that discovery, which I have explored outside the realms of ESL, but have found to be equally invaluable for teaching. Boundaries are one of those areas. 

Boundaries are both cultural and individual. Physically, what is the space you are comfortable with when talking with another person?

Home.  I think most of us from time to time experience a longing, a yearning to be home, to feel at home in our own being, and feel a sense of belonging to be with others in a meaningful way.  That longing doesn't stop at the workplace door.  It is part of our essence.  That journey - our life's journey of ups and downs, trials and tribulations - sometimes leaves us lacking in the very thing that would be helpful - self-compassion for ourselves and compassion for others.

Written for the CATESOl Newsletter (California Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages)
 
I am drawing a blank.  One of those times when I am not finding the direction of something to write.  Usually I hear a podcast, read an article, or am mindful of something going on in me or in other teachers that seems noteworthy.  Perhaps this is the theme –I don’t know and being ok with that, trusting that something will arise before the deadline - or not.  I am more committed these days to less perfectionism, to less is more and being more gentle with not knowing.  “…not your aims or your actions are primary, but the state of consciousness out of which they come.”  Eckhart Tolle.