Dear Kareem:

You are welcome. I have new thoughts this morning about how this exercise should be done. If this (my list of ten things above) was an academic exercise, or project then it would be done one way: you will write about the first item first, write notes perhaps, elaborate on them, figure out what you already wrote on the topic in the past and incorporate those writings, edit and re-edit and produce an essay of sort. Then go to the next item.

But this is not an academic project, or an academic learning exercise- it is an emotional learning exercise. Therefore better that you pick up any one of the item you feel like working on at any one time, and write about it whatever comes to your mind. Don’t try to remember what you already thought on the matter in the past/ what you already wrote about it. Instead think about it with what is called “a beginner’s mind”, that is, think about it anew, as if you never thought or wrote about it before. Don’t edit as you write (or after you wrote), thinking to yourself such things as: did what I write make sense, is it congruent with what I wrote before, will I be misunderstood if I post this sentence and so forth.

If you feel too stressed or rushed, anxious at any one time, do it at another time.. or go to an item that is less stressful to you. Maybe do something relaxing before you attempt this or that item, such as drinking hot tea or the like.

Choose any of the items and write what comes to mind, from that beginner’s mind and post to me.

*Emotional learning is very different from academic/ dry-intellectual learning. It is less neat, less orderly, you are not done with one item and then you go to the next. You work on one item, then on another, later go back to the first item and work on it some more, etc. You re-visit the same items multiple times.

anita