Good to see you've gotten some kind of explanation. JustJenny wrote a great post a while back, maybe if someone remembers and can post a link, that would help you.
Meanwhile, I'll give it a try. I teach musicians, so I'll use that as an analogy. A young pianist gets a lousy critique from a very respected musician. 'That was bad playing'. The young pianist has two choices - he can think, gawd, he's right, I'm bad, why do I even try...I mean this guy knows everything, if he says I'm bad, why should I bother?'
Or - he can look at himself in the mirror 'You know, I didn't warm up very well today, and I really still don't understand this piece. It's not really ready for performance...and you know, I'm a little dissapointed, this guy is supposed to be a great teacher, why didn't he give me any specific information?' Now, if the student is really differentiated, he may even go back and ask the musician to be more specific, and probably gain the musician's respect in the end (or he could just be a jerk, but in either case, the student's far better off here)
Differentiating is standing up for yourself. Looking at yourself in the mirror, and seeing who you are, and what you bring to any relationship. It gets harder, of course, the more important the other person in the relationship is to you. To go back to the musician, if a fellow student had made the same comment, the pianist might have just shrugged it off, and thought 'He must be having a bad day'. It's easy when there's not much involved to 'hold on to yourself'.
If you guys will bear with me a little, I've been wanting to put these thoughts down for a while, so I'm going to continue...
Long before I read Schnarch, I was 'teaching' by showing the kids that they were responsible for what came out of the tube. I'm always amazed that even the kids that seem really motivated to learn are often convinced from the beginning that they can't (this may be cultural in my case, at least somewhat). 'I can't do that!'
When I tell them, 'I know you can't, that's why you're here!' They look at me funny. I sometimes have to really 'put them into a crucible' before they'll actually play the note for me, to prove their belief wrong. When they do it, they get this amazing look on their face. I love helping a kid get over a hurdle, just for that look.
Now that they've done it once, they own it. There's no way they can go back and say 'I can't!!' Once you've gotten over that hurdle, you have to admit that the choice of repeating that skill (or not) is yours. Once you realize that YOU are responsible for your actions, thoughts, feelings, and how you respond to the actions thoughts, and feelings of others, it puts a great responsibility on your shoulders. You can't put the blame on anyone else any more. It's up to you. If you're brave enough, it gives you a great freedom: noone, nothing is stopping you from fufilling that dream.
