The highly sensitive violin teacher

I haven't slept much in the last week. My cursed perfectionism makes simple tasks impossible....something that I allot a few minutes for inevitably drags on for hours. Anyway, I should be napping now (cancelled appointment! Wow, what do I do with this unexpected free time? Sleep?) but I'm moved to write. (Oh well, maybe later.)

I recently started teaching a parent training course for parents whose kids will be studying Suzuki violin with me. I've been trying to expand my teaching studio now that Oliver is in preschool. I love teaching, and we could use the $$. So I've recruited a group of parents to do the course together. In the past I only had one or two parents at a time, and we used a textbook that I thought could be better. So I revamped everything and started afresh with more lecture content, to be delivered by a nervous yours truly to 5 eager new parents.

Today was day 2 of the class. I have 3 moms, a grandma and a dad in attendance. Before the first class I stayed up half the night to prepare, and had stomach problems that morning. But it went well, and I was relieved to see that no one ran off screaming. In fact, this morning EVERYONE got here early and they were all waiting politely in their parked cars as not to disturb me before it was time. I was again really nervous and felt inadequately prepared to enlighten these intelligent folks about working with their kids.

In case you didn't know, I love working with kids and have done a lot of performing in my life, but HATE public speaking in front of adults. I'd survived the first class, as it was more of a "getting to know each other" time and I didn't have to actually impart that much wisdom. But for the second class I actually had planned 30 minutes of lecture, and the topic was important enough to warrant printing out outlines for parent to take notes. So would I be able to deliver $70/hour worth of useful and insightful information? Did I do enough preparation, or should I have spent hours doing more, picking apart the topics, infusing them with better analogies, others' brilliant quotes, touching anecdotes, and putting them back together? Once again my stomach answered a weak, "maybe".

Well, luckily for me I have a very friendly group of parents. Feeling relaxed, I was able to plunge into the topics I had prepared, and I found that I actually KNOW what I'm talking about! Hello! I've only been doing this for 10 years! Not only do I know the stuff, I can actually explain it with conviction and give examples that I didn't even think about beforehand. And everyone, even the intimidatingly quiet dad, found my words important enough to take notes. Only when I had sudden episodes of self-consciousness (was it Fred Flinstone who had a little nemesis follow him around and undermine his confidence?) did I falter and have to scramble for words.

I guess part of this experience is realizing that yes, I should do my lecture prep farther ahead than a day before....but that even when I'm halfway flying by the seat of my pants, I can actually do a pretty good job when I'm not putting myself down and doubting my abilities. Exactly the sort of thing I'm trying to teach my students....and my son.

Oliver has been having some confidence issues himself, lately- "I can't" has become a common phrase for him. This saddens me, and we've been encouraging him to not give up on difficult tasks. I wonder if he's getting some of it from my attitude about myself?

Reading "The Highly Sensitive Child" (Elaine Aron, EXCELLENT book. She also has 2 others for adults who are highly sensitive), I realize that a lot of my self-esteem issues stem from my being highly sensitive in a world that doesn't value my traits. My mom (bless her heart, she did her best with me) was constantly frustrated by my slow pace of life, shyness, hesitation with anything new, and pickiness in general. I see her impatiently huffing at my dad for the same reasons. (High sensitivity, according to this book, is inborn and genetic, affecting 20% of the population.)

What I sometimes forget is that Mikel is highly sensitive as well. We bicker constantly, and I tend to accuse him of meanness, of being inconsiderate of my needs, etc. Now that I'm re-reading this info about "HSP"s, I feel like a real heel for some of my less-than-angelic behavior. I've been discounting his seemingly silly requests to help make the world less uncomfortable for him, but getting mad if I perceive he's doing the same to me.

Between the band and this book, I think we're on our way to a stronger and happier marriage.