Lemony Webbles

Yeah! Love works!

Hoo-eee! and Phew!
It's a big day for me. I walked right through the fear and it's really beautiful over here on the other side.
See, I have this job. Two things about this job: 1. It's a secret job. Confidential and all that. 2. It's a really hard job. For me, because I have to be Professional and Knowledgeable. But mostly because I have to be quiet and be interested in other people's opinions and get them to open up to me in a moderately stressful situation.
Today I found out that my job is not so confidential anymore because it's about to be announced to the very people who would be affected by it's confidentiality or lack thereof in the first place. I really don't like secrets, it makes me feel blocked. So I'm happy to say that I am an interviewer/rater for the new and improved (name yet to be determined) replacement for the SPEAK test. Ta da! Hee hee, you're probably thinking : whaaa? what's that and what's the big deal? Well, seriously, it's not such a big deal that it required all the secrecy in the first place, in my opinion. It's one of the hurdles that international teaching assistants have jump over to teach in universities in Illinois and it's a test of their speaking ability. It protects undergraduates from being in a situation where they can't understand their teachers. So the old SPEAK test is outdated and given in large, impersonal settings where you speak into a microphone at a prompt, kind of like at a language lab. It's really hard to get an idea of someone's real language ability that way so now a new SPEAK test (which doesn't have a name yet, any ideas?) is being created where there is a real person that interviews you and then rates your speech, so it comes closer to being an accurate test of your speaking ability as a teacher.

So, that's the job. And I was really scared of doing the interviews because I didn't know how I was going to be able to get people to talk and how to ask the right questions to get a good speech sample. And did I mention that the interviews are all recorded, and that my boss and another professor type person would also be there in the room, listening silently to the interview? Yeah. So I've been really freaked out about it. But I finally made a conscious effort to let go of the fear and hold on to the love of God. I meditated about it all and tried to see what spiritual principles were at play that I needed to get stronger in. And after reading Baha'u'llah's Hidden Words for a while, I focused in on being generous and showing as much love as I could. I had been so blocked by fear that I couldn't really see the person I was interviewing. So what I'm trying is listening well, being generous with my attention and showing love. Today, it really worked during my interviews (the test is in field trials right now, so our interviewees are all volunteers who are in it for the feedback we give them) and I felt much more relaxed and creative and I felt like I connected with each of the people I met. Yeah! Thank you God! Love really works, as a strategy. I recommend it.

And today is the Birth of Baha'u'llah, so I feel doubly blessed to have received this gift today. Yeah!