No One Listening

I was coming home from a five day vacation. I left early in the morning so to have plenty of time to get home and get ready for the two ballet classes of the day. Even after leaving with plenty of time life happened and it was becoming very apparent that I would not have the luxury of taking my time let alone stop by my apartment, to get what I wanted for the days classes. I would need to just head straight to the studio! I made it with ten minutes before class I was able to get into my dance stuff luckily, because I had left it in the car over the weekend so all was not lost. I however was exhausted and still working on the stress affects that had been working on my body when my dancers arrived.

My first class of the day was my youngest ballet class and most of the girls in the class where young enough that this was their first experience with structured classes out of the home. So we spend most of our time just following the most basic of instructions stand still and listen to teacher. They would run everywhere, look through windows, hang on the ballet bar and at the same time their mouths would be running just as fast if not faster! They could not hear me so basically cause chaos. I was at a lost I got upset and became stern yet this helped little and possibly made it worse. I sent quick and silent imploring prays to my Father in Heaven. In the following moments the thought came to me stop and listen to them. I pushed it aside I was not going to stop class and reward their 'bad' behavior, by listening to what they were saying when they were supposed to be silent. Yet the thought persisted and so I call them all over and gave each girl two turns to share. I listened to them and asked them each a few questions. I was worried about the waste of time. However this proved to be very valuable! They slowly through the remainder of the class followed direction and thereby learned more.

It was not until I was pondering on this situation much later that I learned the lesson I probably should have seen much sooner.  I wanted them to listen to me so I could help them become better, so we could do more things together instead of me always having to repeat myself etc. I was so intent of not wasting the mothers’ money and the lack of where an average classes should be at this time that I stopped listening to them out of frustration. Becoming more stern was not the answer but to be still and listen. I was expecting them to do something that I was not even willing to do for them. No wonder I was getting no where.  I could blame my reaction on my stressful trip to dance or my exhaustion, which to be fair is part of the truth they other was I simply needed to listen and take the time to validate them to respect and show them love.  How powerful a simple act of listening is!