Mental Meanderings

Anxiety Attacks Relating to Teaching

Today being Tuesday I knew that I would focus on "Invalid Item"  The week ends on Monday WDC time and I have to wrap up the week, judge, award, write and post next weeks lesson. This week I'd been struggling to decide if I'd continue hosting the workshop. I seriously don't like trying to lead. I don't feel like a leader. I don't like people looking at me as if I know what I'm talking about.

I'm still a student. I'm not a pro at this. Sure I've had a few poems published and I'm rather proud of my poetry but I'm still a novice. I don't know what I'm doing for the most part and I definately don't know it well enough to teach. It's like "Those who can't do, teach." I feel like "Those who can, don't teach!" So because I feel like I write passable poetry I shouldn't attempt to teach it.

Today I've struggled against anxiety all day simply because I was dealing with this issue. The idea of writing this damn lesson makes me sick to the stomach. You know how some people fear public speaking? It's debilitating. You freeze up, nothing seems to function, your hands shake, breath gets short and you start to feel fuzzy in the head as if the world doesn't really exist.

That's right, SERIOUSLY BAD ANXIETY ATTACK! I was freaking out and I kept trying and trying to talk to myself logically and I called in the troops to try and talk me down from these freak outs. Even talking about it right now like this I can feel it building again. I'm seriously terrified.

Why is it so hard? Am I making it worse on myself by overanalysing it? Forge managed to help me through the idea of giving up the workshop but now I think if I can't bring myself to write the lessons there will be no workshop. Why should it bring such dread?

Sure, this week it seemed like I failed as a teacher. I'm not prepared. And it showed in the results at the end of the week. Seven people showed their participation and only two of them seemed to understand what the lesson was about. Only one completed the assignment fully.

I've decided I need to get back to basics on the lessons. I lept to far ahead this week and everyone suffered for it. I need to write up lesson plans, an outline to put into order what will be shown each week so there is always some sort of plan. Perhaps having more preparation will help me feel better. Or perhaps even that is just a way to procrastinate the real issue.

Either way I've decided to stop pushing myself tonight. After I've posted this entry I'm going to take myself to bed. Might watch a movie. I have to be up and at them early tomorrow because my daughter can't be late for school. They have a school excursion. We've been late today and yesterday this week so I really have to make more effort to ensure we get out the door on time, all ready.

Tomorrow I'll write that lesson. Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow. Today I'm definately on a low and I know I was yesterday too. *scrolls the blog to see if the day before was as well* *sighs* Nope, ok, so odds are I'll be low again tomorrow but after that I should balance again. That's one advantage of knowing I have a three day cycle. I can plan and prepare myself.

Now for some deep breaths, maybe a relaxing bath, and then taking myself to bed. Perhaps the anxiety will settle down when I turn the computer off.