Or so I tell myself... My attempts to counteract Math Anxiety

Here are some musings of my relationship with my math homework….

(which I correlated with Sandra Anne Taylor's excerpts about creating more substantial relationships).... It's a little out in left field but it makes perfect sense to me.

I promise there's a method to the madness....

If you put out a certain type of energy you will receive results that are often a reflection of that particular energy. In a relationship as Sandra Anne Taylor says “if you put out a nervous energy than you will attract a fearful mate in return or if you are critical of yourself than you will attract a mate who is critical of you as well. As well as if you put out passive energy, you will either attract a mate with that same passive energy or you will attract someone who will try to dominate you to exert their energy through you”.

The same attitude can be applied to our relationship with our studies. If we are nervous about our assignments, that scattered energy is going to reflect in partial retention. We’ll only remember bits and pieces of the information. If we are critical of your assignments, you’re limiting yourself in that you are not maximizing the full potential of yourself to immerse yourself in the material and receive a variety of favorable results from them and your output in you assignments becomes questionable as well. If you are passive about doing your assignments, either you will be equally as ineffective about learning the material or you will let that anxiety dominate you by playing those fears out through you which will probably adversely affect the way you approach the problems as well as your potential results.

Don’t be a victim when you make a mistake, because it inhibits your ability to learn from them. That means don't be so hard on yourself or blame the professor for why you don't understand the material. Learning math is about learning how we make mistakes as well as learning how we approach these inconveniences and how we go about trying to correct them. Math is about teaching us more effective ways to think and strategizing to correct our thinking when there is something in it that is causing us to make errors. Hmmmm…. My thinking needs to be improved…. Maybe I will do some math problems …. I just need to read this repeatedly whenever I find myself averting my focus from it and remember that it’s more than a job or an assigned task. It could be the very thing that could possibly bridge the gap between here and a MUCH better life. I may like the one I have now, but it could totally exceed my expectations if I take the material a bit more seriously, and respect and enjoy the process instead of being reluctant to participate. Think of it as another form of service learning, only this time it is a service that you are doing is for yourself. Sweet….

Behold... a good relationship with one's self, and what they learn or choose can become the key to enlightenment