Why Education Is Important

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We learn when we let experience contradict expectations.

We let experience contradict expectations when we feel safe enough to try something new.

We feel safe enough to try new things when we won’t be blamed for failing.

We don’t blame ourselves for failing when we feel lovable and loved.

Co-authored with Sarah Bergenfield

Artists, writers, and musicians shape experience and hold the interest of an audience by introducing things that are unresolved, promise resolution, and offer hints along the way. A crime novel asks whodunnit; music creates gripping tension and aesthetic chills; plays and movies pose and ponder problems; paintings invite, and so on. Artists know that we stay with what we do not yet understand and we feel thrilled at discovery.

The journey from not knowing to understanding by way of curiosity and exploration is called an epistemic arc. Sometimes we’re captured by a puzzle and we understand gradually, sometimes the epiphany comes quickly. In either case, that aha! moment signifies the soft thump of the tiny dopamine hit that culminates an exploration. But to reach this moment, we have to be open to our existing ideas about identity and relationships being incomplete.

Who Am I? Why Do I Think/Feel/Act This Way?

From the Internal Family Systems (IFS) perspective, we all have parts. We may see, hear, sense, or feel them. They present at different ages and, often, act in ways that don’t fit the current moment because they’re........

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