I'll Have an Epiphany with that Peak Experience!

In the last blog I reminded of the importance of peak experiences, and how epiphanies help foster the attainment and retaining of knowledge. Providing your students the opportunity to experience epiphanies associated with higher learning comes from presenting questions that cause the student to explore and synthesize new concepts. The process of attainment also comes in the evaluation of the material, and having an ability to ask questions in the classroom when not certain of the material.

Some students however are shy and do not like to speak up or share in the discussions. Some even feel intimidated by the professor or other students who are comfortable in their openness. Increasing participation comes from each student knowing you genuinely care about their success. They will discover your authentic qualities through the manner their questions are addressed, and in the encouragement you send their way.

I can sure testify that I did not have the capacity to define epiphanies before I started back to college ten years ago. Life just kind of did its thing, unfolding day by day as I busied myself as a military wife and mother of five. I was a mere life spectator that understood how to get high on life through experiences that meant something personal to me. But an epiphany? What was that?? Well, that was an angle I had to learn! Now that I have grasped the essence of what an epiphany brings into my life, I am eager to experience more, for an epiphany brings about new revelation or truth to some concept about one’s world. Allow me to share the most powerful epiphany that I have ever experienced related to higher academia.

In graduate school while I was studying Counseling, students were expected to find a theory that they were really wild about and take the principles of that theory as their own, and operate under those principles while counseling. When we can find a theory that is most like us and how we perceive the world, we become better counselors. For instance, if I were to believe that irrational behaviors are personal choices and not a condition of someone else causing me to behave irrationally, I might want to embrace Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques that focus on think, feel and do. Well I was having one heck of a time finding *my* theory. I started getting nervous during that semester as I began hearing classmates speak excitedly that they had found *their* theory. The problem I was having was that I liked ALL the theories I was reading about!

I remember that first day of theory class with Dr. David Fenell. As we all sat awaiting his arrival, classmates nervously chatted with each other not knowing what to expect. Finally the door opened and in strode a tall, lanky grey haired professor in a bow tie and a motorcycle helmet under his arm! A bow tie!? I kind of laughed to myself as this was quite a surprise to see someone of his stature in the 21st Century teaching in such an accessory. After listening to his direct instructions, I instantly picked up the tone of military service, sensing an intimidating presence of this professor. As the semester went on, we discovered that Dr. Fenell was indeed a soldier, a Colonel in the US Army Reserves who served in Iraq as a counselor, teaching counseling skills and offering mental health assistance on many levels. He was a war hero I came to respect very, very much, as a professor and a world renowned Marriage and Family Therapist.

I have always appreciated theory and the underpinnings related to the vast information theorists leave behind for us to discover. It is my view that theorists bestow a legacy of knowledge for future generations to comb through so that we may grasp why things happen as they do without starting the investigative process all over again. I remember absorbing each chapter of the book for Fenell’s class, all the while asking myself if each theory I was exploring would be my eventual theoretical orientation. Chapters on Carl Rogers and Alfred Adler made sense and I embraced their ideologies. Then I read Viktor Frankl and Rollo May’s contributions to existentialism. I embraced every word. I felt myself connect with the philosophical and techniqueless purpose of existentialism—helping people find meaning in life…until I hit the one sentence which stated, “You are responsible for your situation.” What?! Struggling with one particular piece, I questioned how children are responsible for being beaten. How is it that abused women are responsible for being beaten or emotionally traumatized in abusive relationships? How were the Holocaust victims responsible for their demise? Oh how I agonized over this theory! This statement!

As I sat in Fenell’s class the following week, that persecuting sentence mulled around in my head to the point I could not listen to the lecture on the existential chapter. I remember how I needed to sum up the courage to question Fenell on this matter, for raising my hand in his class made me very uncomfortable. Dr. Fenell was so intimidating! Finally, I challenged myself to raise my arm and question the validity of this skewed existential premise of personal responsibility. It was the decision to ask that changed my life. All the pieces fell into place and I had the answer to so much of what my quest had been about through years of higher learning. “Dr. Fenell, how is it that victims of abuse are responsible for what they went through?” Fenell paused. He looked at me, cocked his head, took a giant step to his right and pointing his hands at me said, “You are responsible for the way you feel about your situation.” I felt the world tilt on its axis as Fenells’ translation impacted my knowledge.

This is the defining moment of discovery I will never forget. Suddenly for me, victim actions and victim response made sense. I instantly found my theoretical orientation and accidentally exposed within myself what spawned resiliency in my life…because I had taken the responsibility to feel indifferent about my own youth, I took action to change it! I now had words and the definiendum of who I had always been, to illuminate the direction I had come from, and a purpose of growing even more toward self-actualization. Now I envision myself not as a wounded healer, but a very empathetic individual that truly seeks to assist others in finding their own unique defining moments of epiphany. How will you inspire student epiphanies? Bring on the epiphanies!!