how i learned to trust my intuition: Part 1

Part 1: why i gave up being a psychology professor

Photo by Edz Norton on Unsplash

Back in 2012, teaching psychology to undergrads in New York City, I knew something was deeply wrong. I had no interest in the curriculum, opening the textbook made me want to throw it across the room and the only part of the job I really liked was mothering my students.

That final semester before I left, I decided I had nothing to lose and so I did it my way. On day one I informed my students that if they showed up to class they already had a perfect grade. Because a) I couldn’t be bothered grading papers, b) I didn’t think it was any of my business to assess other people and c) I felt that scoring performance got in the way of true learning and creativity.

A couple of weeks in, I decided to host a special session. We put the chairs in a circle so that everyone could see each other (and to make it clear that I was just one of the group and not somehow special). Then I explained the guidelines of circle: speak from your heart, don’t interrupt someone else or give them feedback, listen deeply and look for what you have in common rather than how you differ, and keep everything that is said confidential. The question we would be speaking to was “What hard thing have you been through that has made you stronger?”

I knew I would need to model what we were doing and so I went first, recounting the story of how I had been suicidal at the age of 30 before entering an addiction recovery program and having a spiritual awakening. When I finished speaking there was the kind of silence that makes you question everything you’ve ever done with your life. “Oh god”, I thought. “This was a terrible idea.”

Not ten seconds after that thought crossed my mind, a young man began talking. He spoke of something so vulnerable that it made my own share look like an academic paper. I was blown away. His bravery opened up an incredible space in which other students felt safe enough to share their own truths. I was moved to tears on several occasions, as were many others.

After that day our classroom became a family. Instead of sitting quietly staring at their phones or skulking in moments before class began, students began coming early, turning their chairs towards one another, laughing, connecting and checking in with words like “how is your heart doing today?” True, I wasn’t teaching them a lot of the stuff they had signed up for (having ditched the two main theorists from the curriculum) but they were becoming a real community and experiencing what it felt like to truly belong. We had some much more traditional classes thereafter - me at the front with the white board, them taking notes - but students felt safe enough to disagree with the material or tell me they had no idea what I was talking about, which felt healthy. We also began every session with some sort of practice that connected us to our hearts (meditation, free writing, affirmations, body scans, etc) and would end with hugs and heartfelt goodbyes. Multiple students from that class have told me that it changed their lives. It certainly changed mine.

Near the end of the semester the chair of my department got wind of what was going on. Calling me into his office he opened the meeting with: “I hear you’ve been starting your classes with meditation. Why on earth are you doing that?” Without thinking, I automatically responded: “Why on earth are we not opening every class that way?” Because really, if we are studying psychology without personal introspection we are - in my opinion - missing the fucking point.

Let me explain. Back in the very early days (think late 1800s), Wilhelm Wundt, the father of psychology, established two branches of the subject. One was what  became traditional experimental psychology and the other he called “Introspection”, a process that involves looking inward at one’s own thoughts and feelings. Subsequent generations of psychologists ditched it, declaring it to be “unscientific” and, by the time I was doing a PhD, a common put-down was to say that someone was doing “me-search” instead of research. Introspection or being self-aware was definitely not considered necessary for teaching or even being an “expert in the field” which - side note - might have explained some of the psychotic personalities, drunks and self-centered-a-holes I had as professors.

During my entire graduate school career I had a hunch that something didn’t fit right but I could never put it into words. The thing that brought me clarity was entering a 12 step recovery program similar to Alcoholics Anonymous. All of a sudden I was surrounded by people who shared directly from their own experience and constantly examined their own behaviour (introspection) for what was working and not working. Nobody gave me a grade or asked me to quote my sources, and as soon as I was done working the 12 steps I became a sponsor to someone else. In other words, it was assumed that I was worthy of teaching others simply because I had my own experience of the process. It was liberating in the extreme.

It also put me in a bind as far as academia went. If I had learned the most valuable and profound lessons of my life from my sponsor - a man who had never finished high school - then what the hell was I doing spending 23 years of my life studying? A couple of years in, the cognitive dissonance became too great and I gave up my studies moments before completing the dissertation. Ninety nine per cent of the people I knew thought I was crazy; only two friends encouraged me to follow my heart. But when I finally pulled the trigger I felt sure it was time to leave in order to fully explore other forms of learning and knowing.

So began a life-long exploration of what it means to truly know something. It was clear that, though I had “known” a lot of stuff in my academic career, and had written many intelligent-sounding papers to prove it, when it came to my finances, my relationships, my time management, what my values were, what I stood for, where my boundaries were and how to be a person I could love and respect, I was clueless. The pieces of paper I had from several prestigious academic institutions didn’t help; I had no answers, despite all my “knowledge”. I didn’t understand other people or myself, had no clue what I wanted or how to get it and had ended up broke, suicidal and deeply confused.

Next week…moving from academic knowledge to an entirely different kind of knowing as a birth doula.