Hay Happens and Hay's Happen

What Teaching Has Taught Me About Growth

Most of us don’t stay stuck because we’re not trying.
And even when we start to see what might be holding us back, we are not always sure how to move forward.

I’ve been a teacher for years. In this role, you are expected to have the answers.

When I moved from working with middle school students to graduate students, something changed. I couldn’t just deliver content or instruction anymore. That approach didn’t go very far.

I had to become more of an encourager, a facilitator, a coach.
It took time to stop thinking about what I needed to say and start paying attention to what they needed.

Over time, I realized this wasn’t just about the classroom.

The moments that mattered most were not when I was doing the talking. They were when I was walking alongside someone in the middle of their learning, their questions, and their growth.

I didn’t grow up with a lot of memorable coaches, but I did have one in ice skating, Coach Jim. And he said something that stuck with me:

“The more you fall, the harder you’re trying.”

At the time, I remember thinking…HUH?
The more I fail, the better I become?

Now I get it.

Lately, I’ve also been watching Friday Night Lights, and I’m fascinated by Coach Taylor. His style is different. He’s tough, but his players know he has their back no matter what. There’s a partnership there. He leads, but he also sees them. He reads them. He believes in them, sometimes more than they believe in themselves.

And that’s what I keep noticing. The focus isn’t on the coach. It’s on the person in front of them.

Right now, I mentor new faculty at GCU. In many ways, it feels like coaching. I sit in on their classes, often like a fly on the wall, present but unseen.

But here’s the hard part. Coaching means calling things out, even when someone doesn’t want them called out.

Most of us don’t see our own blind spots. And even when we start to, we don’t always want to name them. It’s just not in our nature to focus on them.

That’s where the right person can make all the difference. Someone willing to point it out and then stay with us through the growth.

We can call it teaching, coaching, mentoring. They all overlap.

But at the core, it’s about having someone who sees what we can’t or aren’t willing to look at.

Because while we’re all equal in our worth, we’re not all equal in our strengths. And sometimes a weakness can quietly become a stronghold, a blind spot, or something that holds us back physically, mentally, or emotionally.

For me, it showed up physically. I was stuck in something that kept me sick for years. And if I’m honest, I didn’t fully see it at the time, or maybe I wasn’t willing to see the whole picture. It took a long, winding road to even begin to understand what was going on.

Looking back, I can see how much I would have benefited from someone who could see what I couldn’t. Someone willing to say it and then walk with me through it.

It might not have taken so long. But looking back, I can see God was doing something in it, even when I didn’t understand it at the time.

We need each other. Not necessarily a formal coach or mentor, but someone willing to walk alongside us, someone who sees us clearly, tells us the truth, and doesn’t walk away.

Because sometimes, the difference between staying stuck and moving forward
is simply having the right person beside you.

And if I’m honest, this is what years of teaching have shown me. The real lessons don’t come from having the answers.

Sometimes it’s about being willing to be a student, to face your own blind spots and do the hard work of getting unstuck.

Only then can you truly walk alongside someone else in theirs.

The Endless Cycle of Trying One More Thing

I recently started reading fiction again for the first time since high school, when it was required. That might not sound like a big deal, but for me, it is.

I am a recovering information junkie.

For a long time, I believed every minute needed to be productive. If I was reading something, listening to something, or spending time on something, it needed to teach me something or be useful. Reading just for fun felt like a waste of time.

And when you are wired that way, and you are dealing with a health issue, it does not stay contained. It grows.

You start listening to every podcast, reading every book, following every expert, and buying into every promise until you become the expert yourself. That way, you can feel more in control of what is happening. To someone who likes to be in control like me, that actually sounds rational.

But somewhere along the way, it stops being helpful. And if I am honest, it starts becoming a little obsessive. Your health issue stops being something you are dealing with and starts becoming part of who you are.

But it is subtle. It does not happen overnight. But one day, you realize that if your input is constantly searching for the next answer, then your output is going to be more of the same.

There is always more. More supplements to try, more experts to learn from, more protocols to discover. It starts to feel like you are searching for something that is just out of reach, but everything begins to look the same.

And before you know it, you are not really living your life anymore. You are merely managing it.

It reminds me of remodeling a bathroom. One small change leads to another, then something else no longer matches, and before you know it, the project has expanded far beyond what you intended. That is what this started to feel like.

So I made a small change. I started reading fiction.

It was a tiny step, but it represented something bigger. It was a way of letting go, just a little. Letting my mind rest instead of constantly trying to figure things out.

What this looked like for me

From there, I began to simplify. I started to pare down my supplements, not out of fear but out of clarity. I kept what felt necessary and let the rest go. I focused on my sleep, not perfect sleep but consistent sleep, getting into a manageable routine. 

I also started going outside first thing in the morning (with Cooper, my dog) before coffee, just getting sunlight. Nothing complicated, nothing new, just something simple my body craved.

I stopped constantly trying to fix myself and started focusing more on gratitude, especially with my family. And I leaned into my relationship with Jesus, trusting that maybe healing was not something I had to control so tightly.

That gave me a sense of freedom, just enough to start creating again. Writing. Drawing. Doing something simply because it brought something back to life in me.

I told myself I would give it a year. A year to stop chasing every new answer and come back to what I already knew:

There is no magic solution.

My body just needed time and space to heal without all the extra noise.

Because the truth is, our bodies do not respond well to constant change. They respond to consistency, to rhythm, to safety. They respond to being cared for, not constantly managed.

I am not against information. If you are reading this, you probably are not either. Maybe you are even searching for something that will help you feel better.

But at some point, more information stops being helpful and starts becoming noise. And for me, healing did not begin when I found the next thing.

It began when I simplified, slowed down, and gave my body the chance to respond.

Why stillness might be exactly what our minds and bodies need

Let’s just imagine, for one day, the phone in your hand became lifeless.

I think the average person’s heart rate would increase. They’d feel anxious…maybe even a little panicked. And standing in something as simple as a grocery store line, they wouldn’t know what to do.

That first instinct would be: I can’t just stand here! Because just standing there? That would feel…

Boring.

I wonder if you took it a step further, and gave it a week. I wonder what would actually happen?
Maybe people would start to:

– stare into space and actually think
– talk to the person next to them
– process something they’ve been avoiding
– notice something right in front of them they’ve never seen before

Do you think fifty years ago, someone standing in a grocery store line would have said,
“I’m bored”; Or that they lived a boring life? Probably not.

People (I was one of them) were used to space that wasn’t constantly filled. It was just the way it was.

There’s a line I heard years ago that stuck with me:
“Boring people are bored.”

I don’t really like the word “bored.”
But I now understand what it was getting at: Not filling every moment and leaving space for just thinking and being. 

This simple line shaped the way I raised my daughter. If she ever wasn’t sure what to do, I did not hand her a screen or turn something on as a knee-jerk reaction. I would merely say,

“Go find something to create; imagine something; build something…or read!”

I think we all need to do this, and if I’m honest, I haven’t always done that for myself.

But lately I have been forced to sit in stillness. This has made me wonder what that has done to our health and whether all of this constant, distracted time we fill 24/7 has contributed to it.

Not just mentally…
but physically.

I learned the hard way that our bodies don’t separate those two systems, and our thoughts (usually negative) or lack thereof can make us more stressed. This in turn can affect our digestion. When there is no pause…no stillness…no space…our system never really settles.

Our gut, especially, is deeply connected to that. Another thing I learned the hard way is that it responds to stress; it responds to constant input, and it responds to nonstop activity. And not in a good way.

It’s not just about the foods we eat or avoid; it’s about how we live.

When something feels off in the gut, it’s somewhat like a dashboard of a car. It’s a warning light. It’s information that something needs attention. The key is tuning in to what it could be. Perhaps it’s our constant need to fill every quiet moment. Our bodies might be telling us this all along.

I do believe people are craving true nourishment. Not just from good food but from real connections in real time. Real experiences with real people. That might be what our guts are trying to tell us. Slow down. Smell the roses. Enjoy real food. Be still. 

Maybe it’s not boredom we’ve been trying to avoid. Being still may be more of the challenge. But stillness shouldn’t be something we escape; it could be what we have been missing. As I’ve navigated healing, I’ve learned to embrace the room to think, the room to notice and observe. It’s not always comfortable, but it feels better than filling up with mindless distractions.

And if I’m honest, part of healing can feel…boring.
It’s slower, less stimulating, and not filled with constant distraction.

I think God had a point when He said, “Be still and know that I am God.”

If we could just follow the first two words, perhaps our minds and bodies would have what they need.

Because when we never allow ourselves to be still…when we never allow space…
our systems stay in a constant state of activity.

And I can’t help but wonder if part of what we’re seeing today like the increase in stress, digestive issues, and nervous system support needs isn’t just about what we eat or what we aren’t taking. Perhaps it’s about the fact that we’ve lost the ability to simply be.

And maybe that’s what we’re learning again. Not how to do more…
but how to be still.

I used to stand in front of my middle school students after they finished an essay or story and ask one simple question:

“So what?”

They would stare at me, unsure what I meant. I wasn’t trying to be mean or sassy. I was trying to get them to find meaning behind their story. So I’d continue:

Why are you telling me this?
Why does it matter?
What’s your point?

I used to drill into my students that every good story needs a “so what,” a reason, a takeaway…a point.

But I’ve realized that question only works for essays, not for real life, especially in seasons of suffering. I’ve had health issues, and I still do. And when you go through a season like that, you don’t ask “so what?” You ask why. Not a “why me?” but more like, why now?

And there isn’t always an answer.

“What’s the point?” doesn’t feel like the right question when you’re just trying to make it through the day. It doesn’t feel meaningful in the moment.

And if I’m honest, for a long time my story felt like one big unanswered question:

So what is all of this for?

But today at church, something hit me. 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ… who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction…” (2 Corinthians 1:3–4)

The pastor focused on those two words: 

So that.

Wow, he comforts me (which He always does), but comfort for me to give another. 

What if my life was never meant to be a “so what”…
What if it’s always been a “so that”?

So that I would slow down and pay attention. 
So that I would be humbled.
So that I would stop performing and moving so much.
So that I would actually feel what others are walking through.
So that I could sit across from someone in pain and not try to fix it, but to understand it.

So that someday, I could help someone else.
And so that I can give something I may have needed so deeply myself.

Everyone has a “so that.” It’s something bigger than you. A purpose. Maybe it’s the question we’ve been missing. Something may have been given to you, a struggle, a hardship, a challenge, a tragedy, and it can be devastating. Heartbreaking. It can change your life in ways you didn’t plan. 

But perhaps it’s time to finish the sentence:

This has been happening to me so that….

For me, it hasn’t explained everything, but it has given it meaning and purpose.

And for that…
I can trust Him.