In my early days as a workshop facilitator, I used to run workshops for youth at times. I walked into a class in a school (which was known to have academically challenged students) once and there was mayhem. One student made a lewd gesture at me. Others had turned their chairs away. Some were talking as I was. At the end of the day, I went home and cried, not because of their behaviours but because I could feel their pain in my heart. No pain had been articulated at that point. I just felt it.
With all my participants, my first goal is to give them a felt experience of love. With this class, I told myself, this needed to be brought up to a whole new level. I brought heart-shaped post-it pads the next day and asked them to stick it over their hearts. I said we all have hearts and to remember that our words and actions impact our hearts, including mine.
I continued to do what I always do over the few days – amidst all their unruly behaviours, I was vigilant for the specific good I saw and appreciated it whenever it turned up. Slowly, chairs turned towards me. We laughed. They opened up. We connected. At the end of the programme which lasted a few days, I asked them what they were taking away.
And the boy who had made the lewd gesture at me and was the unofficial leader said, “You. We are taking away You.”
Then one girl suddenly thrust a bright orange handwritten letter into my hands.

It included this paragraph:
“It has been really long since we have been taught in the way whereby the teacher is always full of approval, and the students are constantly praised for their strengths…. This is also why I got interested in your lessons. You bring to us the students full of joy and positive vibe and I guess this heals many of our spiritual wounds, as we are constantly scolded and looked down on…thank you for caring for us, for not looking down on us when everyone else has and also to make us feel better and more aware of ourselves.”
The pain I had sensed on the first day had been real. And the love and words had become medicine.
My heart also goes out to the teachers who spend a much longer time with many such students who bring diverse challenges to school. The teachers need support and community. My mum was a teacher for over 40 years, and had a natural connection to those who did not perform well academically. She was loved by them (even if she was strict with rule enforcement). Yet she faced incidents like a student carrying a chair and almost throwing it at her. I asked her what enabled her to work well with this group and she said they always have a story – often, family challenges – and she remembered this and did her best. For example, she would personally bring biscuit tins and buns to class for those who came from economically disadvantaged families and didn’t have breakfast. She also had a very down-to-earth sense of humour with them.
Our young people are growing up in a world where their parents are also facing many difficulties at work and beyond. They face all kinds of pressures – whether it’s to perform for grades, technology addiction, social media pressures, entering a world of uncertainty, violence, environmental damage and more. It is my strong belief that loving and caring adults who role-model inner wealth values are needed more than ever in their lives to enable them to feel cared for, supported and inspired so they can navigate this world and emerge stronger, wiser and more loving leaders.
When have you embraced your tears as portals to important messages?
How can you allow your heart to sense more than what your eyes tell you?
How can you see the good in everyone – regardless of who they are and what they have done? And let them know?
Vadivu Govind