Humans Of Cy Ranch: Mrs. Graham

“From the time I got into teaching, which was about 10 years ago, and for the last ten years, it [growing] has been a process.  And I am still learning and growing, and I have a lot more to learn, and I’m not there yet. Every year, and I think when you turn 40 and when you turn 50, and probably when I turn 60, those are pinacle years that you just take— you just stop, and you take a pause. ‘What am I doing?’, ‘What do I need to fix?’, ‘What can be different?’, and ‘How can I have more joy in my life?’. I have bad feelings sometimes, and sometimes I have bad vibes. I don’t think that we should stuff our feelings down, I think that’s bad, very bad. It makes you sick. But, I put it in my classroom because I want people to focus on positivity. You can do things that are hard, and to steer clear of gossiping and stuff that’s going to make it hard for others. Focusing on positivity, I think, I, like a lot of people, have negative thinking sometimes about myself. So, ‘you can’t do that’ or ‘that’s too scary’ or ‘I’m not good enough’ or ‘other people can do that, but that’s not for you’. There’s a lot of negative thought processes that some of us go through, and some of us have it worse than others, and I’ve had a problem with that. So, one thing the skydiving did for me, and just the process of doing it was the positive self talk; using that to help propel myself forward. Whether it’s jumping out of a plane or whether its getting my masters, which I’m thinking about doing, it’s pushing me to do things. The sky’s the limit, even at the age of 50. There’s so much you can do. I’ve done triathlons, I’ve ran, I’ve hiked, and I’ve seen a lot of mountains. There’s just a lot that I was able to do, and I feel like I have an abundant life in opportunity.”