Meaningful Mondays-Self-doubt or self-realization?

A few weeks ago, I took my first jewelry class. I’ve always been more of a self-teaching person since I began making jewelry, me and Youtube University go wayyyyy back. Anyway, it was my first ✨Soldering✨ class and you can imagine how EXCITED I was to be there. I’ve been trying to invest in myself, my learning and expansion as much as I can lately so I felt it was time for a class to play with the tools I’d been wanting to apply more of in my pieces. 

I was nervous and excited to be in there, the person that taught the class was apparently a renowned jeweler and we were gonna have 3 hours to learn this new and exciting skill— I’m still learning about the world of jewelry so I have never heard of him but he was cool and indeed a good jeweler. We began unboxing our tools and our introductions. I came to learn I was the only person besides the teacher that had made jewelry before. I was excited to see my skills show up for me. I am humble enough to know I’m not perfect but I felt I was pretty ambidextrous and comfortable enough with tools in my hand to be a bit ahead of the game. I wasn’t. 

I ended up being one of the few people in the class to finish last and I still felt like I hadn’t had a chance to fully finish my project.

So ~naturally~ I began being hard on myself, I felt like I wanted to cry a few times being in the class, I began questioning my abilities and skills and even my smarts because I kept asking the instructor questions and I’m not sure if it was his natural tone or my sensitivity at the moment, but I felt like I was an annoyance not quickly grasping what was  being taught to us.

I decided that I didn’t want to continue making myself feel bad and I was able to move through it and see something new about myself. 

That class and instructor helped me realize something really important that I hadn’t been able to confirm—and that is that my learning style is different than others—and that is OKAY. After the initial being hard on myself moment, I realized I just prefer more one-on-one approaches, I cannot fully digest a new concept that I want to perfect in my own style in only 3 hours. And lastly, I cannot learn in an environment where questions may be seen as interruptions and where I may feel rushed. 

I realized that, it wasn’t me that was the problem, it was just very different teaching-learning styles at hand.

In the end, I was also VERY proud of myself for not falling too deeply into a hole of shame and self-doubt and punishment for not being “perfect” at something the first time. I was proud of stepping outta my comfort zone. I love the ring I made, I put “Sol” on it, in honor of my last name, Solar and obviously my company, Solares Gems. I’m proud I invested in myself and I got so much more deep learnings in the process than I had originally thought.

So, with alllll that being said, I hope you find some encouragement in doing the things that scare you a little bit but that actually excite you. I hope you invest in yourself whenever you can and that you find moments in time to find things out about yourself. It’s fun, exciting and all beautifully a part of the wild human journey.

Thank you for reading,

-Esperanza 🫶🏻