I’m cheating this week, as my “reading” material is really just a transcript of a podcast, but bear with me. On Wednesday, we welcomed guest speaker Dr. Adia Gooden who came to talk to students about imposter syndrome and the concept of self worth. These are topics that are always relevant, but it felt especially timely as early college decisions begin to trickle in. On the one hand we have the students who don’t get into the schools they want, which can really impact their sense of self worth. But then we also have kids who do get good news, but are still left wondering if they are truly deserving of it. In the transcript of her podcast episode 98, Adia talks about “clean pain,” and “dirty pain,” which in Buddhism is “Arrow 1” and “Arrow 2.” For our seniors, the sting of not getting into a school they wanted to attend is the clean pain. It’s hard and it hurts. But the dirty pain comes in when they start feeling stress, fear, doubt, and hopelessness. Adia says it’s the “judgement of yourself for getting into this situation” that becomes the dirty pain. And so we need to find ways to accept the clean pain, and move beyond the dirty. Thinking this way is a great strategy for allowing ourselves to feel our feelings without damaging our sense of self.