Put on your comfortable shoes get into healthy learning.
A healthy learner is confident, fearless, questioning, ready to discuss, to cry, to laugh, to write, to explore and to explain and understand. 
Healthy learning in our birth right, intrinsic, inate and powerful, we are all born to learn and to discover. Formal education can separate us from our natural learning instincts can leave us hesitant, anxious, fearful of change and unsure of our worth, doubting and insecure about our abilities.
As deep learners we become light on our feet, in our hearts and in our imaginations, we step confidently, dance intricate movements, swizzle and slide, swing and glide, stomp and stamp and hold our ground with ease. Comfortable shoes carries a metaphor for standing proud understanding our deep lasting learning, valuing insight and trusting intuition. She carries all our depth of knowing, seeing and doing, the healing tools of praise, encouragement and confidence. She is both footware and the journey, the leaving and the destination, she is the essence of our souls.
No matter how often she is cut down, failed, told she is useless, unintelligent, or thick, she rises in our souls regardless. Even the most scared and anxious learner has a secret pair of comfortable shoes. Even the most downtrodden learner is waiting for an opportunity to pull on those shoes and dance into the light.
All people are born learners. To be a deep learner does not mean to be confined to libraries. It means listening and trusting, knowing your worth, your wisdom, using action and reflection, valuing knowledge and skills, it is about rekindling your learning nature, gathering your allies and encouragers, trusting your words and your explanations, being a learner by right and with pride.
Deep learning is fluent in the language of now knowing, of uncertainty and of puzzles, of working in groups and with peers, of humility and patience, of discovering together, of teachers as travellers not experts. No act of love or social justice occurs without it.
Deep learning is our birth right. She is our life blood and our fire, she is our confidence and compassion, she is the rainbow in our doubts and the nourishment for uncertainty, she listens, trusts and values everyone from infant to the grave.
There are shoes of all sizes and footprints to follow. So whether you have simple aspirations or the desire to be the best, whether you are trying to change the world or inspire a team, whether you are helping others or helping yourself, whether you are young or old, deep learning is your right. She truly belongs to us all.
(With thanks to Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women who run with the Wolves)
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