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You’re a few weeks into the school year, and the pace is already relentless. The to-do list keeps growing. The emotional load feels heavier than expected. The sense of being behind creeps in earlier than you hoped. Then, in the middle of morning meeting, a student you’ve been watching carefully finally looks up. It’s real eye contact. Present. Engaged.
In that moment, something settles.
The overwhelm quiets just enough. The lesson plans that never feel finished, the IEPs you’re behind on, the doubt that whispers maybe I’m not cut out for this all fade into the background. You remember, suddenly and completely, why you walked into a classroom in the first place.
Moments like this reorient us. They bring us back to center when the work starts to pull us off course. They are moments of Universal Intelligence at work.
What Is Universal Intelligence?
Universal Intelligence is the human capacity to live with purpose, meaning, and trust. It’s our ability to feel connected, tap into inspiration, and live in alignment and harmony. Universal intelligence is the part of us that asks why our work matters, helps us stay aligned with our values, and anchors us to something larger than daily demands and shifting expectations.
When Universal Intelligence is strong, we have an internal compass. We know what matters, even when conditions are uncertain. Within the Human Intelligence framework, Universal Intelligence is the deepest layer. When this layer is clear, it brings coherence to how we think, feel, relate, and respond. When it’s not, even the most skilled and caring educators can begin to feel unmoored.
Why Purpose Is Not Optional in Education
Teaching is one of the most purpose-driven professions there is. Educators don’t enter classrooms for ease, status, or certainty. They come because they believe education can change lives and because they see potential in young people that deserves to be nurtured.
Research consistently shows that a strong sense of purpose is associated with lower burnout, greater resilience, and higher job satisfaction in high-stress professions, including education (Alimujiang et al., 2019; Brackett et al., 2019). Educators who remain connected to meaning recover more quickly from setbacks and are better able to sustain themselves over time.
Purpose acts as a stabilizing force. It helps the nervous system interpret stress as manageable rather than overwhelming (Park, 2010). This matters because burnout is not just about workload. It’s about disconnection. When educators lose touch with why their work matters, the emotional labor becomes heavier and the challenges feel harder to carry.
Purpose, Learning, and the Nervous System
Research on motivation and self-determination shows that when people understand why something matters, engagement deepens and persistence increases (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Learners are more willing to take risks, stay with challenges, and recover from mistakes. Meaning accelerates learning.
Neuroscience research helps explain why. When stress can be understood within a larger sense of purpose, the brain is less likely to remain locked in survival mode, making it easier to access the internal conditions needed for learning, connection, and creativity (Siegel, 2020). Meaning-making supports nervous system regulation, allowing both students and educators to move out of reactivity and into readiness.
The same is true for educators. When we are grounded in purpose, we respond rather than react. We regulate more effectively under pressure and create classrooms where students feel emotionally safe enough to engage and grow.
And every educator knows the moments when that sense of purpose snaps back into focus. A student finally breaks through. A parent says, “You’re the first teacher who’s really seen my child.” A colleague reminds you you’re not doing this work alone.
These moments reconnect us to Universal Intelligence. They remind us what we are building, one interaction at a time.
Universal Intelligence in Practice
Universal Intelligence is a practice of returning. Returning to questions like: “Why does this work matter to me? Who am I serving? What kind of classroom culture am I shaping? What values am I modeling under pressure?”
These questions are meant to be revisited as conditions change. When educators engage with them regularly, something shifts. The hard days don’t disappear, but they feel different. Challenges become part of a larger story rather than evidence of failure.
Universal Intelligence often becomes clearest in moments of rupture, when life breaks open what we thought was stable and forces us to confront what truly matters.
This is something I experienced firsthand when I fell 44 feet while rock climbing and narrowly survived. In the seconds during the fall and the hours that followed, my training didn’t disappear. My body knew what to do. I took deliberate breaths, regulated my nervous system, and stayed present.
In the days after the accident, as I processed both trauma and profound gratitude, something crystallized. Universal Intelligence was no longer theoretical. It was an anchor. A felt sense of trust. A clarity about why I am here and what this work exists to serve.
This is not about bypassing pain or pretending everything happens for a reason. It’s about having a way back to center when life destabilizes us. For educators and students navigating chronic stress and trauma within a rapidly changing world, that anchor matters.
Why Human Intelligence Is Transformative
Human Intelligence recognizes that learning doesn’t happen in isolation from emotion, relationships, the body, or meaning. We are thinking, feeling, embodied, relational, and purposeful beings all at once.
When the body is regulated, the heart feels safe, the mind is clear, and the work feels meaningful, learning can happen. Universal Intelligence provides the anchor that allows the other layers of Human Intelligence to work together, rather than compete with one another.
An Invitation to Pause
If you’re reading this feeling exhausted, disconnected, or unsure whether the work is worth it, consider this an invitation to pause. Reconnect with the moment, the student, or the memory that first called you to teaching. Notice what anchors you when everything else feels uncertain.
Universal Intelligence is always available as a point of return. When you tend to it intentionally, it supports every other layer of Human Intelligence and helps you meet the complexity of this work with steadiness and clarity.
To explore these ideas more deeply through lived stories and honest conversation, listen to A Work of Heart: Human Intelligence in Education, our new Breathe for Change podcast.
Because when purpose, regulation, and trust come together, everything else becomes more possible.
