Every person is a teacher. Teachers are needed on all levels. Recognizing what it is that you teach, is a part of knowing who you are. Yet there is a lot of misconception we have in regards to the role of a teacher and the entanglement with the teacher’s ego and sense of separated self. We are teachers not by what we say or do but by who we are. Our response to our life lessons is the way we model what we know to be true. Our modelling evolves as we do. We are all continuously teaching and learning. We serve this purpose whether we are conscious of it or not.
What is it that I am truly teaching? I know that my lesson at present is around making judgements. Every time I look at my partner, I can see it so clearly. Am I willing to let go of that? I whisper these questions quietly as they are admissions of my own shortcomings. But what is it that I teach as a relationship counsellor? Shouldn’t I be practicing my own sweet advice?
As Leonard Cohen wrote, ‘the light comes through the cracks.’
I believe that I teach and hold counsel through my cracks. My cracks are around trust, joy, competition, judgement, fear.
Elizabeth Gilbert said that the opposite of fear is intuition. When someone says something, you feel it in your body as truth – this is intuition. I’ve had that sense of deep knowing too. My body helped me to make the decision about whether I would give birth at home or go to the hospital. It felt like the most real and impactful decision I have ever had to make. I had to discern which voice within me I needed to listen to most. I could not just disregard the fear, I had to listen to it deeply. When it came to my baby, this was not the time to make a heroic choice and take unnecessary risks.
So, what did I choose to listen to if not fear? Yes, it was intuition, a place within me that has a deeper knowing and was anchored in steadiness. That knowledge does not come from my mind but my body. I ended up deciding to go ahead with a home birth. I did not feel that the fear stopped. In fact, it transformed into a word in Hebrew called YIRA. It is a humble place. Of knowing that in truth anything could happen. That we are fragile and vulnerable. That although we are not meant to live in fear, we are not meant to be arrogant either. This feels like a still place of listening. Of reading the signals of my inner knowing. It’s a place I have learnt to trust. When I don’t buy into fear I rest in my intuition. I believe this is love in action.