Real Teachers

If I were to ask you what a teacher is, you'd likely conjure up an image of someone standing in front of a class. Imparting facts to students. Once upon a time I would have this vision too.

Yet it is only within the last couple of years that I came to know what a true teacher is. A true teacher brings you closer to your REAL SELF.

Take Nature as an example. When people say "Nature is our teacher" it might be helpful to know which flowers blossom when, what bird you'll find in a location or the time the tides are high and low. However is this what we really mean? I think this is more the DIALOGUE humans have with Nature - if we listen when she speaks we inevitably learn.

So when we say Nature is our teacher, we really mean that we observe how to live in harmony with the world, how to tread gently on the Earth, how to leave our planet better when we live out the roles right for us.

Real teachers always bring us closer to our true selves.

For me, my flesh-and-blood teacher has been Liana Shanti. Strip away the programs or products (because they're just ways of delivering teaching) and what do you have? As a teacher she has held space for me to grow into my own skin. Without judgment, without expectation. With forgiveness and unconditional love.

If this sounds like an ideal parent, you'd be correct. Unfortunately the reality is 99% of parents do not nurture, protect, empower and initiate their children in the ways necessary to raise humans who are connected to their true selves.

So much in fact that we are programmed from an early age to bow to authority, fear the world and each other, not to question our culture, our community or our family, hold weak boundaries (if at all) and allow ourselves to be exploited amongst other things. This was certainly the case with me.

Yet something magical happens when you give someone the space to be just them. Initially they will play out all their programming like an old jukebox running through all its songs. But like that jukebox, they'll begin to run out.

Run out of excuses, run out of old stories, run out of victimhood.

Provide that human with the space and nurture to truly witness them and they begin to grow. Give them the peaceful silence from chatter and they will use their own voice. Provide them with a light-filled role model and guess what? They step into their own light!

This is my truth and because of Liana's example and teachings I have been brought closer to my true self. She hasn't made me but her energy has allowed me to find the strength and power to become me.

There is a difference between LEARNING how to be you and REMEMBERING how to be you.

Thank you for reminding me.