“To learn, read. To know, write. To master, teach.” – Yogi Tea
Today’s Yogi tea bag carried the above message. It was particularly pertinent because I just spent the weekend with colleagues for whom I had served as a teacher of sorts. The experience with those amazing people taught me that the teacher/student relationship is an incredibly enlightening and healing experience – for the teacher.
An Unexpected Truth
For those with illness, or anyone struggling to find more happiness or better health, I believe it is especially empowering to serve in a teaching role. This may seem counterintuitive because you are likely used to being on the receiving end of advice from doctors, family, and well-meaning friends. When you have any type of challenge from chronic illness to unemployment, you become far more accustomed to the role of student than that of teacher.
How Can I Be a Teacher?
For me, after years of doctor’s visits the patient/student role became all too common. So common in fact that I started to think that I needed to be “fixed”, so I certainly wasn’t in a position to be giving advice. Not that I ever stopped offering my opinion, but I did stop providing formal health counseling. And, I truly started to wonder what gave me the right to educate on health at all. I convinced myself that the only way I could be an effective teacher or health coach is if I maintained perfect health. To make matters worse, there were people in my life who advised me not to ever let on that I had any illness or personal challenges because according to them no one would trust me. Besides, a true professional never shares too much. So I tried to hide my imperfections and put on an “I got it all together” façade, which just made me feel like a liar, and actually made me grow sicker.
Health Hypocrites
In addition, I started noticing that lying about one’s imperfections was quite popular. Many educational gurus don’t walk their talk. There are overweight individuals giving sold-out seminars on weight loss; excessively wealthy professionals preaching that we all must be more generous; and religious leaders condemning us for the very sins that they commit behind closed doors. Believing that we must be perfect in order to teach others, while also witnessing the reality that many of those that do teach seem to function with a shocking level of hypocrisy, made my head spin. I wondered if the role of “teacher” was an inherently unhealthy one.
Students Become Teachers
With all these negative mixed messages I concluded that I was never meant to teach others. Then, something amazing happened – students began showing up in my life. There is a Chinese proverb that I have quoted many times before “when the student is ready, the teacher appears.” It seems that the reverse can also be true. When we are ready, there are always those who are willing to learn from our experience. And, that willingness is a gift that one should never squander, because, as today’s tea bag suggests, teaching others is the surest path to life mastery.
Mastery Requires Humility
So here’s where it gets really tricky. I previously thought that being a “master” implied a level of perfection. But, that no longer feels true for me. Mastery seems more about a willingness to fail, to face one’s flaws or challenges and embrace the lessons in them. I’m realizing that being an effective teacher is not about having an advanced degree. It has nothing to do with age, gender, or what you look like. What it really boils down to is doing the work – getting down in the dirt with a problem, figuring out a solution, and then sharing that solution with others. Often that actually requires a whole lot of imperfection. Just like all contrasts in life, really understanding the elements of health and balance can only be achieved by experiencing the realities of illness and imbalance. Teaching someone is really attempting to walk in their shoes while letting them benefit from the wisdom of walking in yours. It is about first being a student, with an honest and open heart that’s willing to learn, followed by acting as a guide with a humility and purity set only on helping others uncover their truth.
I have always been deeply grateful to those who have taught and continue to teach me. Recently, however, I have uncovered an even greater gratitude for those who have been kind enough to let me teach them, for I now know that they are helping me to heal.
What a powerful enlightenment! Rather tricky at first but resonates with truth and common sense. Somehow the popular thought deviates from this point placing the teacher in the power role and the student in the subservient position. For some this concept perpetuates a need for the teacher to be more knowledgeable and perfect than it is possible for a mere human to be. We were thrown out of the Garden of Eden weren’t we? So it is a tough role if you are thinking with ego. You bring a lot to mind. Don’t we all love a bosss [or a teacher] who can function right down there in the trenches with us? The teacher or coach, or healer who meets his charges with an expectation of receiving and learning as well as imparting some special wisdom has to be happier and more fufilled in the role, even if it’s in a subconcious sense.
There is a theme of hierarchy in our culture. There is ‘top dog’ and there is ‘underdog’ [that was a cartoon]. It has to be hard to be perfect and to stay that way has to include hypocracy, denial, arrogance, and foolishness. It’s as you say – the teacher shows you where to look. What a teacher really does is to hold the light. I have a great deal of sympathy for people who think they know everything or who think they should know everything. You meet them eveywhere and they really mess things up by providing information for the sake of not saying they don’t know. It’s a great burden. I so respect a teacher, or a health care provider, or a counselor, or a coach who says “I don’t know, but I will look it up and let you know.” or “Here is where to look for that, let me know” That requires a great deal of humility and common sense. I think your transition and your description of the experience are like that – humility and common sense. You are brave and benevolent to share your discoveries. Thanks for the reality check!
Thanks for commenting Paula! You brought an entire additional dimension to the topic and reminded me that ego often gets in the way when it comes to the learning/teaching/coaching relationship.
Wonderful post Michelle so full of wisdom. It is a gift to be able to teach others. I have gained so much from teaching my nursing students. I am especially grateful for a renewed love and passion for my profession!
Thanks Anne! I am so happy for your nursing students because they get to experience the benefit of your enthusiasm. Teaching is truly a circle in which all parties get what they give.