How many times have you crossed this saying? This is a quote from the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu. The longer version of this is as follows:
“When the student is ready the teacher appears. When the student is truly ready the teacher disappears” – Lau Tzu.
When I dive deeper into this quote, the teacher itself isn’t so much a physical manifestation of a person as it is your subconscious behaviors being made more conscious by introspection. In the context of my journey, some of my greatest metaphorical “teachers” have been from my relationships. This isn’t just specific to romantic relationships, but also platonic ones too. You have to truly unpack and do the self-work to understand how your own childhood dynamics and/or how you defined relating in relationships, might have contributed to relationship failures or ones that ended up getting a little contentious. When you do this, they truly are your greatest teacher.
The most painful endings in my relationships helped me to uncover and address both my mom and dad issues. Lets be real here, most all of us carry some type of behavior (read emotional baggage), both good and bad, from what we saw growing up into all of our relationships. The methods and tools we learned from early on became our blueprints for how we address things later in life. Until we find other methods to cope and handle what life throws us by doing the self work and allowing the metaphorical teacher to appear, these will be our default. Until someone comes along and cares enough to challenge us, we might remain stuck in our ways unsure of how to move forward and why we keep repeating the same mistakes over and over.
When you look at your relationships that didn’t work out from this perspective, you save yourself a lot of pain. It is easy to always pin endings on the other person, or even blame ourselves too often. Truly, with some people we are in relationship with, it is very clear that they are too operating and playing out their own control drama. However, this doesn’t mean you need to be a glutton for punishment or stick around while they figure it out. Stockholm syndrome is a real thing. Some people are into self reflection and others aren’t. That is why you can only be accountable for you, unless you care enough about the other person and they care enough about you to fight for the relationship where you can learn and grow together.
However, I digress. This led me to really understanding how a journey is filled with many teachers along the way, only if we are open and ready to receive the message. There have been times people from my past have said things to me that I wasn’t ready to hear. The way the message is relayed can have an impact on if that relationship continues, so while I might have needed to “hear that” the messenger and their delivery might not serve a place in my life beyond that teaching. Further, this is when you move on with grace and when you are ready, that metaphorical “teacher” has left you a gift. It’s all about intention when someone is telling you about yourself, and you also need to know your worth and value so you can recognize what type of people you will allow to do this. A gift to better understanding yourself, the world and others.
I truly found peace after realizing I wouldn’t have been able to unpack my mother and father issues from two substantial relationship endings. That is what the journey is about and trust, we are all on our own journey. Once as a collective we realize that, the more we relate on a conscious level to one another with greater understanding. While we might not have a seat for everyone at our “table” or those that we just don’t vibe with, it is more than okay to save and even make space for those that are willing to learn and grow with you, not undermine or bring you back to a place you have healed from and grown from.
On my journey and as I grew out of being a people pleaser, I realized that I don’t have to say yes to everyone and the energy they are giving and that is okay. Learn to let relationships come and go as your journey unfolds. We all know that life will keep giving us the same lesson over and over, which is the overall meaning of this quote, until we are ready to learn the lesson. Once we have grasped the lesson the metaphorical “teacher” and/or sometimes the physical manifestation of that teacher, will disappear. This does not mean you end up alone. You can journey with many, with one or even alone. What matters ultimately is what you allow the teachers along the way to teach you.
