I am a lifelong seeker of connection with the Divine. Whether I am singing or cooking, meditating or doing a session with a client, it is the inner feeling I am going for. That is the intended purpose of everything I do, appearances often to the contrary. Today I had a direct experience of what that means, through a TAT session I was giving myself about being successful.
What I got very clearly was the difference between an experience of that Connection, and talking about it. I was thinking specifically about teachers who profess to connect us to our inner self without themselves being established in that connection.
Our world is full of words and snake oil sellers. There are so many people in the realm of "spiritual teachers" who have the right clothes, the right look, the right organic food and the right words, but when I am around them, I feel like screaming and running out the door.
Integrity is about walking our talk, not just talking it. It has taken me many years to learn to trust what I feel inside, in spite of what I am being told. Some teachers are genuine, and others just have words, words, words to draw us in to their own emptiness. In the presence of a genuine teacher, I feel a quiet inside, a recognition of our connection. When there are too many words, or the words and the vibrations don't fit, I get downright antsy and can't wait to get out. It's when the teacher is saying, "Look at me. I am the teacher." Instead of "Let me learn from you, too." There is such humility in a great teacher, because they know their Power comes the Divine, not from their own efforts.
How do I do my best as a teacher? I have worked hard and studied for just short of 50 years, from the time as a teen I first started learning about nutrition. I have studied the body through food, vitamins, supplements, massage, yoga, Reiki and TAT, plus being a vegetarian and a mom and travelling all over the world. And yet, when I teach, all that is just information unless I can make it relevant and inspirational, unless I can touch you with my own experience, unless we feel a connection. I mostly know about being a teacher from being a student.