TEACHER PSYCHOLOGY

This is the point I am leading up to: if there are things in ourself we don't want to get close to, our relationships with pupils will tend to reinforce that.

 

I don't always recognise it when people are seeing me as someone they can learn from. It's not just English modesty - a much over-rated, and sometimes hypocritical, virtue - but also an unwillingness just to stand up straight and say to myself this is who you are, you've been round this block enough times: if you haven't got something to say, then who has? 

 

It's not just to do with having been around the block. It's also something I came here with, that has always been natural to me, and yes I've had to stand back for years at certain points to round it out and clear some s%$t out the way, but it would be false of me not to own that. So my first point is if you've got it, own it, it is not a virtue to deny it. You will see it in people's responses to you.

 

Coming out of that is my second point. People will love you and they will give some of their own power to you. This is a natural thing: most of us are not fully living our own connection to Spirit - the East of the Medicine Wheel. They may raise you up beyond where you are yourself. Never mind. Projection is usually a necessary thing, to some extent. First we see it out there, or we imagine we do, and then we claim it for ourselves. The pedestal is something we have to learn to handle, and to honour it, for we are holding something precious for the other person till they are ready to embody it themselves. It's a delicate thing. Often people's way to their own power is the painful one of betrayal by the teacher. But it doesn't have to be like that, not if the teacher has been around the block enough times and learnt from that.

 

And what I'm referring to is the teacher's shadow work. The places we are needy, or concealed from ourselves. It has perhaps been the place I have learnt most from myself: giving others my East, then having that betrayed. It is a valid path, albeit rather protracted and painful. To some extent, it is inevitable, for no teacher is perfect, we are all human.

 

There is this gross level, where the teacher really should be back in his or her cave for a decade, sorting their stuff. The teacher who needs everyone to think like they do, and if they don't, tells the pupils they are 'confused'. The one who creates a love-fest centred around them at the end of the workshop, because they need to be loved. The one who has their issues with authority, and draws the pupils into their own conspiracy views of how the world works. You can often tell when there is something funny going on, because the people around the teacher will tend to reflect the imbalance or woundedness of the teacher.

Then there is the more subtle level, which is where I really wanted to get to. The people who come to your workshops aren't going to challenge you in an intimate kind of way. Challenge is the wrong word. It's softer than that. It's more like they won't relate to you like a good friend will. It's an energetic thing as much as anything. They won't move in on you personally, they will hold you at a respectful distance. By and large. You are the teacher. I'm not quite sure how to put this. I know. They are not going to come near the stuff in yourself you want to keep a distance from, whereas a friend may do, if you're lucky. Or a family member, that's what they're for

 

The astrologer Liz Greene talks in her Mythic Tarot book about the psychotherapist as someone who can protect their own woundedness by creating relationships in which they always have the power. I think this is really what I am getting at. When you have pupils, there is usually a relationship based around you carrying the East, and initiating them into it. That is a powerful thing, and it creates a powerful relationship. But it also hides you from the things in yourself that you aren't very comfortable with, or are unconscious of. There is an unspoken agreement not to go there. And this is what we need to watch out for, even if we have done a considerable amount of our own shadow work. 

 

Put it this way: if there are things in ourself we don't want to get close to, our relationship with pupils will tend to reinforce that. So we also need people we don't have that kind of relationship with.