Teachers Are Everywhere

People, experiences, emotions, pets, you name it.

Teachers are everywhere. That’s true in the absolute but also as a mindset. I believe you need the mindset before you see the absolute.

A person could spend many years going through similar situations, relationships, jobs, experiences and never realize that every single one is a chance to learn and possibly improve the next. It takes a little curiousity, a bit of blunt introspection, and the DESIRE to learn and change.

I have people in my life who bring me joy and growth through the difficulties we face and that we recognize, together. We enjoy our time together, but we also have cried or been angered by conversations, a few times wondering if our relationship was over. And yet because we both came at the interaction with openness and desire to grow, we repaired the rupture. We completed the secure attachment cycle. (More on this later.)

What if it is one-sided? I’ve found that who I am now, the healing and curious person, is able to learn in relationships where the other party is not aware that we are challenging each other and they have no curiosity or desire to learn. But it is a stunted teaching. It might even show me that the particular relationship is untenable and it needs a break or an ending. I am on a deliberate boundary-driven break from one of these relationships, one of the longest in my life. But it is needed, now.

And I know that few things are more healing and human than being in relationship with a person who acknowledges the rough spots and we openly communicate together that we want to move forward, with hope, with change if change is needed.

Thank you to Zach, my coach, who reminded me of this idea over a year ago, and to the sticker I have on my dream journal that says the same.