#38 - When The Student Is Ready, The Teacher Will Appear

-- Loazi

By KC Johnson

How many times in my life I’ve impatiently longed for something to happen to change my unhappy circumstances?

After exploring yet another new concept, or business idea, or dwelling on areas of my slow personal growth, or just pining away for that special someone to sweep me off my feet, I would end up waiting for that life-changing answer to appear. It never did. At least not on my desired impatient time schedule nor in my expected way. I believed the cosmic forces were working against me.

Every time, in hindsight, maybe many years later, those sought-after answers would appear out of the blue leaving me to wonder why it took so long. Now I realize that I needed to tuck a few decades of experiences under my belt preparing for the real answers I was needing to receive.

Judging by the progress I was making back then and the course my life was following, it felt like I was on a no-win road. I didn’t realize that my impatience was just my micro-voices nagging me to do better, be smarter, make no mistakes, be braver, be wiser, and so on and so on. My plans continually fell apart and my desire for finding that perfect guru to bail me out just never appeared.

I’m not saying that I should have never planned out my desired life. I just needed to stay flexible, be patient, be prepared for sudden twists and turns, and embrace the unexpected. After years of considering why things happened at the pace they did I developed my own understanding for this process. Now I ‘know’ that my soul has an intentional plan for me to discover -- how to love every moment. These twisty turns were and are my lesson plan. The course of my experiences led me to that ultimate realization. All of life-experiences were just the fluff I had to wade through to understand that experiences are meant to be experienced, not judged.

As I became prepared to understand and appreciate my circumstances my next teacher would always shows up at the moment most needed. This teacher may have been a person, a book challenging my thoughts, or an experience that altered my comfort-zone forcing me to re-examine everything I believed. In a way, the twists and turns are all very exciting and I appreciate the surprises, even the painful, course-correcting ones.

This requires suspending the need to judge, the Achilles heel landmine that challenges my clear vision. As long as I indulged myself in evaluating every experience l found dissatisfaction with, I shut off my ability to hear the messages I encountered. By judging I closed my eyes to the ‘teacher’s wisdom I most needed.

It has taken considerable concerted effort to help my many micro-voices release their fear-based needs to judge. These fears are like dams blocking the teacher-messaging I most needed to learn from that move me towards deeper personal growth and happiness.

Once I developed my ability to access the sources of my fear-based, judgmental micro-voices, I began hearing the messages more clearly. Doing self-talk while walking, writing in detail about my judgments, connecting with my little-boy-self who harbored my fears, and helping him feel safe enough to release the held-on-to fears began dissolving the veil of judgment that clouded my accepting clear messaging. This process took time, but over several years of intensely trying to understand my deeper self, progress came faster and internal distresses eased considerably. Losing my need to judge myself and others lifted a tremendous burden.

Preparing for My Teacher’s Message

The act of releasing my fears has allowed me to greatly shorten my timeline for finding teachers helping me fulfill some desired goal. At times, it seems magical, like a play unfolding, and I only need to be a casual participant as the perfect bit of information appears while reading a book or listening to a person I meet or watch online. As a sign of corroboration, when the message I most need begins appearing I will see it confirmed many times in a short time frame.

In reality, I am always preparing myself for the next teaching moment my soul has for me, whether I realize that I am in preparation-mode or not. There are still some decades-old quests I’ve been on that are still waiting for me to become prepared enough to recognize the next teacher. Fortunately, by releasing my micro-voice needs to judge I can patiently wait for that time without feeling antsy or disillusioned about my life’s unfolding process. I believe that things will come when they will.

I have discovered the importance of avoiding only searching and waiting for that teacher to appear and instead learning to access my internal guru. I am learning the ability to receive life-changing truths from within my own soul voice. This is my truest guide for following my life-path. I kept waiting for years hoping some guru would come along to guide me, but now realize how that act of waiting and anticipating actually dissipated my personal powers residing within me. Plus, searching within is a much more efficient way to find personal answers. It is always present and my soul is always listening to me. That guru I always waited for was me all along.

We are our own best teacher once we learn to by-pass the micro-voice judgments that clutter our thoughts and learn to pay attention to our deep inner voice. Other people’s opinions and advice can’t understand what my life-experiences were, nor do they have a clue about the path I need to follow. They can only speak from their own perspective reflecting their own needs. My inner soul voice already knows my life and my path, after all it is a part of me. It speaks truths about my next steps to take. And the beauty of this relationship is that my inner voice is always at hand able to aid my concerns whenever I am quiet enough to listen.

The external gurus I found to be enlightened only presented me with nuggets of wisdom that I recognized within myself. It’s as though I recognized messages I already knew to be true, that my soul had been trying to tell me all along, if only I would have been listening. And who is to say that the outer guru isn’t in league with my inner guru.

I don’t ignore outside sources for my personal growth. They can provide very valuable insights that lead to my deeper understanding. These sources can help me better understand and frame my questions to my internal guru to lead me to more compete answers. If I ask the question clearly, my inner soul voice will answer more clearly. If I ask muddled or imprecise questions, then I will get answers that aren’t particularly helpful.

Again, be patient with expecting an answer right away. Sometimes it does come quickly. But if I am not ready for the answer, if I have more work to do, then I need to focus on pursuing other inner needs that help me advance my awarenesses.

The point is to just keep asking, listening, and following my own path without judgment, without fear. I don’t let myself get lost following someone else’s journey and believing they have the answers for me. I have to trust that I have the answers within myself and that I will hear the message I most need to hear when I am ready to hear it. What is important is the message, not necessarily the messenger. My personal powers are precisely tuned to only my needs. - kc