When the Student is Ready, the Teacher Appears

Recently I was out for a walk, thinking about the two books I’m reading at the moment - it’s the second time I’ve read them, but this time I’m taking something completely different from them. It’s like I never read the books before. I keep thinking, “Huh, I don’t remember this book saying THAT the first time I read it!”

I 100% do not think it’s a case of me reading it and forgetting. I don’t even think it’s because I was distracted or not paying close enough attention the first time. 

It’s actually because I wasn’t ready for it to land in a certain way, so it didn’t sink in. It didn’t pluck on the right string in my understanding that made the whole thing come into harmony. I might have seen the individual notes, but I didn’t hear the chord being played. 

(If you’re not a musician, a chord is a group of notes played together that create a new, richer sound than the individual notes.)

My experience of gaining a whole new understanding from my second reading of these books is because …

When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

What do you think that phrase means?

On the surface, it seems to imply that we’re making ourselves ready for the teacher (something outside of ourselves) to come and give us something. 

But in truth, the teacher is always already there. 

The teacher is 

Always

Already

There.

You just can’t hear them until you’re ready. 

Recently a friend and I were chatting with one of our teachers, and I was talking about an insight that landed for me in my practice. My teacher listened to us go back and forth and then when we quieted, she said simply, “I’ve told you that about a thousand times.”

It stopped me in my tracks. I was sure it was true even though I couldn’t remember hearing it before. I didn’t have “ears to hear.”

Or, looking at it on an even deeper level, there is no “teacher”. It’s all you.

There might be a body sitting there, even telling you something, but no one can give you anything that’s not yours to apprehend, that’s not already there, waiting for you to have eyes to see it. 

The most enlightened master could be sitting before you right now, ready to give you all the secrets of the universe but until you are ready for the wisdom to unfold within your own being, you won’t be able to hear it. 

The only thing anyone can do, myself included, is show you the door. No one can walk through it for you. 

No one can give you wisdom, the best any teacher can do is awaken your own understanding. 

Which, paradoxically, is already within you.

Taking this even one step further, literally everything is a teacher. 

Literally everything is a portal to all the secrets of the universe. Everything is sacred. Everything is the doorway. When you have eyes to see, and ears to hear.

As the feminine mystic Maya Luna writes, “in every nook and cranny we can inhale Love’s most tender secrets: 

"In the juice of fruit

Dripping down my chin

In every lilac bud and rotten meat and

salt of ocean air…

Down in the trash yards

With twinkling stars of glass shards and

Crows with blood soaked wings

In the well kept temples

Filled with incense and song

In the light soaked hilltop meadow

At dawn

In the crowded markets humming with

Vast hunger and greed.”

Everywhere, everywhere, the teacher is already there. For those who have “eyes to see, and ears to hear.”

When the student is ready…

The teacher appears.

This simple and profound truth, by the way, is why I teach by offering inquiry versus trying to give you some bits of wisdom. 

I can say, “the sunset is coloring the sky with bright orange and purple streaks.” 

Or I can say, “come to the window.”

Which do you think is more profound? Which do you think opens the gates of your awareness? Which one sends you deeper into yourself?

It’s way more important what you see, think, feel, and imagine when you come to the window than anything I have to say. Maybe you don’t notice the sunset at all, maybe you see a scene unfolding on the sidewalk below, or the flowers in the garden, or any of 1000 other things that would be more profoundly meaningful to you. 

I feel like this sums up my work; I’m not here to offer you my wisdom. I create an inquiry, a doorway for you to walk through and touch your own knowing. (Which, remember, already exists within you.) 

I offer a field of exploration and transmission via direct experience.

So much of the actual “work” of spiritual, esoteric, and embodiment practice is becoming fit to receive. It’s the attuning of your body-mind system to open up your own access points, to receive them, and to take right action. 

Are wise words useless then? No way! Poetry, philosophy, great writing, even quotes on instagram, are all amazing. But the next time you’re scrolling, consider that they are only awakening something that’s already within you. 

In feminine embodiment coaching, we hold the frame that you already have all of the knowledge and wisdom you need. It’s only a matter of accessing it. Sometimes we aren’t ready to know, and sometimes we stop ourselves from knowing. The way I coach is through the use of specific tools and processes that help you uncover this hidden wisdom and knowledge. 

I teach the practices that create a sensitivity within our bodies - a readiness within our bodies - to be able to access, receive, and take courageous action on this knowledge and truth. 

If you want to discover the wisdom and truth that already exists within you, you’ll love my 90 day 1:1 coaching program, Force of Nature. This is where you learn how to access the deeper intelligence of your body & strengthen your inner compass, as well as be guided in transformative processes that unblock you. Book a connection call & let’s chat about how this can work for you!