Why We Need A Mentor
In a 3-part series I published earlier, I wrote about the abuse of spiritual leadership. That brings up a question: do we need a spiritual guide at all?
Power mongers who pose as spiritual leaders and teachers have made us all wary. They cause us to suspect anything “spiritual” that comes our way. Should I trust this or not?
Yet, I’ve been fondly reflecting on all the teachers who have left an indelible impression on my life.
- A kindergarten teacher who always smiled at me as if I were the only person in the room.
- A college professor who lent a listening ear when things on the home front were messy and miserable.
- Many spiritual teachers I’ve studied with who have demonstrated nothing but integrity and open-heartedness.
It’s unfortunate that leaders, teachers, and gurus have got a bad rap in recent times—and with good reason. It’s because of the likes of Bikram (of Bikram Yoga), Osho (Bhagwan Rajneesh), Jim Jones, Shoko Sahara, and Charles Manson, among others.
In the coaching world today—whether it’s wellness, business, or parenting—some of the same but subtler forms of power-mongering have crept in. Clients are instructed to follow a method/formula/prescriptive model that guarantees unbelievable results:, whether it’s weight loss, eradicating limiting beliefs, or celebrating 10k months in business.
Not surprisingly, many of these models haven’t worked—because you and your coach are entirely different people with different personalities, purposes, and paths.
No one can tell you what your path should look like or how it will unfold.
This is why I love the Human Design system. It points to how different we each are and shows us how to follow our unique path.
- we have different energy levels
- we’re all meant to make decisions differently
- we’re differently gifted
- what our soul came here to learn and experience makes up our unique soul curriculum
No matter what your coaching needs are, please find someone who will guide you through the lens of what is correct for you. That is my overarching intention to share in this post.
As I shared in earlier posts, the hierarchical model of leadership is swiftly falling away. More and more people are, thankfully, waking up to the truth that their Inner Divine is their authentic voice of guidance.
As we’re making this important shift towards recognizing and learning to trust our inner guidance, this is what we’re hearing:
You have all your answers within you.
I completely believe that to be true. Each of us has a unique path to walk. Everything we need to make that journey is within us, just as everything a rose bush needs to produce roses is contained within it.
But there’s a problem.
We have all the answers within us but we’ve lost the key.
We came into this earthly life knowing nothing other than how to be our bright, beautiful, brilliant, original self. Watch a baby or toddler and you see this originality in full bloom.
Over a period of time, our caretakers, institutions (education and religious), society and culture stripped away at our originality. We became homogenized humans. We looked outside of ourselves and tried to follow the success path of others, hoping to reach the same destination as they did.
We also took on a bunch of beliefs that became barriers to the best life we wanted to create for ourselves. In the process, we lost our way. We don’t know who we are and how to access our inner guidance.
Why do we need a mentor/coach/guide?
This is why a guide or mentor’s presence in our life is crucial. Because we’re only able to meet our life and its problems through our current level of understanding. Some common themes I hear from my clients are:
- I’m stuck and I don’t know what to do.
- I know I want to, but I just can’t seem to forgive my ——- for what they did to me.
- I feel like I’m failing at grief. Shouldn’t I be feeling better by now?
- I’m scared I’ll get to the end of my life and feel so much regret.
A trusted mentor or guide can lead you to the next micro-step, help you unlock a possibility, shift your thinking with a fresh perspective, and hold space for you as you work through your confusion, shame, guilt, and grief.
For example, when I was feeling a lot of grief back in 2022, my weekly sessions with a mentor I trusted were the thing I most looked forward to. I could sit in her caring presence and cry the tears I’d been holding onto. Her warm listening heart was exactly what I needed to heal and feel seen.
Why I Love Both/And instead of Either/Or
If you’ve been in my world long enough, you know I’m a both/and kind of person. If you’ve never heard of “both/and” and are completely confused, allow me to explain.
Yes, your answers are within you. You get to own and keep your power…
AND
…there’s nothing like a teacher of integrity who can point you to a sliver of light when you’re stumbling around in the darkness of your own confusion.
Both seemingly contradictory truths can be true.
A wise teacher guides you to meet parts of yourself you didn’t even know existed within you.
Says Pëma Chodron, the well-known Buddhist nun: “When you work with a teacher, your shortcomings appear to become heightened. It’s as if you’ve always had pimples all over your face but you never noticed because you didn’t have a mirror…the teacher helps you wake up by mirroring both your shortcomings and your basic goodness. When you encounter the wide-openness of the teacher’s mind it resonates with the wide-openness of your own mind. You see how there is really no essential difference between your awareness and the teacher’s awareness. And you see that you can accomplish what they’ve accomplished because all of us have had to start in the same place—as confused, reactive but basically good human beings. Through instruction and by example, the teacher shows us it’s possible.”
A wise teacher listens well.
If you think about it, good listening involves setting one’s agenda down. It is the ability to bring open-heartedness to the other’s experience, understanding, and struggle. It’s the essence of non-hierarchical leadership.
Learning how to be defenseless is one of the best lessons for all of us, but especially for those of us who are called to lead. When there’s nothing to defend, you simply listen with a receiving heart.
In the next post I’ll share the story of how I was led to my guru, the one I’m presently studying with, and also what I’m studying.