The importance of having True Teachers for our mental health
Dear Friends,
When it comes to our education, our skills and our work, we invest many years of our life (4 degrees for me!), energy and resources to study with teachers, experts and professors, both in-person and online. But how much do we invest in connecting with, and learning from, True Teachers for our mental health?
Recently, I have been reflecting deeply on the important role of True Teachers in my life, my healing, and my mental wellbeing. I am using the phrase “True Teacher”, to differentiate them from academic or work teachers, as they are teachers of wisdom, love and healing that help us connect with our authentic selves. Teachers of Truth, Goodness and Beauty, as Einstein would say. They come from all walks of life, but do we acknowledge and treasure them?
Last month, I lost one of my dearest True Teachers: Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. While his teachings, love and wisdom changed the lives of millions across the world, I experienced him as a deeply personal spiritual guide, a mentor, and pillar of support during my toughest times. His passing invoked great sadness and grief, but also deep gratitude and aspiration in me; an aspiration to continue his teachings beautifully into the future, like the rain continuing the cloud. That’s one of the gifts of a True Teacher: they give our life meaning.
His passing also helped me remember all the True Teachers I still have in my life: from the wonderful seniors in my family, farming mentors and Acumen fellows, to other international teachers like Br David Steindl Rast, Pierre Loisel in Taiwan, Ernst Gotsch in Brazil, permaculture teachers and several senior practitioners in my mindfulness community.
Without them, I will not be where I am today, mentally. Over the years, with patience and great love, they have taught me concrete ways to touch joy, happiness and peace, but also to handle difficulties when they arise, instead of avoiding them or losing myself in consumption. Remembering my personal relationships with them make me feel safe and connected in a web of support. They are IN me, and I am their ambassador. As a result, today I feel more resilient, have more inner strength, self-love and a deeper understanding of my being. This in turn, has given me an increased capacity to share and offer support to others, like writing this letter. I am so grateful even just typing this now.
Dear friends, have you met the True Teachers in your life? Do you recognize and acknowledge them around you, and invest in your relationship and growth with them?
If yes, yeyyyy! Celebrate and keep growing those connections. If not, today I would like to offer, from my experience, the answers to the following questions:
What makes a True Teacher for our mental wellbeing?
How to find a True Teacher?
WHAT MAKES A TRUE TEACHER
“Our own life has to be our message.” - Thich Nhat Hanh
In recognizing a True Teacher, here are some key characteristics that I have observed:
1. Someone whose way of life deeply moves you
This is someone who doesn’t necessarily impress us, but someone we feel in our hearts. I am always deeply moved (often to tears) by individuals who live selfless, simple lives, yet lives full of joy and love. I want to emulate the lives of individuals who live by clear ethics and values, possess the quality of humility, and are always striving to be better humans despite their imperfections. Individuals whose lives are so beautiful, despite all the ups and downs. Individuals who non-violently move against the stream of injustice.
2. Someone whose energy/way of being really lifts you up
This is someone who we naturally love to be with, and are drawn to like a flower to a bee. For me, it is someone who smiles, who exudes safety, is non-judgemental, peaceful, kind, humorous, free, and creative. Someone who also has a fresh and solid presence, who is clear in thinking, like a cool lake that I always want to jump into and take refuge in. Someone who has encouraging and warm energy, who is wise but not forceful, who is gentle, and who meets me where I am.
3. Someone who understands your suffering
This is someone who has been through similar or deeper difficulties in their lives, who found concrete ways to transform and heal, and therefore “gets” what we are going through and can support our healing. Whether it is despair, anxiety, guilt, trauma, anger, fear, or misunderstanding, feelings of hurt or lost, the True Teacher gives us a sense of confidence, a feeling that we are not alone, and hope that there is a way out.
Personally, I am drawn to those who know how to work with despair, with heartbreak, with guilt, and with fear of death, and who know how to transform these difficulties into living a fulfilled and blameless life serving others. I know they are the teachers who understand me, not because their words are nice, but because I feel the urge to practice what they say. When I do, I experience real benefits to my well-being.
4. Someone who speaks your Truth.
When someone speaks our Truth, we know. For example, when Brother David Steindl Rast first shared in his TED talk, “ It is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy”, I felt it deep in my bones. I knew that the practice of grateful living would bring relief to the feelings of guilt I often had. We all have different Truths that wake us up to life, to our reality, and that helps us see our situation with wiser eyes and warmer hearts. Given that, we need different True Teachers. So, we open our awareness and observe who speaks our Truth, and follow that trail with a smile :)
5. Someone who is not fixed in their ways
This is someone who is like a good doctor, giving appropriate medicine to a patient based on their unique circumstances. We all know there is no one size fits all method, or silver bullet, to our challenges. True Teachers understand that too. They listen deeply, observe keenly, and for different students, they may even offer contrasting teachings, often creating new ways. They continue to be students, open, keeping their ego at bay, knowing that no one has a monopoly on the Truth. They often don’t care about fame, fortune, power, or their own ideas. Rather, they focus on how to serve and support the challenges we face.
HOW TO FIND A TRUE TEACHER?
“When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” - Source unknown
The honest truth is, I did not find any of my true teachers! Somehow, they appeared when I needed them the most. Looking back, though, I did have to be” ready” for them to appear. Here are some ways that made me “ready”:
1. Set a clear aspiration and speak out
We should never underestimate the power of our deep aspirations, and the amount of support we can receive towards realizing them when we are unafraid to speak out. Seven years ago, I remember wanting to learn the art of composting food waste as a meaningful way to live and began talking to people I met about it. Within days, I was communicating via email with the guru of composting in Taiwan, Pierre Loisel. Surprisingly, he was an ex-Jesuit priest and turned out to also be an important spiritual teacher in my life, showing me the “composting power” of love.
2. Allow yourself to be open and vulnerable
One of my teachers once invited us to ask ourselves sincerely,” Have I suffered enough?” To acknowledge and embrace our difficulties, and allow ourselves to soften and open up in order to receive support and help, is an important step to be ready for a True Teacher to respond. Sometimes, the response can come in surprising ways: a friend’s recommendation, a book on a shelf, someone from an entirely different background or faith, a youtube feed, a poster at a restaurant etc. In my case, it was a random stranger in the Religion section of Kinokuniya in 2012! This man walked up to me, and said “Don’t just look ahead, look down and look around so you can see the other books on the shelf.” There it was, on the bottom shelf, the book The Miracle of Mindfulness, the book that would change the course of my life and wellbeing. True Teachers can be quite mysterious when making their appearance!
3. Pay attention, with curiosity.
Hold the question, “Who is my teacher?” in your hearts, and pay closer attention to your lives. Sometimes the true teacher is there, but we are not there for them, lost in our worries about the future, our current projects, or regrets from the past. When we slow down, free up time and really look around, when we have that curiosity and adventure in our eyes, teachers pick up that signal, “Ah.. here’s someone with an open mind that I can help.”
When curious, we also start to ask more questions, opening up more dimensions in individuals around us. One day, I was having a meal with my late father’s old staff member, Encik Azmi. We had only ever talked about the construction industry where he worked. He was casually talking about his preparations for Hajj when I felt a deep yearning to learn about his spiritual practice. Upon encouraging him to share, his eyes came alive, and he thoughtfully went through the essence of the Five Pillars of Islam with me, and how it helped him in his daily life. It was so beautiful, and now I try to practice more charity and fasting during Ramadhan every year with my Muslim sisters and brothers, which really helps with my own wellbeing and sense of belonging. Encik Azmi is my True Teacher.
Dear friends, this letter has turned out a little longer than planned and I really thank you for reading. I hope you have found some of it helpful, and wish deeply that you will continue to meet, to connect deeply with, to learn from and to lean on amazing True Teachers in your precious journey of Life. I hope that you also continue spreading their spirit, their understanding and their love to your future students, formally or not, playing your part in the timeless continuation, and evolution, of Wellbeing - something perhaps less tangible, but no less important and sacred, than science and economics.
With gratitude and love,
Will