“When the Student is ready, the Teacher will appear.”
The truth of this saying becomes more evident to me with every passing year.
Two of my most influential yoga teachers have moved on recently. Moved on in their lives and thus out of mine for purposes of regularly being able to access their guidance.
When the first one left, it struck a bittersweet chord.
The second one leaving has turned that chord into a much higher vibration that I cannot ignore.
These are teachers who taught me how to breathe again, quite literally, among other life-changing things.
The practice of yoga can be so transformative and expansive when we choose to engage fully with it. It opens our eyes to what is right in front of us, to what is beckoning us, to who we are and who we can be and gives us the courage to walk in new directions. Seeing my yoga teachers answer the calling in their lives is their teaching at its best.
It also forces me to reconnect with my inner teacher and take that guidance with me to every yoga class and every life experience I am granted.
It allows me the freedom to reexamine why I practice and how I practice and invites me to curiously explore new and different approaches to the practice of yoga.
Having teachers that meet us where we are in our lives or who inspire us is invaluable on our individual journeys, but a unique experience begins when they are no longer there to hold our hand. When it’s just us and our practice. For yogis a yoga practice, but for everyone our lives. This is where we can discover, uncover, and recover parts of ourselves we haven’t seen in a while or didn’t know existed.
This is where trust comes in. Trust yourself. Trust your inner teacher. This is what you have been preparing for. This is what they taught you to do.
We must value our teachers while we have them, wherever they show up in our lives. We must learn from them and internalize them and thus be able to tap into their wisdom whenever we need it. We must treasure the gift of learning from a real person in the oral tradition, passing on things they have learned, opening our minds and hearts.
We must honor all the teachers that cycle through our lives in the form of friends, family, teachers, pets, loves, experiences. The next one will show up when we are able to receive them.
They are teaching us a powerful lesson in Letting Go by their leaving. It is one of the most important lessons we will ever learn.
monique minahan 