A Thank You To My Teachers

“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear”

At the start of the Pandemic last year, I joined in with the Deepak Chopra Abundance Challenge – 21 days of Meditation for Wealth & Wellness. The timing was perfect and, as the world went into lockdown, I focused my energy on meditating and completing mindfulness exercises.

On the very first day, I was stumped! The exercise was to make a list of 50 people that have influenced my life and say why. That felt like a lot of people and after the initial flurry of close family and friends I really had to take some time out to reflect on the people I have come across in my life who have taught me something.

What developed, was an incredible feeling of deep understanding and connection with all of the ‘teachers’ in my life and I really want to say thank you to some of them. When we are at school, we all know what the word ‘teacher’ means. There is a person who stands at the front of a classroom and spends 60 minutes of their life teaching schoolchildren an array of different subjects. Some we love and some not so much. But in fact, teachers come along in a variety of different forms throughout our entire lives.

When reflecting on my school years, I realised that two teachers stood out to me, both of them Nuns! One taught me Law and the other Religious Education. Funny thing is, I didn’t love either of these subjects – my heart was in learning languages – but I was good at them. Both subjects have carried me along my life journey without me even knowing.

So, thank you Sister Margaret Mary and Sister Theresa for your wonderful, albeit sometimes scary, teachings.

Entering the workplace, I didn’t think of my bosses as teachers, until I met Andrew Bond and then Julian Lovatt early in my career in the London Insurance Industry. Andrew was my Mentor and he helped me believe in myself by trusting me with his major clients, helped build my confidence in meetings and basically inspired me to continue on my path. He also showed me that it is possible to change your career, as he walked away from Insurance and became a Chef, completely out of the blue!

Julian was and still is, long since he retired, the boss I have the upmost respect for. He was a taskmaster but if you worked hard and respected him, he 100% respected you back. He also loved to let his hair down and I have fond memories of him dancing at Christmas Parties with his tie wrapped around his head as if he was in a rock band!

So, thank you Andrew and Julian for being awesome bosses!

Which now brings me to recent years and my Yoga Teachers in particular. I’ve mentioned in a previous blog what happened when I walked into Trance Yoga in July 2019 and how meeting Gokul and Greeshma has been life-changing, because they showed me another way to practice Yoga; one that is raw, traditional and powerful.

Then in April 2020 a chance connection on Instagram introduced me to Sandra and her challenging and sometimes confronting Kundalini Yoga classes, which I was able to join from my own home at a time when I needed it most.

So, thank you Gokul, Greeshma and Sandra for helping me to develop a Yoga Practice that is completely right for me.

In 2020, I became a Certified Meditation Facilitator. I felt drawn to join a Meditation Teacher Training programme, led by Leelah Sol, because I hoped that it would help me support my coaching clients with additional self-care tools. Over 50 hours across 4 full days of training, my world opened up to a wonderfully intense but beautiful philosophy and way of living. One that I was already kind of living without even realising it! During this incredible journey I also stumbled on a man who lived in the US, Scott Moore, who shared with me his passion for Yoga Nidra. I then went on to complete a course with him as I also fell in love with this special Meditation Practice.

So, thank you Leelah and Scott for helping me realise something within me that I hadn’t even known existed until I met you both. You are truly special souls.

In the end I was able to list 50 people who have been influential in my life, and the list keeps on growing as my journey continues.