When the Student is Ready the Teacher Appears

By Nicky, Ex TV CEO and Five Element Acupuncturist

My psycho-spiritual journey began in my early thirties when a relationship breakup left me floundering.  I sought help from a friend’s mother who worked as a marriage guidance counsellor.  I remember little about these sessions (apart from smoking a lot of cigarettes), but continued seeing her whilst I struggled in a subsequent relationship with an alcoholic narcissist and managing a career in an equally dysfunctional advertising agency.

In the ensuing five years I dumped the bloke and the job, changed career direction and met the man I married.  We lived the six-star life in London and as expats in Asia but then put our vows to the test when I lost my job and he was diagnosed with cancer.  It was a bittersweet two years during his illness when I found a new purpose in looking after someone I loved, and was witness to his enlightenment that the only thing that mattered was love.  I could only feel the loss.

In grief I tried everything to fix myself: I read a lot, and went to numerous retreats thinking each time that it would be the ‘solution’ .  Needless to say none were.  I learned a lot on the way but hit a rock bottom when working overseas, struggling with the subsequent loss of my father and facing the end of my career.  I felt hopeless in every sense.

I went to see a therapist who, in recovery herself, suggested that maybe I was an alcoholic and that I should go to AA. Despite having an alcoholic mother who had been in and out of rehabs, I had limited experience of Twelve Step programmes.  I knew I was a heavy drinker, I never considered that I might be an alcoholic: I was too highly functional… but from my first meeting I knew I was in the right place.  I spent my early days weeping in a corner but never drank again.  Grief and relief overwhelmed me.  When I started working the steps I was finally able to see that the blame and shame I was living with were misplaced and that the harsh reality was that I had to own my part. I also had to realise that I was not god!

I had always been drawn to the mystery of an inner life and can recall moments of pure joy as a child riding my bicycle through the lanes of Norfolk.  I was aware of a sense of a self that was not limited by my body and mind but observing as an author might watch a character in a novel.  I also had a spiritual awakening in a moment of prayer after my confirmation, and having done a course in Transcendental meditation.  Both were short lived as I never had the discipline for regular practice.  I was acutely aware that there was a better life beyond the veil, but I couldn’t quite connect. I felt blocked but despite this something changed.

I gave up my career: I had become a digital dinosaur and lost the motivation to stay current, and I retrained in Five Element Acupuncture.  I had had treatment myself for 35 years, initially for persistent tonsilitis and fatigue that today might be deemed ‘long covid’ but in the 1980’s was known as ‘yuppy flu’.  I am sure this played a critical part in enabling me to function through the challenges life presented me.  This beautiful system is 5000 years old, the medicine of the mandarins and founded on the Taoist philosophy of the Tao Te Ching.  To be effective as a practitioner I have to rely on my senses not the patient’s story, to be in my heart not my head.  I have to be humble to know that I don’t heal (I might restore energetic balance but then nature does the healing) and I have to let go of the idea of being right.

None of this is easy for someone who had relied on a job title for control and lost touch with their feelings.

In AA we talk about progress not perfection and I thought I was doing ok until my mother died and my sister came back from New Zealand after 25 years.  Despite my best efforts I found myself thrust back into a family dynamic which was like Kryptonite.  I blamed myself – if only I worked harder, or behaved better, I could overcome the defects of character that made me compete, control, criticise and compare.  Compare.  Despair.

The next revelation for me came from a friend whom I had referred to ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families), and she recommended Peter Walker and his book ‘Complex PTSD – from Surviving to Thriving’.  I understood that what I had experienced in my family were paralysing emotional flashbacks, and that in trying to make amends to them, without having processed the anger and grief that I truly felt, I was simply gaslighting myself.

But understanding the problem is only a small part.  I am grateful that I had the grace to realise that ‘discomfort is aroused only to bring the need to correct forcibly into awareness’ (ACIM – A Course in Miracles) and that was how I arrived at IFS and Tanya.

When the Student is Ready the Teacher Appears.  I cite this quote, which has been erroneously attributed to Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching, because its ‘truth’ reflects my experience. One Buddhist academic concluded that the quote came from the 1885 book Light on the Path, by Mabel Collins which reads for when the disciple is ready the Master is ready also and perhaps this better describes my IFS journey and working with Tanya.

Tanya’s description of her approach on the Psychology Today listing of IFS therapists resonated:  I work with individuals as a Coaching Psychologist, specialising in Internal Family Systems therapy. I help clients identify the things that drive them subliminally, the internal obstacles and patterns that get in their way, and the restorative ways in which they can return to their most authentic selves.  It is a collaborative venture and always unique.

It is hard to articulate the journey, perhaps because I am still on the road. Still assimilating.  Work in progress.  Needless to say, I read Richard Schwarz’s  book ‘No Bad Parts’ too, to understand the concepts of exiles, managers and firefighters, but with Tanya’s gentle coaching I have begun to experience my parts with compassion.

I see how the ‘Big Sister’ needed to be in charge and whilst her behaviours may have been overbearing and unpopular with my siblings, her intentions towards them were good and helped me to survive the emotional chaos which thronged beneath the highly ordered household in which I grew up.

‘Big Sister’ graduated into CEO, which served me well in my career and has given me a rich and varied life (albeit one I could have been more present in).  I have learned about the ‘swamp’ in which my teenage ‘Minions’ wallowed as they sought the love and attention which seemed to be more available for my younger siblings.

Perhaps most importantly in the process, I have come to trust the reality of my experience growing up which, because it was materially comfortable but significantly different to that of my siblings, I had dismissed as being my fault or my imagining.  A part of me was working very hard to minimise the hurt and make me think it was not that bad!

I have experienced and understood the repressed fear that stemmed from being deemed not beautiful, not demur and perfectly charming in a world where these qualities were the only things that mattered.  I still succumb to angry, entitled and reactive behaviours, people pleasing and fixing others when these parts are triggered, but, in experiencing these feelings, they pass.

In the ancient Chinese medicine that I practice, all pain is stuck energy be it in the body, mind or spirit, and as I am able to allow my own pain, I am better able to feel it in others, not as an intellectual exercise but as an emotional experience. Slowly I am finding some compassion for the smaller self that struggled and the more expansive part that is open to potential and possibility.  Maybe even to love.