23 Nov Lessons learned about Guidance & Mentoring
Having grown up without guidance and mentoring as a child I often (still, at my age!) feel like I’m fumbling in the dark.
You may have heard me talk and write about the 8 Fundamental Attachment Needs. One of those eight is Guidance & Mentoring.
Good mentoring …
is when you can turn to someone for help, not for them to do it for you, but rather they provide the help, support, framework for you to find how to do it!
This might show up as simply being with you in the struggle of not knowing how.
It’s definitely not about the other taking over. Good mentoring is when someone is WITH you, helping you listen and attune to yourself.
It’s about helping you find the answer that is there inside of you and then supporting you in following your inner promptings to accomplish what it is you’ve set out to do.
It’s about the other helping to break down the task into small manageable steps so you can test those steps out for yourself.
That’s how we learn. That’s how we gain confidence.
That’s how we develop a sense of self.
It’s not about getting affirmation from outside, from the other, from the person we turned to for help.
That person out there is there to help us find ourselves.
That person is there to mirror back the enormous benefits of taking steps, doing it wrong, learning from that process and reaching into the unknown to find your unique way of being. All while staying connected inside to yourself. And while also being celebrated outside.
This ties into what happened a year or so ago when the Transformational Window opened in my life.
(that’s a nice way of describing the ruckus that comes when we’re propelled into a new phase of life.)
I’m not sure what exactly happened, or why.
In a simple way it showed up when I was in a gallery in upstate New York, looking at some coasters. Beautiful. $15 each. I thought. I can do that.
That launched me on a multi-thousand dollar adventure into creativity, taking classes, buying roving for felting, pulling out and opening up my paint supplies.
Because it wasn’t my “profession” I was able to play, explore, engage, discover. Then, wanting to uplevel what I was doing I enrolled in a year long mentorship course.
Ah. Yup. Those old patterns showed up.
I hadn’t realized how much I had learned to mirror back the “teacher”, the “guide”, the other. I can see how my life was shaped by that unconscious way of being.
My deeply embedded training was to turn my love, attention, attunement on the other: admire them, value them, delight in them.
All while (unconsciously) trying to shape shift myself into being someone who will value me, delight in me.
Ugh.
You know how those patterns play out. We flow easily, effortlessly into them. I had fallen seamlessly into those patterns in this year-long “mentoring” program.
Until…I realized, the teacher was highlighting all (ALL) the other’s work. Never mine. Never once.
That of course, sent me into the Thicky Wicket and down the rabbit hole of unworthiness. I plummeted! Somewhere in there I could feel the urge to practice more. Do IT right. Do whatever I could to get the “love” attention, consideration.
What’s the old saying? There’s no cheese down that tunnel.
Well. Easy to say. Didn’t stop me from wallowing a bit in the tunnel, maybe not dropping deeper into the muck, but rolling a bit in it.
Doing so, with some degree of, “here I am, doing THIS yet again” helped me to get to AHA.
Somewhere in there the teacher wrote and very nicely said she hadn’t seen me in the community and asked how I was.
How to respond to that?
I responded but did not include my muck…I wanted to take responsibility for my own stuff, not make it about her. After all, she can run her course anyway she wants. It’s my stuff that was getting activated.
The developmental task for me was to NOT be the good student and do it right for her. Instead I mucked around in my S***** all while other things were happening.
Which was that in addition to this class I had picked up my painting supplies and found a class. LOVED it. Mesmerized while in it. Working with materials I hadn’t worked with.
The teacher was totally different. The kind of art teacher you read about in books. The way she dressed, spoke. The classroom. Everything was loose but really really good.
I could feel my inner head cocking to the side. Ah…The felting teacher is also really really good. And very very structured. There is clearly a RIGHT way to do things. Very precise. Detailed.
The art teacher would look at what I was doing, point out where I might do things differently, explore something else, all while acknowledging what she liked, valued.
So different from the other teacher.
With one teacher I felt expanded. The other I felt diminished, even a bit ashamed.
Realizing this while I was sitting at my art table (which really is the kitchen counter) I started putting little bits of wool together. Tiny not well defined or articulated pieces. Without a central context. Without a descriptor. Messy edges.
Simply playing with color. Shape. Texture.
… “listening” inside – more accurately, attuning inside. Letting something inside guide me. Putting that (whatever that is) into expression on the outside.
It felt like humming was happening. Not just me humming but everything humming together.
All while my heart opened and contentment washed through me in waves.
That’s the benefit of good mentoring.