I call myself a wisdom teacher. It is not because I am named Sophie, which means wisdom, nor is it because I studied philosophy, often referred to as “the love of wisdom”. What makes me a wisdom teacher is what I have discovered as I lived and learned while my life unfolded.
Wisdom is knowing that our view of life determines our experience of being alive. Another way to say it is wisdom is knowing that we carry the world in our eyes. We do not see life as it is: we see life through our view of life.
How did I come to this realization?
When I was 28 years old, my husband died. On our honeymoon. Five days after we were married. I was deeply in love and it caused me quite a few years of despair. It was tragic, and yet I am proud to say, I learned from it, and freed myself from grief and sorrow. As I build a new life for myself, going back to work, and generally doing what we do, I could never build a lasting relationship with another man. To make it worse, I could not understand why; I knew I loved men and wanted to be in a relationship.
Then came my breakthrough about wisdom: I had constructed a view of life I was unaware of. My confusion disappeared when I realized I decided men were dangerous. You see, in my logic, men died on you. You will understand then that the pragmatic, logical, intelligent thing to do was to either stay away from them all together or be in relationships with men I knew I would not love fully, hence assuring the failure of the relationship.
The good news was I could free myself because I could transform my view of life. The only condition was to be willing to take a risk. The man I would fall in love with, and give my heart to, could die as well. A risk indeed. But the alternative was to become an old, cold-hearted woman with 30 dogs, using them to unsuccessfully try to satisfy my hunger for connection. I already had one little dog!
Essential to cultivating wisdom is also the word “teacher”. The secret of creation lies in that word, and once you understand that, you will embrace and cherish being a teacher yourself. Indeed, we create by giving away what we have. It is called free will.
A teacher learns from many different sources and gives back what she or he has experienced. And by giving it away, they get back what they gave.
When I taught fear and holding back, I got back loneliness.
I now teach love, and I get joy back.
The renowned Roman philosopher Seneca said: “There is no compass for the one who does not know where he is going.”
Allow me to share my compass with you: if you do not have the life you want, if you do not produce the results you wish for, if you are unhappy, if you are miserable or confused, look for the view of life that is the source of what you experience.
What you have that you do not want, or what you want that you do not have, is what you teach. If you are anxious, you teach anxiety and will reap aggravation. If you are joyful, you teach joy and will harvest connectedness.
We always reap what we sow.
It is that simple.
We are all born teachers. We just need to learn wisdom.