November 5, 2012
Yesterday I was thinking about the topic of saying goodbye to students, which is actually a topic that is in my mind more than I think it should be. Let me explain…
You see I have been doing this work for several years now. Over the most recent years I have been going deeper in the private work I do with students. I have been working with them for longer periods of time and also we have more things in common.
In a way, my students become like friends.
Now I know of course that this is a friendship based on me teaching them, them learning, and an exchange of money. It’s pretty one sided as far as they tell me what’s going on in their lives and I don’t talk about my life…. although up until recently my blog was pretty personal and also available online for all to see for free, so they knew, to a certain extent what was going on in my life as well.
So a friendship would develop. Again, in a way….
We meet once a week or once every two weeks either in person or through the phone and have an intimate chat.
There would be good conversations, anxieties would be lessoned, wisdom would be shared, and smiles and laughs would abound. It’s good stuff and I love it.
But then there comes a time in each students life where they move on.
Either they want to spend their money elsewhere or they are tired of all the spiritual work they are doing… they want to abandon their spiritual growth…. or they are simply ready to move on. Some take a break from learning and come back and others I don’t speak to again.
Ce la vie, right?
If you are already working in some helping fashion you know what I am talking about. If you are not doing it yet, you will know….
This is a common “challenge” that all service type professionals go through.
The act of saying goodbye. Goodbye to their students… or clients.. or whatever they are labeled by you 🙂
And I always find that hard. I never want it to happen, although I have plenty of times told my student that it was good for them to take a break and come back in a month to learn more or that there was nothing else to work on. I do this because I think it’s in integrity. It’s being honest of my assessment… but it still makes me sad.
It makes me sad to say goodbye to someone who has become like a friend.
It makes me sad to say goodbye to the intimate talks we have.
It makes me sad to no longer hearing and congratulating and rooting them on in their journey.
It also makes me sad to say goodbye to the money. 🙂 Come on, I know you were thinking that in your head. Yea, of course that too… but I am moving into the place of more of an understanding and trust… again, a knowing (what we talked about in the last post) that money and my financial support come from source, not from clients. This is something I am sure I will post about in the upcoming days, weeks and months as these are my lessons these days as well.
So there’s the feel of sadness I have to deal with.
There’s also the feeling of rejection. I don’t know how the “saying goodbye” and sadness turns into the rejection feeling…. but it does. (These are things I’m having awarenesses about these days and journalling about, etc).
Even if I shared with my private student that I don’t think they need to do sessions right now, I still end up… usually weeks or months later, feeling rejected by them. Like they left me. And that makes me sad again.
It’s a weird cycle that I wanted to share with you.
I am working out “solutions” and new ways of looking at this, but felt it was important to share the feelings associated with working with clients/students that you may experience….
I just want my students to stay near me forever. This is actually what I have been working on and thinking about…. a way to make this happen that makes sense for everyone.
They are good people, that we’ve gotten close… and I’d like to keep that going. Keep the good people near me. Keep the ones that we “get” one another together and maybe even connect them with one another.
Again, things are brewing in my mind about this…. I thought the feelings and thoughts are important for you to hear about. 🙂