Identifying Your Inner Teacher by Liz Cronkhite
Liz Cronkhite is a fellow ACIM/non-duality teacher (and friend) whose wisdom and clarity I have found beneficial over and over again throughout the years since first discovering her. The article below is written by Liz.
Everyone experiences their inner teacher at some point, but they may not identify it as such. So, let’s look at some obstacles to identifying your inner teacher.
The expectation that your inner teacher will stand out, be something dramatic, lofty, or special in some way. Your inner teacher is always in your mind, and its ordinariness may make it hard for you to pick it out from ego’s many, also familiar experiences. So, it sounds and feels like you, but a quiet, rational, detached you.
Your inner teacher is quiet, so easily lost in ego’s cacophony. However, this quiet can be how you distinguish it from ego—in time. Ego will try to be quiet to mimic it, but you will sort that out in time through other indicators (see below).
We discuss your inner teacher as a “voice”, and we say things like “hear it” when it does not always come as a voice or with words. Often it is an intuition or unformed thoughts, or simply an unexplained, comforting presence or peace, or a strong feeling to say something or act in some way.
You may feel “unworthy of God”, so even when you do experience your inner teacher, you do not identify it as coming from truth within.
What your inner teacher says may be what you have decided it will never say, so you dismiss it. For example, it may suggest setting boundaries with someone or even letting go of a relationship when you expect it will tell you how to “forgive” so that the relationship is “healed”. Or, you may have decided that because A Course in Miracles says (or anyway you think it says) that you should heal the body with the mind that it can’t possibly be your inner teacher telling you to get to the doctor pronto for that persistent pain you’re having.
Your inner teacher may say what you do not want to hear. In this case, you may recognize it is your inner teacher but play an elaborate game with yourself to deny it is your inner teacher. Later, when you’ve dropped the denial, you will say, “Well, I always knew that was my inner teacher, but I didn’t want to do what it said.”
Your inner teacher may say what you do want to hear so you think it cannot possibly be your inner teacher. Sometimes, what ego wants and what is to happen line up, although ego and your inner teacher will have a different perception or interpretation of the situation. For example, ego in you may want a certain job for prestige and you recognize this is ego, so you feel you shouldn’t apply for it. But you still feel strongly prompted to apply for it. Just because ego comes along doesn’t mean the situation is not to happen. In fact, while your mind is split (ego is still there), ego will be coming along all the time, and you will have conflicting motivations, perceptions, and interpretations. The trick is to learn to sort ego out from your inner teacher so you know which is which, not to avoid situations just because ego is using them for itself.
Some refer to their inner teacher as their wiser self or higher self. This indicates how it can show up, how it can feel. It is detached, never emotional. This includes its love, which is not personal, but is just love itself. If you wonder if you are experiencing ego or your inner teacher, your inner teacher leads to a sense of liberation from guilt and fear. When it is ego, guilt and fear remain the same or increase.
It can take a long time to sort out your inner teacher from ego. In a way, that process never stops while ego is in your mind, because not just religions but all spirituality occurs only in ego-consciousness. So, your experience of your inner teacher is a distortion of truth. This doesn’t matter, of course, because none of this has any effect on truth. What we’re concerned with here is your experience in the framework of ego, which becomes more peaceful in direct proportion to your awareness of and trust in your inner teacher.
For more of Liz’s work, visit acimmentor.com