On the morning of writing this I happened to be the seventh lucky caller into a local talk radio show, 702, for a competition to win R10 000.00. Those of you who tune into this station know how enviable it is to get to play and even the presenter, John Robbie, greeted me by saying ‘a whole lot of people hate you at this moment!” I was delighted, excited and confident but ended up not knowing the answer to the one question that would have won it. My feelings over the course of the morning were fascinating to observe. The strongest and most uncomfortable one was a sense of having let people down. I actually found myself wanting to apologise to my husband and domestic worker. Apologise?! For not knowing an answer? It has now become very clear to me that I fear that I will let people down (my loved ones and the world) if I don’t always have the right answer.
This realisation is both horrible and glorious. It shows me clearly that I have been in the grip of the helper / teacher / knower archetype as a means of avoiding something I don’t want to ever allow: letting people down and what will happen to my sense of self if I do. Ironically, needing to always have the right answer is actually a disservice to me and the people I’d love to empower. It means I don’t give myself enough chance to ponder something, to play in the fertile field of the unknown for long enough to discover something totally new and possibly even more valuable.
The glorious part of this is that now I know and, as all those who have seriously embarked on shadow work will tell you, even in just the naming of something there is freedom from it. Does this mean I should stop being a teacher? No. Does it mean I need to try and let people down now? No. It means I need to embrace the thing I fear most i.e. make peace with the fact that I will definitely let people down even when I don’t intend to, and realise that, while that will hurt my ego, it doesn’t say anything about my real worthiness. Now that’s a release worth R10 000.00 
