My last yoga class in a large group setting was Friday, May 14. I know because
I planned it that way. It did not come easily, without many tears, guilty feelings,
fears about finances, and worries about my students’ well being, yet,
it was absolutely the right thing to do.
The process of letting my classes go came quickly, during a meditation time
one morning. I had done my yoga practice and was now sitting silently in meditation,
when, from deep, within my being, a very loud and clear voice spoke with conviction
- “You need to stop teaching all of your classes.”
What??!!!!!!!! This was my bread and butter, as well as my life’s
work, to bring the gift of yoga to people. I asked again, and the same voice
did not waver, but fine tuned the response: “Stop teaching all of your
classes. Continue with your workshops and trainings. Do your private yoga therapy.
Continue with your small private at home group. But stop running around. No
more.” Once I sank in to the feeling place of this message, my whole body
relaxed. My breath was easier. I was deeply liberated from some type of stress
or burden.
My teaching had become a burden. What a revelation. Deep down I had felt that
way for months, but I kept going. Kept dragging my 10 yoga mats and my CD player,
all my flyers, postcards, sign-up sheets. Kept rushing to be at a yoga class
early so the students would feel relaxed, and feeling guilty and frustrated
when I hit traffic or the bridge was up for boats to pass through or I was just
plain late. Kept reading yoga magazines to learn and grow and yet feeling somehow
unworthy because I was not able to do all these advanced postures, or I just
wasn’t hip enough to be the kind of thrilling famous teachers that they
wrote about in the magazine. Kept my silent mantra going as I drove to and from
classes all over the Boston area.“ I am not practicing enough. I am not
learning enough. I am not trying hard enough, i.e. I am not enough.” So
much guilt. My Catholicism had finally caught up with my yoga practice!
Talk about yoga off the mat. My whole inner world was reflecting my outer world,
and as a sensitive person, I knew that, so I pushed my inner world, especially
my emotions, down deep into the bowels of my being. No wonder my digestion began
to be challenged. I was losing my connection to my deep love of yoga and yet
yoga, the very idea of it being union, was finding its way in to my visible
world. It was asking me to listen to her and be a loving yogi by taking her
advice.
It probably seems strange to read these words - most people would assume I would
be more peaceful , more relaxed, more at ease (which I am ,most of the time)
- is teaching yoga even work? But I am guessing that many yoga teachers can
relate to what I am saying. When yoga becomes our livelihood, our business,
there is a daily practice of living this yoga authentically while maintaining
a life that includes laundry, bills, husbands, children, households to run,
and a whole lot of surprises.
The last straw came when I attended the Yoga Journal conference in Boston. It
was wonderful. I was surrounded by so many yogis. I learned so much from the
various teachers, but I could see and feel the burn out in so many of the well
known teachers. I could also feel within myself the distance that was beginning
to form, distance from my own yoga and from the yoga world. It just felt too
big. I was actually shocked by some of the things I heard and saw, and amazed
and awed as well. The sweetness I had experienced in yoga for so many years
was elusive. I was, as it turned out, oversaturated. I could not take in any
more information and I could not disseminate much more either! The gift was
knowing that I did not want to get to the point in my teaching that I felt some
of these teachers had reached and run over. I wanted to come back to my first
love.
Within a week of that conference I was announcing to my students the gift of
listening to the body’s wisdom . My body was telling me to let go of my
classes. Some students were sad, others, dismayed or angry. All of them supported
me.
May 15 was strange. No classes to prepare for the following week. My whole identity
had been filled up with the business of running a yoga company. Now what? No
sooner did I trust the voice of my inner wisdom, my worries set in about money
and time- the very next day!!! SO I took a deep breath. I walked my dog. I held
hands with my husband and cried a little bit. May 15 came and went. I knew I
was called to do this deep work of yoga teaching, but now how would I do that?
I started to feel more open. Something was shifting, By the end of the following
week, I found myself annoyed if someone called to ask me a question about yoga,
because they were interrupting me and my new time. And I was bubbling up with
a sense of excitement for the new expression of yoga in my life.
The first thing that happened was that I stopped doing yoga asana all together.
It was very strange. My body always does yoga, and I am unaccustomed to being
without it. I took up walking and Pilates. I began to read just for fun….
I kept checking in with this body and spirit. What do you want? Time. What do
you need? Love.
And then the miracles began to unfold. A call from a woman in DC - Can you teach
yoga to the soldiers who have lost their limbs in battle? Hole In the Woods
Cancer Camp for Kids. Can you bring us yoga to kids with cancer? The Amputee
Coalition of America. Can you do a yoga presentation at our annual conference?
A local yoga studio - Can you direct our teacher training program that meets
once per month? These were doable, within reach. Not too much demand on my time.
And still yoga…
I am still in the midst of all these shifts in identity, in time, in work. I
am still a yoga teacher ,one who has taken a sabbatical from fulltime teaching.
It is only through my yoga practice that I am comfortable to honor this request
of the deep caverns of the soul and body. I trust it.
My yoga mat is in the closet and I eye it every day, wondering how it will
be used to reveal the next step. I can’t wait. Right now it is telling
me to the walk the dog. Sat Nam.
