I feel that part of being a yoga teacher rather than a yoga instructor, is being able to be vulnerable enough to let your own life experiences emerge in your teachings. I truly feel that you cannot be much more authentic than that, and authenticity is a huge part of being a teacher. I feel that teaching from the heart is what separates the teachers from the instructors - one of my very own teachers shared that profound lesson with me one day.
With that being said, I want to share something from my Saturday afternoon class. First of all, I love my students, and I often times feel that they teach me more than I could ever teach them. About half my class was completely new to yoga, but showed up willing to try something new which was probably very scary to them!
After enduring some intense balancing poses about two thirds of the way through class, I shared a quote that I recently found:
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| Photo by James Leash with Sharp-Eye Images |
I then shared this: recently my heart has also been heavy and filled with sorrow, anger, and disappointment. I was sharing my feelings with a friend the other day and telling her how angry I was. And for me, when I get angry, I then get angry at myself for being angry, and then angry at myself for being angry at myself...and you can probably see that it is just a downward spiral from there. I start to feel like Alice chasing that darn White Rabbit...down the hole I go! But, my friend listened and then she said, "It is okay to feel angry and be mad. Just allow yourself 10 minutes a day to be as angry as you need to be...set the kitchen timer, get it all out, and once the timer goes off, be done being angry for that day." Well, let me just say that I think this is the BEST ADVICE EVER! :)
Our hearts are like sponges. The soak up and absorb all that hate, sorrow, and anger, and unless they are rung out, they just stay saturated with all those emotions and they will consume us. And this is where that quote comes in for me: "Life is a balance of holding on and letting go."
Instead, let your heart soak up as much love, joy, and compassion as it can possibly hold. Soak up the good...let go of the bad.
It's a process...sometimes slower than we would like.
