When I consider the kind of yoga teacher that I want to be, I usually think about creating room for people to step into their own experience with self determination and autonomy. With the uptick of somatic focus language and an emphasis on nervous system familiarity/regulation in pop culture/tiktok/insta, becoming aware of one's own sense of self feels like a true lodestar of the work I do. Even if I don't want to bog down what I hope to transmit with the clinical terms of the moment, I do feel like many people within the wellness industry are trying to get at this similar ineffable thing. Toilets swirling with the language de jour, hoping to finally capture the feeling that we are all reaching for: being good enough, satisfied enough, full enough, finally, finally loved enough.
We have been conditioned to externally reference, gauging our safety and value based on the feedback we receive from the people around us. There is no shame in that game. Many of us simply never had the luxury of cultivating a sense of stability in our bodies because as children our caregivers lacked the basic resources to balance being an adult human with caring for a child (not the mention the fact that children are one of the most oppressed classes in America, and that treatment of American children is far worse than many other developed countries). So we cobble together parts of a personality that make us agreeable to our family systems, we piece together quotes and jokes that allow us to skirt by without ever really cultivating a stable sense of self.
So how then are we to come to a yoga practice, or any progressive practice of self-actualization, when we don’t have a sense of self? And before you bemoan some privilege you assume I have, please read the last paragraph and hear this. There are a million reasons why a person may not have a sense of self. Where does that leave us? As seekers? As teachers?
In my experience, a yoga practice approached with enthusiasm and honesty (like…yea sometimes we all have to admit to ourselves that we do not see ourselves clearly; I am including myself in this message) is one that strips away our delusions of ourselves from ourselves. There is nothing like a long external breath retention (holding the breath after an exhale) in a way that feels like you might just die or explode at any moment to familiarize yourself with your own anxiety and panic sensations. Nothing like holding a pose beyond what you think your muscles can tolerate to confront your own self-limiting beliefs and thoughts of comparison as you wonder “is everyone else in the class suffering through this like I am?!”
Asana (the poses), pranayama (breathwork), bhandha, shatkarma…these are all tools that help us to understand ourselves beyond what we want to believe might be true. Tools for self-excavation that are meant to serve the length of our bloodlines forward and back, as well as the community directly around us. While guidance in our practice is damn near essential as the cobbles of personalities we formed to please those around us fall away, ultimately, I want folks who practice with me to see the wreckage of their self-delusion and see an opportunity for earnest growth into who they actually are. Eventually, a self led practice becomes a place where it becomes possible to see a path towards who they dream to be.
My goal as a teacher is to become obsolete because the potency of the practice has nurtured a seed inside each individual person that they can nourish on their own, skilfully taking their practice into any setting that lights them up. No one has ownership over this practice. I wholeheartedly believe that the practice of yoga has a dharma of its own. Like apples, roses, or pot, the practice itself has a desire to expand into people’s life, to propagate, to expand.
I want to provide a space for people to learn the tools they need to be in their bodies, regardless of if they choose to continue to practice with me or not. I want folks to feel clarity in who they are stepping towards, that affixing their growth to any one teacher or ideology pales in comparison to the wealth of wisdom they can glean from their own inner knowing, their own stable sense of self, their own guide and spiritual court. My practice is not about you becoming dependent on me, to have you externally reference my practice as the thing that will fix you. It is to assist you in remembering that you have everything that you need to find who you are inside of you. And hopefully, to imbue you with the confidence to get after it.
