The other day, resting in child's pose after a busy week of meeting deadlines for paperwork, I had a memory of when I first started teaching people to listen to themselves. As a 26-year-old beginners' yoga teacher, I felt quite surprised that women in their 50's looked to me for a certain kind of authority. I took me awhile to figure out what it was - then I realized, they needed me to tell them two things: 1, to relax, or 2, to listen to their inner wisdom. They actually did not know how to do these things, or had forgotten.
It stunned me at the time, because I had never thought of these as valuable skills, or skills at all. But to these women - most of whom worked in higher education or administrative work - Monday night yoga was a precious time when they could "just let everything go". The rest of the time, they were meeting deadlines, fitting in, or simply performing. We all live in a culture where we're supposed to be told what to do - starting in elementary school, and into adulthood. These women viewed me as an authority figure, but I refused to be that. I knew I could teach them more by showing them how to teach themselves, even if that meant they might not need me anymore.
I love this about yoga. That when we do child's pose, we are actually subverting the dominant paradigm - when we put our heads to the earth and listen to our own heartbeat, we are overturning the teacher's authority in exchange for our own. In daily life, this can lead to subversive acts like... smiling at coworkers, breathing deeply at the desk, or no longer stealing paperclips because of a belief in asteya. It can lead to putting one's own well-being and sense of alive-ness over things like work and keeping up appearances - honoring the self as the core of all we do.
Here's to yoga revolution - from the inside out!
No comments:
Post a Comment