Ten years on...
This month, January 2024, marks my ten year anniversary of teaching yoga. From teaching on yoga holidays in Greece or teaching during the pandemic, from leading retreats and teacher training to the changes in my own practice, what can I say about yoga, ten years on?
It’s a big question. And one that has been on my mind for a while, as I have tossed over different ideas as to what I could write about.
Could I devise a “ten steps to success” strategy to share with you? Or intrigue you with the gossip of what REALLY goes on in the life of a yoga teacher? Should I write critically about the industry, the confused messaging between yogic living and marketing? Or should I share personal anecdotes, successes and challenges? All of those things could be interesting to read, and write. And perhaps, if I wasn’t on maternity leave (which is already a total myth, as if “maternity” began and ended within a 9 month period), I would write about all these things.
But I can’t. Because having children, and having miscarriages, and becoming a mother, has totally shifted my axis, my sense of balance, and caused me to completely re-evaluate my value system.
In short, mothering has become my yoga.
(As a note, although I talk about mothering as a form of yoga here, there may be something of interest to those of you who aren’t mothers - please read on and share any comments with me below)
Surrender to a “higher power” has come in the form of meeting the demands and requirements of two very small humans, whom, I might add, have so much love and joy to give me, if only I remember to be present to receive it, and to acknowledge - then let go of - my resentment or frustration.
Acceptance comes through my daily practice, which virtually disappeared as I tried to cope with a very difficult second pregnancy and taking care of a toddler. Practice is now condensed into short bursts of pranayama when breastfeeding, and yoga nidra to fall asleep to. Only now, as my youngest moves past four months have I attempted to find ten minutes a day to stretch my compressed spine and open my rounded my shoulders. Even that, ten minutes a day, is not always achievable. I have to accept this. And as I accept this, I long for more help, more understanding, and this leads me to…
Community, which has been found in libraries and church halls, with other mums and carers, other people who understand the bone deep exhaustion that comes from having children and appreciate the restorative power of tea, biscuits and conversation!
Discernment is vital as I enter into these communites, because in the last two years I have been burnt, finding judgement and unkindness in places which advertise their nurturing support. Discernment has been crucial as I learn to retrust my own instincts and intuition after two miscarriages and the trauma of birth (because how could giving birth be anything other than intensely awful and miraculously incredible all at once)?
Compassion has become something I desperately need to bring to my tired, aching body, when my mind becomes overly critical towards myself, when exhaustion overwhelms my patience. And attentiveness is something I try to bring to each day, each moment, especially when my mind rushes into the unknown future, desperately trying to gain a sense of control where there is none, when even the time of day I wake up is out of my control.
And so, I could have written a blog about how to have a ten year career as a yoga teacher, apart from this has never been a career. It has always been deeply personal, and that is why I can only write about what feels true to me now.
What has remained consistently true for me is the knowledge that yoga offers us peace. Whoever we are, whatever we do, yoga offers us stillness. It opens us up to deeper ways of understanding who we are, how we feel, and why we do what we do. Yoga is psychology and embodiment, it is philosophy and practice. It is a path. It can be contorted into a career, a service, a religion, a goal. But, I think, I feel, that it perhaps it is “just” love. It is love through connection, courage and facing the illusions that present as truth, such as having to look/eat/act a particular way. It is a journey of self-awareness that at times can feel brutal, because who wants to look at themselves when it is so much easier to blame others? Who wants to maintain a personal practice when it’s easier to blame busyness as a distraction? Yoga is peace, but peace must be cultivated and practised for.
Ten years of teaching and even more of practice, and I’m still cultivating this sense of peace. I hope some of you will join me for the next ten.