Practice

Our yoga mats are a place for practice, not only practicing funny shapes with our bodies, but practicing how we would like to be in life. Nothing is isolated. How we approach our practice is how we approach our lives. If you decide to take on using your time on the mat as a laboratory for life, you will surely learn great insights to your attitudes and behaviors which in turn will start to create shifts in your life off the mat.

I believe everything is about relationship. Not just with other people, but your relationship to your life, your practice, yourself. All interactions are included in the law of cause and effect and we are in constant relationship with each other and everything in our surroundings which adhere to this law. Every action has an effect on our environment, whether it's intended or not and we often take this lightly.

As a teacher, I am in relationship with my students and I am very aware of my relationship and the potential that lies within that relationship. A teacher has the power to inspire, to awaken new insights, to shine light on new concepts, and also to harm. Words and tone are powerful tools to teach, but more important than that is: intention. Everything we do rests on the tip of motivation, our intention. There have been studies done in classrooms where a teacher in Class A was told she had 5 gifted students in her class but wasn't told which ones, and a teacher in Class B was told she had 5 gifted students and given 5 random names. Neither teacher were allowed to tell the students that there might be any possibly gifted students. The results from class A was the the overall class's marks went up considerably. In Class B the 5 random students' grades went up considerably. The teacher in Class A believed any of her students might be gifted and thus treated them ALL like they were gifted. In Class B, the teacher believed these 5 students were gifted, and so the students performed like they were. Our intentions come through.

On our mats we have the opportunity to get to know ourselves which invites us to look at where our motivations lie. Are we looking to protect ourselves? Be right? Cover our shame? Show our superiority? All of these come from a small self. A self that we feel we need to protect because it feels just too risky to be or show our authentic self lest it be rejected or hurt in some way. Or perhaps is it possible to let go of protecting a 'small' self and reside in a vulnerable yet courageous space that's sufficiently secure so that being wrong means that we're still be ok? Is it possible to be rooted deep enough in our self that we aren't subject to taking things personally and really get that we're all here just learning, growing, and doing the best that we can? Can truth, love, and understanding trump our feelings of inadequacy and the need to cover that up?

As an example, when we argue with our partner or friend, if we want to be right, it doesn't matter what words we use, we will come across as arrogant. On the other had, if we can first root ourselves in coming from a place of love, of becoming solution oriented instead of needing to be right, it's not possible to say something hurtful. 

In the end, it's not our words that matter. When we listen to our own self talk, how we speak to each other, no one will remember the words. People rarely remember what we say, but how we make them feel. Using your mat as your laboratory is a safe place to start awakening your life by becoming present to how you are living it, and perhaps realigning how you are relating to it and everything it touches. As the Buddha said: Be a lamp unto yourself.