Do one thing that scares you everyday?
Does being a yoga teacher count? Yup, I think that qualifies. Thank you Eleanor Roosevelt for the empowering quote and a lovely inspiration. I could reframe that sentence so that it reads “excites” rather than “scares.” Nerves are just a sign of excitement. They are signals of passion releasing from within you. I haven’t been a teacher long but I hope those nerves never go away. If something feels bad, our basic instinct is to move away from it as it could hurt us. Yoga and specifically becoming a teacher/forever student has taught me to listen to my intuition that says if something feels bad move towards it because you’re going to find something about yourself, you’re going to become more whole than what you are right now. That which scares me the most probably won’t kill me but it could actually enliven me. JP Sears perfectly states in an interview, “The word scared and sacred is the same word except the c and a are out of place. So if we are getting scared I would dare say we might be approaching the sacred of self and if we are avoiding being scared with the feelings inside ourselves, I would dare say maybe that means we are also avoiding the sacredness of the self. The true warrior is the one who he or she is connected to their fears and walks forward in the journey of their life anyways. To me the true warrior is not someone who is fearless. What if the warrior is really he or she who feels afraid and moves forward anyways?”
My journey with yoga started about ten years ago, taking a class in college and thinking I don’t get it. I was always into fitness but said “I could never get fit or lose weight just by doing yoga, I need more of a challenge and to sweat a lot, it’s just glorified stretching,” blah blah blah. I continued to randomly take yoga classes throughout the years but the excuses and resistance stayed with me. Even throughout the entire four months as a Karma Yogi at The Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat where it was required to do at least two hours of yoga every single day #nodaysoff. And so I did, and I complained everyday on all the ways it wasn’t right for “my body type.” It wasn’t until I stopped treating it as a work out and more like a work in that I truly reaped the benefits. After establishing a healthier relationship with yoga, I established the best relationship I’ve ever had with myself. I finally started to understand what people talked about when they claimed “yoga changed their life.” This led me to want to do more than just go to class. I decided to give the teacher training thing a go because at the tender age of 30 I still didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. After enrolling in a large mainstream yoga teacher training course in LA my life plans changed and I wasn’t able to attend the course. I was moving to Australia embarking on a new adventure but on the hunt, this time for a teacher training course that really spoke to my soul. I stumbled upon Sukha Mukha’s Thursday 5 month training which worked perfectly with my part time shuffle lifestyle. Little did I know it came packed with the most incredible people, teachers and inspirations that forever changed my life.
Only you can walk the path and only you can experience how it changes your life because it is different for everyone. For me, it instilled a confidence I didn’t know I had, was capable of nor did I think I ever lacked. It has gifted me the courage to be vulnerable and without vulnerability we cannot create. It has allowed me to create a safe container for failing. It taught me to have more self-compassion rather than more self-esteem. When you sign up to be a teacher shame, scarcity and comparison are high on the list but instead of wasting your time trying to earn acceptance you’re too busy being the acceptance. I now, no longer get that pit in my stomach when someone asks, “So what do YOU do?” I can confidently have that conversation and for the first time in my life I feel like I have arrived and life has only just begun.
Before teacher training, speaking in front of a room of strangers for an entire hour, listening to the sound of my own voice and laughing at my own jokes while looking into the face of stone cold concentrated yogis FREAKED me O-U-T! Why in the world would I put myself through such uncomfortable and awkward pain!? I’m slightly dyslexic, I’ll never be able to get my right from my lefts and my ups from my downs correct. I have anxiety attacks when I public speak. They won’t like my classes or the way I say things. They’ll think my accent is annoying. Omg, they can hear how nervous I am. Some of the very many stories I have and still deal with on a daily basis but that is all part of the fun exciting journey! For anybody who is scared out of their mind at the thought of signing up to yoga teacher training, all I can say is, Do it, you won’t regret it, even if you don’t want to teach. What is the BEST that could happen!?
To end – a quote by Theodore Roosevelt. “It’s not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”