Am I beginning this Journey too Late???
Teaching Yoga is hard. It’s fun, but really hard. It’s not for the faint of heart and honestly, I think you have to have a huge ego. You have to NOT care about anyone else but yourself, what you are really doing and to constantly say AND believe that you are the best. Truthfully I’m not like that. I’m insecure. I’m not super flexible. I don’t have a rockin’ body. I am 26 days shy of my 50th birthday. Divorced. Mother to three girls. (2 teenagers and one 20 year old.) A broken family as they say… This is for sure not where I thought I would be at 50.
Now this is in no way to make you feel sorry for me. I do have the luxury of being a yoga teacher, I love teaching a full class and working when I choose. But let’s be honest, I’m not in it for the money. I turned to yoga for the community and let me tell you it’s rather disappointing. The problem is we have ventured to far away from what yoga is and what it was meant for. Now I am no historian or PhD in religion but historically, like way, way back yoga was used for healing. Its methods were passed down through oral history…Not too strange for the daughter of 2 famous folklorists to fall into. I wanted to heal myself, find my spiritual path, connect to my higher power and in the very beginning…become a faster runner, so I could win races.
I began practicing in my 30’s when my children were babies and immediately saw results. But then I got divorced and sobbed every stinking time I went to my mat. No one could tell me why. As we moved through our sun salutations I would just begin to cry, by the time we got to the hip and heart openers I was a snotty mess and needed to take stock in Klenex. My yoga teacher at the time couldn’t tell me what was happening so I stopped. It was too much of an emotional drain. I had little children to take care of and if I was having a good day I could not afford to turn into a blubbering idiot and get nothing done. My divorce was painful, it was more like a war than anything I had ever experienced and the fighting goes on to this day. Sad actually. But I digress….
After a couple of years, a multitude of injuries and winning several races I turned back to my mat. I spent a weekend with 200 of my closest family members and some of us chose to practice yoga outside, on an island, overlooking “Golden Pond.” It was breath taking. Later that day while surfing the net I came across an ad on living social. I went home to a new studio and had an instructor who was simply amazing and there was a reading at the end that was just what I needed to hear. I came back the next day. Same teacher, different reading and again just what I needed to hear. So I kept coming back. The yoga was feeding my spiritual need and healing my body. I saw that yoga was more than just exercises, or asanas for those in the know. There was a deep spiritual connection and the people seemed so nice.
Within a year I was doing my 200 hour training, then moved on to my 500 hour training. I was learning all I could and finding my tribe along the way. But soon after I had graduated and taught for several months I realized that the yogic community was not really yogic at all. People are jealous, people are fearful and let’s be honest when you throw money into the mix well then things just get tricky. People want the money and they don’t really care how they get it. I kind of find it funny because all the teacher trainings out there talk about the ethics of yoga. It’s kind of a joke. Yes, yoga teachers for the most part are ethical on the big things but not really so much when it comes to community. They stab you in the back, they promote themselves and only themselves, they will even teach in a plethora of studios and while in that studio say “come to my class over at this other studio.” Meanwhile the studio owners are pouring money into advertising and social media when their teachers are just taking the students away. People are attached to teachers and the teachers want that attachment, even though in trainings we are taught not to be attached. Yoga teachers are super willing to help you and tell you how to do things as long as you pay them. I get millions of emails on how to get more students or market my business, I just have to pay them and the information I get may or may not be helpful. Yogis in my experience rarely do anything for free. I only have one girlfriend who actually teaches yoga for the love of teaching and does it for FREE.
Let’s face it. We all want to be noticed. We all want to be appreciated. We are all looking for community. I just don’t understand why we can’t support each other and get along. Lift each other up and all rise to the top together. Aren’t we all just tying to get to a higher plane? Money does not buy you happiness folks, believe me, I was married to it and I didn’t know how miserable I was until it all came crashing down around my ears. Glad I’m not tethered to that any more. People with lots of money are a different breed of people. My father taught me something very important about money when I was growing up. Money only buys you time and space. He’s right really. It just buys you time and space. What you do with that space is what’s important. You only have one life. Does it really serve to just pump yourself up and say that you are the best and cut other people down on your way to the top? To take others for granted and not acknowledge them for all they do? The yoga industry is really no different than corporate America. It’s just a way to make a buck. That’s not what I am looking for. I’m looking for a way to heal. A way to fill my spiritual cup. To fill the need that I have inside to be connected to myself and my higher self. To treat people with kindness and to treat myself with kindness. To help me be the best person that I can be and to create peace of mind. Who’s with me?