A Letter in Absentia...

Oh, teachers, lovely teachers of mine,

I really don't have too many requests.  I really am easily satisfied.  Make the class long, make it short...make it fast, make it slow...make it super inspire-ey or just talk about my shoulder-blades the whole time, it really doesn't matter to me.  I will, without question, be the one (usually in the front row...ugh.  I can't help myself.) who is laughing at your jokes and nodding at your insights.  So, I hope you won't mind if I ask you please just this one simple favor?

Please, please, please, don't make me feel badly about not coming to your class.  Oh my, I know...I knooooooow that sometimes your feelings do get genuinely hurt if I haven't been there for awhile, I know.  I know it would be easy for you to think it's because I don't like you anymore. And I know this because I have run across my own feelings of minor-betrayal and jealousy when a student who has been coming to class suddenly is no longer in class.  Oh, sure you've been on vaaaaacaaaaaaation.  I bet you have.  What did I do?  Was it that one time when I kept almost saying "breasts" instead of "breath"?  That's what sealed it for you, isn't it?!  Argh!! I'm a hack!

But, sweet teachers of mine, it's not, on my part, for lack of love.  It's not even, usually, for lack of practice.  (I suppose if you were the mister miagi to my ralph macchio and you knew that I had been slacking off and that's why you haven't seen me in weeks, okay, maybe then you'd be allowed to give me the stink-eye.)  But, the truth is that I'm busy, and I'm teaching, and I'm trying to figure out what the hell it means to have a home-practice, so making it to your class is a luxury!  A much-desired one. 

Please don't muck it up by giving me the judgy "I'm disappointed in you" face.

Some of you, my wiser teachers, might be out there saying to yourself, well, you know, I can't really MAKE you feel bad.  If you feeeeeel bad, it's probably because YOU feeeeeel bad.  And you would be right.  I know that I have my own "you're going to be mad at me" thing happening which probably doesn't help, but the truth is...there are certain teachers who I know, no matter how much time has passed between classes, will be as welcoming and as excited to see me as if I had been there the day before.

And there are certain teachers...who will not.

And that is who I'm addressing here...those of you out there who just can't help but feel affronted when a student disappears from you.  And who maybe feel that giving said student a bit of the cold-shoulder, a bit less of you, a bit more distance...will make the whole thing easier.  You won't open up so much to me, and so then, when I disappear again, it won't hurt quite as much for you.

Sounds pretty f-ing human.

I've been thinking a lot about this lately...partly for myself as a student (and my own upset at feeling like I've let people down, or hurt them, or fallen out of favor because of my absence), and partly for myself as a teacher, because I never want to make anyone feel this way. 

My larger self is going to take over the keyboard right now and say that, in my deepest depths, what I want for anyone in my class, is for them to find a place that is safe, and where they feel (as one of my mentors would say) that the yoga can be "lit up in them".  And if that's with me, that's great.  And if it's not with me, that's also great.

Of course we want to develop relationships with people in our classes, of course we do, but really (I'm coming to believe this more and more) our role at the front of that room is first and foremost to be keepers of a certain kind of space.  Our role is to cultivate safety and curiousity and equilibrium and all of the other things that the practice of yoga itself creates...in the space of our classrooms. 

And I don't know if we're able to do that AND make the judge-y face.

So, if you're out there, oh anonymous hurt-feelinged teachers...please know that I love you deeply.  And I WANT to be in your class.  I would never come back again, if that weren't the case.  So, please remember that, the next time I come in after some medium or long absence.  Because what I also need to learn from you...maybe more so than anything else...is how to love myself and the people around me, even when they aren't living up to my expectations. 

And I'm hoping that you can show me how to do that.

Lots of love,
YogaLia

Me and Yoga, Sittin' in a Tree...

The other day a friend of mine, and fellow yoga teacher, took me aside before class to tell me that she had been doing an intensive yoga training the week prior and that she had thought of me. She had thought of me because, while she knew she was supposed to be feeling in love with yoga and in love with life, all that she was actually feeling, toward the end of the week, was that she wanted to punch everyone in the face.

And so, she thought of me.

This, I will have you know, I took to be a great honor. 1. Because this friend/teacher is someone I hold in great esteem, and the fact that I would come to her mind in the middle of a day at all makes me feel sort of soft inside. 2. Because, damnit, if you feel like punching yogis and you just want to know that there is someone out there who understands...well, I am eager to serve. Because I get it, yo. I get it.

She told me that she had been feeling guilty, because many of her counterparts during this week had been going to class in the mornings before the training began, and then staying late after to do even MORE yoga, and/or to sit around cups of hot tea and talk about yoga. My friend, she confided in me, only wanted to go home and drink wine, and basically do anything other than think about yoga. And she was feeling a little guilty about it.

I, of course, would have been on the go home and have a glass of wine team right there with her. Also, the friend in question is thriving as a teacher right now, she's got a crazy class-load AND she's doing retreats AND taking classes herself as a student, so it's no surprise that she's a little yoga-ed out.

But, I've been thinking a lot about our conversation over the last couple days. I was thinking about what Steven Espinosa said in my podcast interview with him a few weeks ago, about how often people can get into this yoga frenzy when they first discover the practice, and try to set their whole life up so that all they're doing is yoga...which is great, except for the fact that yoga isn't life. Life is life.

And I started to think about how our relationship to our yoga--or to whatever it is in our life that calls to us--just like our relationships with other people, can either be an obsessive one, a (dare I say it) immature one, or it can be a grown-up relationship. Grounded. Balanced. Sanely committed. It's the difference between obsessing over every text the object of your desire sends you, and talking non-stop to your friends about how perfect/dreamy/sensitive said object of desire is--it's the difference between THAT kind of relationship, and the kind of relationship that evolves out of a true and deep devotion.

One that has ups and downs. One you might have to participate in, even when maybe you don't so much want to. One that has some regularity and stability and some give and some take. This kind of relationship, the grown up kind, it allows room for those nights when all you really want to do is zone out and have a glass of wine, instead of gazing at one another across a candlelit table.

The other, the relationship that's only all zip-zappy-happy and fireworks and oh my god I only ever want to do this one thing because I love it so? I think that it's bound to disappoint. I think it might not have the room for growth that a body needs, which means that someday, it will be outgrown.

So, Shanti-towners...if you're just not feeling it today, whatever IT is, I am here to tell you...it's alright. Go for a walk. Read some trashy coverage of the royal wedding. Have a glass of wine (I would wait until at least noon for this one, but you gotta do what you gotta do). And remind yourself that your life is BIG, and there is all kinds of room in there for you to grow....

Shanti-Town Recommends: Maria Cristina Jimenez

If you live in Los Angeles (or Puerto Rico?) and you've never taken a class from this woman...you should.

There are a few of my favorite teachers at Still with whom I haven't been able to take class in awhile, primarily because I've been teaching myself or doing my own practice or taking other yoga studios out on dates (don't tell!), and Maria Cristina is one of them.  But yesterday I got to take from her not once, but TWICE...and it was heaven.

Maria Cristina is not one of those teachers where you're going to walk away feeling like you had your ass kicked, that's not the kind of awesome she is (and way too often I feel like that's a measure of a great teacher, at least among those of us who tend to use achievement as the measure of our own worth)...no, no, Maria Cristina is awesome in an entirely different way.

First of all she, as a person, just beams with sweetness...she's quick to laugh and refers often to her students as "my chickens".  She cracks jokes, makes fun of her own love of reality television, and generally just creates an atmosphere that's love-er-ly to be in while in class.  Which is all great.  But that's not why I love her.  I love her because she speaks directly from her heart.  Which I think is rather large and soft and seems to have enough room for the whole class to climb inside of.  There have been several classes which I've taken from her where I feel a lump rising to my throat AS SOON as she starts speaking.  Which I'm sure is because she is communicating from her sweetness, from the center of herself, and it just reaches right out, zaps across the room, and flips on the lights in my own sometimes darkened insides. And THAT is what I consider a great yoga class...

So, if you're around: take from her! Doooo it.  Or you can just read her blog here.

(And thank you, MC, for two super great classes yesterday...)