Walking Our Truth As Yoga Teachers...

Our role as a yoga teacher is to create the space for healing through self care and self love.  The seat of the teacher comes with great responsibility.  We are responsibility for the energy we bring into the class, the sequence we bring to the mat, and the theme/dharma we choose to govern our class.  For some teachers, it can be a fine line between letting your experience present you as an authentic teacher and having a personal therapy session.  We need to carry forward the significance of our experiences and knowledge into the space we hold for our students to heal and connect to their true selves.  This must be done through carefully coordinated sequences, themes and their delivery.

As a student, who is a teacher, it is imperative to come to the mat with no expectation of how you would teach the class.  In order to always remain open to learn, we must also be students on our mats and come to practice to heal and connect….to live our truth as a teacher and practice what we preach.

In order to walk our truths, we must always remain a student first and be aware of the shadow of our gifts....especially, that we are Owning Our Stories and stepping into the seat of the teacher from a Genuine space.
the nature of drama….our brains are geared toward drama.  The stories that we make up in our heads are clear evidence of this.  Yoga is a way to create the spaces between the thoughts, between the drama and connect to the truth self within.  Carrying this space off of our mats and into the day is where the real challenge begins.  Empowering your true self and disempowering the drama, by naming it with “the story I am making up in my head…” (thank you Brene Brown!) helps to reconnect and lengthen the spaces between thoughts & drama infusing our emotions into the physical.  Creating a yoga sequence to enable students to connect with these spaces is essential being an excellent yoga teacher.

When we real eyes the significance of our experiences, incorporate this knowledge into our bones and understand how we are standing in the present moment, we have the capacity to begin to step toward the path of authentic Embodied Living.  We come to the real eyes that at moments we might be on the wrong path or that we are the actual problem, we are able to incorporate this knowledge into our true selves and make a choice based upon our own will not the perception that something is happening to us.

Authenticity as a teacher is a challenge to discover and some times accept.  In order to live authentically, we must "real eyes" the significance of our experiences and how they come forth into the seat of the teacher.  We must learn, embody, and then share.   Sometimes we may come to a place that we have worked so hard to achieve only to "real eyes" that it no longer serves us.  And sometimes the "real eyesing" is extremely difficult to step into authenticity.   For me, that is an imperative reason for a lower technology household with a focus on slow living.  To create the spaces to "real eyes" when something may be significant, but not authentic and to cultivate a plan to step into ever evolving authenticity and embodiment.

Integrity is the true acceptance of the true self and calling to your highest self.  It is knowing that you may have believed someone else’s story for so long, that it became your truth only to "real eyes" it is significant but not authentic.  To embrace your integrity is to create the space for your authenticity to nurture and blossom…to cultivate the true embodiment to enable Your Truth to shine.  Since our authenticity is ever evolving, we "real eyes" that the integrity to maintain this connection to our true selves is ever growing in order to maintain the necessary support.

Intimacy is to "real eyes" the significance of the present moment and our personal role within the experience and the connection to our true selves.  Is this experience a reflection of my authentic self?  Is there a reason that I feel this way toward that person?  How can my behavior within this moment help me to "real eyes" a truth about my significance?  How can that support me to step into my authenticity?   A deep connection of intimacy with self enables us to hold up a mirror to see at what we have been working so hard to either avoid or see…this deep connection creates the burst moments of clarity, creating a step toward healing and thus living our life experience as is….being completely in the present moment.

The portal is the space where we transition the thoughts and feelings of intimacy into a conversation of how to reconstruct the integrity and authenticity.  The portal is the space that we dread the most to enter because often is the space of not enoughness and someone else’s story.  It is the space that we must truly sit in and embrace to rise up out of the muck.  

The blindness is culmination of how we see based upon disconnection.  The blindness is exactly that, a blindness to empathy, pause & reflection, connection that everyone is doing the best that they can (it might not be what you want, but that doesn’t change that it is the best they can do)…it is a set of blinders based upon false truths of the past and other’s stories or disbelieves of yourself worthiness.  It is seeing the world for only this and opening to real eyes the deep of energy flowing around us.

My Embodied Living practices and rituals focus on cultivating a grounded and connected space within, in order to be of the best service for self, family and others.  My yoga practices are slow, integrative and restorative because that is what I need....thus what I teach to.

If this resonates with you, please reach out and connect ...

Article inspired by Alchemy of the Heart by Michael Brown

photo by Vanessa Cerday Photography