If you are on a journey of personal growth, I want to offer you an important tool for your journey; permission to question everything.
We are all operating from our own limited experience. I now know that what works for me, will not work for everyone. I had to learn this the way that I learn most things, the hard way.
I’ve studied with renowned, highly educated teachers, real “experts” who, with the best intentions, led me down a garden path. They did not intend to, they just did not recognize that I was a different body and being with different needs than they understood. I hope to write and encourage you to read in a way that is curious and questioning. You’ll save a lot of time and unhappiness.
There is a lot of money to be made in selling ideas and systems. I recently changed my diet, because I was training for a long distance bike ride and had problems with my recovery and energy level. The diet was from a very well known coach, and it did help me. Over the past month, I have noticed problems with it, and I am finally acknowledging that I need to change things around, I am moving back towards what has worked for me in the past, while integrating some of the new ideas that seem to be working.
I have gotten better at recognizing when something isn’t working for me. It is exciting to start a program that has promise, and I always want to hope for the best and believe that by hard work, I’ll get the results I am aiming for. The truth is that I must find my own answers, through trial and error.
In every yoga training I have done, there has been some teaching presented as “fact”. I have been fortunate to have teachers that I highly respect, who directly contradict one another, always leaving it up to me to decide. I have tried my best, in my own teaching to offer suggestions of what might work, always reminding students to check in on their own experience.
One of the hallmarks of a piece of information or practice that is right for you, is that if feels that way, immediately. I will sometimes help a student adjust a pose, and I can tell by their breathing and facial expression if I am helping. If I am reading their body and tension correctly, I’ll help them to notice and move in the right direction. The pose immediately feels “steady and comfortable”, as it is supposed to, according to the yoga sutra.
The purpose of yoga practices is to show us how to slow down and notice our current state. One of the difficulties of becoming more conscious is that you then have to make decisions based on your heightened awareness and that take self love and courage.
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