Today in yoga a mom and I were discussing how children can’t be in charge of a classroom and I was taken back to remembering myself in this yoga class, one year ago this month.
When you first start Bikram yoga, you suffer and wonder why you go back the next day. You’re wiping sweat, swear you can’t breathe, and know for sure you have to leave the room and find air, but you do come back, day after day. Why? Because even though your mind can’t deal with it, you’re body systems crave it. As the days and then weeks go by, you gradually realize that the teacher will open the door or crack a window. That quiets you for a time, until you begin to learn and anticipate the routine of the teachers. Gradually, after you have begun to use the windows and door as a crutch to make you feel better, you lose trust in the teacher and begin to want to manage the room. Should you have a different teacher, or your regular one changes up her routine, you go into panic mode. There’s a lot of laying down, moaning and groaning, ragged breathing – all trying to tell the teacher NOW is the time to open the door. NOW is the time to open the window. NOW is the time to pull down the shade. Can’t you see I’m dying here? You have lost focus completely because you’re trying so hard to manage the room. You’ve lost trust in the teacher and the mediation is now non-existent. Your whole focus is on your eyes following the the teacher around the room hoping she’s going for that window.
The teacher will tell you this – and she won’t open the door or windows, either. To get all the benefits you’re supposed to get out of the practice, you have to relinquish all control and trust the teacher. Once you do this, you are now free to fall completely into the meditation of the practice, quiet yourself, and let the teacher worry about the room. You learn to be still and just focus on your breath. After many months you are now moving through the postures, lying or standing absolutely still for the twenty seconds in between, not drinking water, wiping, or making noises of any kind. Your physical behaviors have gotten your mind to grasp surrender and your spirit to absorb it. You have changed. You have learned complete surrender inside the studio.
You soon find that you have learned complete surrender outside of the studio also. This is where my most valuable lesson on my journey, “be a vehicle for the spirit”, was born from. I would lay there day after day and repeat that and quiet myself because I knew once I let panic in, the rest of the class was a disaster, just like I let fear and panic into my life and created the difficult situation I have had to battle this year. Never again. Through Bikram yoga I have learned to do everything with such purpose and control, there are times I really think I can face even my own death quietly, without fear.
I have always believed that for a person to truly learn something and change, the method has to involve the physical as well as the emotional. The physical body has to go through the motions daily in order for the mind and spirit to be brought along. As a teacher I always used a multi-sensory approach with children. It’s no different for us grown-ups.
This new fall season, if you are trying to initiate changes within yourself, make sure you involve your body, and not just your mind, for real change and growth to take place.
And so, as another day goes by, the old Chinese proverb says “Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand”, and…I have written.
Good stuff as per usual, thanks. I do hope this kind of thing gets more exposure.