Class theming is becoming increasingly popular. Teachers are patenting their methods and teaching with the intent of providing greater service to their students, and rightly so, but for many of us, finding threads of continuity and connection can be challenging.
My most sacred thoughts are formed in my journal. This is where I find a way to teach from an authentic place, the right here, the right now, the “me” embodied. This is the purest thing I can do for my students, to show up and use the themes of my life to serve, real themes, filled with emotion, with teary savasanas and unbearable chair poses, all made worthwhile by a rooting, a firmness, and a holding to a theme.
On a recent trip in Australia, I was having a particularly challenging time in my relationship, deep feelings of jealousy and inadequacy provided opportunities for growth and learning.
I lay flat on my mat for close to 15 minutes in embryo, then childs pose, and proceded to stay really low to the ground, supported, held, nourished, slowly building, rooting to rise, reaching, opening, growing. In and among, I began to write:
My heart is cracking open, like a little seed formed in darkness, the light is making it’s way in.
The lessons that I’m learning and the new life that I am birthing are all that I need to find the surface.
The tears on my cheeks nourish; the wind in my hair gives me the breath that I need to stay present. The rich earth offers grounding, the strength and desire to stay in the soil, to see this thing through.
And it’s not so bad, this subterranean paradise. The purity of the daylight and the joys of opening, the deep yawns of freedom, are the horizons waiting for me…
…Don’t rush. It might feel like you’re breaking, but you’re just opening in a new way.
A week later, I walked my students through the same, grounded practice, ending in Vrksasana. As
they wilted from their tall trees into corpse pose, I read this mantra over them, patiently, softly.
Something happened for me in that moment. While I was offering this healing to my students, a light flooded into my heart. It was as if nothing would ever be the same. The lesson had taken root. I had opened in a new way.