146
MLCM
FALL/WINTER2016
Yoga offers a very simple but effective formula: body movement, elevated
endorphins and simple teachings that counter the pressures of modern
day worries like the race against time and the expectation to “have it
all.” All yogic texts teach that it’s ridiculous to think that we ever reach
an end point – so it’s best to relax into uncertainty rather than grasp
at what we can’t control. In a relaxed state, we make better decisions.
In a contracted, fearful state, we generally make terrible decisions. One
definition of Vinyasa yoga (or a flow class) is “conscious placement” or
the order of things: meaning, it’s not just about how carefully you step
your foot, but how kindly you are placing your thoughts, like footprints
in the sand of your mental landscape. It’s the difference between walking
gracefully or kicking up dirt andmaking an unnecessary mess. Fear-based
thinking creates stress, stress is the cause for most illnesses, and fear is
immediately diffused when the tools of mindfulness are practiced daily.
“Before I arrived, I was depressed and totally lost,” Sasha says. “I wasn’t
sure if I was going to be able to complete the training. But it taught me to
be gentle and compassionate withmyself and, most importantly, to let go.
I went from being ‘the girl who lost her husband’ to being Sasha again.”
One of the ways grieving yoga students heal is through the important
element of story telling. “I believe that everybody has a story,” Andrea
says. “The beauty of sharing stories is that hearing someone else’s can
make yours seem small. We are all on a journey and life is hard. It can
break you apart, but you can re-assemble it, too.”
Yogic psychology takes storytelling a step further and asks students
to transcend their subconscious stories that are mired in negativity.
The teachings are interested in evolution beyond thought, not in the
overindulging of past experiences, nomatter how painful they may be
-
this is key to the
why
of an immersive experience. Our culture talks and
thinks toomuch about our pain and sorrow to the point of neurosis. We
are not only stuck in our heads, we are stuck in the worst parts of them.
Heidi Parker was using yoga to compliment her winters of snowboarding
andmanage stress. She enrolled in the Nicaraguan course “searching for a
purpose,” but shortly before training was set to begin, her father drowned
on a fishing trip. I was surprised to see her on the first day of training,
only a day after the memorial service. “I barely made it, but I knew it
would be a safe place for me to heal,” Heidi says. “A lot surfaced and I
learnedmany tools that helpedme get through each day.”
One of the concepts that resonatedmost with Heidi was “self-care.” It’s an
expression that annoys at least one of my non-yogically inclined friends,
who recently ask me with an air of annoyance, “So what is this
self-care
business?” (while taking an amusingly long drag of her cigarette). In a training
setting, the primary teachings are based onmindfulness and self-respect,
practices that dramatically reduce negative tendencies. Given theWHO’s
statistics, embracing self-care is likely a necessity, not a self-indulgent act.
“I think the process [of Teacher Training] would help anyone nomatter
where they are at in life,” says Zac McHugh, a weightlifting and fitness
coach and Pay-it-Forward scholarship recipient who attended the teacher
training to assist his work with homeless and at-risk men in Squamish.
“Any time you take three weeks for introspection and to develop a deeper
relationship with your body and soul, I feel like it gives you valuable tools
and perspective. But it’s still up to the individual how they use those
tools. There is nomiracle cure.”
In a world filled with excessive options to heal or not to heal, many of
us are overwhelmed. It’s not to say that grief and all of its dark cousins
are instantly fixed by a month of studying yoga, but there is a light at the
end, a resolve that I observe inmost students who hugme goodbye, that
was not there on day one.
And yes, we are all yoga teachers in one way or another. I continue to
learn and be inspired by the strength and openness of students like
Andrea, Zac, Heidi and Sasha.
They have proven tome that there is
somuchmore
to be gained by
stepping into any environment that encourages self-study and dealing
with pain versus repressing it. These students emanate a force-filled
conviction, it follows each of themwhen they walk into a room: grief
transmuted into empowerment. Or as Sasha shared, “I swallowedmy fear
and warriored up.”
ANDREAHELLEMAN
