I remember once in an Ashtanga class - afterwards my teacher approached me and asked earnestly if I was ok. I was surprised, and said actually after that class I had felt euphoric!! Much more than ok. It turned out that during class my face had not in any way indicated euphoria, and she’d been really worried about how unhappy she feared I was. It made me think.. what we show on the outside, often unconsciously, doesn’t tell the truth of how we are feeling on the inside. As a teacher, I find myself in a similar position - learning to teach without assumption is vital. You can’t know someone else’s journey. They may not feel inside what they show on the outside, whether it feels to me positive or negative. I can’t assume I taught a wonderful class - it might have made me feel good, but you can’t know for your students. Some days it feels harder to teach and I come away feeling I haven’t taught well, or the class didn’t go as I planned. But again, I can’t know the experience of my students, and how it made them feel.
Yoga is an intensively personal journey - one which often can’t be expressed on the outside - even if you want to. It’s an internal spiritual and energetic shift. The poses in their advanced stages tell nothing of the journey. Nor are they even the goal. What feels good for one person may not for another. Child’s pose - for many a relaxed restorative place to rest - is for others uncomfortable, claustrophobic, and can be really hard on the body. The key is to be in the breath - listen to your body - notice what feels right at that very moment - do you want to move further into the pose right now? Or do you want to back off, be gentle with yourself. And all without judgement - we are where we are. Each of us different in every single practice. Judgement is a hard one - it creeps in as we notice what others are doing around us, creeps in with our own opinions of ourselves and what we ‘should’ be able to do, or wish we could do. But the most important part of yoga is not to push it too far - it’s to go as far as you can and then back off a tiny bit - allow yourself space to grow and flourish in good alignment and deep conscious breath.
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