SCOTT'S YOGA

By day I'm a mild mannered office employee, by evening I'm a yoga teacher, and by later evening I'm sleeping because I'm exhausted. I'm obviously not a superhero, but it's fun to think that what i do is pretty super. The truth is its not an easy life. I'm not the only one out there. I know many people straddle two worlds just as I do. You might wonder why if its so difficult, do we do it? Simply put we have to and we want to.

We are at our base yogis just like you. Our practice has just evolved to teaching others our yoga. We still love to practice, we still need to practice, when we can find the time. You'll see us in classes from time to time. Maybe you wonder to yourself, what is a teacher doing in here? We need that practice too, and often times every bit as much as you. Teaching is wonderful. Imparting your knowledge, your practice, to others eager to listen. To see your students progress and grow. Yet as wonderful as it can be, its still not a yoga practice. We talk almost constantly. Our vocal chords can ache, not to mention talking calmly and intelligently why holding a wicked arm balance. We jump in and out of poses with lightening speed and more often than we should without a proper warm up. Teacher adrenaline runs through our veins, which can allow us to achieve amazing feats of yoga at a moments notice ... but somewhere along the way our body pays a price. There is no shavasana in our world. We're watching, tidying, helping, timing, massaging ... and the list goes on. Don't get me wrong, I always leave my classes feeling better than I went in. More content and accomplished than, still it never quite matches the feeling of a good practice with a nice long, well deserved shavasana.

Its a busy life. Its difficult to grow a teaching practice when you have an immovable brick wall of a day job to contend with. Something has to give and its generally sleep, spare time, and often even our practice that suffers. I've seen many a double-worlder succumb to the strain. Sadly it often results in a yoga crash. It all becomes too much and its their entire yoga practice that comes crashing to the ground. They stop teaching and practicing and almost overnight seem to disappear. We've all seen it. A popular or busy teacher just one day seems to vanish into thin air. Its a haunting fate for sure and I do my best to avoid it. I was up to teaching 5 classes a week and felt myself slipping down that oh so slippery slope. I gave up a class and consolidated the other 4 into 2 nights. I'm still busy but now I have some wiggle room which often times ends up with me in bed under the covers and out like a light before 9pm, some days even 7.

Many of my students think I'm a full time teacher. I'm a yoga teacher, they think, that's just what I do. How else could I teach and practice and appear so accomplished and put together? I must do yoga all the time. I see the shock and surprise in their faces when I say I have a 9 to 5 (or more like an 8-5 but that's another article).  I'd love to say I was a full time yoga teacher. Deep down I'd certainly love to have the opportunity to make that sort of life a reality. However, for now it simply isn't. I'm not forced to leap between two worlds. I've grown up in the same society as you. I was expected to get a job, a house, a vehicle, a dog, and be an independent and financially contributing member of society. So that's what I did. I found yoga much later. I still have many of the trapping of that life and my yoga right now simply can't afford to foot the bill.

That doesn't mean it doesn't help. I first began to teach to pay for yoga. Yoga is something you can do anywhere and anytime but if you want to be a member of a studio, take workshops, go to retreats then you will need money. Yoga can be so many things and it can cost so many different prices. I've found a nice harmony, my teaching pays for my yoga. There isn't anything left over at the end of the day but I'm able to practice and learn in pretty much any way I wish ... with a little effort, patience and planning. My day job is then left to foot the bill for everything else just as it always has.

I have aspirations of one day being able to make a living at yoga. Perhaps letting go of the standard societal tenements that keep me chained to a regular job today, or maybe even have them bring money in. I'm often sad that it all comes down to money. I haven't found some secret paradise where I'm not affected by money and all that goes along with it. I'm just like you. I work a regular job. I struggle to get out of bed some mornings and never seem to get enough sleep. I do whatever I can to stay awake and make it through the day. The only difference is ... I head to the yoga studio to teach. In a way my second job, but my second home.

So if you know a struggling yoga teacher, caught between two worlds, maybe send a little extra love their way. If you aren't sure, just ask. They work hard to be your teacher. To provide a supportive class environment for all their students and they still have to go to work tomorrow just like you.

"If you had one moment alone with yourself when you were young, do you think you'd lie?"

A beautiful song by Hayden called "More than Alive". A song and a lyric that struck me deeply during a difficult time.

The lyrics seemed to sing my feelings. I felt alone and isolated, lost. I too wondered what I would say to myself if I had that opportunity. I remember that person. Young but sad. Sad but still dreaming of a big world out there offering so much more. Hope lived and breathed and spun through his imagination. He could be anything, do anything, he would escape, he would find his love and happiness out there somewhere. He did escape, or at least he thought he did. It seems we are bound to repeat the ills of our life until we accept them and move beyond. So he spun his wheels in circle after circle. Confused, unsure what he'd done wrong. How could things always be the same? He had escaped. He lied to himself. He told himself everything was okay. He set it aside and pushed ever onward, time and time again. There would eventually come a time where the push would escape him. Everything would in a brief instant in time, shatter before his eyes. Everything that he'd worked so hard to build, so hard to ignore, would all come crashing down. The single most painful experience of his life.

Would I tell him? Would I lie and say it'll be alright? Would I keep his dreams alive in that moment? I've lost those dreams. I've learned instead to live in each moment. Day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Doing my best to let go of the moment before and be ever present where I am. I wish I could say I've gotten here out of some inspirational and enlightened effort but the truth is it was out of necessity. The moment was all I was left with. My hope was gone, my trust was gone, my dreams were gone. Simply getting through another day was a triumph. Making it to my bed where I could curl up under the covers with my dogs was the only place I wanted to be. For that brief moment I could be free. No one to hurt me. I could choose my dreams and I could find peace as I fell asleep. Peace was all I wanted, all I needed, all I desired. A struggle that would last years. I couldn't tell him. I can't tell him.

Could he have seen his way to the realizations I wouldn't find until much later? Could I have explained it all to him? Could he have made better choices? the ones I make now? The simple answer is no. If he could have made different choices he would have. He already knew everything he needed to know. Everything I know. He simply wouldn't accept it. Nothing I could say would have changed that for him. He would have to find the answers on his own. Pain would be his silent and continuous companion and nothing I could say would change that.

But he is me. I'm not there anymore. I did escape. I could have crumbled. I could have fell to the same pieces my life had become, but I didn't. I made it through. I won't say it was easy or that I rose immediately strong and triumphant. There are still days where I want nothing more than to hermit away under my covers and never come out. They are fewer and further between now but they stay with me, a constant friend and reminder of how far I have come. I created my own little world of safety around myself. I pictured it as this invisible dome that always followed me everywhere I went. Within it were all my feelings, my friends, my safety. It started with just my bed and there it stayed for a long time. I was safe there, I was free there. I didn't care if the rest of the world collapsed around me as long as I had that peace. Slowly though my bubble grew. Not out of necessity, not out of desire. It grew on its own. I was embarking on a new journey to discover who I am, to experience me! I set no goals, no visions. I still have no dreams and my life exists only in the day, in the moment I am in. There is nothing else for me. Maybe that sounds sad to you, it certainly did to me at first. Yet there is freedom in those words, peace in that life. It frees me from all that chained me down before. Everything that kept me spinning in circles disappears, at least for a moment. If it all ended tomorrow or now I'd be content. I would know I did my best to get to know who I am. I don't need a purpose or a destiny, all I need is to feel and experience the world as me. I don't need to jump out of a plane everyday, I can experience me in all the little details of life. Each day a myriad of new experiences to feel, to discover. Good, bad or somewhere in between, I learn. All I need to do is let myself be there and feel. The next moment brings new opportunity. Some moments cling to others, some travel with me over many more, but there is always a new one just a moment away.

I would lie. There is nothing else I could do. I would smile. Likely smirk a bit at the clothing and hair style and those glasses! I'd admire the youth and the innocence and the energy. I'd smile and say its all going to be alight, more than alight. I imagine that would be more than good enough for him. He'd simply smile back and turn and leave. I'd watch, a smile still on my face. Excited for the adventure he was embarking on. Proud at how well he would do despite all that would be done to him. I wouldn't want to leave. I'd want to linger there and feel for a while longer, the warmth and innocence. But another moment is waiting here for me. My journey just started? almost complete? I don't know and it doesn't matter one bit. Where it goes or where it ends I feel I'm on the right path. I'm on the only path there has ever been. I've found it, it's me. I'll follow it, not knowing what sits around the next corner but knowing I will be alright, more than alright, more than alive.