Hey! May I hold that for you?
Recently, I was teaching my regular Saturday morning class. I love this class. I’ve taught it for a long time, and I have truly come to know and love so many of the people who take the class. Truth be told, I love all the people who take all of my classes, even if I don’t know them. I love them because they could all be doing a million different things, but they are choosing to practice yoga. Our lives and this world are made up of a million little decisions we humans make every day. And what I know for certain is that when we all roll out our mats, we are part of something good. This practice of stopping and noticing and breathing at the very least makes us feel better for a while. And when we feel better, we are better. And the world really, really needs us to be better. In recent years especially, I have been holding onto to those moments of noticing when we humans are part of something positive. They give me hope and remind me of the endurance of good.
Often times when I am teaching, you all take my breath away. I see you in all states - digging deep, feeling strong, beating yourself up, blissed out, distracted. But still showing up. Still there. Still breathing. And ultimately the practice of yoga is a practice of noticing.
So this morning as I was teaching, I felt a rush of overwhelm of compassion and gratitude (it happens all the time when I see you all digging deep). We all have a story. All of us. Complete with triumphs and tragedies, trials and tribulations, mediocrity and absolute moments of bliss. And we all also carry our stories with us. Stories that serve us and often stories that don’t. I have found that most of the time the stories that don’t serve us are couched in fear. Fear of something that is on each one of us to unpack.
But I also know, or believe wholeheartedly, that faith is not the absence of fear. They coexist for me almost all of the time. Two sides of same coin, often in an interplay between which one carries more weight, which one is driving the decisions. This is reminiscent of a passage of Elizabeth Gilbert discussing that fear always comes along for the ride, but doesn’t get to drive the car, or hold the map, or even touch the dial on the music.
I’d like to take it a step further and maybe put fear in the trunk. Or in storage. Or somewhere, fully aware it may be alive and well, but safely stashed away. Or even, hand it to your yoga teacher. Not driving. Not with too loud a voice.
So as I marvelled at the beauty of the students in the class, from all walks of life, I asked them...
“May I hold that for you?”
Meaning, I see you. I see you feeling all the things. I see you in the interplay of strength and overwhelm, grace and distraction. And maybe there is an old story there, a fear, a feeling that just isn’t serving its purpose any more. So I ask, “May I hold that for you?” Just for a while so you can feel what it’s like to proceed without it. So that you can feel that maybe you don’t need it anymore. I’ll hold it. I will honor it and why you needed it. And I will be more than happy to give it back.
If you want it back. But maybe you won’t.
It is moments like this that is why I teach yoga. Seeing you all prevail over old stories, being willing to be uncomfortable with grace. So if you have some old story, message, fear, perhaps let me hold it for you next time you come to class and assess if maybe you would prefer to be done with that story. In which case, I will lovingly dispose of it.