On fearlessness

“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over again to our own annihilation, can that which is indestructible be found in us.”

-- Buddhist teaching

The beginning of November marks the time, a year ago, that I set off for Costa Rica with a map, a backpack and a plan… Luckily, the backpack was well constructed, because the other two items went to hell pretty quickly. The happy ending to the rough start of that story, of course, was that the gravitational pull from Nosara Yoga Institute lured me in like a ship to the Bermuda triangle. I can’t speak for the boats, but I know that I was certainly not lost there. I was found.   

It has been almost a year since I began teaching yoga, and while I feel blessed and deeply nourished by the journey so far, that in no way has made it a completely smooth ride.

My first several months of teaching I was filled with fear. One of the major obstacles to pursuing a teacher training in the first place was that I felt nervous speaking in front of people. With a certification finally under my belt, I now felt even more nervous about what I would say when I finally got the courage to stand in front of a class.

Then there was the logistics of creating a class. Even though my body knew the practice intimately, directing others through familiar asanas felt like learning a new language. Would my directions be clear? Would I be able to discern right from left? Would I forget what I had planned? I would be instructing my students to link their movement to their breath, but would I be able to speak and breathe myself? (The answer to those questions, I would soon learn, depended entirely on the day and the class).

Then there were the familiar pangs of the desire for approval and the fear of rejection. Would anyone come to class? If they came, would they like it? If it was too hard, would my students hate me? If it was too easy, would they be bored? Will they like me? Will they come again? You see, as much as this practice is about dissolving ego, mine still raises hell on a regular basis.

All together, it’s been an incredible year. I feel like I’ve grown tremendously as a teacher and a student. It turns out the lessons I learn while teaching, are just a continuation of my own personal yoga practice. Just as I continue to grow every time I step on my mat and begin breathing deeply, I evolve every time I step in front of a class and ask others to do the same. Just as in my own personal practice, I have gained confidence and clarity, but I also make missteps, have moments and areas of weakness, and so keep myself humble.

I don’t experience the same level of nervousness prior to teaching, but I also remember what those early months felt like.  As another teaching says, “courage is not the absence of fear, but the determination to move beyond it.” And so, I keep moving on.  

If not now, when?

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a four hour long group meditation in the city. (Although 20 minutes might be par for the course for most people in search of enlightenment, we New Yorkers apparently need a bit more warming up in order to find inner peace).

 

Although I like to think I know better than to expect anything from a situation like that (or any situation, really) part of me was definitely hopeful that I would break through to some insanely blissful state at some point during the process. So, I sat. And I waited... and I kept sitting... and waiting. 

 

Ahem. I'm sitting here! Bliss can come find me any minute now.

 

I kept waiting. Nothing happened. And then, something did happen: the torment sunk in. All of a sudden, I was being pulled by my thoughts. I wanted to move; I wanted to stop; I wanted to sit still, but my skin started to crawl. Then the judgements sunk in: "If you only meditated more, this would be easy for you. Why can't you concentrate? Do you really think you deserve to have this be easy?"

 

After roughly an eternity of this, my thoughts then turned to the words our guide for the evening had spoken prior to the start of the session. "Your thoughts and actions are like ripples in a pool of water. Any fluctuations of the mind or body will effect the whole, so be careful with your thoughts and be conscious of unnecessary movement. We are all carrying each other, so be present not only for yourself but for the good of all who are here." 

 

I then remembered a few interesting and intense exchanges with various members of the group prior to the start of the session. These conversations were charged with a negative and heavy quality, and had left me feeling a bit knocked off center. Now knee-deep into the process, I began to place the burden of my emotional turmoil on others. "Oh great," I thought. "These are the people responsible for holding up the ship... I think I want to get in another life raft, thanks. Maybe this isn't even MY stuff coming up. Maybe it's that dude's stress from across the room. Thanks, guy!"

 

Wave after wave, thought after thought kept crashing over me, and it was all I could do stay afloat. And still, somewhere, part of me was waiting. Waiting for the waves to stop; waiting for something better to step in; waiting to be relieved of my misery; waiting for my fellow meditators to get their shit together so that I could shower them with unconditional love and thanks and feel better. 

 

Not surprisingly, this did not happen. Here is what did:

 

Some how I received the message that this waiting was exactly the thing that was keeping me from being in the space I wanted to be in. This waiting was a denial of the fact that joy and love and peace were there, right on the other side of all this darkness, just waiting for me to see it. This waiting was keeping me out of accepting and being in the present. 

 

How often in my life am I waiting for something to happen so that I can be happy?

 

“I’ll be happy when I have a different job.”

 

“I’ll be happy when I’m out of New York.”

 

“I’ll love that person more once they get their act together.”

 

It suddenly became apparent that love, peace, and happiness are not conditional states, although I often try to make them that way.

 

The tables had turned. I wasn’t waiting for peace or happiness. They were waiting for me. 

 

Angels didn't exactly start to sing in ecstasy, but things certainly got lighter from that point forward. Although I didn't reach enlightenment in four hours, I was finally able to accept exactly where I was, and everyone who was there with me, and that was more than enough.

 

Peace.

 

(At last).