On the very first day of my 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training (YTT) I had journaled:

“To be successful, I need to learn to let go—to be vulnerable. And to learn to not care about what others are going to think of me. More importantly, I have to learn to be comfortable and confident with who I am and what I do. No one here is going to eat me. So it’s okay for me to live.”

From the very beginning of my training, I’ve known what I need to do in order to be a successful yoga instructor. But worrying about what others think of me is something I have struggled with my entire life; my biggest fear is the feeling of embarrassment.

After ten months of incredible life changing experiences through my YTT, I had landed my very first yoga gig at my local YMCA. As I drove to my very first solo taught class, I thought I was going to throw up and die. I was terrified. This was it. I was going to be judged. And there was a very good possibility that I was going to feel embarrassed. So many times I thought, “I can just turn around and go home. There’s no point in getting so worked up over this. I can literally go home and not do this.”

Before I knew it, I had arrived. I had typed out my entire class with notes down to the minutes and the times of each and every sequence and my notes were all of a sudden sitting with me at the front of my mat. And as I looked out at my very first yoga class of only three students, I thought to myself, “Well, I’ve made it this far,” and so we did yoga.

I allowed myself to be vulnerable for the first time in a long time and I threw my whole self into it. It wasn’t perfect. And there were only three students. And I mixed up my lefts and my rights and I forgot entire sequences and I stumbled on my words. And I often felt embarrassed.

But you know what?

No one ate me. And I lived.

Through teaching and not running away, I’ve learned that stumbling and making mistakes is all just a part of the process. Slowly but surely I have become more comfortable and confident in my teaching.

Do I still stumble and struggle at times? Absolutely.

But if I didn’t do any of that and I didn’t experience those small bouts of embarrassment, I would have no room and no reason to grow.

And such is life.

When something unexpected happens, we reflect, we re-adjust and we move forward. We can’t let the fear of judgment dissuade us from doing what we love. And we must always remember that no matter what happens, no one is going to eat us.

It’s okay for us to live.

 

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Apprentice Editor: Yaisa Nio / Editor: Travis May

Photos: Wiki Commons