As I write I’m on a bus to Philadelphia as a parent chaperone for my daughter’s class trip. Under the din of noisy fifth grade chatter, a Three Stooges film is playing, and the child sitting behind me keeps opening and closing our shared window blind. Back at home I have thirty papers to grade piled on my dining room table and I desperately need to get the final draft of the final exam to the department secretary for printing. And I just remembered that I forgot to eat breakfast, so I’m foraging in my purse for something resembling food.

In short, I’m only two hours in of a nine hour trip, on a noisy charter bus hurtling up the highway to Philadelphia. The only way out of here is through.

This is why I don’t usually take requests to turn down the heat in yoga class.

I once knew a professional chef who would say “if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.”  That’s one perspective. But life can be viewed as one big, hot, hectic, demanding and stressful kitchen. Getting out of this kitchen (to go live, where, in a cave?) –isn’t, for most of us, a realistic option.

Our best option, then, as yoga teachers and yoga students is to learn to deal with the heat– to stay and breathe. That’s our work. That’s certainly my work. To stop trying to change the externalities–other people, the noise levels, the traffic congestion, the temperature. Instead we need to learn to change our responses to them.  To manage ourselves rather than controlling what can’t be controlled.

I’m working on taking the heat, on this bus, in this life, in the studio. I’m working on this with you. And so, with love in my heart and even if you ask very nicely, in my simulated kitchen of life called “your yoga class”, the thermostat is set high. I believe that you will make it through.  I have faith that I will too.

Dear Yoga Students,                                                                   

I realize that day before Christmas is a bit late to be compiling a gift wish list, but I nearly went insane with longing while teaching a class this morning.  Please make my Christmas Eve dreams come true! Sorry for the pressure to fulfill my last minute request, but I have faith in you.  I know you can give me these five simple gifts!

My list is in order of preference—what I’d like most comes first:

1) Breathing!  When doing vinyasa flow, please use your ujjayii breath.  It’s not some optional component of the practice, it’s the most essential part.  I would love to stop reminding you in every pose to breathe, but you keep forgetting—actually, sometimes you never start.  Breathing audibly is not some mumbo jumbo hippie notion, it’s the CORE of asana practice. It’s good for you, it’s free and it doesn’t hurt.  What else can I say here?

2) Chaturanga done correctly.  Please stop sagging your hips and dropping your chin to your chest as you lower down.  What are you looking at anyway?  Do you really need to watch your belly collapse on the floor.  Lift your chin and hold your plank position as you bend your elbows.

If you can’t hold your plank position as you lower into chaturanga, then, for goodness sake, drop your knees to the mat.

3) Shoulders down the back in upward facing dog.  Simple enough.

4) Exorcisms.  In upward facing dog, please don’t roll your eyes into the back of your head. It scares me.

5) Head Shrinking Device.  Please leave your ego at the door.  Please don’t attempt advance poses when you don’t have the physical strength to do them.  Jumping back to chaturanga is the best example.  If you can’t lower from plank to chaturanga without saggy hips, then you really have no business jumping into chaturanga.

That’s it for now.  But I suspect that similar gift requests may come up on future holidays, such as Valentine’s Day, and Easter and probably Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, President’s Day, Super Bowl Sunday, and more.   I hope I can give you more advanced warning next time.

And, thank you so much for giving me the honor of teaching you all year long.  I hate to ask more of you, but I believe that these gifts I’m requesting are a win-win proposition for us.  As I suggested before, I wouldn’t ask so late in the season if I didn’t believe you could deliver by Christmas morning.

With Love Always!

I was making the savasana rounds at the end of class, juggling between giving every student my full attention and care and getting to each person.  The community class was rather full.  Halfway through, I came to her mat and kneeled down to adjust her arms—palms face up, arm bones rotated out.  As I gently turned her arms over I noticed the scars.  Mostly on her left arm, she must be right handed; the cuttings had left over a dozen straight lines from a few inches above the elbow to her forearm.  Instantly, it registered, she was in pain.  Even if the scars, and the original emotional wounds, were old, a new wound had surfaced. She had intentionally turned her arms down; she was ashamed.

Most students don’t show up in class with obvious and unmistakable signs of emotional turmoil.  Occasionally, a student may approach you before class and let you know that she or he is having hard time, that something in life off the mat isn’t working well.  And sometimes a student might break down in tears at the end of class if his or her practice generated a feeling of catharsis or release.

Usually, though, we teachers don’t really see our students’ pain.  We see them come in the door just as they do every Wednesday and they seem fine.  We ask “how are you” with our cheerful yoga voices, and they reply that they are glad to be at yoga, that they have some “stuff” to work through.

In reality, though, the “stuff” is overwhelming them.  They’re hiding the depth of their despair, the deepness of their sorrow.  They’ve become so good at hiding it, that they themselves don’t even see it anymore.  They’re “fine”—that’s the polite answer. That’s the easy answer.

Easy for us, the teachers, too.  We can pretend that yoga is the penicillin or Tylenol of all things gone wrong.  How can our regular students be suffering? How can we be suffering?  We’re all doing yoga!!  Yoga relieves suffering!

It happened again today.  I realized after class that a few of my regular students were in a lot of hidden emotional pain.  And then instead of covering up the reality with bullshit, I confronted myself with some tough questions: 1) was I creating a classroom environment that allowed people to feel emotionally safe; 2) was I present with my students, ALL of my students—the regulars and the new faces?  3) was I just walking around talking at them, filling the room with yoga-isms or was I giving them permission to be their authentic self, 4) was I more worried about the numbers, my popularity, my ego, if people liked my class and returned, than I was about the emotional needs of my students?

My honest and true answers were enlightening and depressing. Nope, I was failing to create a true emotionally safe place, failing to be present with every student, and failing to allow authenticity of experience through silence and space.  And, I was also wrapped up in ego and counting heads.

I considered this: all of the hours of teacher trainings, creative sequence construction, workshop attendance, etc., none of it could make me a better teacher if I didn’t make my class a place for people to bring their woes and come apart—a place safe enough to let the wounds and sorrows well up and rise to the surface and then be released through sweat and tears, laughter and joy, an experience that allows you to leave and live lighter for an ever increasing amount of time.

That’s really the truest gift of a yoga class, recognizing that we are coming together to come apart, each of us in our own way, in order to put ourselves and each other back together again.

I don’t know what’s right or what’s real anymore                                    And I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore                                       And when do you think it will all become clear                                            ‘Cause I’m being taken over by the Fear–Lilly Allen, The Fear

This month was no surprise.  I predicted it was going to be crunchy as I was taking on new obligations while finishing up the demands of some old ones.  And crunchy, hectic and stressful it has been and will be through next week.  Along the way I’ve learned two important lessons.

One, stress is really anxiety and anxiety is really fear. In other words, stress = fear.  I’ve been likening my experience this month as a compression, a feeling of being squeezed from many directions.  It’s not a pleasant sensation; it’s actually scary.  When we are stressed we are afraid that we will fail to accomplish what needs to be done in the manner required or desired.  Stress is worry that we will drop the balls in our juggling act and let ourselves and others down.

For many years I have been conscious of the effects of fear.  Fear is not a good emotion upon which to act.  Fear, I say, does not lead us to good decisions.  When I am in a place of fear, I make the worst choices and respond to others, not with trust and compassion, but, with aggression, hostility and suspicion.  The same bad impulses happen when I am stressed.  I lose my willingness to be generous, to connect fully with other people. I judge and criticize as I try to deflect my own inner judgments and criticisms onto others.  It gets ugly quickly.

The trick is to feel the pressure without reacting with fear.

Two, I‘ve learned that managing pressure so that it doesn’t get ugly requires two things: preparation and breathing.  Preparation means that we stay conscious of our lives in a way that we avoid adding too much pressure in the first place.  We stay careful not to over-commit our time or energy and that if we find ourselves faced with inevitable periods of compression, we formulate a management plan—looking for ways to make it less painful.  And, we need to remind ourselves to keep breathing through the whole process not just before and after.

Yoga can help with stress on many levels. Yoga reminds us to breathe.  Often times I notice that the yoga room becomes very quiet when students are taking on a challenging pose or coming into a balancing position such as tree (vrksasana) or eagle (garudasana).  Then as soon as they come out of the poses, the room fills with gasping breaths.  We need to remember to breathe exactly when life is hardest and most scary.  When we hold our breath and say, “’ll take a good breath when I am done,” we just make our situations more stressful.

Yoga can also help us see the fear underlying the stress by teaching us to stay present and dig deep within ourselves.  I’ve watched myself in savasana, as my thinking mind attempts to intrude with the long list of “must-do’s.”  I feel the fear come up, as the heart rate accelerates and panic and frustration flood my brain with the silent scream “Why am I lying here on my mat when I have so much else to do!” If we can watch the fear come up then, or when we are attempting a new forearm balance, we can mindfully breathe, and teach our bodies to relax through the challenge.

Yes, we are all going to get squeezed by life sometimes.  The goal is to not let fear take over.

You may not realize that your yoga practice reveals a lot about you to your yoga teacher.  An experienced yoga teacher can scan the room, even before class officially begins, and can read the energy of the students. A teacher looks to see if you are tired or wired, sedate or elated, present or out-to –lunch in 4^thcentury Rome or 23^rd Century Orion.  That’s why good teachers don’t practice while they are teaching, they are eyeing the room, lovingly watching and reading the students.

Though teacher trainings don’t hand out special glasses, yoga teachers develop almost  x-ray vision—an ability to see your innermost being through your practice.  We can see where your resistance emerges; we watch how you react to challenges, limitations, breakthroughs and triumphs.  We notice if you get playful or angry, resolute or defeatist, curious or annoyed when the pose gets tough and the heat gets hot.  We’re not judging; we’re trying to help get stronger and more awake.

How about yoga students?  Do you watch yourself?  Are you awake and aware to what comes up in practice?

Pema Chodron says “The most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently”

My favorite teacher, Baron Baptiste, often asks his students–are you teachable?  Of course, Baron—being a rock star veteran yoga teacher—can already see who is and isn’t open, who is ready, courageous and willing to take risks and go deep, who is holding back and trapped by fear or hostility.  But his question is meant to awaken and challenge.  Are you teachable?  Do you show up on your mat to learn or perform? Can you drop the ego and take an honest and gentle look at what you’ve got in the present moment?  When you become the non-judgmental witness to your practice, you can begin to heal and grow.  By looking inward, staying aware, you learn from the greatest teacher—yourself.

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