I took a break from teaching yoga a few years ago because I lost my voice. Not literally.
Written by Linda Sparrowe
I’d been teaching vinyasa for years but had started looking forward less and less to my classes, and I found all sorts of excuses to sidestep my own practice. My heart wasn’t in it and neither was my body, which just wasn’t “performing” how I’d come to expect. How could I possibly teach anyone anything when my inflexible hips made Lotus Pose impossible? How could my 6o-year-old body inspire my young students eager to get their Hanumanasana on or tuck their leg behind their head? But most important, how could I also convince these students that none of these feats mattered when suddenly they’d taken on such meaning for me?
Yoga is about creating a relationship with ourselves, diving deep into the very fabric of our being to discover our truth and to make friends with all that we are. I taught and spoke about that, but when I dove deep and listened closely, I wasn’t sure I could really get behind this philosophy anymore. I discovered the truth alright, but I didn’t like what I found. I forged a relationship with myself, but hardly a loving one. So I hung up my mat and stopped practicing; I also gave away my classes and stopped teaching.
About six months into my sabbatical from yoga, I remembered that I had a commitment to teach at a week-long retreat for women battling cancer. So off I went to the Colorado Rockies to meet 65 women. To my surprise, I slipped easily back into teaching, but what really inspired a renewed sense of commitment to my own practice was a conversation I had with “Marty”, a rough-and-tumble older woman who was much more comfortable on a Harley than a yoga mat. Riddled with cancer, she could barely move, but she wanted to do yoga in the hope that it could heal the shame she felt for her once-strong body. During one session toward the end of the retreat, Marty and I were seated on mats next to each other, and we simply began to move slowly and gently. After a few minutes, I noticed several women putting their mats down near us, and they started to practice in rhythm with Marty. When we finished, Marty said, “You know, I think I like this yoga stuff.” I asked her why. She said, “Weirdly, I suddenly saw my body, but not its broken parts. I saw my body from the inside, and it was whole.”
In that moment, I realized that I had just spent the last hour deeply connected to our collective experience without once judging, or worrying about my own body. At the end of our week together, Marty placed both of my hands on her heart. She said, “OK, Sparrowe, this retreat might have touched my heart. But you? You touched my soul.” I knew then that despite my body not being able to do what it once could, my heart was my gift. That retreat, and my experience with Marty, brought me back to my mat—and, eventually, back to teaching—and reminded me that my wisdom, born of experience, was my offering.
These days, I’ve reclaimed my voice, and my teaching mirrors who I am in this body, in this moment: a combination of strength and receptivity, infused with the wisdom I’ve gained and the love I have for this ancient practice.
Linda Sparrowe is a yoga teacher and writer in Providence, Rhode Island.
Picture Credits: http://www.lindasparrowe.com/about
This article was first published in the print edition of Yoga Journal Singapore,which is now Yogahood Online.
