Riding the Elephant
Yoga Stress
September was a stressful month. Having decided in May to give up my last, tiny occupational therapy contract and devote myself to yoga full time, I looked forward to the fall term with great anticipation. I signed up for a professional development course to brush up on some skills and to figure out what priorities to set in this new and scary world of being totally self-employed. Labour Day weekend came and went and—crickets. The phone wasn’t ringing. Many of my regular students were away or caught up with difficult problems in their lives, and I started to panic. My assistant Jenn had to talk me down from the proverbial ledge. I took a one-day contract to do a restorative care education day and then I got the flu: the worst flu I’ve had in probably fifteen years. I started to eat solid food just in time to go off to the training, which was wonderful but also intense and demanding. And now I’m back, still a little deaf in one ear (allergies I think) and reflecting on how being a yoga teacher can be (ironically) stressful.
The emotions we are clear about are only the tip of the iceberg…
I am not complaining; I have the best job in the world. I am feeling sheepish though about how difficult I still find it to deal with stress, even though I am armed with (and teach) great techniques to diffuse it. Stress is complex and multi-faceted. Our ability to cope is affected by our overall health, our endocrine system, our genetic make-up, our early childhoods, our education, our support systems, and all kinds of events and incidents that are beyond our control (like CNN or viruses). Yoga and meditation bring us back to the present moment and help us to recognize what is real versus what is imagined. Yoga teaches us to access our bodies and show us our habits of movement, thinking, and feeling so that we can gradually shift gears. But the emotions that we are clear about and in touch with are only the tip of the iceberg. Apparently, yoga teacher Judith Lasater once likened our conscious emotions to the mahout on top of an elephant. The mahout may think he’s in control until the elephant encounters a mouse—and then he just hangs on for dear life.*
Being angry with the elephant doesn’t help…
Yoga is about starting over again and again. We come to see our unconscious habits, and very slowly, by bringing what is habitual or subconscious to light we can gradually create shifts in our movement patterns and our behaviour. We can also develop a little self-compassion for when our elephants go stampeding through the market. There’s not a lot you can do until the elephant calms down, and being angry with it doesn’t help. You just have to go and tidy up the mess. If you’re lucky, you’ll have a few friends there to help out and you can have a good laugh when you regain your perspective. Feeling lucky, and looking forward to seeing you, Elaine
*Thank you to YuMee Chung for passing on the Judith Lasater quote
