The word passion is inherently loaded. It has the potential to play out in either positive or negative ways, it has the power to paralyze us into inaction and there’s a pressure to feel it on a daily basis.
If you are feeling lackluster about teaching yoga or
“I don’t even know what my passion is anymore”
We are about to extract the deeper essence of passion and how to make it last.
But first, a little context on why I think keeping the Passion alive is part of our practice as yogis.
Circa 2015, I was attending a YTT, thousands of miles away from everything I knew and everyone that knew me. I felt relieved, the distance allowed me the space I needed to truly feel and be with myself. We sat on the floor each day for our lunch break and we yoginis from all over the world shared their stories, loves and losses.
I was mesmerized by one woman who was chatting freely about her love for food, her devotion to art, her appreciation of the ocean swelling before our eyes. I was mesmerized by her passion for Life. And I realized,
I want to FEEL like that.
I realized, I had slowly and silently slipped away from passion and somehow, into numbness. I was operating on autopilot
The next day, the focus of the yoga practice was the heart chakra. We had been moving and breathing in unison for sometime when a woman next to me stood up on her yoga mat. She set her feet apart and took a deep breath. She opened her mouth and out spilled a long, high-pitched note that cut through the noise in my mind and the entire room. She sang in operatic tones and my heart cracked open, out of no-where I began sobbing and dropped to my knees, every note sent me deeper into the ocean of feeling.
She stopped singing and my tears continued to flow uncontrollably, there was no turning back. The floodgates had been opened and I cried for the rest of the day and into the night. I couldn’t stop feeling. As the sun rose, I walked down to the ocean and dunked myself in healing waters and with my whole body, heart and mind submerged everything became clear.
I couldn’t stop feeling.
Some people are in the yoga teaching game for the long haul. Some people do a YTT, teach for a year or two then move on. Some people do a YTT and never teach a public class. Some people never do a YTT and are the best in the biz. It’s not everybody's path to be actively teaching year in year out, rain hail or shine but if it is you, read on for my musings on keeping the Passion alive after 15 years in the game.
For most of us, teaching yoga isn’t the path to great monetary riches and so our Passion is the fuel that sustains what we do. Without being fuelled by the pure pleasure and desire to transmit yoga, teaching can quickly become depleting, wreak physical havoc on the body and suck us dry of inspiration. Been there.
Like Ayurveda reminds us, most of life is a balancing act, paying attention to the ever changing balance point and returning ourselves to homeostasis. Balance isn’t boring, it’s adaptive and dynamic and requires our full presence.
Balance is sustainability and Passion is that sustainable, regenerative fuel that drives us.
Practice more than you Teach
More than “practice what you preach” we’re here to practice more than we teach. Balance what you give and what you receive from the practice. It’s a common rite of passage that most new teachers pass through, teaching 20+ classes a week and eventually getting a spiritual slapdown (been there) Your teaching time is not your personal practice. They serve distinctly different purposes and I can tell right away when a teacher has this ratio off.
This is a really simple equation, if you teach one class a day, practice at least once a day. Teach more than one class - practice more than one time a day. I’m not suggesting we power through 3 hours of flow in a day, your personal practice will (and should) look different each day. Incorporate dedicated meditation sits, mantra, pranayama throughout the day to maintain that balance.
2. Auto-pilot Off / Feeling On
If we want to cultivate Passion, we cannot cut off from Feeling, feeling the full spectrum of emotions.
In yogic physiology, we understand that emotions are simply energy-in-motion. E-motion. When you’re teaching a lot, or busy with Life it can be daunting to actually pause because we know the depth of emotion that is bubbling below the surface. It can feel easier to continue on autopilot, but only for so long.
The first phase of Feeling is actually not feeling at all - it’s numb-ness. Your personal practice serves to dissolve the armor that accumulates, preventing us from feeling, and by extension blocking Passion. Passion is feeling the full spectrum of emotion, we cannot separate the pleasure from the pain. They are interwoven into each other.
Naturally, when we practice, we begin to experience feelings that are painful, they might be mental or cellular memories or current experiences that are painful. It is normal to feel all this and rest assured, nothing is wrong - the yoga is working.
We move from pain to anger, to fear. Fear is the key to unlocking the gift of grief. Compassion. We want to get to grief as swiftly as possible as all emotions have purpose: to deliver us into compassion - our natural state.
3. (Com)passion
This brings us neatly to tip #3. See how Passion and Compassion are intertwined?
I think of these two qualities as the masculine and feminine aspects of the kind of love affair that has longevity. Again, it’s about balance. If Passion is the initiating spark that gets us excited about yoga in the first place, balancing that with Compassion and gentleness is what makes the love last. The first application of Compassion must be directed inwardly.
There will be ebbs and flow, highs and lows. Everything in nature moves in this way. Times of growth and expansion, times of dissolution and retreat. We are not exempt from this.
In practical terms, this means waving in times of activation and times of rest into your practice and teaching. You probably already do this within a single practice, by balancing time for namaskars and flow with time for savasana and restorative asana, but let's zoom out further. This is where we can turn to nature to guide and inspire our sadhana. Considering the time of day, the lunar cycle, the season we’re in to inform exactly how to practice. Nature gives us the blueprint of how to consistently maintain balance.
Learn more on exactly how to sequence according to Nature's rhythms in my masterclass “The Art of of Sequencing with Ayurveda”
And lastly…
4. Desire as your unbridled direction
My final thought on why keeping the Passion alive is more complex than simply drying up is this. In the yoga world, at least in my experience, we are taught that it’s more ‘spiritual’ and more ‘yogic’ to deny our desires. The ‘goal’ is to transcend the body and all her wants and needs. Reclaiming a more feminine approach to practice is through the body, embracing wants and needs as intelligence.
I offer you this, reclaim your desires. Not just the surface level cravings and reactions but the deep and truly true ones.
Your Desire reveals your Direction
There comes a point on the teaching path where our interests diversify, we settle into our unique voice and refine our offerings, we find our ‘niche’ in marketing speak. We might start by casting a wide net, drawing inspiration from various teachings but if we really want to strike gold and have something to contribute from our own excavations, it helps to dig deeply in your chosen direction. Like is states in the first few yoga sutras
Move in your chosen direction with continuity
Desire is natural and should be unbridled. Just as the flower grows in the direction of the sun. The tide is pulled in the direction of the moon. The direction that we are pulled in is our primordial desire to grow and evolve. Embrace your desires as your wild, weaving path and move in the direction of your curiosity, it will not lead you astray.
Thank You for reading. Here’s to walking the path together!
Let me know in the comments your insights
Love, Amanda