The Essence Of Being A Teacher

Let's chat about preparing for a class. How much to prepare? How to leave space for inspiration during the talk. How to meet the needs and desires of your audience without losing your own way of teaching. What are some tips for growing in self-confidence and one’s own style or voice?

Transcript

So today we're talking about the essence of being a teacher and this question came out of our community.

Someone asked if I would do a talk about how I prepare for classes or how do you gain self-confidence to teach and how do you share and how do you leave room for inspiration and still have the structure and still share what you want to share.

So the easiest thing is to kind of start at the beginning for me because I never thought I would ever teach anything.

My parents were actually teachers,

Like school teachers,

And I have many ministers in my family so I might have some kind of genetic predisposition to being in front of people and talking.

So for me I had never intended to teach.

I was always really shy.

I really felt very self-conscious of being in front of people and having people look at me.

So I always liked to have jobs where I was sort of in the background.

And so when I the first time I ever started teaching was back in 2003 or 2006 because I opened a dance studio with a man who was a brilliant teacher and a brilliant dancer.

And my daughter Taylor and I were taking dance lessons with him and he just had so much charisma and joy and fun.

And of course I was really good at the business side.

I could do the math.

I have a really logical mind that can really sort things out and if I want to do something it kind of downloads into my mind almost in spreadsheet patterns.

You know that's that's how my mind works in that side.

So one day I went up to him and I said would you like to open a dance studio?

Because at the time we were just taking lessons from him at the YMCA and he could easily have supported you know having a dance studio because his classes just kept building organically every week as people kept telling their friends.

And I told him I said I'll do all the background.

I'll do all the business.

I'll do all the marketing.

I'll do everything else.

All you need to do is show up and be your amazing self.

So we ended up opening Casablanca Dance Studio in Goddard and all was going pretty well until he started having really deep personal problems which is a whole other story.

But what it required was for me to start teaching his classes.

I had no intention of ever standing in front of people in any way especially standing in a dance hall with full-length mirrors everywhere.

I had brutal self-image,

Body issues,

All kinds of things.

The idea of standing in front of a room full body and people looking at my body to see how to move the body for dancing.

This was so beyond any comfort zone I ever imagined.

But I had invested,

Borrowed money into this dance studio and I lost my main dancer.

So I actually had to teach.

There was no other choice and people had bought memberships.

So we had to kind of maintain a front that all was fine behind the scenes.

I was just stepping in to teach a few classes.

We couldn't necessarily let people know that the main dancer was having real issues.

So essentially my first teaching experience was faking it big time.

And I had to fake it with confidence.

And that's a really weird thing when you have no self-confidence and you're terrified of people looking at you.

And half the time I would be teaching moves that I had just learned right before class.

I was sometimes teaching tango steps that I didn't even know but my partner would just show it to me all ahead of time.

And I have a basic sense of dance and I had a basic sense of tango.

But really what he was teaching this class,

I'd never taken this class before.

So he would teach it to me,

I would get it in my head and I would get up there and try to really present this like I had any idea what I was doing so that people still had confidence in our business.

Because it was a brand new dance studio.

You know it takes a couple of years to really get things happening and a solid base of people.

And it was a nightmare.

It was horrible.

I was literally like you talk about your heart pounding and you're sweating and you're losing your mind and you hope like crazy that nobody knows that you're faking it.

And for so often I would be teaching something and someone in kindness,

Like it was often someone a friend or someone who had been dancing with us for a while would say,

Katrina that's not how he taught it to us last week.

And sometimes I was honest and I would look at them and kind of under my breath say,

Shh I'm just making it up.

Just go with it.

And sometimes I would just say,

Well let's try it this way.

Let's explore it.

We can do all different things.

Because I didn't want to admit that I had forgotten the proper way to do it or I wasn't doing it properly.

And it was really,

Really hard.

And it was one of those things that if I had any other option,

I would just have taken it.

But this was the option.

So I thought,

You know what,

We'll still have fun.

Hopefully my partner will sort out his physical ailments and stuff and he'll be back teaching in no time flat.

And in the meantime we can have lots of fun,

Learn lots about lead and follow.

And he can correct it all later if need be.

But what happened in that experience were two things.

One,

I did discover something inside of me.

I discovered a strength that I didn't know I had.

Because I heavily identified as a very shy person.

And it made me wonder whether shyness means a lack of self-confidence or not.

Because I had sort of equated those two things.

That,

Well,

The fact that I'm shy means that I don't like being in front of people or I don't have the confidence to do that.

But I started to discover that that's not exactly true.

I do have the confidence to do it.

I might be kind of sensitive to criticism and I might be sensitive to other people not liking what I'm doing.

But my shyness wouldn't stop me from actually getting in front of people.

And I think that's what I'm trying to do.

Shyness wouldn't stop me from actually getting in front of a room.

They were actually different things.

You know what I mean?

Like sometimes it's almost like we can develop a drama around a characteristic that we believe is us.

And I realized that,

Well,

So what I'm shy.

So what I have body image issues.

I can still teach tango.

One does not mean I can't do the other thing.

And sometimes that characteristic would have stopped me in the past for sure.

Because I would just say,

Oh no,

I'm too shy to do that.

No,

No,

No,

No,

I couldn't do that.

The other thing that happened was I would be teaching a class and I wasn't always faking it.

Sometimes I was teaching things I knew very well.

And after a while,

People started coming up to me during the class and saying,

You're a great teacher.

And of course I blow them off,

Right?

And I said,

Oh,

No,

Not that good.

You know,

I mean,

You know,

He's a better teacher.

And they were like,

No,

You're different.

We like the way you teach.

You know,

We prefer the way you teach.

And that was a huge deal because he was a really,

Really great teacher.

He was a great dancer and a great,

He had so much charisma.

He just sort of had some issues.

And that changed something inside of me.

Like them saying that really made me think,

Really?

And suddenly all of this sort of,

Whatever that strength is that I found,

Whatever that faking it,

Everything kind of,

I don't know,

Made me think,

Wow,

Maybe I,

Maybe I like teaching.

And the truth is I did like teaching.

I liked creating the classes.

I liked creating the structure.

I loved the fun.

I loved the people.

I love the laughter.

I mean,

A couple's dance class is hilarious.

You just laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh.

Like it's so much fun.

So in that moment,

I discovered that maybe I liked teaching.

Then eventually the studio,

He and I fell apart one final time and I left the studio and he continued on.

But I was not to teach dance within a certain radius and not within three years,

Just so that he could stay keeping the business going.

Well,

In that time I discovered Kundalini Yoga and I started doing Kundalini Yoga at home.

I found a DVD by Guru Muk.

I did this epic class in the middle of my living room,

Surrounded by dogs and cats.

And this is on the dairy farm.

And my husband and the hired men are coming into the kitchen and my kids are little and they're running around.

And I'm having this out of body vibratory,

Holy crap experience in my living room.

And I thought,

What is this yoga?

So I bought every single DVD that you could get on Amazon.

I did this yoga every single day.

My spine straightened,

My mind changed,

How I acted,

Everything changed inside of me.

And I thought,

I need to learn this yoga.

I need to study with real people because of course I'm in the middle of nowhere.

There's not yoga anywhere,

Let alone Kundalini Yoga.

So I went to the States.

I'm in Canada.

I went to the States and I studied in the Kundalini Research Institute and I took the teacher training.

And I discovered what a brilliant yoga it was.

And I loved that it was for everyone.

I loved that you could do it in a chair.

You could do it if you were paralyzed.

You could do anything.

It was just the most amazing thing.

And I did the training and I came home and I started teaching.

And what was interesting about teaching Kundalini Yoga,

It was twofold.

One,

It had changed my life.

It had absolutely altered me.

It's like one of the main mantras in it is Sat Nam.

And Sat is truth.

Nam it means that I bow or that it's my name.

And this was a mantra that I personally needed.

I needed to know that the truth within me mattered.

This was so important.

This was the best medicine I could have ever had.

And so for me to do this yoga as I'm inhaling Sat,

Exhaling Nam,

It changed me.

It created a center in me that I'd never experienced before.

And I really wanted to share this with the world because I had changed so much from this very shy kind of.

.

.

And of course,

And this is after I'd had the breast slumps and everything in 1999 that I wrote the book,

What If You Could Skip the Cancer,

About.

So I was really on the journey to figure out,

Okay,

That's fine that this is your truth and you're supposed to live it,

But how do you do it?

And this yoga,

It's like the act of the yoga embodied the truth in my life,

In who I was.

And it wasn't an intellectual idea anymore.

It was just who I was.

So the idea of sharing this with the community,

It just poured out of me.

So whether I was shy or worried or whatever,

It didn't even matter because I so wanted,

I knew that other people were like me.

The other thing I've realized that when I'm teaching that kind of inspires me,

Is I kind of like being a system buster.

Like,

You know,

Like we all have those things that excite us.

That excites me a lot.

And I have nothing against Hatha Yoga or Vinyasa Yoga,

Or any of the great yogis that are out there.

There are amazing teachers,

There's amazing programs.

But so often in the Western world,

Yoga has become a kind of a system buster.

In the Western world,

Yoga has become acrobatics.

It's posing on Instagram.

It's saying that I'm a great yogi because I can sit in full lotus or I can put my foot over my head.

And this defines us as a great yogi.

And in my heart,

That never sat with me.

So the idea that I was teaching a yoga,

That literally anyone could do because it was about healing from the inside out,

And it wasn't about being flexible.

I think something inside of me was super excited about that,

Which also gave me a little extra something something that busted through any other previous shyness.

Because I was like,

I'm telling you,

Anyone can do this yoga.

This yoga will change you from the inside out.

And it doesn't matter if you're 90 or if you're nine,

It is such a powerful yoga.

So it kind of built me up a lot.

So that was really interesting.

What else was really interesting about Kundalini Yoga for me as a teacher,

Is it creates a very structured program.

Every class is a very specific Kriya,

Or a cleanse or a set of exercises.

So all of a sudden,

I don't have to make things up.

I don't have to even necessarily know what everything does,

Because I trust the system.

And I trust the system because I know what it did for me,

Not because someone else told me to do it.

Because I know that this altered me from the inside out.

And so all of a sudden,

In the land of structured classes,

All I had to do was pick the Kriya,

Pick the meditation,

Choose my music and show up.

So it was this beautiful structure that I then got to kind of sit within and be creative sort of with just simply my voice or what I said,

But it gave this really comfortable teacher structure.

So then the one cool thing about this yoga is that the meditations are mostly pranayama.

So that they're actually remedial,

They actually heal the body,

They heal the nervous system.

So I started taking the meditations out into the world.

I started teaching in shelters,

I started teaching in hospitals and psych wards and businesses and all kinds of places.

And there,

All this structure broke down.

Because if I was in a psychiatric ward,

Where people were on all kinds of medication and struggling and various levels of attention and all this kind of thing,

There was no way I could walk in and just teach a Kriya and ask people to have their own experience inside the structure.

People were so lost.

And of course,

Because the first time I would have gone in and say,

Oh,

Well,

I'm going to do this Kriya because it's nice and easy and simple.

And of course,

I can't even tune in,

I can't even chant,

Because I've already lost the room.

So all of a sudden,

I had to start being really dynamic.

And I realized,

You start to look around,

You're like,

Okay,

What would work?

Know what,

We need to stand up,

Let's everyone stand up and let's take a breath together.

Okay,

And let's start twisting our bodies together.

Let's start doing this.

And I had to start organically creating the classes based on the people there,

Because they couldn't do the other thing.

But I really still wanted to help.

And I wanted them to experience the breath,

I wanted them to experience their nervous systems calming down.

So what did I have in my toolkit that I could do that I could pull this out.

And I started to realize that anytime I was teaching outside of a standard class that people would come to,

They know that they're there for the yoga,

And they just do the Kriya.

Any other time,

Whether I was teaching teenagers at the high school,

Teaching in a shelter,

Teaching to a group who had COPD or something,

I had to be dynamic in the moment,

And 100% read the room.

Otherwise,

What am I doing?

And this is a really interesting dynamic in the masculine feminine dynamic,

Because the teacher is in the masculine role,

And the student or the audience is in the feminine role they're receiving.

And historically,

The paradigm in the patriarchy,

The domination paradigm,

Whatever,

However you want to look at it,

The masculine is just in charge,

And the feminine just receives it.

So this is where as a teacher,

I would just simply come in,

Present it,

And you either get it or you don't get it.

It's really nothing to me.

That's my job.

But in union,

When the masculine and feminine are in union and connected,

That lead to a like a beautiful state,

A bliss state,

A joyful state,

The masculine reads the feminine,

And this goes for all the dynamics.

So the masculine,

The teacher,

Their job is actually to meet the needs of the audience.

And it was so fulfilling.

It was so amazing,

Because it was almost like it would draw out of us more than we thought we knew.

You know,

I remember one time I was teaching at an outpatient clinic,

A psychiatric outpatient clinic.

And I was teaching this room full of people,

And there was about 20 people in the room.

And I was just teaching meditation,

And I was talking,

And I was talking,

Just like,

You know,

Just like we talk here.

And I'm just talking.

And you see like I'm talking with my hands,

And my voice goes up and down,

And whatever.

This is just my normal thing.

Well later,

The psychologist who had hired me,

Who was facilitating,

Took me into his office,

And he said,

Katrina,

I saw what you did there.

And I said,

What did I do?

And he said,

You hypnotized them.

I said,

I didn't hypnotize them.

He goes,

Oh yeah,

I've studied hypnosis.

Don't tell anybody,

But I've studied hypnosis.

And I saw what you did,

The way your voice goes up,

And then your voice goes down,

And then you use your hands with the voice,

And this.

He goes,

I watched them.

They were transfixed on you,

Because you were hypnotizing them.

And of course,

I never thought of this ever.

And I don't think it's hypnosis.

I think it's the human,

Natural,

Soothing voice that we have,

That maybe we have that we use with children,

Or we use with a friend who's struggling.

It's a whole different aspect of who we are that maybe we've never even accessed.

So it's always really interesting when we want to build confidence as a teacher,

That if we're in a situation where we have to read the room,

I think we actually draw from parts of our personality that we never even thought was interesting.

And that was really my experience.

So suddenly,

My experiences as a teacher expanded into all these other corners,

Way beyond Kundalini Yoga,

Way beyond teaching dance or anything like that,

That I realized that,

Wow,

I have more to share than just the yoga.

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So this is where the beautiful balance,

Then,

Of structure and flow come.

Again,

This beautiful masculine-feminine balance of structure and chaos,

Order and flow,

However that works.

So now what I do,

No matter what I'm doing,

Whether I'm teaching here on Insight Timer or I'm doing a talk in public or even if I'm teaching a course or something,

I always make sure that I have the structure laid out,

That I know the intention of what I want to teach,

And I know the big points that I absolutely want to get to,

And that whatever the exercises or meditations or whatever they are,

That they really fit in the structure,

That it does make sense,

That the people who are coming to this are definitely going to get something solid that they can sink their teeth into,

Go away,

And it really is of some earthly good.

I create this structure,

And then I trust that the way I say it will come out right.

But I always have this structure,

So even if I'm in public,

I will have a little cue card,

And I'll have the main points that I want to get to,

And as long as I definitely get to all of them,

That's all that matters.

And so then it becomes this beautiful structure and flow that in the end,

I did what I intended to do,

And maybe people like it or they don't like it,

But that's what gives me the confidence that I'm never going to do what that guy did.

But I'm also not going to be so worried that I missed something,

Because I know I got to the real points,

And how I got there,

That I trust happened,

That it wove together in the right way.

Another interesting thing that I discovered after I realized this,

Was I would have my little cue card with all my points,

And I would be sitting there.

I remember doing this at the train station,

Because every so often,

Companies would come and have meetings at my train station,

So then they would ask me to do an introductory talk or something,

And then they would go on with themselves.

But of course,

They weren't necessarily looking for spiritual talk or anything that I would normally be talking about,

So it was always weird.

It was just always a very strange crowd,

Kind of like someone singing opera to people who were coming for punk rock or something.

You just feel like you're a little in the wrong suit.

So I'd be sitting there,

And I would be ready to do my talk,

And I would begin the introduction,

And all of a sudden,

My mind would sort of kind of shift to this side of the room,

And I'd suddenly just start telling some weird story.

And then all of a sudden,

I'd be kind of shifting to the other side of the room,

And I'd kind of tell a different story.

And then I'd be over here,

And I would just sort of sound,

In my mind,

I thought,

My God,

I'm kind of schizophrenic or something.

I'm just like,

Doot,

Doot,

Doot,

Doot,

Doot,

Doot,

Doot.

I used to have a friend in San Diego,

And his father-in-law used to say that he was like a fart in a skillet.

That's how I felt.

Like I was just like,

Shoom,

Shoom,

Shoom,

Shoom,

All over the place.

But then all of a sudden,

The room would become quiet,

And then I'd be able to give my talk.

And what was really interesting about that is as soon as the room became like energetically quiet,

It was like I was speaking one-on-one,

Because I realized whatever that shyness is inside of me,

I really love being one-on-one.

That's my favorite.

I'm a very intense person.

I like going deep and being super intense with someone.

And that's very hard for me when the ratio is one to many.

It's hard for me to be intense with 40 people,

Unless the 40 people somehow get woven into one.

And what I discovered over time,

And what I believe was happening,

Is I would start the talk,

And it's like people would have questions,

And it was almost like I could hear the questions.

And I would just sort of shift over there and almost answer the question without even knowing that the question was asked.

And the reason I know this is because,

One,

Energetically,

The room just became quiet.

It's like all of a sudden their questions got answered,

And they could just listen.

And then at the end,

I would finish speaking.

It was like literally like you could hear a pin drop,

And I'd say,

Does anyone have any questions?

And no one would ever have any questions.

And it was quite a few years before I realized what I believe is happening.

So I think this is also a big thing about being a teacher,

Is trusting that voice,

Trusting that,

You know,

We talk about the fifth chakra,

And we talk about how the back of the chakra is how we receive information,

And then it is shared through the front chakra.

But very often,

We question it.

We're afraid to say it.

We don't want to say it.

But what if you're sitting there,

And you 100% trust that whatever it is that comes in is meant to be said,

Whether it has anything to do with you at all.

Sometimes I'll watch videos of myself teaching.

I've never even thought some of the things I say.

I'm watching it as in total intrigue.

Those aren't my normal thoughts.

And then teaching really becomes interesting,

Because suddenly you teach to get to hear things you've never even thought before.

It's a whole other world,

You know.

So then all these questions of self-confidence or anything,

They kind of go out the window,

Because you kind of know that you're not alone.

However you understand that,

The right words will be spoken.

And at the end,

It was fun,

And it was enjoyable.

The other big thing about self-confidence is to really be sure you're teaching.

And it's funny to say this after I told you about my faking it as a dance teacher,

But that was my beginning.

It's really important to teach through our lived experience,

Because it's almost like we have this weird idea in the world that being a teacher,

It's almost like there's a positive stigma attached to it.

Like,

Oh,

You're a teacher.

Again,

This weird patriarchal thing where,

Oh,

The masculine is more important than the feminine or something,

In all dynamics.

So the teacher is the wise one,

And the people.

It's like this weird thing.

So then all of a sudden,

It's like,

Oh,

I want to be a teacher because I want to be in that position.

But that's not what it is.

What if instead we simply teach what we know?

We teach our lived experience.

If I went to some cool city,

And I learned their dance there.

Maybe I went to Argentina for a year,

And I dove into Argentine tango.

And then I came back,

And I shared Argentine tango with everybody.

Am I better than anyone else?

No.

I'm just sharing Argentine tango.

That's it.

If I went through this whole breast lump thing with Jim,

And I had these realizations,

And it changed my life,

And suddenly I had to kind of access my intuition in order to survive,

And I share that with people,

I'm just sharing an experience.

There's no weird dynamic where the teacher is more interesting than anyone else.

It's just sharing an experience.

Or sometimes people share their research.

Like when you look at some of the big teachers that are out there right now,

Like people like Joe Dispenza.

Well,

Joe Dispenza started out simply as a doctor researching how the mind,

Body,

Emotions all fit together.

And then he just started sharing that information.

And people were like,

Whoa,

This is ringing a serious truth.

And all of a sudden,

More and more people start coming.

But all he's doing is sharing the research he's intrigued by.

And then he started applying it to his own life.

And then he started having lived experience of it.

So it's a very interesting thing that if we want to teach,

We really want to ask ourselves,

What do we want to share?

Or do we just want to be a teacher?

It's kind of like today there's a whole thing.

I want to be an influencer on Instagram.

Or I'm 20 years old and I want to be a life coach.

And it's really valuable to go out into the world and live.

And have experiences and have joy and bust through the karmic patterns that we struggle with.

And then if we choose to share those things,

It's easy.

It just flows out of us.

We sometimes struggle with the idea of having self-confidence.

But I wonder if that's higher,

Assuming we're not just stuck with the shy issue.

I wonder if it's higher when we're sharing something that's not exactly our lived experience.

If I tell you that I've been through something,

You can't argue me out of it.

This is my experience.

And that's all I'm presenting it as.

I'm not saying that you should do it.

I'm not saying anyone should do it.

It's just my experience.

So it's impossible to not have confidence in sharing it.

So it's just very interesting to shift what we even understand a teacher is.

And then it becomes very easy to share what we are passionate about or interesting things about the world that really helped us.

So regardless of all that,

What if you just feel called to teach?

You don't even know why,

But you just want to teach.

The other key with the self-confidence thing is to do it.

I have like Frank Sinatra in my head.

To do it your way.

If you're naturally extroverted and really high energy,

Then be extroverted with high energy.

Be Tony Robbins.

Go with your gifting.

Because you will attract the people who either want to be more extroverted or people who are extroverted and really relate to that.

They resonate with your true energy.

If you're really shy and quiet,

Then really be shy and quiet.

You know,

It was one of my great serendipitous moments that just before I started teaching on Insight Timer,

Like two years ago maybe,

I had been studying with David Bohm's people.

I had watched the movie Infinite Potential,

The Life and Times of David Bohm,

Who is a quantum physicist.

And we were all in lockdown,

Right?

So people couldn't go out.

So they decided to do these Zoom classes with all of his fellow quantum physicists and biographers and interesting people that he knew along the way,

Native elders and qigong masters and all these really cool people.

And we got to actually take classes with these people over Zoom.

It was so epic.

And my favorite teacher was this really quiet,

Introverted biographer.

He was actually one of the editors for a number of David Bohm's books.

And I would watch him teach,

And I was spellbound by him.

And the first class he taught,

It was all about accessing the infinite aspects of the human being or something like that.

By the end of that talk,

I was a different person.

What he'd done had altered me.

It was so profound.

And so I took the video,

And I showed it to one of my friends.

I'm like,

You got to see this guy.

This talk blew my mind.

It was so amazing.

And she watched it.

We lasted about five minutes,

And she said,

Katrina,

He's the most boring person I've ever seen.

What are you talking about?

She goes,

I couldn't even drink enough to watch this guy.

And I was like,

What?

It's fascinating.

He blows my mind.

I could listen to him talk all day about anything.

And something in that allowed me to start teaching my way.

Because I was teaching for so many years,

And I had the dance studio,

And then I had the train station,

Where I really felt that I had to entertain people.

I had to do the sort of dog and pony show to keep people entertained and keep people signing up and make sure they're interested.

And I want to make sure they're here right to the very end,

Like it was this whole thing.

And that exhausts me.

That kind of teaching,

Oh,

I just would rather not ever bother.

But this guy gave me the freedom and the license to teach however I wanted.

And if people didn't like it,

Then they would just tune out,

Or they would leave.

I would rather have the people like me watching him who totally are in my vibe.

So my recommendation is to just truly be yourself,

And the right people will come.

Because we do have this idea that here's how you get the right people and make sure your sound bites are less than three minutes and doing all this thing.

And it's like,

But what if that's not your path?

What if that's not your way?

Because that's the last thing I want to mention,

Is teaching is part of our journey.

If teaching is on your journey,

Then it has to actually progress your soul's path.

Teaching isn't about stopping,

Turning around,

And just teaching what you already know over and over and over again.

There's a lot of people that will tell you that.

They'll just find the right equation and bang it out over and over and over again.

But that's not a soul's journey.

What if teaching is this perpetual growth,

Perpetual expansion,

Whether it's in knowledge or in joy or in fitness or in whatever?

Because then all of a sudden,

We stay very alive as teachers.

Because we're still walking on our path.

We're still actually sharing.

And it's the same thing.

So if I went and I decided to share Argentine tango,

The next time,

Let's say I end up in some cool other town and I learn kuzumba from some beautiful people from Angola or something,

And I come back and I'm like,

I just learned this cool kuzumba.

Oh,

Awesome.

Let's hear it.

Let's see it.

Because you're always learning.

You're always expanding.

So everybody gets to always expand as well.

That's the funnest part about teaching,

Is our own potential for personal growth.

It's like so much fun.

I learned and studied Buddhist philosophy and meditation at a Buddhist college retreat for a year,

18 years ago.

Meditated ever since,

Attending other meditation classes for two years.

Did a short course and qualified to be a meditation tutor six years ago.

I did some teaching,

But I have that imposter syndrome and don't do it.

So I teach a yoga teacher training called Living Masters.

It's online.

And it's funny because right now in the group,

We're talking a lot about that.

We're talking a lot about that imposter syndrome idea.

Because like,

Who am I to teach this?

Who am I to hold space for other people?

What I love to do is to,

Again,

Find the students that you really want to help.

One woman is taking the training because her brother struggles with addiction,

Drug addiction.

And she really wants to be able to help in the communities that help people with drug addiction.

So imagine what that would do.

She finishes a seven-month Kundalini yoga teacher training filled with philosophies,

Meditations,

Breath techniques,

Ideas,

Friendships,

All these kind of things.

And she wants to go and sit in front of a room.

And oftentimes when I've done groups with people,

Especially with drug addiction and things like that,

They're often very small groups.

They're maybe like four people or six people or two people.

They're very small.

And if you imagine sitting in front of these people,

What would you really love to share with them from your heart?

What does your heart want to share with them?

Not your brain,

Not being a good teacher,

Not anything,

Not even honoring the traditions that taught me,

None of that stuff.

Because the thing about lineages and all that,

It all creates this here's the right way to do it.

But humans aren't robots.

We're not cars.

There's not one way to fix a carburetor.

Or maybe there is.

But you know what I mean?

We're way more interesting than that.

And we're dynamic and we're infinite and we're human.

So all of a sudden,

You might have learned all these interesting techniques over the years.

And they have shaped you.

They have altered you in some way.

And then you sit in front of this group of people as an equal.

And from your heart,

You share your journey.

And not like in a here's my journey,

Listen to my story.

But in a,

You know,

One of the first things that really affected me was simply learning how to breathe.

Imagine sharing that and saying,

I realize that I don't breathe because I'm so stressed out all the time.

So even,

You know,

One of the best things I ever did with meditation was I would just set five minutes aside.

All I would do is breathe.

Well,

This is really tangible.

There's no imposter syndrome going on here.

Because this is how it helped you.

This is what you did.

And you said,

You know,

And I struggled because I'm busy and my life is,

You know,

Other people really distract me with their needs.

But I just said,

You know,

I'm allowed five minutes,

Five minutes to myself.

And you can be yourself and you can really be honest.

And I say,

So you know what,

I just started doing it.

And it was like,

Screw them.

I'm going to,

You know,

Because I talk really candidly with groups.

I'm not all like.

And you're just really honest with your journey.

And you say,

You know,

And so here's one of the meditations that really helped me.

And you know,

And when I do it,

It kind of makes it feel like it's massaging my brain.

And you just share it.

That's it.

You don't have to be good at it.

You don't have to train them up in the lineage and all that stuff.

It's almost like once we apply what we've learned in the lineage,

It's now our own experience.

So I hope you have a wonderful day.

And I'll see you soon.

Reviews

I'm so grateful for this talk. Thank you for sharing your stories & offering guidance! 🙏🏻🕊✨️

You are a teacher I enjoy so much learning from. It’s like you are teaching the joy of what you learned while you are teaching it to others. I was a teacher once, a French teacher. But my first experience at teaching was teaching English in Japan. And it was painful at times as I felt like an imposter teaching a language I had just learned myself. But I love communication, so teaching a language was fascinating to me, and teaching the language I know very well and love, French, made the experience of teaching so much more enjoyable. I don’t teach anymore but I do get to talk in front of a room full of people at my art gallery. One on one is also my favorite so I’ll try to practice speaking from experience as if the crowd was one person. Thanks for sharing your teaching experience.

As a teacher for 25 years, I could completely relate to this, and I feel lucky to have seen it only 11 minutes after it was posted. Thank you for this completely enjoyable food for thought!