I recently dropped a bunch of weight. Like dropping it off at the UPS store. "Here's your 30 pounds!" And in doing so, my beautiful friends noted the loss, with concern. Not judgment, but concern. Hearing the love in their words, I looked around and thought to measure myself against my neighbors, my gym friends, my coworkers. Was I too small? Was I the same? How did I measure up against these others?
But the thing is, I now see everyone through different eyes. I see you not as a competitor for love and affection, as if there is a limited amount to go around, a finite pool of that crystal clear stuff we all seek. Instead, I view how your body moves through space. How you hold your shoulders, your belly. I arrived at Yogaville, an ashram to Swami Satchidananda, in 2004 after finishing law school and studying for the bar. My fellow classmates used the last of the savings from their bar exam study loans to travel to beautiful beaches. For me, I came up short. Always one to be miserly, I hadn't overextended that loan. My sister suggested the yoga teacher training program I had turned over and over in my brain for years. And then she said, why not just a week? Why not? The week I stayed at Yogaville coincided with the 2004 Olympics. Perhaps you remember them as the year we all sat around and thought "What in the name of all that's holy is happening with Michael Phelps?" For me, I had the opportunity to sneak into the one room on the ashram that had a TV and watch with the nuns. "Look at that shoulder rotation! Look at that forward torque!" They would say of his swimming. Or of a gymnast, "her quad to hamstring ratio is quite impressive!" Watching those nuns, those dedicated to thoughtful, careful movement, watch the Olympics forever changed my view of the Olympics. And it forever changed my view of human bodies. I now watch the Olympics as a yoga teacher - one who watches how people move, the feats they accomplish with their leg lift in a sprint, or their shoulder rotation in a swim. I see these games as about the beauty of how we are made. The beauty and the complexity of the incredible nature of our design. How careful and precise and yet powerful our bodies are made. Now knowing friends who have designed products, electrical boards, systems, I see the immense thought and planning that goes into the design of a dynamic structure. And I feel the same reverence those nuns felt watching the Olympics. It was not nationalism for them, though most of them were American. It was a celebration of the beauty of our human form. So when I turned those same eyes that watched the Olympics with yoga nuns in 2004, those same eyes who started teaching bodies surviving eating disorders in 2008, and the same eyes who show up for my runners, my rowers and my bikers regularly, towards people on the street I was surprised. I sought to measure whether I had lost too much weight. Too much life stress. Too much complication of trying to understand how different carbohydrates effected my poorly regulated digestive system. Instead, I found this beauty. I found those same eyes that look at my students. I don't judge whether you are small or large. I look instead at how your body is moving. Some of you move with liquidity that frankly makes me jealous - and it's not my younger, fitter, students. More often, its my curvy students who have found a grace, a peace, a love of their bodies that lets them flow into a pose, like rainwater moving into a small depression in the ground. I watched some silly TV show about 90s rockers with a friend recently. While he saw the mascara and T-shirts and lightening and production, I kept asking "What is going on with Bret Michael's lower back?" "Has he had spinal fusion?" "Why is his cervical spine not moving?" You can imagine how annoying this might be to the average person. "Too many women in his 20s." He answered at first. "Too much partying" next. And then finally, "Yah, I see it, I see how he doesn't lift his knees, and how he bends from his upper back." When we, your yoga teacher, look at you, our students, we are looking at your movement. We are looking at the amazing design of your bodies. We are looking with reverence at the thing (Universe, Higher Self, God, etc.) that made this complicated, amazing structure. But we are also looking at you with interest. We are looking at you searching for the place we know has pain or discomfort. We are made beautifully. We are made perfectly. But we also hurt from time to time. You can watch my swagger out of the bar in my cowboy boots and my little cotton skirt and think, "that woman has confidence!" Or you can watch me walk out of the bar noticing my shoulders slowly inching towards each other and think, "that girl is about to cry in her car, as if someone told her the sun won't come and shine for three more months." I watch you, how you move, how you walk into class. And it directs how I teach. Whether we linger with the breath and hold poses or flow more, freeing up energy. Whether we balance and breathe into a steady place or extend beyond a simple pose. I watch you. And when I turned my eyes towards you to see if I had dropped too much weight what I found was your beauty. How you moved your strong thighs through the soft heat of summer. How you reached your beautiful fingers towards your daughter's face. How you stood, solid, while your friend insisted on paying, for your candle, your drinks, your cookie. Your friend who wanted to say "thank you for carrying me across that dark place, please let me care for you." And how your chest moved forward with that offer, as if your heart moved towards your friend. So no. I didn't notice if my thighs were smaller than yours. Or if my arms were bigger or stronger. I only noticed, like those yoga nuns, how beautifully we are made. How much we love. How much we can be loved.
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