Episode 15: Learning, Unlearning And Finding your Own Way

In this epiosde Im talking about why we shouldnt out our yoga mentors and teachers on pedestals, the importance of critical thinking and individuation, and how we often need to umlearn what weve learned to really embody that knowledge. For students and teachers alike. I hope you enjoy :)

If you have any comments, questions or anything you would like to hear about related to this podcast, I'd love to hear from you.

Please feel free to message me on Instagram or email me here: info@shraddhayayoga.co.uk

You can follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/shraddhaya_yoga/

Or why not find out how we can work together with Yoga & meditation classes, courses and 1:1 coaching here: https://www.shraddhayayoga.co.uk/

With love and light,

Helen xxx

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Hello everyone and welcome, welcome to episode 15 of Be Still and Notice. Um, how are you? I hope you're all having a really lovely weekend. I'm recording this on a Sunday and I've spent the entire morning outside, which has been so lovely, walking the dogs in the woods, chatting to lovely people, meeting along the way, and in the garden, which is one of my favourite places at the moment. Hands in the dirt, absolutely lovely. I was hoping that this episode would be with the lovely Garima Pandi, but unfortunately she is snowed under with clients at the moment, so we had to cancel the recording last week. And so today I'm talking about a topic that just came to me while I was walking today. It's kind of on the top of my mind, which is learning, unlearning, and finding your own way. So I'm going to be talking about how we should always question our guides and our teachers, and how our yoga journey changes a thousand million times along our path in life, and why that's absolutely necessary and absolutely natural, and something to be embraced. So I hope you enjoy the episode. Maybe make a nice cup of tea, settle in, sit in the garden, whatever feels good for you, and um enjoy. Hi everyone. So I'm coming to you from my yoga room and thinking a lot this morning about learning, unlearning, and finding your own way. I had a lesson with my kids, my lovely kirtan teacher on Friday, and it was really, really interesting the dynamic that comes out or came out and continues to come out for me between student and teacher. I find it absolutely fascinating. And with every teacher that I've had, there seems to be this development that happens. So there's a draw, uh very often an unconscious draw towards a certain teacher. There's something that they offer that deep within me I know unsubconsciously, unconsciously, spiritually, I know that I need from that teacher that I need to learn that's necessary for my growth as a human being and for my spiritual path. It's happened all three times with three of my biggest teachers. I'm just drawn to them like a moth to a flame, and then I'm questioning why do I want to learn with this person? And once I've kind of evaluated why I want to learn with them, and I've gone, okay, don't just be impulsive because, as we know, a lot of yoga courses and learning with the best teachers is expensive, it's a real investment. So you really need to know who the this person is, their credentials, and um that they're going to be a right fit for you, and that they are actually going to provide what you need learning-wise. So for me, there's this impulsive draw to begin with, which I don't quite understand, and I've recognised I don't need to understand in that moment, and then it turns into a really kind of conscious and grounded and intellectual. Okay, let's check this person out. What do they offer? Let's not let's slow down, see what they're offering, what their um uh experience and background is, and what uh you know, is this a really good idea? And once I've checked this person out and I've gone through everything, and maybe I've read their books or watched lots of YouTube videos and spoken to them on the phone and emailed them and read all the everything, and then I re-evaluate and go, okay, should I still do I still have this draw? Do I still have this inner voice that's pulling me towards this person? Um and more often than not, I I do definitely for the last uh three big teachers that have been just so instrumental in my life, and then I start the journey with them, and at some point at the beginning, it's always like it's kind of this enrapturous like, oh, I just want to learn, and I am perhaps like you, a forever student. I just want to learn, learn, learn, and part of my kind of MO as a human is to understand. I seek to understand. It's not just about knowledge for me, it really is about understanding, and knowing that about yourself can be really, really useful. So, in the beginning, there's this kind of it's almost like a honeymoon phase, I think. Um, you're you're kind of you've put this teacher up on a pedestal and um you're marveling and you're bathing in this. Oh, I'm gonna learn so much, and it's gonna be absolutely wonderful, and it's gonna be brilliant. And then at some point along the journey, the teacher gets knocked off the pedestal, and at some point along the journey, it doesn't matter how amazing the teacher is, and I think this is true for every student, at some point they start to see flaws or or little holes or things that they would want to do differently, and this I think is something to really be embraced. At no point in this episode am I saying that my teachers were, I'm not saying anything negative about any of my teachers because they have all been, like I just said, incredible and instrumental. But this is something that I want to that I think is really important to share. We must remember that they are human beings and therefore they are flawed, and therefore they do make mistakes, and so we really shouldn't put them up on a pedestal. Yes, we should respect them for their knowledge, their wisdom, their wealth of experience, but that doesn't mean we're not we're gonna agree with absolutely everything that they say and do. And a really good teacher will always encourage their students to have individuation, to have their own thoughts, ideas, and opinions, and to actively challenge them. The best teacher I ever had was my RE teacher in school, uh Mr. Dale, and I think I've talked about him before, so apologies if you're hearing the story again. But he always, always asked us as 16-year-olds, always ask why. Question everything, and that's always stayed with me. A really good teacher will get you to think, not just blindly absorb the information and take it as you know, as gospel. A really good teacher will get you to think, will actually get you to take on board the information and then translate it into your own knowledge by trying it out yourself, finding what works for you, what doesn't work for you, and then implementing it in a different way, and that's how you really really learn. Now, in yoga land, uh, as Kaya, Kaya Mindlin, who's also one of my teachers, I've done one or two of her courses. Um, she calls it yoga land. In yoga land, sometimes, quite often, there's this kind of guru worship that happens around certain teachers, and it can become really unhealthy um dynamic. I was gonna say scenario, but dynamic. When people are just kind of like, oh, she's amazing, or he's amazing, they know absolutely everything, and they're so perfect, and I'm just gonna, you know, hang on every word they say and do everything they do, and it's just not healthy and it's not realistic because, as I said before, these people are human beings, and they are flawed, and just because they're a yoga teacher doesn't mean that they are completely trustworthy, I hate to say it, b completely ethical, again, I hate to say it, but as we all know, there's been a lot of things, particularly with male teachers, that have happened in yoga land over the decades. Um, and it's really, really important to take on board the information from your teacher, to learn from your teacher, but then to really use it to your own means, turn it into your own knowledge, to question what they say, and not to just you know hang on every word and just believe absolutely everything that they say. A good teacher will really will want to be challenged, will want you to push up against them, will want um to hear you go, but why is that? I don't get it. Why why is that? You don't have to be rude or aggressive, obviously, but to really challenge that. And I'm particularly saying this for anybody that goes to group classes and might see something that their body or their nervous system goes, oh, hang on a minute, that wasn't quite right. Say if a teacher is adjusting somebody in a way that that person doesn't like and that everyone can see it, yet nothing is being said. Or if a teacher is inappropriate, or if a teacher is not safe, or if a teacher is using inappropriate language, any of these things, and and what's really important is to dispel this myth of oh, they're a yoga teacher, they must be nice, because unfortunately yoga teachers are humans as well, and so not everyone is trustworthy, not every teacher is going to be good, and because the industry is so unregulated, not every teacher is going to be teaching safely. So it's really up to us as students, as people that go to classes, as people as a listener, you may well be thinking about doing a yoga teacher training, you may be someone that just likes to go to yoga classes, you may be a yoga teacher, you may be nodding your head in agreement, or you may be shaking your head and going, I'm not quite sure what you're going on about, Helen. Either way, I invite your questions and I invite your comments, and I would love to hear from you on this. But I think it's really um really important for us to find our own way and to trust, to really trust our inner knowing and our inner self, which is as we know, is a massive part of our yoga practice, and to take from your teachers what is res what resonates with you, and then leave the rest. Leave the rest. If there's something that unsettles you, that's something that you don't like. Maybe you will complain, maybe you just walk away and you find another teacher, maybe you stay with that teacher and you decide that's okay, I can live with that, I'm just gonna take exactly what what I need. So important to keep your sense of self and not get lost in this kind of worship, worshipy clicky thing that really does happen, I think less and less, but I've seen it happen, and it's really not a good dynamic. And if you're thinking about doing a yoga teacher training, really do your research, speak to people that have done the course, ask them really candid questions. Is she nice? Is this person fed? Is it really um Yoga Alliance credited? Does it have the right credentials? Does it have uh a really structured format? Um testing throughout, or is there an exam at the end? You know, what are you actually paying for? What is this person going to give you? And if you're someone that just goes to classes, but you're looking to really deepen your practice, an important part of this is taking from your teacher what resonates, and then as you begin your own practice at home, on your own, because ideally, this is what everyone should be doing to really move you along the path, is you want to make it your own, you want to bring it into your own body, your own mind, and as you begin to practice on your own without direct instruction from a teacher, it will move and it will change and it will become something else because it will be coming through you instead of instructed by someone else, and that is beautiful, that's what you want. You want that sense of development, that sense of individuality, that sense of presence, ownership, um, agency, it's all of those things, and then you can really quickly go to a deeper level of practice and understanding, and sometimes that takes an amount of unlearning. I know for me, whenever I've learned from a teacher very specific things, I've also then had to go away and learn, unlearn that to relearn it for my specific brain. You know, we all learn really, really differently, and not every teacher is going to hit the nail on the head for you. Some teachers will just get it for you and relay facts and ideas and concepts in a way that your brain just immediately understands. Other teachers won't quite have that dialogue, they just naturally won't. And so you need to kind of go away, create that information in a new way in your mind, in your own way. So it's an unlearning and then a relearning of what you've learned. And when it's something, when it's asana practice, when it's spiritual practice, that's massive. Because someone can tell you, do this with your body, and perhaps it will feel like this, but they have no idea how it will feel in your body, how your body naturally moves. So you can only do it by doing it yourself physically, by moving your body in that way and learning it in your own physicality somatically with your body, and with spirituality, with the spiritual practices. If it's if we're talking back to yoga, really a teacher can't do much apart from show you the way, the rest is entirely up to you. It's so individual and it's so inner world, it's your heart, nobody else's. Excuse me, can try and help you, but really it's it's you alone that can progress along that path and open your heart and express your devotion in that way. So it's really, it's really, really important. We're not just little birds begging for food. When it comes to knowledge and learning, we really are our own little universes, really. And along the yoga path, it's really important to keep that sense of self and not to lose yourself in any kind of hero worship, guru worship. I'm not saying that you can't worship a guru, but what I am saying is that with in terms of teachers, don't put them on too high a pedestal, and don't be surprised when they get knocked off that pedestal. And that's I think a natural part of the process. You want that to happen, and keep your own critical mind, keep your own critical mind, take what resonates, leave behind what doesn't, and then maybe find another teacher that resonates even more. And as you move along the path, your own practice will develop. Like I said, whether you're going to classes or whether you're an actual teacher, it's all the same, really. Hone your own skills, go deeper into your own practice, but really keep that sense of self is absolutely key. Absolutely key. So, my friends, that's my little bit of wisdom, I guess, from my own experience, and something that I have been through with all of my amazing teachers, which I have to again say thank you to because you're all incredible, you know who you are. And um here's to learning never ever stop learning. Thank you so much for listening to the Be Still and Notice podcast. I really hope you enjoy this episode and perhaps it even added something to your life. If you know someone that might benefit, please share this episode with them, and of course, a review would be so much appreciated. Please find all the information relating to this episode, including relevant links, in the show notes. And until next time, sending you so much love and light on your path to yoga.