‘Ladies who here has had that moment where they’ve felt like a fraud and that they should chuck it all in?’ [All the hands in the room went up.]
It seems that many of us working somewhere in the ‘helping people’ sector have, at some point, had our own shit fall apart and consequently we question our ability to help others.
My breakdown was the 6th recurrence of a problem in my hip and lower back that basically makes me unable to walk, let alone do yoga, teach or do anything that I love doing. After the initial issue of physical pain, comes the self doubt and loathing.
“SURELY as a yoga teacher and movement lover I should know what to do to make sure this doesn’t happen”“Is all this yoga stuff absolute bullshit?”” Maybe I am a terrible yoga teacher, I should never teach anything again!!”
This went on for a week, a week in which I basically drowned in my own tears, unclear on whether I was crying because I desperately missed running, or that I didn’t know who I was anymore, or it was forcing me to stop and analyse my life! (the latter probably)
Then I ran out of tears and I actually decided to reach out to experts, some local and some across the pond, and I started to learn. I reconnected with previous learning that I had busily forgotten such as Hanna Somatics and Feldenkrais and started to understand where I might be going wrong. Learning from the inside out, probably one of the most powerful ways to learn.
I won’t go into the detail of WHAT I have learnt in terms of injury prevention, movement and the human system, that is for another time but my learning in terms of development as a teacher and professional body worker has been this, and if you help people YOU need to know it too.
Shit falling apart is a good thing for these reasons:
1. Forced to take a good hard look at what you’re telling people but not practising yourself (in my case REST)
2. Makes you a fantastic learner, and that learning comes from the inside out. You will become MUCH wiser.
2. The best teachers guide you from a place of empathy. If no shit has happened then it’s hard to really understand the issues (whether physical, psychological or social).
4. It proves you’re actually a person living in the real world. WE ALL LOVE THAT!