Yoga & Vulnerability

I taught a yoga class yesterday morning. I taught from home with our black lab serenely snoozing on the couch behind me. I taught to a community I’m regularly involved with and with which I have deep values alignment. It should have been a class that was a delight to teach and felt totally life-giving. But those shoulds are dangerous business.

After the hour was up there was so much nervous energy coursing through my body. I was crawling out of my skin. We had just done a gentle and slow, mindful practice with longer holds and a bit of reflection about what we noticed. Everyone seemed happy enough with the practice and it was a good connection, so why was I so anxious?!? 

I noticed that I was really second guessing myself. Asking myself, did I do a good job? Did people like the sequence? Did I fulfill expectations? Did I teach from a values-aligned place? Etc. etc. etc. It was important to me to acknowledge my anxiety without diving into a shame spiral. My body was telling me a few things. First, I was craving some external affirmation. To respond to that need for connection, from a place of love rather than ego, I half-mindfully and half-flailingly texted a friend who attended the class. “Ok - for whatever reason I totally could use some affirmation. Was that okay?” I waited anxiously for three dots to appear… nothing. I took a deep breath and waited another moment. Still nothing. Well, this wasn’t helping. 

My brain kept starting to tell stories about how class was so bad that my friend didn’t know how to respond… I was present and compassionate enough with myself to remind myself that it was her day off and she probably got involved with something else. I also reminded myself that I teach yoga regularly and I’ve usually receive pretty good feedback and people come back to classes, so it’s probably not that I bombed. I told myself that my friend’s delay was not a reflection of her experience in the yoga class. Blah blah blah. Damn the socially conditioned expectation for immediate responses! But we’ll save that for another post…

What else was my body telling me? GET MOVING! There was nothing good that was going to come from wallowing in my anxiety, only an increasing likelihood that I would head down the shame spiral that I was trying to coax myself away from with self-compassion practices. What I know about my body is, moving works. When I am lighting up with anxiety, vigorous movement is often a way I can burn off and shift that energy to better regulate my nervous system. This is all part of completing the stress cycle. That used to be coupled with the added benefit of walking my dog , but our old man is slowing down these days.

Jillian & her dog Lettuce sitting on the couch

Our walks are still a delight but so much slower - so slow that many days someone in our neighborhood will stop us to comment on our pace. Alas, I’ve been walking a friend's dog lately, he’s a 10 year old EXTREMELY rambunctious pittie who is sweet as pie and also louder than I imagined a dog could be. He’s also a speed racer and just what I needed.

I harnessed my friend’s pup up and we took off at a lightening pace. During the first half mile I kept checking my phone to see if my friend had texted back. Still nothing. I also texted my spouse who was loving and generous, yet my anxiety raged on. By this point one participant and I had emailed about a separate issue, and he added “yoga was great!” Somehow, that wasn’t enough to calm my nerves, so Diesel and I kept up our speed walking. 

I don’t know about you, but when I’m waiting for a reply about something I have a lot of energy around, I’ve had to untrain myself from a habit of checking every 2 minutes. One practice I have is superstitious bargaining with the universe. It sounds something like: if I wait to check my phone until I get two more blocks, there’ll be a positive response. Of course this isn’t really how it works, but it’s a self soothing technique that does help create a bit more space to return to myself. Well I made it those two blocks and still nothing from my friend. Despite my self reassurance and even some positive feedback from another participant I was still a ball of frenetic energy. Then I remembered my somatics practices. 

In somatics, a foundational idea is that we are all seeking safety, dignity, and belonging and that our actions and responses to the world around us adapt to provide those things as best they can given our context. Overtime, some of those adaptations, or “conditioned tendencies,” in somatics-lingo, get over generalized or the context of our life changes so they no longer serve us. The practice of somatics then is to begin to notice when we are engaging in habits that no longer serve, thank ourselves for trying to protect ourselves, and get curious about how to be more choiceful in how we respond - moving away from automatic reaction to centered practices that align with what we care most about. I share all this here, because the question I asked myself is “what am I trying to protect?” And the answer was so clear. The word BELONGING popped up immediately, along with a rush of relief to have uncovered the source of my anxiety.

I realized I was feeling really vulnerable because I offered to start teaching yoga in this community. I wasn’t walking into an established class or working at a yoga studio, instead I offered to bring a practice that has been transformational in my life to another community that isn’t explicitly tied to yoga - though it is quite values-aligned. Moreover, while I often participate with this community, I sometimes feel like an imposter or like I don’t belong, because it’s a community of fundraisers and I only TEACH fundraising. I know longer work as a fundraiser. That’s all to say, this is some old stuff! 

As a queer-but-not-out kid raised in an emotionally tumultuous environment, I learned to hide so many parts of myself and rarely chose vulnerability. What that means is I’ve often only shown up halfway in relationships, hiding parts of myself that I didn’t want to be seen until they were “perfect.” Which also means, the connections were often fragile because we’re human and we can sense each others’ reserve and one-sided vulnerability. It’s only as an adult (okay middle-aged adult) that I’ve practiced my way into allowing myself to be seen and choosing vulnerability over false-perfectionism in relationships. So, here I was offering something of myself to a group that has welcomed me with open arms but my old fear of love as a scarce resource still left me questioning my capacity for belonging. Of course I was a ball of anxiety. 

By staying curious and suspending judgment of my experience I was able to trace the source of the stress and then release it from my body with some more self-compassion practices. I texted my spouse and another accountability buddy to share my process. I was no longer in dire need of external validation as I had found my way to a moment of healing that regulated my nervous system. It was never about the yoga being good or even good enough. It was about old wounds I carry and am in the process of healing. Healing can’t be offered by someone else, it is internal work that is held in and with community. It was deeply nourishing to share the resolution.

Then my phone pinged. The original friend I texted had responded. She had lost herself in a fun tv show on her day off. She gave me generous words that reinforced my realization and I was so grateful for her support. I realized that even if she had responded immediately, I would have still needed to do the work to match my stress level to the situation and reclaim my resilience. Her words would have soothed me, maybe taken the edge off, but I wouldn’t have had the micro healing moment of letting go of a conditioned tendency until I explored my own somatic experience. I had to trace my anxiety to the fear of not being worthy of love and belonging in order to transform my experience from one of scarcity to abundance.

This is all an illustration of my practice of notice - pause - reflect - choose. I noticed the oversized reaction I was having. I paused to figure out what my body needed/wanted to feel safe and supported, then I gave myself those things (a vigorous walk, connecting with my spouse, and asking for words of encouragement). I reflected as I walked; space opened up in my body to receive; and belongingness surfaced. With that deep sense of knowing, I was able to choose to act with integrity and share that vulnerability with my friend, an accountability buddy, and my spouse. Rather than let the fear consume me, I let it breathe in the light of relationship, and allowed for a little bit more healing and enoughness to root itself in my body.