I have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about the concept of freedom and our perceptions of it. I think we are often told that being free is akin to eternal happiness. When we are truly “free” we will feel blissful, comfortable and calm. From an esoteric perspective, this is what freedom promises us; a life free from suffering. However, freedom from suffering doesn’t necessarily mean a life of happiness. The presumption that the other side of suffering is happiness is a human construct. It is based on the assumption that happiness in and of itself is a preferred state and that it is sustainable. It ignores the fact that unhappiness sits on the other side. Just like there is a sun and a moon, happiness and unhappiness are eternal bedfellows. If you have one, you will most definitely gain the other at some point. Therefore, the absence of suffering is not happiness. It is merely the absence of a state of being. What that looks like is truly anyone’s guess!
What we consider our own, personal freedoms are often misconstrued in the same way. Freedom as a concept invariably comes with the subtext of “happiness.” I enjoy freedoms; therefore, I am happy. Yet, human freedom is not always joyful. It is not always fun. In order to ensure my own freedom, I must confer freedom upon others. In conferring freedom upon others, I am going to be subjected to their differences. Their differences are going to make me mad, sad, uncomfortable. I will then have to grapple with the concept of what it means for everyone to be free, including the people I don’t like. I have to grapple with myself. Personal freedom is personal responsibility. We have to take ownership of our choices and their consequences. Personal, human freedom is, by its very nature, suffering. It forces us to look at our own nature and choose to either rise above or give into it.
Freedom isn’t a guarantee of safety. It never promises you will be safe from harm. We are not safe because we are free. We are free; and we may or may not be safe. That is why fighting for and accepting freedoms comes with risk. It is an act of courage and bravery. Not because we have to fight everyone who doesn’t think like us, but because we have to accept that everyone doesn’t act like us. We have to be big enough, bold enough, strong and brave enough to be OK with the shadow of the unknown, the “otherness” of others.
After 9/11, permits were filed to build a mosque next to the World Trade Center. The buildings were still in rubble and emotions were raw. There was a public outcry. I remember saying that I felt that, if the zoning laws permitted it, they should be allowed to build their mosque where they wanted. Someone snapped back “You do? Why?!” My response then, is my response now; freedoms don’t just apply to the dominant group. They belong to everyone. If I am pro this and you are anti that, you aren’t wrong because I think I am right. And the fear of “other” is not a sufficient reason to deny someone their humanity.
Accepting the freedoms of everyone is an act of bravery. It is a step off a ledge into the abyss. It is an act of faith and humility.
Leaders take that leap of faith first. Leaders survive the free fall of uncomfortable otherness and live to tell the tale.
Therefore, in your yoga practice, in your life, be the one to leap first. Others will follow.
Yoga for Everyone?
When I started teaching, “yoga is for everyone!” was a mantra I assumed was true. The fact that my “everyone” happened to be middle to upper-middle class white people, mostly women, was just circumstantial. It just reflected the neighborhood I taught in. Surely, anyone who walked in the door would be welcome.
Of course, we know that is not really the case. Ask any person of color, a larger bodied person, anyone non-gender conforming, etc. if they have had an uncomfortable or awful experience in a yoga studio, and you will hear a story of feeling not welcome, being subjected to racism, micro-aggressions, or out-right hostility.
Yoga is a $16 Billion[1] industry. The most aggressively marketed yoga image is that of the young, fit, attractive, white women. Yet, 36.7 Million Americans, or 25% of U.S. adults, practiced Yoga in 2016. How did a practice, that was originally designed for men, become such a “chick” thing?
There are many theories. Here are some of my thoughts:
Whenever the less dominant group attaches to something, it will immediately be denigrated by the dominant group. This is especially true when that thing is healthy or empowering for the less dominant group. The history of hip hop[2] is a perfect example.
Yoga is about power. The root word is often mistranslated as "union," but that is incorrect. It actually means "to yoke/bind." Yoking and binding something is distinctly different from uniting it. I yoke or bind things in order to create focused, controlled effort. Yoga practices are designed to yoke the body and mind; to reign them in. By controlling the body and mind, one is able to use them like a plow. I till the soil of experience, thus planting the seeds of enlightenment. The practice makes one's experience fertile for transformation. When one is very successful, one gains power over their own experience. We can decide what to react to, what not to react to, what to engage in and even, if successful enough, manifest supernatural powers.
I believe that when someone practices yoga, they feel better, healthier, etc., and they also feel more powerful. People regularly talk about how the practice helps them control their reactions to things. They will talk about how it helps them get over toxic relationships. When I tell a student that they can stand “this tall” or take up “this much room” they are initially shocked. It is often startling to them to realize that they are bigger, taller, more substantial than they thought. Then, then they are delighted! Delighted to take up space, to stand tall. That is power. We don't talk about yoga in those terms because, women in particular, are not allowed to say, "I do this because it makes me feel powerful." That is not socially acceptable.
The United States is a patriarchal society. Anything that is feminine is worth less in the patriarchy. Because the first people that "got" yoga the United States were primarily women, the obvious response from the patriarch is to belittle it. Making yoga "chick stuff" lessens its exposure to a wider range of people. It lessens its potential to upset the apple cart.
Second, the best way to denigrate anything in the United States is to hyper-sexualize and commodify it. This is a standard market-based/economic strategy for control. One of the most hyper-sexualized commodities marketed in the United States is the myth of the Young-Fit-Pretty-Affluent-White-Women. Thus, the creation of the mass marketed “perfect” yogi is: she must be must be young, thin, fit, wear something revealing and do something extraordinary (preferably on a beach). Narrowing the scope of the practice like this worked. Not only did it grow the market substantially, but it also ensured that the population, scope and reach of the practice remained small. It created a closed loop of control and commerce. For years yoga was primarily the practice of upper middle class white women; a group who already has the market share of female power in the United States.
Thirdly, as the earnings went up, the prices also started to rise. I paid $1100 for my 200-hour training. It was a large investment for me, but doable. I had to save and budget, but I could make it work. Over the course of my first five years of teaching, I watched the cost of trainings go from “investment, but doable,” to “expensive and unattainable.” The market became flooded with a very specific demographic of yoga teacher; one who either thre caution to the wind and leveraged the farm to attend the training, or, one who could afford to spend a lot of money and never recoup their investment.
This development forced many people out of yoga. Not only financially, but culturally as well. As the costs skyrocketed, the pool of viable teachers became increasingly narrow. The “welcoming” aspect of yoga decreased. As yoga progressed into a pastime for a specific demographic, it ceased to be for everyone else. Sadly, that is often how that works.
This frustrated me. Being able to study yoga changed the course of my life. It made me a better person. I would never have been able to make that transition if I had to pay what the market was demanding. Classism was my impetus for starting Three Sisters Yoga. I wanted to break the rules and offer what I had access to; an affordable, skills-based training.
My second impetus happened as a result of the first. When I started TSY, our trainings were filled with the “stereotypical” yoga student. Then something shifted. Without really trying, we started getting a more diverse student base. A recent study through Rutgers University[3] found that when an organization makes accommodations for one under-advantaged group, it can make other disadvantaged people feel safer and more welcome.
I think this is what happened at TSY. We set a tone that acknowledged the inherent bias in the current yoga market. This opened us up to further explore serious social issues because, as the demographic in my classes started to change, the stories started to come out. We started to hear first-hand what it was like to study yoga if you weren’t the “norm.” I was deeply uncomfortable when confronted with this information. But, more than that, I was heartbroken. I love my students. I do not want them to suffer.
What I learned was that I what it means for me to practice, to be a white woman in this country, is not shared. For me personally, the logical step was to start educating myself about what it means to be a minority in the United States. Racism, bigotry and sectarianism is rampant in this country. The only way out is listen to and believe people’s stories when they tell us what it is like to be them. As the privileged group, I need to be willing to be uncomfortable. I must control the impulse to deflect and say, “that does not happen!” Controlling this impulse is a yoga practice. It is a yoking of mind. Sutra 2.1 says, “Accepting pain as help for purification, study of spiritual books and surrender to the Supreme Being constitute Yoga in practice.”[4] Accepting “pain as help for purification” has been interpreted in many ways. What it essentially means is that, in doing this work, we accept that we are going to be uncomfortable a lot of the time.
And we do it anyway.
This has been the second greatest gift yoga has given me. It has taught me yet again, the power of allowing oneself to be messy, uncomfortable and flawed. While I am by no means a poster child of being “woke” or even an “accomplished yogi,” I am deeply committed to doing better. TSY is a manifestation of that work. We are a welcoming and diverse community. And I am very proud of that.
[1] https://www.yogaalliance.org/Portals/0/2016%20Yoga%20in%20America%20Study%20RESULTS.pdf
[2] https://www.npr.org/series/4823817/the-history-of-hip-hop
[3] http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1948550617737601
[4] Satchidananda, S. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: Commentary on the Raja Yoga Sutras by Sri Swami Satchidananda (Kindle Locations 1434-1435). Integral Yoga Publications. Kindle Edition.”
Thinking like a Tween
I am going out on a limb here, but stick with me. I often hear people say that we should be more “childlike.” The reason being that children are pure of heart. If we connect to our inner child, we too will become pure of heart. This has always irritated me. Yes, children are blissfully, wonderfully, naïve. They are pure of heart. They often speak little pearls of wisdom. When they are happy and full of wonder, it is a joy. This is true.
Children are also needy. They need. They need adults to guide them. They need a world that protects and provides for them. They are dependent on outside forces to create the conditions for their bliss. And this is why this analogy annoys me. The work of coming into consciousness isn’t about living in a blissfully unaware state that depends upon the world to take care of us. Consciousness demands action. Consciousness demands that we become aware of ourselves in the world. It is accepting that, should we desire transcendence, we have to do the work of transcending our “self.”
That is why, I think we should all try to be more like middle schoolers.
Middle school is a liminal age. It is a great ball of hormonal fire hurtling towards adolescence at a snail’s pace. It is slow and awkward and often painful being a tween. They are awakening to adulthood, yet still comfortably nestled in the safety net of childhood. Tweendom is the bridge between Christmas Past and Christmas Yet to Come. They are more aware of themselves, but they are still so goofy. As they struggle to come understand life’s limitations, they are open to possibilities. They struggle with being sentient, with self-identity, and yet they are still very playful. They have amazing insight and are not afraid; but, they are also extremely self-conscious and totally afraid.
Tweens are, in many ways, the embodiment of present mindedness. They are becoming more aware of themselves, they are interested in the possibilities of an awakened life, but they still want to be tucked in at night. They still believe in fantasy, but are also weirdly practical. Funny, goofy, stinky, emotionally all over the place; middle schoolers are basically every one of our internal lives living outside our bodies. The other day my middle schooler turned to me and said, “being alive is so hard!”
Welcome to the big leagues, kid.
And this is not to say that little kids aren’t their own emotional wrecking balls, they are. But, toddlers have little to no control over their emotional lives. They are basically the Id in small shoes, daring you to try and make them feel better. A tween’s awareness, however, is dawning. They are trying to get comfortable with their burgeoning consciousness. They struggle every day with how to accept that they are small, insignificant, different; yet, they remain confident that a fantastic journey is just around the corner.
That is why I recommend that we be more like a tween. Don’t give up the thrill of make believe, hang on to the beauty of imagination, but channel it through the angst. Our angst is our longing. Longing is our consciousness’s urge to connect to something greater than ourselves. It’s the twitchy, itchy nerve that is only satisfied when we are truly connected to the beautiful. Our separateness creates the longing for connection. Longing, when directed and focused, draws us into the experience of beauty, into Pure Consciousness, Jiva, God. This experience teaches us how to be a good friend, a good neighbor, a good, global citizen. It moves us beyond the self and into the Self.
I know this may be way out there, but I stand by it. Tweens for the win! What about you? Do you remember what it was like to be a tween? Do you have a tween in your life now? If you had the chance to do it all again, would you?