Meeting myself where I am
Please welcome Whole Life Yoga teacher and 500-hour alumnus Sheryl Stich to the Whole Life Blog today. Teaching yoga is a practice. A sometimes deeply personal practice. I’m delighted she is willing to share some of her insights with us here today.
Through the course of over 500 hours of Yoga Teacher Training, Tracy ingrained in our brains to always “meet our students where they are.” Today I was experiencing intense feelings of bereavement over losing my life partner Mark nearly a year and a half ago to a serious illness. Instead of heeding that niggling little voice inside me telling me that I should be further along in the grief process, I decided to let go of the “should” and completely honor how I was feeling: lost, alone and super unclear about my future. I tell my students that my class is safe for them, whatever their emotional responses, and today I needed to tell myself that I am also safe – with myself! I decided I would be much better served if I “met myself where I am.” So throwing all logic out the window, I cried and cursed and hugged Daisy my puppy and talked to Mark, telling him I was actually miffed at him for leaving me. I know from studying the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali that we create filters through which we see the world and ourselves. By being brutally honest with myself and telling the truth about how I really feel, not how I think I should feel based on my filters, I felt the layers of sorrow slowly peeling away little by little. Not that I am totally healed by any chance, but by meeting myself where I am, as Mark would often quote, I started “The journey of a thousand miles that starts with a single step.” Life is a preserving practice – and always try to meet yourselves and others where we are, whether on the mat or on the street.
Sheryl Stich is a certified yoga instructor through Whole Life Yoga’s teacher training program and is registered with Yoga Alliance as an E-RYT 500. Sheryl came to Viniyoga after recovering from disc hernia surgery in 2002. She also had hip replacement surgery, and found that yoga and breath work not only helped retain her health physically, but also helped mentally and emotionally. She finds much joy and happiness in sharing this “calm awakening” connecting the mind, body and breath with her students.
