I'm taking a yoga teacher training course right now, and contrary to what most people think, it's as much about looking inside yourself for a personal philosophy as it is about learning how to teach poses and alignment (although quite a lot of that)...
I feel like I'm in a 12-step program, with the writing of my life's dissertation thrown in. Writing? Good grief, no, the other part of this is after looking into the depths of your heart, you then need to go PUBLIC with what you find there. You have to have orals.
And what I felt last weekend was horrifying. I think I started crying, just little catches in my throat on Friday evening's lecture and by Saturday night I was in full bloom, sobbing in that ugly way that my nose is totally congested, my eyes aren't even making any tears anymore but are angry red, I start to understand what TMJ sufferers feel, as my jaw muscles are so clenched they are in spasms. I cried all Saturday night (thankfully had the most patient, loving friend who told me about his day for awhile just so I could collect enough to sort of explain what was wrong with me, and then listened to mostly disconnected phrases "I can't..." "I'm just..." "feel so bad" punctuated with "hold on, I can't breathe" while I snuffed up all the tears that had run backwards down my sinuses).
I cried through nearly the whole yoga practice the next morning, tears mixing with copious sweat. Hard to know if it was noticeable, but Erika, who was teaching, managed to sneak in a story about the time she cried through a whole 90 minute practice, so I have suspicions it was apparent.
Still have residual weepies going on, especially as I write this--and had been planning to write since Sunday when reminded how as yoga teachers, indeed any sort of teacher, has at some point to go PUBLIC. And after x amount of years alive, we do become teachers, teachers of something.
So terrifying. Why? Why on so many scores.
Why was I crying? I think it's because I realized two things. One is that I feel, at such a deep level it's pervaded my psyche for decades, that I feel I actually 1) don't have anything interesting to say and 2) no one would care to listen to me even if I did, which I don't, so just be quiet.
This was me as a little girl, as a student, even now, paralyzed to speak up in class, even informal gatherings. Part of it stems from a biological shyness I was born with, probably compounded by an older sister who always had interesting important things to say and demanded that people listen. She still does. She will say she's terrified in the same way, but she still demands that people listen to her.
(aside:
I get overwhelmed by the amount of people demanding to be heard, actually. Especially now with the Facebooks and Blogspots.
And everyone is Too Busy to stop and listen. I haven't had a real conversation with one of my best friends in at least eight months, perhaps longer, because life is Too Busy. Too Busy to just have the calm to sit and chat, since there's so much to catch up on it would take a good part of eight months.)
I'm only writing (see, more apologizing) because I have to be able to go open with this. Maybe it is carthatic. It seems to be for FB aka my sister and people do listen to her.
To Point 1 )
I don't have anything interesting to say. I see in past blogs (and that I haven't written much) I sometimes had a few impassioned moments. I used to think about fear and courage a lot. I think my courage has taken a back seat to Fear. Nothing to say. I don't have an interesting career (it's a dead end, I cannot believe I have wanted 'not to do what I do' for so long, and yet, still doing the same thing. Some rewards, yes, and the good jobs are satisfying.) No family except the one I was born into, and they have their own ones now, no kids, my dog is my strongest reason for living (see below in really ugly things). Friends, I am blessed with the most amazing ones, although after this post, maybe not...love in my life is unavailable, even while being my dear friend. yikes, this is a purge of lots of ugly thoughts.
Nothing to say. Seems like I do, but it's a lot of self-pity right now. Is that ok?
One of my past yoga teachers asked who we would be if we stripped away the husband, the kids, the job titles, etc etc. Who are you without the surrounds? Like the negative space that exists if the job, the family and all that is the positive space--when you take away the positive space, what is the negative space then?
I'm not an expert on anything, mostly superficially knowledgeble about a few things.
At least I know what I don't know. More telling the books you haven't read than the ones you have.
I haven't completed a big hard work, except Dogs Bark, which feels like a failure. I know we're supposed to learn more from our failures than successes...
Worst thing is right now I can't find that inner longing to express anything. The void is like a black hole, sucking the light.
Point 2)
No one would care to listen.
Everyone else seems perfectly happy to jabber on and on about anything that occurs to them. They don't care if people want to listen, people listen to them because they confidently insist they have something IMPORTANT to say.
I think this is the gist of it here. It's not what you're saying always as how you say it.
I've misplaced that audacity. I have it every so often, sometimes at work, often not, as my position is often thought of as annoying (not me, the position). Be quiet, do your work, and don't annoy the big boys with their big Ideas. Which are often not so Big.
I know my friends (and my family are my friends) would listen. If they weren't so busy. Or if I'd just think I was important enough for them to listen for awhile. Maybe some of them feel the same way. I can't be the only one to feel like this.
I hope this is the bottom, that to "heal you have to feel". That this is the muck and grime I have to wash out.
really ugly things I feel. My dog is 2 years old. When I adopted her I figured she was something like my hourglass. If I could just make it 12 more years, a dog's life span, then this life could be over for me. Sometimes I'm just trying to last 10 more years. I said it was really ugly.
btw-- it's not all doom and gloom, these are just the private hurts, the inside hurts, that are going on with me that I need to acknowledge and maybe publicize so the black hole can dissipate.
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4 comments:
As the older sister who always insisted that everybody listen, well, no, I don't think that everything I have to say is that important, except to me. The hard thing is saying it even when you are mostly convinced that it is not important to anybody but yourself. Yes, it is hard not having more readers (surely you've noticed my laments over the past few months about not writing a best-seller), but it is even harder not writing at all. You write--or speak--it goes out into the void...and lo, and behold! someone out there is listening. Even if only one person is touched, only one person is helped by what we have to say, isn't it worth it? You are the one telling yourself that you have nothing to say, not anybody else. What benefit do you get from telling yourself this story? You mention fear. I'd say 50% of all of the Morning Pages that I've written start something like this: "I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid," sometimes for lines, until the fear lets go and I can start allowing what I do have to say come through. Who knows why some of us are so beset by this fear and others (apparently) aren't? But you are not alone. I'd be happy to give you a list of books on how to overcome the fear of expressing yourself, but maybe just mentioning the title of one--The Courage to Write--will help more at the moment.
Love,
Big Sister
That's why I had to write this--I had to say I'm afraid out loud so I can get over it... Have you and Vanessa been reading the same book? She wrote me the same "what benefit do you get by telling yourself this story?". Funny. I wasn't telling ME (I don't want that story) I was telling everyone else so I didn't have it. I didn't want to tell myself that story, I wanted to get rid of it! ha.
Or rather, had a BIG tear well up and did have to (Damasio...) put a feeling to it and then a cognitive why.
feeling better at any rate, as saying things out loud does alleviate, which was the point.!
love
R
You won't get over it, the fear, I mean. At least, I haven't. It will always be with you. But you can learn to ease it out of the way so that you can speak. And then it comes back, and you have to ease it out of the way again. And again, and again, every time you try to say something that you haven't before. As far as I can tell, all writers go through this ("Radio Fuck-you," as Anne Lamott called it); you have to learn to tune it out, but it will still be playing there in the background. Take it as a compliment: what you have to say is so important that the Devil is determined to prevent you at all costs. But the Spirit is stronger. Really.
what I have to say is less important than what we have to share
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