learn to love the questions

i came across this poem yesterday that is one of my favorites.  back when i was in high school, my mentor teacher, norm vandal said in one of my classes to "learn to love the questions." i remember having so much trouble wrapping my brain around that thought when he said it.  i liked answers.  i feared the unknown.  i had a plan, and i was sticking to it!  little did i know how much this piece of wisdom would shape who i eventually have become more than 7 years later.  norm was the first person who told me that i would make an exceptional teacher and actually made me believe it, and for that, i am eternally grateful. 

even though i always remembered what norm said in class that day (i recall him using me as his "teaching moment" to illustrate how so many of us rarely do love the questions. and he could read me like a book and knew how uncomfortable uncertainty made me - which of course embarrassed little high school me to no end) it wasn't until years later when i was in college, that i came across this rainer maria rilke quote that everything seemed to click.  as i read it over, i realized how incredibly yogic it sounds.  

"be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.  do not seek the answers, which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them.  and the point is, to live everything.  live the questions now.  perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." - rainer maria rilke


i sense i will be weaving in a portion of this reading into one of my classes.  in the meantime: i hope that this speaks to you.  

xxx

more questions than answers.

this week i have been pondering: how do yoga teachers keep themselves in balance?  as someone who leads others through a journey of being true to themselves while releasing tensions both mental and physical, how do you cope when you are struggling in your own life either on or off the mat?  


on my way to teach class this week i found myself presented with a particularly stressful and upsetting phone call.  with only minutes before i needed to head into the studio and start class, i struggled to equalize myself so that i felt like i could be a helpful teacher.  i sat quietly for as long as i could trying to free my mind and heart from the disruption and carried on, as best i could.  i wish i could say that this class went just as well as any other and i was successful in my attempts to clear my mind.  unfortunately, after class was over all i felt was failure.  like i didn't bring my "a" game and i had failed my students because of that.  i will never know if any of the students noticed but, what will continue to haunt me is that, i did.

ever since i have been wondering, how does a teacher balance being both human and being a guide?  of course part of teaching yoga is showing that you are human.  showing your students that yoga accepts you just the way that you are regardless of what day you were having or how tight your muscles feel.  but, on the other hand, isn't it also partially presentational?  not that you wouldn't be honest but you might also try to sugar coat it.  i mean, i surely wouldn't feel too comfortable coming into a class with a teacher who seemed emotionally unstable.  for example, when i used to wait tables, the customers don't care what kind of day you are having, they just want to have the best experience possible.  don't my students deserve that much?  

while i understand there is something to be gained from using your life experiences (good and bad) in your teaching and learning; some of my most dynamic scenes as an actor have been realized while i was drawing from my personal bank of life experiences.  but, in the heat of the moment - i was neither poised nor wise enough to draw from this fresh altercation and turn it into something useful.  


i honestly don't know what to make of it all, but i hope that with time, an answer will present itself.  perhaps for now, it is good enough just to ask the questions. 

xxx