The Gift of Teaching
48th Edition
Happy Spiritual Monday!
This past week actually was my first week back teaching after 5 weeks off with my son. Going back to any kind of work after a full immersion into family is challenging, yet I am grateful that my work is not the typically accepted 9-5 office and desk job.
Teaching
For the better part of the past 15 years I have been teaching yoga, meditation, movement and other modalities. For nearly the same time frame, I have also trained teachers as well as coached them into being beacons for their communities. This has evolved over the years into several projects and ventures, but this past week back I was facilitating our base level of 200Hr Yoga Teacher Training.
This training has been around for a long time, and it is what sets the foundation for new teachers in the world to get a sense of how they want to be as teachers while learning all of the base levels of information needed to teach. A younger me was much more “me” focused, as in I wanted to show how good I was at training teachers. As I have grown and evolved over the years, I have come to see how there are crucial bits of information that I can offer that aren’t in the books or the lectures.
In one sense, I feel compelled to offer whatever it may be that I’ve found to be useful in my experience of teaching so that they may have any tools available. From my own experience as a young teacher, I recognise how I was fortunate enough to have travelled with and be mentored by my teacher, Baron, for 3 years. Over those 3 years, I was able to absorb many subtleties and observances from him which I feel strongly have helped me be a more effective teacher.
For those readers not familiar with the world of yoga, I’ll briefly add that to become a certified teacher you need only to complete a qualified 200 hour course - of which there are literally thousands around the world. Some of these courses are intensives which span a month or less, while some may cover 3-12 months, depending on the depth of immersion and time investment per week.
Regardless of these formats, there is a lot of cramming of information, some practicing and then teachers are left to the world of teaching! There are obviously pathways for continued learning, more depth and mentoring opportunities available, but some don’t need it or don’t have/ make the time to pursue the journey further. More often, newer teachers feel compelled to add more information to their repertoire rather than refine their impact of facilitation and delivery.
So, what?
Well, I’ve pondered this for many years, as I have devoted myself to teaching ever more effectively and digestively for my students. There is a beautiful insatiable desire within me to be the best facilitator I can be and I have always gravitated towards practices that further this. Not to discount the knowledge and information available, as I have spent my fair share of time accumulating and absorbing multiple disciplines which have clearly enhanced my teaching over the years.
As seems to be the way these days, I feel to relate this back to fatherhood and parenting. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to know and do everything. I can recall being a student and in one semester of study my roster being stacked with chemistry, calculus, typography, psychology and human sexuality, logic and photography. I studied everything I could, with a sub conscious dream of being a specialised generalist, or a modern Renaissance man.
When my son was born, I had a moment of “Shit, I haven’t learned everything I need yet!” Fear, one might call it. I have since realised how my role is not to be the one who teaches him everything, as I have learned so much information and skills from so many people outside of my family.
As I have started to emerge from the beautiful cloud of new fatherhood I realise how I have such a wonderful network of people around me to help raise my boy into a fine man, to teach him the skills that I may not have acquired yet. The community truly does help raise the children, I now see.
What my role is, is to help establish principles, morals, ethos to be an example human, a good, heart centred man. I feel charged with the duty of teaching him how to learn, how to observe and trust that he will be a good navigator of life.
Bringing this back to my students and potential teachers, I feel grateful that I have had the opportunity of teaching and training so many keen learners, as I feel it has given me a soft head start in the parenting game. As a facilitator these days, I focus less on the technicality of the minutiae, more on the principles and way of being as a teacher. My aim is to help people to learn better, to connect with fellow humans better and to trust that they will make their own decisions in direction of life.
At the moment, I realise how much I have worked to control some variables in life that were always beyond my control. How I have felt the need and compulsion to fix or alter what I had seen to be wrong or skewed. Now I recognise that I must yield more, and flow in my life more, as I have done in most aspects of my life. More pressing is the releasing of my son’s destiny into the wild. Trusting in the truth that he will navigate this world beautifully on his own.
What a journey. It’s akin to teaching someone how to navigate then letting them choose what maps and territories they wish to explore. Sweet surrender is my practice above most others these days, as I have the awesome opportunity and responsibility of taking this little bliss ball and helping him to understand and live as a human being.
I’m reminded of a meditation I experienced recently where I realised how silly the words “I know that” and “I’ve done that” are. There isn’t much I can authoritatively say I know or have completed, but I feel like a constantly hungry student of life, and my goal is to share this hunger with my son and my family.
Last Word
In closing, I’d like to share a method I use to reflect questions back onto the asker. Many times when I am asked questions relating to teaching or performing better, I reflect back onto the asker how this angle of questioning stems from an ego based desire to be seen. Liked, held in a certain way. If, instead, we ask questions from the angle of how can I be a more open vessel through which the light, the flow, God’s will or whatever you choose to call it can come through, I find life becomes easier. We can allow our little selves to be off the hook, and surrender to the flow of the greater universal self to serve all beings.
That’s all for today, I hope you have a glorious Spiritual Monday!
And so it is.
PS: In two weeks, December 11th, I will be offering the frequencies of the cosmos into vibrational form for one last session this year. Click Here
The Gift of Teaching