I had a yoga meltdown the other day.
I was on a yoga retreat, with my favourite teacher and one of my best friends, I was on the Amalfi coast, sea, sun, incredible food and amazing company, and I had a meltdown.
Long story short, it was one little comment that broke me; “you’re going to be a great teacher.”
I’ve tried to figure out why this comment affected me so much, and I’ve come up with several conclusions.
Conclusion 1: I am a fraud. There is no way I’ll be able to teach a great class where everyone feels amazing and loves it and wants to come back again. The quality of teachers is too high in Berlin, and what the hell am I thinking?!
Conclusion 2:
Do I even want to teach? Since becoming certified, my own practice has significantly changed. I’m more analytical of what I’m doing, always trying to think of how I would instruct this myself. I love yoga because it gets me out of my head, and all of a sudden, I’m back in it again. I need a break from that thing!!
Conclusion 3:
I’m just scared. Scared to fail. Scared that no one will come to my classes. Scared that I’ll never be able to do a handstand and for some reason that makes me a fake. Fear has stopped me from doing a lot of things (aforementioned handstand being one of them), but also, fear gets into my head before I even get the chance to face the thing I’m scared of.
I had a yoga meltdown because of a combination of these things.
I’ve always wanted to teach yoga, but it has always been a safe dream, kept at a distance that I can say I’m aiming for, but never actually have to do. Now it’s a reality and it’s scaring the shit out of me.
One of my favourite quotes comes from Jim Carrey(‘s dad?), and he said that you can fail at doing something you don’t love, so you might as well have a crack at doing something you do love. Roughly that. And it’s always stuck with me because it’s SO true! Why do we have t
his predetermined idea that the thing we really love doing can’t be career-worthy? Is it because those ‘dream-worthy’ jobs are always actor, singer, sports star? Those super hard-to-reach goals? People are reaching those goals all the time! And if they’re not quite there yet, I bet you they’re having a good time going for it.
I know we all have to make coin, and security is a really nice feeling, but is slumming it in an office a nice feeling? Does working for a board of loaded directors feel good? Look, maybe it does, and Go You if you’ve found a working environment that you love. You are living your dream and I envy you.
But if you feel like you’re failing at something you hate, maybe you should try working on something you love. You may also fail at that, but you’ll know you tried. You may succeed, and succeed tremendously, and oh my goodness what an incredible feeling that could be.
Watch this space.