Finding Rainbows in the Dark

by Carey Sims

I recently had a student ask me after class, “Why do I always feel like I want to cry?“ She said, “I spend most of my time in class trying not to cry.“ These sorts of things happen a lot in Yoga classes and I think we tend to not talk about them. A lot of the Yoga “Woo Woo” verbiage says to “vibe higher” and “think positive thoughts only,” etc., but happiness is not the only emotion we feel. And despite our best efforts, happiness is not a “mindset.” We don’t always leave our Yoga practice grounded. Sometimes we are hyper vigilant when we so wanted to down-regulate. Sometimes we get angry for no understandable reason. Other times we feel a sense of wholeness and connection. It’s OK to feel a complex amount of emotions, especially in your Yoga practice.

When we move our bodies we stir things up. Sometimes it’s delicious cake batter, other times it’s a hornets nest. Recently I was taking a Gentle Yoga class and literally saw my own death flash like a hidden image in subliminal slide show. When this happened, I just had to laugh. Who knows, maybe it indeed was a vision of my demise, or maybe it was symbolic of something going on in deep within my subconscious. I can’t control the thoughts that come in and out of my mind when I’m practicing. Years ago I would have been rattled by this, but therapy and somatic movement practices like Yoga have allowed me to observe my thoughts and not be so freaked out by them. This experience did make an impact, but not one I regret.

There was another time years ago when I was being stretched too thin in my personal life and had way too much responsibility on my shoulders. People in my world were reliant on me and many of them were sick or lacked the agency to take care of themselves so naturally that fell on me. This particular incident happened in a Restorative Yoga class when the teaching assistant put a weighted blanket on my shoulders. I immediately threw it off and burst into tears. I spent the remainder of class (about 30 minutes) crying. I had too much on my shoulders and that little bit of weight, which was meant to be grounding, turned out to be more than I could bear. The poor assistant was a Yoga teacher trainee and I hope she wasn’t scarred by that experience. Instead, I hope she learned that you never know what people are bringing with them to their mat.

I can’t say this enough—IT’S OKAY TO FEEL ALL OF THE FEELS IN YOUR YOGA PRACTICE. Our yoga practice is not always heart emojis and unicorns. And why would it be? We are way too complex for that. Our bodies have been present for every single thing we’ve gone through. All of our awake cycles and all of our sleep cycles. Our traumas and our triumphs. The times you were drunk and the times you were sober. If you’ve ever had a surgery your body was present through it, even though your conscious mind was not. Our bodies and emotions are deeply intertwined and are not separate entities. And though the body is amazingly resilient, it does have a deep well memory and sometimes parts of that memory are awakened through movement in the form of tears, anger, or anxiety. Other times it may feel like bliss, joy, or calm. Be gentle on yourselves and allow yourself to feel the gamut of emotions. It’s so important to find the right teacher and a community where you can show up and 100% be yourself.

Teachers, allow your students to explore what comes up without managing the expectations of their experience. The easiest way to “honor the practice” is to respect the full weight of what our students bring into class. As Yoga teachers we are not here to lift that weight off of them, but rather to create a space where they can lay their burdens down and be human.

There’s a heavy metal song from the 80’s by the band Dio called “Rainbow in the Dark”. Maybe that’s a metaphor for our practice. Things can be harder to distinguish in the shadows, but light is there, you just have to move to find it.

This post was originally published on Carey Sim’s blog at www.careysims.com/blog/ in a slightly different form.

 

Carey Sims E-RYT500, CPT lives in Charlotte, NC. His mission is to help students explore their bodies and breath in an accepting and non-judgmental way. He teaches “Gentle Back Care” at NoDa Yoga and offers Chair/Adaptive Yoga classes at various senior living centers and gyms in the Charlotte area. He is a student of Adaptive Yoga pioneer Matthew Sanford and an Accessible Yoga Ambassador and leads continuing education workshops on Chair Yoga and Adaptive Yoga. Carey holds degrees in Psychology from Winthrop University and Religious Studies from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and teaches modules on Yoga History and Ethics for several 200-hr Yoga Teacher Trainings. To book Carey for a workshop or to add him to your YTT faculty click here.

 

 

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