The Sacred Art of Studying and Teaching
by Nora Vimala Pozzi
I love teaching although I never thought I would become a teacher myself.
Too many teachers in my family: my mother was a teacher; my former late husband and my son were too. No room for one more, so it was quite surprising and intimidating when I started teaching after I graduated as a yoga teacher in 1992. As so many of my students I had taken the training to deepen my spiritual path, not to teach!
I had to come to terms with it, so during my first class at the Quaker Meeting, I decided to offer it for free. Less expectations. I also offered a disclaimer letting my students know that I did not know it all, and was just sharing only what I knew, promising to find the answers to the questions I did not know. I don’t know how I came up with that idea, but it worked. It took my stress away, and I was free to enjoy the experience.
I remember that when I offered my first Yoga Teacher Training in 1999, I realized that my first teaching experience had helped me to develop empathy for my students as they trained to become yoga teachers themselves.
So many people are afraid of teaching, like I was, including many who enrolled in my teacher training program. The word itself is so charged with meaning. The expectation of perfection, of being judged, of not meeting the students’ needs, of not being accepted or liked…it triggers some deep past wounds of “not being good enough”. I believe that was my story growing up, lacking affirmation and validation, such a common experience for many, and a source of so much suffering.
To overcome it and be able to experience peace and joy, I had to find that validation within myself. I learned from Sri Patanjali, considered the father of Yoga, the practice of “non-attachment” (vairagya), one of his main Yoga Sutras. Easier said than done, but awareness was the first step in becoming free from this fear and more trusting in my own innate wisdom. It took years of yoga teaching and trainings to understand that who I was (my authentic Self), was not what I did or who I “thought” I was.
The study of Raja Yoga -the Yoga Sutras (the psychology and philosophy of yoga) has been such a great tool for understanding my fears, my emotions, my thoughts and my behaviors, all of which are part of the human condition. One of the Sutras, “svadhyaya” (Self-Inquiry), has been so helpful in offering me a tool to observe my daily thoughts, actions and words, in a mindful non-judgmental way. The key is to connect with our “essence”, also called by so many names (Soul, Spirit, True Self, God within, Inner wisdom, etc) which is beyond the mind and the faculty of thinking.
If I can observe myself with detachment from that “wisdom center” that is all-loving and trusting, I can then start “accepting” (samtosha) myself, just as I am, finding more comfort inside my own skin. I can apply it to every relationship I have, including teaching, by offering presence, deep listening and compassion, creating a “sacred safe space” that leads to a synergetic dance of mutual trust and connection with my students.
As I continued to teach, I also realized that many of my students knew more than I did. That was so revealing and humbling! This realization reminded me of one of Dr Rachel Naomi Remen’s stories from her book “My Grandfather’s Stories”, one of my favorite authors. In the story she remembers when she was in third grade: “…I told my mother that my teacher had said that I was smarter than most people around us. She stopped walking and knelt down so that we were at eye level with each other….she told me that every one of the people around us had a secret wisdom, each of them knew something more about how to live, about being happy, about loving, than I did…suddenly I wanted to know them all, to learn from them, to be their friend…” This story touched me to the core because I realized that ‘the act of teaching is an act of love and being loved, which we can apply to any relationship, as we “teach” each other by sharing our common humanity through our life stories.
I love teaching…I never thought I would become a yoga teacher myself!
As an artist and an architect who invested 25 years in my profession, it couldn’t have been further away from my life vision at the time…. The pandemic, although difficult to struggle through, has helped many of us learn how to live with the unknown and the mystery of life, affirming what I learned in the first class I taught.
I am so grateful for trusting this mystery, since every class I’ve taught for the last 29 years has been a celebration of LIFE, but especially during the pandemic, where in spite of forced lockdown and isolation, I experienced, unexpectedly and paradoxically, the deepest connection with my students during our online classes.