I shared this meme on my Facebook business page in the hours right before we knew what had happened in Uvalde, Texas.
And that night there was class to teach. Which seemed ridiculous, right?
Until one student said, “I knew this was one of the safest places I could be right now for my mental health.”
Amen and thank you.
Community has always been such a huge part of the classes I teach.
I can remember when I first started teaching in my very own space in Erie, and how many times, new students would come up to me afterward and tell me they’d never felt so instantly welcomed and safe… that when they went to yoga spaces in town sometimes they weren’t talked to. ((WHAT?!)) Or that exercise spaces just felt too competitive and there was none of that in our space.
Amen and thank you, again.
It seems that that has not changed at all on Zoom and that feels like a little miracle to me. That we can meet from across so many many miles, and still, the main thing that happens in class together is that we are present to one another and we move in compassion, witnessing and being witnessed in whatever is happening for us in that moment, whether articulated with words or silence.
Movement is life, for sure. These bodies are built to move (in whatever way currently capable) and it’s all written in our cells and DNA that this movement should be, needs to be joyful and communal.
And yet…
The real reason for these classes and the real reason for movement is that the best way for us to bond deeply is through these bodies, engaged in nonsexual intimacies that are SEVERELY lacking in our current culture.
We are aching to be seen.
We are dying to be heard.
Literally.
Anger, hatred, fear… if you trace it back to its very origins, it always comes to this: these people who walk around every day with hearts of stone (who may or may not act on that in a directly violent way)… these people are screaming inside to be seen and heard.
They don’t have the tools to know how to simply ask for what they need.
They either weren’t taught, or when they were quite small, those tools were used but denied.
These times seem to be for breaking hearts… I mean this in so many ways.
There is a breaking that is good and healthy. It’s the breaking that happens when we’re very young and we’ve learned that we are safe and it’s time to venture out on our own.
It’s the breaking that happens when we lose someone we loved more than we thought possible and yet we continue on and their memory becomes the foundation of our strength and hope.
It’s the breaking that teaches us what we want and need by showing us what we do not want and do not need.
It’s a breaking that too many have hardened themselves against and so they stockpile — whether it be guns or cruelty or hatred or shame or power over others.
We must also stockpile…
But we must stockpile inner strength, compassion, love, empathy, and a soft willpower that gets things done without hurting others.
We will likely not live to see the new world that will evolve from all that’s been happening over the last six years, but we must keep healing ourselves of these broken hearts over and over again so that we can go out beyond ourselves, beyond our smaller and safe communities like the ones in my classes, and do the larger work that is calling for us right now, the work that is begging to be seen and heard and done.
If you need community like this, if you need support, if you need safety, June classes are starting on June 7th, and we would love to welcome you.