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One morning, my five yr old was having a very tough time preparing for varsity. She refused to get off the bed and was deeply upset in the best way only little kids might be, screaming about something that I deemed insignificant. Possibly I had packed her a lunch she didn’t like or I helped her little brother before giving her a morning hug. She was probably just drained and having a tough time self-regulating. That’s rather a lot to ask for a five yr old!

I stayed calm for quite some time, but then, as happens sometimes, I lost my temper. After all, I’m a yoga practitioner, so what I yelled was, “You’ve gotten the power to manage your response to things!”

The irony of me being unable to manage my very own response and literally shouting this at my child was so hilarious that I needed to laugh at myself. That pulled us out of our funk and we were in a position to get on with our day.

In that moment, my daughter saw me as a flawed and imperfect person in addition to someone who can laugh at her mistakes. As much as I would like to emulate qualities of compassion, kindness, and responsibility, I also want to point out my daughter that it’s okay to mess up sometimes. With the ability to be kind to ourselves once we make mistakes allows us to do the identical for others. That is what it means to steer a lifetime of humility.

What Exactly is Humility?

Humility will not be something that might be learned by reading a book, taking a workshop, scrolling through social media, or participating in a teacher training. It’s a way of being, a high quality we stock with us that colours how we move through the world.

A few of us come from cultures by which humility toward our teachers and elders seems innate since it’s been modeled for us from birth. So long as we will maintain our agency and integrity inside those social dynamics, it is a gift.

For those of us who don’t swim in those cultural waters, humility might be cultivated in other ways. We are able to place ourselves in unfamiliar situations by which we don’t know much with what we call a “beginner’s mind,” an orientation by which we accept that we’re brand recent to something. We understand that we’re ranging from scratch so our role is just to watch and learn.

Most of us are on this position once we begin a yoga practice. We start off not knowing easy methods to breathe properly, easy methods to enter postures with care, or easy methods to calm the mind. Over time, and hopefully under the guidance of a talented teacher, we accumulate experience and wisdom.

Humility In Practice

A specific amount of humility is required for us, as students, to give you the chance to receive the teachings. If our egos are within the front seat, we are inclined to take constructive feedback personally and stymie our own transformation. In an effort to remain open and humble, we’d like to give you the chance to trust that our teachers have placed their egos aside as well.

In some unspecified time in the future, if we feel called to share the practice of yoga with others, we grow to be beginners again as we learn easy methods to teach. It’s during these early stages of learning easy methods to teach yoga that many individuals lose their humility.

There may be a psychological phenomenon called the Dunning-Kruger effect, by which those that know slightly about something think they know quite rather a lot. Conversely, those that are experts in a field are inclined to underestimate their knowledge, or moderately, they simply understand how much there remains to be left to learn.

I’ve seen this phenomenon play out persistently. Not way back, a recent student began attending our shala. She had recently graduated from a yoga teacher training and had been teaching classes at one other studio. She got here to us because she wanted to construct a dedicated Ashtanga yoga practice.

She was physically capable but struggled a bit with the Mysore-style approach, by which we teach individual students a set sequence of postures that they memorize. The sequence might be adapted based on any student’s needs, and can change with the coed over time, but the concept is to grow to be comfortable enough with the sequence that it becomes integrated within the body and within the nervous system.

This student asked us specific questions on easy methods to point her foot and other minute details. I sensed that her questions got here not from a real desire to learn, but were meant to show to us that she knew what she was doing. If she had come to class repeatedly with a real desire to learn, she would have picked up the practice quickly. As a substitute, her attendance became sporadic after which stopped entirely.

One other student, someone who had been practicing and teaching a distinct kind of yoga for years, got here to us just a few months ago, wanting to learn easy methods to Handstand in the course of the room. We began her just like several other recent student, with Surya Namaskar and directions on easy methods to breathe properly and gently engage the bandhas.

The breath and bandhas are at the guts of our practice, facilitating a gentle and open body and mind. Starting there is important. Specializing in the breath and bandhas also builds a robust foundation, which can eventually allow students to work toward physically demanding postures, including Handstand. Inside her first week, this student tell us that she felt she wasn’t getting enough attention and ended up leaving.

Experienced teachers aren’t proof against a scarcity of humility. Teachers who lead large classes and workshops sometimes place themselves on literal pedestals. This is probably a approach to allow students to see them, however it also perpetuates an influence dynamic. I’ve also heard of popular teachers refusing to have interaction with students during workshops they’re leading, sometimes by distracting themselves with their phones.

There are some teachers have learned easy methods to display humility without actually integrating it. They could bow to an altar before class starts but then leave the room afterward and speak all the way down to their students and fellow teachers. Or they could deflect positive feedback in front of a crowd as a show of false modesty but then seek for that affirmation within the comments section of a social media post.

Whether we teach to a stadium crammed with dedicated students or to a handful of recent students at a community center, we’d like to ask ourselves why we’re doing what we’re doing. Are we teaching as a way to rack up followers and accumulate sponsorships? Are we honoring the inner experiences of the people we’re working with and fascinating in a means of personal growth?

How We Learn Humility

Years of experience as a mother, teacher, and leader have taught me that true humility is about letting go of perfectionism. It’s not a performance.

At our shala, we’re not terribly concerned with attempting to get folks to stay around in the event that they’re not feeling aligned with what we do and the way we practice. We view the teaching of yoga as an act of service. Stable in our sense of self and understanding that none of us are all that special, we remain humble. Life, then, becomes our teacher. We make mistakes, we correct, realign, after which stumble again. That is certainly one of the explanation why it’s imperative that yoga teachers cultivate full, wealthy lives off the mat.

Real humility affords us the gift of seeing everyone as our equals. Before I used to be within the position of leading a community and running a shala, I had no idea concerning the challenges and nuances involved. It was easy for me to take a look at studio owners and take into consideration all of the changes I’d make or how in a different way I’d run things. I now have far more compassion for anybody in a leadership position or running a business. I understand that making mistakes is inevitable and it’s certainly one of the ways by which we cultivate equanimity.

We play different roles in various parts of our lives, but ultimately, we will only feel secure in our sense of self and our sense of belonging once we grow to be attuned to our own imperfections, accepting them in the method. In this fashion, we see that everybody else has their struggles, too. We take ourselves slightly less seriously. From that lack of seriousness, we’re in a position to experience joy.

The word “humility” comes from the Latin root word “hum,” meaning “ground.” After we’re humble, we literally remain grounded. That’s why I practice yoga, to remain grounded and joyful. That’s also why I teach. Sharing this practice with people in a lighthearted way helps me keep my feet on the bottom and expands my capability for joy. My hope is that yoga practitioners in all places, students and teachers alike, experience the transformative power of being humble.

About Our Contributor

Pranidhi Varshney is the founding father of Yoga Shala West, a community-supported Ashtanga Yoga studio in West Los Angeles. She can be mother to 2 children who she describes as “courageous and clever little beings.” The thread that runs through all her work is the will to construct community and live from the guts.