back to work

after not working for almost a month, a lot of my life was in need of some restructuring. bounced checks, cracked windshield, supervisor forgot about my paid time off. word up. i had one day in moab and then off to the wilderness to play with young addicts for 8 days. going to work is easier for me than my off time. i spend 8 days in the high desert sleeping on the ground, making fire with sticks, hiking and ‘counselling’ young drug users. bills, traffic lights, flushable toilets, blogs… all forgotten for 8 days.

my first day back in the field i was anxious still… ‘how am i going to pay my rent? was it a good choice to take a teacher training right after paying for a ridiculously expensive dog?’ money taxes me on more days than the 15th of april.

that same day a client i had met almost a month ago approached me. she is a young woman, 18, with severe bi polar disorder and extremely low self-esteem. her instability manifests in a myriad of ways…. food issues, co-dependent, suicidal tendencies, drug use, lots and lots of self-destructive behaviors. without saying hello she simply asked ‘can we do some yoga?’. so we did some yoga.

i noticed a new anxiety in me. though i had shared yoga with my clients in the past, i now had a wealth of info thanks to the teacher training. i decided to take it real slow and try some heart openers with her as her posture was very poor and i was hoping to share the emotional value of heart opening with her. one staff decided to join in as well.

it turned out to be one of the coolest experiences i’ve had in a long time. this was to be her first time trying yoga. after some hip openers and namaskar c we tried a variation of camel. instead of bringing hands to heels, we clasped our hands behind our back and worked on lifting our hearts higher. this is where i started geeking out. once i started mentioning the importance of the heart chakra i watched myself talk a lot. i was surprised that i felt so strongly about this. i’ve never considered myself a believer of energy work, auras, third eyes, etc. i have been way to intellectualized for that stuff. and now here was this intense commitment to our heart chakra spilling forth. fortunately, she was very receptive to it.

we did some baby backbends. little cobra, swimming locust and bridge. a few twists followed and then some arm balance play. she was able to hold bakasana one her second try for 3 breaths! after almost 45 minutes both she and the staff joining in had had enough.

the next day she again asked to do some yoga. another client joined in as well. and then the next day, another client. on my last day in the field, all but one member of our group had their sleeping pads laid out between the aspens and were standing in warrior 2. this included a 17 year old male who had tried to break his own leg in order to get out of his previous treatment program, a 31 year meth addict that will lose the right to visit his daughters if he can’t stay clean (3 days prior he was planning on jumping off a cliff), all 3 staff and 6 more people who are trying to improve their lives. i had to laugh my way through that session. we all wear the same clothes, basically tan military fatigues. we all become very filthy out there, our faces smudged with the mixing of desert sweat, pine sap and dust. to look at all of us in tree pose warrants a rather boisterous guffaw.

before leaving the field all the clients and staff sit in a circle with the incoming staff and a director and a therapist to give feedback and validations and talk about the week. the 31 year old thanked me for showing him yoga, the rest of the group chimed in with similar statements. i felt myself go red. i was embarassed because i don’t believe yoga cures all. i don’t believe i know enough to teach. and i still don’t believe that i will ever see green light emanating from my chest. i know i am more aware of the emotional confidence that the asanas cultivate in me. and i know that my practice differs from everyone elses, thus i can learn lots from sharing with others. i know that yoga is constantly doing something with me.

back at home my bike has a flat so i drove the two blocks to a yoga class. windshield still cracked, pto going through next payday. pulled money out of savings to pay the bounced checks. it was a really mellow class. lots of forward folds. afterwards the instructor and i were talking when she says ‘when are you gonna start teaching?’ here it goes.