Sitting Next to the Pretty Girl

Growing up, we spent about 4 years in Dallas Texas, specifically in a town called Highland Park. It was customary for most of the kids at our school the ages around 10 to attend cotillion, a formal dance class. The girls would sit on one side of the room in chairs and the boys would line up on the other. The boys were then allowed to run and choose their dance partner. It did not take long to figure out that sitting next to the prettiest girls guaranteed spill over and ensured not being left unpicked.

When a child perceives that she is not loved, all sorts of defensive mechanisms and strategies start to form. I have grown up trusting nobody and under the illusion that I need to will affection. I am only starting to actually understand this. Because up until very recently, I have also been numb. And it seems that we are only allowed to start to see our selves when we have the capacity to simultaneously forgive. If when we see ourselves, we scold and criticize, we perpetuate the separation from our wholeness.

Teaching yoga is like sitting next to the pretty girl in dance class. As people connect with the deepest parts of themselves, they naturally feel better, more open, happier and joyful. It is common for the teacher to be associated with that feeling. This transference is ultimately inappropriate and untrue but a natural part of the path. So for the last 15 years or so, I have been getting the best kind of spill over. And only someone who was really desperate would organize a three day annual yoga conference so that 300 or so people could show up and say thank you.

When you are starving for love, every person and situation is an opportunity for nourishment. The most attractive quality in another being becomes their love of you. You unconsciously work situations in a way that will shine favorably on you, simultaneously weaving you tighter into the perception that you are not naturally lovable. You need credit for all you do and feel angry when you are "cheated" of what is "rightfully" yours. When you encounter people or places that are not conducive to your being fed, you reject them.

This is totally exhausting and thank goodness, eventually unsustainable. The inefficiency of willing love makes it an obsolete technology. And when your dharma is to teach yoga, eventually you too have to start to experience the deepest part of yourself which turns out to be Love. An unending wellspring of continual unconditioned Love.