How Do You Teach Yoga When You're Going Through A Personal Challenge?
Teaching yoga while going through a challenging time in your own life can be tough. After all, there’s often a lot of pressure to stand at the top of your mat and seem like you’ve got it all together—while taking care of others who are frequently on their own mats trying to navigate their own struggles.
However, yoga teachers are real people.
And sometimes we’re just holding it all together just like everyone else, right?
So how exactly do you teach while coping with what’s happening in your own life?
Teaching yoga through challenging times can help you heal
Teaching yoga while also giving to others can offer unexpected healing.
If you listen to my podcast, The Yoga Startup, you may recall that in Episode 2, my guest talked about being transparent with her yoga students when she was going through a difficult time in her life. There is a delicate balance between caring for yourself and caring for others as a yoga teacher, especially while navigating your own problems.
It’s important to keep healthy boundaries, but it’s also healthy to be authentic (not to mention that your students likely appreciate authenticity) and real.
No one has a perfect life. No one is immune from challenges or hardships. Not even the super fit yoga teacher wearing head-to-toe Alo or Lululemon who looks ultra composed and in-control in a chic city yoga studio.
5 Tips to Balancing Teaching Yoga and Navigating Your Own Personal Circumstances
When you’re going through a challenging time, HERE ARE 5 TIPS that can help you balance teaching yoga and also caring for yourself and students.
Be Authentic. It’s okay to acknowledge that you’re going through a challenging time. Of course, there’s a difference between honoring what’s going on in your life with a mention or acknowledgement and spilling all of the juicy details. But the key is that you don’t have to bottle everything up and pretend that your life is perfect…especially when you feel like you’re barely holding the pieces together. Being authentic about your experience, mood, or state of mind with your students can even build connection with them.
Keep it simple. When you’re low or not in a good headspace, this isn’t the time to take on complicated classes (unless that makes you feel better) or introduce new complex sequences. Keep your classes simple. Stay grounded. This stabilizing yoga classes that keep you rooted. Go back to the basics and keep it simple.
Heal yourself. Consider teaching classes that actually cater to what you need. Sure, that might sound selfish, but it’s not. Often what you need for yourself is also what others need. So, teach your classes so that you can soak up the experience as healing—this healing energy will also be appreciated by your students. Think meditation, breath work, and longer-held postures.
Keep your boundaries. See #1. But also consider redirecting your own experiences and energy into creating themed classes around what you need to express or work on personally to heal—but which are best kept separate from the studio. For example, perhaps you offer classes with themes like balance, surrendering, or inner trust.
Consider taking a break from teaching. It’s not always easy to take a break from teaching, especially when you need the income. However, sometimes a break to refill your own personal cup and energy is what’s necessary. One key mission of The Yoga Startup is to help yoga teachers build sustainable income streams, so that if they need time away from the mat, they can still pay the bills.