My Journey to becoming a yoga teacher
I have been practicing yoga for about 10 years, on and off as my life called for it. I often practice more when I am struggling with the experiences of my life as a way to exercise, connect to peace, and find clarity.
I remember clearly the darkness that filled my life 10 years ago, my senior year of high school, when my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. I quickly became a caregiver alongside my mom as his health rapidly declined. Grief counseling and traditional therapy didn’t work for me, because I could never find comfort with a therapist or find the words to ask for or know what I needed. My high school guidance counselor even did everything in her power to connect with me, but I had no desire to let anyone inside to see the pain that lived there, realizing later that that was so I could try to be numb to it. The only moments in that time that I remember feeling ok, were going to a yoga class with my mom once a week at night. At the time it was the safest place I knew that I could show up as myself, hidden depression and anxiety and all, and leave feeling like my emotions and body were better regulated, and somewhat at peace.
Since then I have always been inspired by the way that (good) yoga teachers could create and command a space, move and exist so seemingly at ease, with their little nuggets of wisdom and thoughtful yoga sequences. A few years later I attended a yoga class at a different studio that left me feeling demoralized and like I didn’t belong, because of the way the teacher talked to students (mostly me, let’s be real) when they weren’t keeping up or doing a posture right. My mom later attended the same studio, and was actually scolded for wearing socks to keep her feet warm, little did they know that she has arthritis and the warmth from wearing socks kept her pain at bay. I didn’t know then what made a good or bad yoga teacher, why I could leave one class feeling at peace and another like I didn’t belong, but the more yoga and self-inquiry I did, the more I realized there was actually a lot of work behind the practice, and I was even more inspired.
I’ve wanted to take a yoga teacher training for years, but never felt ready, or had an excuse why it wasn’t a good time to do it. In this time, I took a community yoga class that was taught by a Yoga 4 change teacher. This teacher shared his story of how he struggled with addiction and was incarcerated, and that taking yoga 4 change classes while incarcerated changed the path of his life for the better, and he now teaches the very same practice that changed his life. I was really excited about this because I had never before thought about or known that yoga could be used to purposefully facilitate recovery, and my brother was in his own substance use recovery at the time. This moment planted a seed in my head that later came to fruition.
Fast forwarding to 2020, a year that became a very difficult year for myself for various reasons, I dove head first into my own yoga practice again, but this time I had to do it from home and not in my typical studio environment. Here I relied on YouTube videos of yoga classes, often using Yoga 4 Change’s YouTube channel. When I saw it posted that Yoga 4 Change was offering a teacher training, I knew I needed to apply. If any time were going to be the right one, I felt this was it.
Even when self doubt creeps in, or I wonder where this journey will take me, I know that learning to teach yoga from a trauma informed lens will allow me to create a positive space where students will be able to come as they are, with whatever they may be dealing with, and hopefully experience some of the same benefits of yoga that I have throughout my life.
Written by Dana Metzger
