I haven’t told you the whole truth: why I stopped teaching power yoga (part 2 of 3)

In my last post, I shared Part 1 of a 3-part series on some of my biggest learnings around expression, including a behind-the-scenes story about coming home to my harmonium again. This week, the doorway in my heart continues to open as I’m about to share another layer with you, one I have waited a year and half to share, and one I am ready to share now.

When I first came to yoga, I was traditionally a type A. I needed hard, fast, push-yourself yoga or I don’t think I would have stayed.

Power yoga is what brought me to the yoga room, to my mat, and to becoming a yoga teacher and eventually creating Yoga’licious, and for that I am forever grateful.

Then fast forward to the life changing moment when I had a panic attack in the car at the end of 2013.

It was a wake up call.

My adrenals were burnt out, and while it wasn’t pleasant at the time I saw how much my body was such an ally to me; trying relentlessly to get my attention. It was time to really practice what I was teaching around self care.

And so my preferences began to shift. I could feel this shift, and it scared the shit out of me.

The hard, fast, sweaty, pushing type of movement I had resonated with for so long, was starting to feel out of alignment for my body, my health, and what I essentially wanted to be teaching.

For so many years I equated the definition of POWER with faster, stronger, bigger, do more. I hadn’t thought up till that point that power and all it embodied could come in different forms.

That was until that pivotal moment in time when my body was asking me to soften into something new… and that’s when I began to wake up to a soft, receptive, emergent power that I had not fully experienced up until that moment. It was a soft, sultry, and subtle power that was unfamiliar to me.

It came in some of the most quiet of moments, which was surprising since I had thought power had to be loud, big, and expansive.

It was a power that wasn’t sustained by what was happening outside of myself but what was happening within me.

And in that moment was one of the times I felt the most powerful.

It wasn’t coming from the outside.

It wasn’t forceful.

It was quiet, receptive, sweet.

And so I began to listen. And for me to really connect to that power, I needed to slow down.

I needed to be more still.

Working HARD and pushing myself to exhaustion day in and day out was not resonating anymore.

I felt scared but I bravely listened. I was once again scared to share this expression with the world, my students, and my best friend who owned the Power Yoga studio where I was teaching.

Would I be left out, would I be alone, would I lose people?

It was apparent I needed to make a shift, in particular in the style of yoga I was teaching on a regular basis. And I was SCARED but I knew I needed to make a shift.

The first step was I began implementing a softer more receptive practice into my Yoga’licious offerings, which lined up and served my clients really nicely.

Next step was being open with my friend and colleague about the ways my practice was shifting and my desire to teach a slower and softer flow. She was open to seeing what we could do to make it work for both me and the studio. We both did our best to try and make it work (I appreciate both of us for that!) and yet in the end, it was apparent that it wasn’t working.

No matter how much we tried, and how sad I felt to leave a community I had been a part of for 4 years in Fall of 2015 it was time to part ways and complete my teaching there.

Here’s what I learned:

Sometimes we are in places for a season, a year, a lifetime, and then there are times when it is time to spread your wings and fly elsewhere.

It doesn’t make anyone wrong, and it’s such an essential part of growing.

I am grateful for my roots in Power Yoga and the studio and community I got to be a part of along the way, because it was the stepping stone and opening into the path I am on today.

Everyone has their own expression of power. Explore YOURS. There is NOT one definition of it or one right way to experience it. To try and fit yourself into someone else’s idea of it will only leave you frustrated, angry, and disconnected.

So back to you –

Where have you been avoiding claiming your own expression of power?

Where are you trying to fit yourself in a box, where you know you are NOT!?

Where are you ready to spread your wings?

It’s time to spread your wings and open up to what you have always been, and what is emerging for you right now.

As soon as I began to claim my own version of power and the truth I felt so much freer and freed up, AND the fears I had had around leaving the studio didn’t even come true. I was still able to maintain a friendship with the studio owner, other aspects of my business have blossomed, and I’m now teaching only the type of yoga classes that truly resonate with my soul – and people LOVE them!

If it was possible for me, I KNOW it’s possible for you, too.

Stay tuned for my next email – an even bigger reveal that you’re not going to want to miss!– and in the meantime, please feel free to hit reply and let me know what is resonating for you from today’s share. It would light me up to hear from you.

To your powerful self,
Melanie

P.s. in case you missed the first post of the series, here it is.