Weed and Feed

I have been spending my "down" time in the yard lately. With the nicer weather, I can't help but to be drawn outside the walls of my house. Down time for me is when Willis and Elsie are napping and there are house chores I don't want to do, or work I am avoiding. When you are a stay at home mom, wife, contract worker and part time (even if very) yoga teacher, I don't think down time really exists, but I have learned to create it nonetheless. Back to the yard...when we first moved in to this house, it came with a clean slate in the front yard. A large bed around the perimeter with weed barrier and bark and absolutely nothing planted in it. I remember going to town that summer, I planted something like 40 plants between the front and back yards. I would go out there after Ruby went to bed and work until it was too dark. I remember my body being physically exhausted when I would come in at night, hands and feet dirty and loving that feeling. It was much more satisfying than sitting in front of the television. Those garden beds 4 summers later are pretty low maintenance, except for the crazy weed grass that makes its way up through the weed barrier.
As I pulled up the weed grass, slowly making my way around the yard yesterday I was struck by the symbolism in pulling weeds. It's really like life. You can put up any kind of protective barrier you like in life, but inevitably, weeds find their way in. Weeds are really just these negative patterns we get in to, they happen in all aspects of our life, relationships, parenting, yoga, driving, our work lives, etc...and we have to diligently wage battle against them to keep ourselves from letting them take over.
This week I was reminded of one of my weeds with yoga teaching. I taught class on Monday. I have several regulars that are committed to their yoga practice, come to class faithfully and are not what I would call beginners. And then, I had an 81 year old woman, the mother of a regular, that had never done yoga before, and had difficulty getting up and down on her mat. I began to question what I was doing teaching, feeling extremely ill equipped to be teaching between the two extremes in one class. My ego was getting the best of me. I slowed class way down and got through it and when it was over, self doubt continued to weed its way into my mind. Wondering if I should just give up teaching for awhile, if I should really go through teacher training again, or what? This isn't an unfamiliar pattern, I periodically roll through these seasons of doubting myself as a teacher and wondering who I think I am to be calling myself a yoga teacher...I know it is all just my ego.
And then Thursday rolled around and we had a teacher meeting. By this point I was kind of over my Monday shake up, but as I sit with the other 3 teachers and listened to everyone's various struggles and challenges in life it dawned on me. What happens with this whole ego thing is that I compare myself to someone else. I take classes from the other teachers and rather than celebrating the unique gifts they bring to my practice, I begin to self doubt, thinking I don't have those gift and therefore I must not be a good teacher. Silly, I know.
So, as I drove home from the meeting Thursday night, I sat with this and realized, I know who I am as a teacher and the self doubt only comes in when I start trying to teach like someone else does, or try to change who I am. I can't really. I am who I am. What I love about yoga is that it brings me into my body, I love the movement, I love the clarity it brings in my mind. I really am not so concerned about alignment, I just want to create an environment where people feel like they can dance their way through my class and feel a little more liberated, a little more free to be who they are when they walk back out the door.
So, I am committing to myself, as I continue this yard work to apply this same principal to myself...weed out the bad stuff with consistency, the negative habits, all that takes me away from feeling like my Self and feed the Self, nourish myself in all the ways I know how....weed and feed. It's my new mantra.