Re: Resistance to teaching; Feeling unworthy of teaching

05-02-2002, 03:17 PM

Dear Nirmal Kaur,

Sat Nam. God bless you for your animal advocacy work. Our
other friends on this Earth need all the help they can get!

You bring up a very common "outer reality" when you mention
resistance and a very common "inner reality" when you speak
of feeling unworthy of being a teacher.

First of all, encountering resistance is simply an indication
that you are attempting something either new or important,
or both. The universe will TEST you to see how serious
about teaching you really are. None of us escapes it...

So take it as a good sign. Of course you COULD simply be
running into the basic limitations of a 24-hr day and a
7 day week! If you are loading yourself up with too much
to do, you may have to cut back somewhere, or make a choice.
There's certainly nothing wrong with teaching one class a
week instead of two! And it's no sin to choose not to teach
for a time if your circumstances truly do not permit it.

Feeling unworthy of being a Kundalini Yoga teacher is a genuine
emotion, and it is important to note it -- but then to go beyond it.
We all feel a certain "fear" when we step into a position of
responsibility, and being any kind of teacher IS a serious
responsibility! But you have the MEANS to do it (all the books,
all the classes you yourself have taken, Yogi ji himself, who
stands behind you when you chant "Ong Namo, Guru Dev Namo"), and
a great deal of personal support to HELP you do it successfully,
including this mailing list.

The secret of overcoming fear (aside from the meditation
that has recently been discussed, and there are others) is
to look deeply into the sequence of events in the brain,
and to make a conscious decision at the right place. Yogi
ji has spoken at length of the sequence:

| | | | | |
Thought | | Emotion | | Desire | | Action
| | | | | |
^

Thoughts come to us automatically, at the rate of thousands
in the blink of an eye, and there is virtually nothing we
can do about them other than to learn to meditate. But thoughts
are only thoughts, like "ice cream" -- they are just little
puffy clouds in the sky of the mind. They have little weight.

The transition between a thought and an associated emotion is
very brief, so brief in fact that very few people can even
recognize the difference.

But an emotion is a positive or negative FEELING, such as
"I LIKE ice cream" or "I feel AFRAID right now." A thought
is just some data, a fact, but an emotion is a state of mind
which begins to involve your BODY in a more powerful way,
with hormones, perhaps adrenaline, etc.

There is also a transition between an emotion and an associated
desire, and THAT transition is very perceptible: you have to make
a deliberate, conscious CHOICE to get to "I WANT ice cream."

Once you have desire going though, an action (or a whole sequence
of actions) almost immediately gets going as a result. Here
too, the transition between a desire and an action that follows
from it happens very quickly, and most people "can't stop
themselves" once they truly desire something.

The secret is this: learn to recognize the interval BETWEEN
an emotion and the desire that tends to follow it, and you have
suddenly mastered the science of self control. It's all about
recognizing that YOU make the choice to "turn on" a desire. If,
after giving in to a desire you have regret, then next time you
might want to consider making a different choice. The thoughts
you can't help, they are natural. The emotions will still drive
you to a point, but YOU can replace the "usual" desire with some
alternative desire, or just stop the whole sequence altogether,
by sheer force of will, at the transition between emotion and desire.

When you "feel unworthy," you are experiencing the emotion of FEAR,
and the desire that tends to follow will be "I do NOT WANT to do
this" and boom -- you've managed to get the "self doubt" loop going.

If you perform your duty anyway -- as most of us do -- then you
CHOOSE to live up to your responsibility, and you go through it.
The first few times you teach a class, you may feel the fear, but
you WILL get through it because you choose to. Funny thing, that
discipline will gradually replace the fear with a sense of satisfaction
or even joy, as you share the powerful technology of kundalini yoga
with people who benefit from it and appreciate what you're doing.

But in the beginning, it can be nerve wracking!!!

So let me close with a couple of concrete suggestions for helping
to overcome the fear of teaching (the fear of being unworthy):

1. Be prepared. ALWAYS review your notes before class, so
that you are totally "comfortable" with the material you are
about to teach. Even browsing your notes the night before
can serve this purpose. But see #2)

2. Be early. Consider this an absolute requirement if you
want to feel utterly "good" about yourself when you teach.
Nothing tarnishes your self-respect like having to apologize
for being late! Take the extra time you have before everyone
else arrives to review your notes, to begin deep breathing,
to enjoy a calming drink of water, whatever you like. By
being there AHEAD of everyone else, you establish a position
of POWER. In a sense, you PROVE that you ARE the teacher!
Only the first few students may notice, but the most important
person who will notice is YOU!

3. "Make the room your own." Take a minute or two to WALK AROUND
the entire space, filling it with your aura, feeling powerful
and competent because your ARE prepared and you ARE early.
You will be amazed at how effective this last technique is!
Once you have taken full control of the space by purposefully
travelling through it, you will BE "top dog" and your initial
jitters will be a thing of the past. Try it -- it really works!

Best of success to you...

gs

Guruprem Singh ('GS') Khalsa
Berkeley, California

408-396-7249 cell, 24 hrs.

==

(All re

PamENixon@... wrote:

>
>Heidi,
>
>Thank you for your comments. I usually respond and move with my border
>collies, but not that day! I grew up with collies, and recently did
>rescue work. However, I am examining whether I am attracting things to
>happen to me to prevent me from teaching KY--some resistance. I have
>been feeling lately like I need to choose between teaching KY and doing
>all of my animal advocacy work, like it is an either/or decision. I
>realize I can do both, but I have thrown myself into animal rescue and
>education work, and it has literally consumed me--emotionally and time
>wise. Kundalini Yoga and animal advocacy are both my path and passion.
>
>I was wondering what other KY teachers have encountered along their
>paths in terms of resistance, or feeling unworthy of teaching.
>
>Sat Nam,
>Nirmal Kaur
>
>
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>
>

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05-02-2002, 04:27 PM

Sat Nam,

Thank you Guruprem Singh. Please join us more often with your insightful
remarks.

I especially like the idea of walking around the room before class. I would
add chanting a mantra like ad guray na mayh to set the vibration, or other
matra of choice.

Sat Nam,

Gururattan Kaur

05-02-2002, 11:36 PM

Thank-you for your posts on this subject of fears about teaching.

It's been something that's been troubling my mind and heart for several months
now, so it's great to see that I'm not the only one who has doubts.

I have been teaching and practicing KY for about 2 and a half years now.
I always have very loving comments and feedbacks about my classes.

My teacher's training for Kundalini Yoga was a fantastic and transforming one
year course. To celebrate the completion of the training we had a ceremony with
a guest speaker, who was asked if he had any advice for us as new teachers. His
advice was that through our own personal transformation and practice would come
the depth of our teaching and sharing.

I know that there are some things that I know. Some intellectual knowledge and
others more heart-felt universal truths. So when I teach a class I try to stay
in my heart center and share from my own experience. But having only been
practicing (in this lifetime) for two and a half years I sometimes become
overwhelmed by the fact that I feel like I don't really know anything at all in
the grand scheme of things, or at least only a very little bit. It's like the
more I learn the more I realize how little I know! :+) It is at the same time
a blessing and a curse to have the awareness that most of what you know is at
the best incomplete!

Could anyone suggest, How, as a fairly new teacher I should approach this
feeling of not knowing enough yet?

The second aspect that can trouble my teaching is when I am going through rough
patches in my personal life / practice.

For example, I have, as of yesterday, just COMPLETED MY FIRST 40 SADHANA OF
KIRTAN KRIYA!!! Yeah!!! (excuse the excitement, but it's great to share, and
feels good to have committed myself to something and achieved it!)

The only slight drawback is that sooooo much came up during the 40 day practice.
And I found that this turbulance in my own practice made me pose myself the
question, if I can't manage my own practice smoothly how on earth can I help
others with theirs????

My experience with Kirtan Kriya was intense and varied. Days where I felt like
jumping out of my skin, getting up and running around and shouting, or
alternatively struggling to get my voice out through the tears, or nicer times
when I felt like my body was being held up effortlessly by an loving presence
(this happened on the night of the full moon).

During the course of this meditation there were a couple of days where I didn't
practice my own morning yoga sadhana because I fell into a deep depression, and
got onto my yoga rug but then couldn't bare to move my body because it felt too
awful. When we move our bodies we are also moving about the emotions being held
in our bodies, and I guess I didn't want to feel or be aware of my troubled
state. I then lost my desire to leave the house and be in contact with people,
I just wanted to stay very still.

Now that I have finished the 40 days, I feel a little more balanced, but I have
decided to continue, because I feel like there are more layers of muck to be
washed away.

So in a nutshell. I am aware that KY is a process, and that even though there
are dark storm clouds, the sun and blue sky is always there, it's just that
temporarily it's hidden from our view.

So as teachers (and students, since I feel I am very much still a student too)
when challenging times come in our own lives, when we feel down, weak or lose
our faith in our practice because we're riding out a storm, how do we stay
optimistic for others and out students?

Sat Nam and heart-felt blessings to all on the path!!!

Krishan Shiva Kaur x

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