Fake It Til’ You Make It
Late last year, I had a conversation with a new friend about “imposter syndrome.” She too was a new yoga teacher and asked me if I felt this affliction. Finally, I had the language and the community to understand what I had been feeling. I completed my yoga teacher training in late 2016, and a year later I still was barely teaching. I would teach friends and family, often doing energy exchanges with people and never offering formal classes. I compared myself to other teachers, and limited myself. I thought, “I don’t know what I’m doing.” I would teach friends and feel nervous to correct them. I believed I didn’t know what I was doing. And in some ways, maybe I didn’t? I was not practicing as often as I would like to be. I was feeling myself slipping off the path of yoga. Although yoga was still a part of my daily life, I found myself questioning if I “deserved” to or was good enough to teach. And a byproduct of this is passing on indecisive, blocked solar plexus energy to your students during class. I knew this, and so I couldn't bring myself to teach often enough to gain the experience I knew I desperately needed.
So I challenged myself. After teaching what really felt like less classes than I could count on my fingers and toes, I committed to giving karma service as a yoga center on Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo, Mexico. I planned to arrive, take a few classes, refresh my mind with the Sivananda class and start teaching some classes after a day or two when I felt more ready. I arrived at 10pm on a Friday night, and was instructed to teach the next morning at 9am. The yoga teacher, a friend and mentor, who was going to be there when I originally committed to the karma service got sick and took time off. He left Mexico. So here I was, in a new place with no one to model myself after and no time to prepare.
If I would have had time to prepare, I would have had time to doubt myself. I would have had time to take another teacher’s class and put myself down about how I am not as good as them. I would have compared my teaching style to another teacher’s. Instead, I had to just do it. I was waking up around 5am and getting home around 3 or 4pm. I did not have time to doubt myself. I did not have energy to waste. I had to learn how to sit in my anxiety and self doubt and push through it. I had no one else to turn to and I wanted to do the best job I could.
This went on for 21 consecutive days. Each day I taught between one to three Sivananda classes that are one hour and a half each. In the final 7 days of this 21 period, there was a YTT (yoga teacher training) that had commenced. My initial intention was to come during this time because I wanted to redo the training. I didn’t "know what I was doing", after all. And so I believed I NEEDED another 200 hour teacher training. “Then I’ll be confident,” I thought.
It turns out part of my karma service was teaching classes during this time, too. When I found this out I was disappointed. I thought I was going to get to participate in another training! How else was I going to get confident?! I did not understand that the classes I would be teaching… would be to the students of the YTT. I was trusted to become part of the teaching team of a 200hr YTT. I received direct feedback from my students, yoga teachers and mentors. I found my voice. Because I had to. Because I could either sink or swim, and I chose to swim. How could you not choose to swim on a beautiful Caribbean island?
The butterflies I feel before a yoga class have dissipated, and now I am more confident to teach. I also remain humble and remember that although I am able to teach student teachers, I am too a student. I always will be a student. I am simply sharing what I know. And after a 21 day teaching immersion, I am practiced at sharing. The 21 day YTT was a learning immersion, but not the same as getting comfortable in the teaching role.
I am only limited by my own doubts. I am so grateful that I was trusted with teaching these classes before I felt I was ready. Sometimes we need responsibilities that are just slightly out of our level of comfort so that we can rise up to them. Sometimes we have to fake it until we make it.
Namaste <3