"FOR ME, THERE'S NOTHING I'VE DONE IN MY SERVICE THAT'S SELFLESS, I'VE ALWAYS KNOWN IN MY SOUL HOW MUCH I'M GETTING BACK. IT JUST DOESN'T LOOK THE SAME WAY - THEY MAY BE GETTING SOMETHING FOR THEIR SURVIVAL OF THEIR PHYSICAL BODY, BUT WHAT THEY'VE GIVEN ME IS SURVIVAL OF MY SOUL, AND I DON'T TAKE THAT FOR GRANTED."
Seane Corn is one of the most recognized faces in yoga, an internationally-renowned teacher with a far-reaching presence and universal appeal. She’s been featured on the cover of numerous publications, as well as on Oprah.com, and in ad campaigns alongside the likes of Lance Armstrong and Mia Hamm. And yet, she is one of the most humble and down to earth people you’ll ever meet. Seane keeps her career focused on serving, and is committed to bridging yoga and activism. She is involved in multiple social and political causes, and has created initiatives of her own including the yoga program within the organization Children of the Night in Los Angeles and the non-profit organization Off the Mat, Into the World. In addition, Seane also serves as the National Yoga Ambassador for YouthAIDS.
I’ve been practicing with Seane via her yoga DVD’s for years, and have had the privilege to hear her speak live at multiple events in LA. What resonates with me most about Seane is her authenticity. She is refreshingly human, someone who is always striving to be the best version of themselves but never claims to have “arrived,” and is willing to laugh at herself along the way. I believe the reason Seane has become as successful as she is, is because her appeal lies not only in her skills, but also in her nature.
Seane’s teaching style truly encompasses the mind body connection that is key to yoga, offering a whole body approach to health and healing. It was this holistic perspective that interested me most; I wanted to know more about this “whole body” approach to life … about how we can apply the principles of yoga to career and beyond, about how to encompass it all. I saw that Seane’s teaching extended beyond her work to her life as a whole, and that the joy radiating out of her soul was a direct result of this. I knew that Seane’s story would be a powerful example of the happiness that comes from combining your passion with a purpose, and I hope her words inspire you to go out and do the same.
Seane Corn is one of the most recognized faces in yoga, an internationally-renowned teacher with a far-reaching presence and universal appeal. She’s been featured on the cover of numerous publications, as well as on Oprah.com, and in ad campaigns alongside the likes of Lance Armstrong and Mia Hamm. And yet, she is one of the most humble and down to earth people you’ll ever meet. Seane keeps her career focused on serving, and is committed to bridging yoga and activism. She is involved in multiple social and political causes, and has created initiatives of her own including the yoga program within the organization Children of the Night in Los Angeles and the non-profit organization Off the Mat, Into the World. In addition, Seane also serves as the National Yoga Ambassador for YouthAIDS.
I’ve been practicing with Seane via her yoga DVD’s for years, and have had the privilege to hear her speak live at multiple events in LA. What resonates with me most about Seane is her authenticity. She is refreshingly human, someone who is always striving to be the best version of themselves but never claims to have “arrived,” and is willing to laugh at herself along the way. I believe the reason Seane has become as successful as she is, is because her appeal lies not only in her skills, but also in her nature.
Seane’s teaching style truly encompasses the mind body connection that is key to yoga, offering a whole body approach to health and healing. It was this holistic perspective that interested me most; I wanted to know more about this “whole body” approach to life … about how we can apply the principles of yoga to career and beyond, about how to encompass it all. I saw that Seane’s teaching extended beyond her work to her life as a whole, and that the joy radiating out of her soul was a direct result of this. I knew that Seane’s story would be a powerful example of the happiness that comes from combining your passion with a purpose, and I hope her words inspire you to go out and do the same.
- Let’s start with what yoga means. Many people don’t realize that the actual meaning of yoga extends far beyond its common western connotation as a primarily physical practice. Can you explain what yoga at its core stands for?
The word literally means to yoke, it means that everything is connected, everything is interdependent; it means to come together and make whole. So if you understand this idea of interdependency, what it’s teaching us is the universe, or all beings, everything, is made up of energy or vibration. And as a result, we are united and we’re looking for harmony, we’re looking for integration.
The practice of yoga is a philosophy that allows us to let go of some of the attachments we have to the physical world and to practical ideas, even to our ego, and it gives us the tools so that we can in time – that’s why it’s called a practice – begin to mature in our understanding, evolve in our consciousness, and move to a more awakened state where we can recognize that interdependence, as well as be able to live in that state of understanding to such a degree that we participate in hopefully making this world a happier and healthier place while we evolve.
- What can you tell women about how this concept of yoga – this idea of oneness – translates to serve us on a personal level, how it can transform our lives and empower us as individuals?
The individual becomes better grounded, more loving and kind – then that attitude trickles out to the choices they make, the work that they do, the way they raise their families. It impacts not just the individual; it impacts the collective. So the individual has a huge level of responsibility to really participate in that level of consciousness and global change.
- I’d like to talk a bit about how yoga came into your life, and how it turned into a career for you. Was this a path you pursued, or is it something that instead found you?
It found me. There’s definitely no way, especially at that time, that one would pursue yoga as a career. I was living in Los Angeles and was already a yoga student, but classes at that time were already too expensive for me. I was working in bars, restaurants, things like that just to pay rent, so to cover the added expense of yoga classes, I also took a job behind the desk at a school called Yoga Works. There was only one of them at the time in Los Angeles.
As a receptionist they paid you minimum wage, but part of the deal was that you could take as many classes as you wanted for free. And so I studied, I just took class after class with very diverse teachers. I was really lucky that way because I wasn’t paying for it, and therefore didn’t feel any pressure about what classes I took. I was just like, “Yay! Today I’m going to take Kundalini and tomorrow take Iyengar!” and was really able to check it out.
Shortly after my time working behind the desk, one of my teachers, Bryan Kest, had suggested that I consider taking the teachers training course, which I completely poo-pooed at the time because I wasn’t comfortable with public speaking. I also didn’t think I had been practicing yoga long enough to even consider holding space for others to learn. Bryan tried to convince me that I should really just take it to deepen the understanding of my own practice of yoga beyond the physical, that teachers training would give me a little bit more insight into that.
The next day, the woman who was to become my mentor, Maty Ezraty, who owned Yoga Works, also suggested that I take the teachers training. I did the same song and dance, saying I wasn’t ready and she said the same thing as Bryan: take it to improve your own practice. So that’s what I did. That would have been in August of 1994 I believe, and that really was what changed my entire life from that point forward.
I couldn’t afford my first teachers training, it was $600 at the time. I remember telling my parents that I wanted to take the training, but that I couldn’t afford it. I had been living independent of my family for a very long time, even though we were very close. I didn’t come from a family with money, so it wasn’t an option at the time to ask. My parents knew this and said very generously, “Let us take care of this for your birthday present, that’ll be our gift to you.”
But I remember my father kind of giving me a hard time about it. You know, coming from a blue collar home … the idea of teaching yoga, it’s not a real job. Which is ironic because my dad ended up becoming a yoga teacher later in life; but at that time, it just did not make sense to him. I remember saying to my dad – of which he reminded me many, many, times years later – “I will never make any money at this, but I will live every single day of my life happy.” My dad has told me that when I said that, he began to see that it was true for me, and even though he was worried about how I was going to support myself, he just felt in his heart that I was in my purpose and so he trusted that it would all work out. And obviously it did.
Yoga teachers training didn’t go the way I thought it would though, it was really hard. I did not get it in terms of the anatomy, my brain didn’t work that way, and I struggled in my first teachers training. I ended up doing five 200-hour teacher trainings back-to-back because I didn’t get it. Also, I was really insecure about actually opening my mouth and teaching in front of people, so for the entire first 200-hour teacher training I didn’t. I made myself disappear because I was that afraid, that insecure. I took my tests, I did all the homework assignments, but I couldn’t physically teach.
I was pretty depressed by that actually, because when they heard I was doing the teachers training, all my friends, and even the clients that came to yoga works, they were so excited ... Because they knew my enthusiasm for the practice of yoga, and they said to me over and over again, you’re going to be an amazing teacher! And I remember thinking – not saying so, but thinking – that it wasn’t true, that the only evidence they had that that I was going to be a good teacher was that I was strong and flexible as a student, and that’s not necessarily the foundation for being a good teacher. That’s helpful, but a teacher has to have something else. I mean, if you can get people turned on to math, to science – heck to kite flying! – then you’re an effective communicator. If you’re passionate and you have the ability to really meet someone where they’re at, then you can give them the confidence and encouragement they need, which really has very little to do with your flexibility or your strength. And I realized I didn’t have that, I just had the flexibility and strength part.
So everyone thought I was going to be this great yoga teacher with no evidence, and that made me even more insecure because I just knew it wasn’t true. I got to my first 200-hour teacher training, and ended up in an advanced training in Iyengar. At my final exam, my teacher Maty Ezraty came in to watch all of us; it was the first time I ever taught a pose publicly. No one knew that of course, they didn’t know I had only been practicing behind the scenes, but I choked. I choked in front of everybody and I was humiliated. Everything that I was afraid was going to happen started to happen … I froze, I couldn’t remember the next words, I turned beat red, I got dizzy, my peripheral vision got all blurry … Which was exactly why I didn’t want to teach publicly.
And then the next line changed my life, and ultimately transported my career. Which was when I turned to my teacher and said, “Can I try something else?” So she said, “Go ahead.” And instead of teaching in front of the class, which was how we were taught at that time, I got off the mat and I walked into the middle of the room where everyone was practicing. It all started to flow out of me, all of it – all the information that was in my head. Once the attention was off of me personally, I became a part of the experience, and that’s when I became a teacher. I felt the energy of the room shift in me, I could feel their bodies, and their bodies responding to the tone of my voice, to my passion, to my rhythm … if my voice dropped their voice dropped, if my energy went up their energy went up. I remember teaching in that moment and thinking, “I’m going to be a teacher.” I didn’t know that I would be a good teacher, but I knew that I was going to teach.
I remember what one of my first teachers had said to me, he said “A yoga teacher is someone so filled with yoga that it overflows,” … and I had that experience in that moment, it overflowed. Even though I didn’t have the skills at that time to be able to articulate myself the way I wanted to, I got a glimpse that if I just studied really hard, if I did all the practical work behind the scenes and developed my confidence, then if I’m in the embodied experience that information will be in my body … It would be in my cells, as it’s always been there, that it would come through. But it would require confidence for me to access, and for me confidence required skill, so that’s why I did five teacher trainings back to back.
The first one I retained maybe 2%, the second one 20% … by the time I got to my fifth one I felt really confident in how to sequence, how to approach alignment, all those things I felt much more confident with; it just took me a really long time. And so from there, because I worked behind the desk at Yoga Works, I was the person other teachers would call and say “Hey, I’m not coming in today. I have a dentist appointment, can you find me a sub?” and I’d say “Sure!” and I would cross out their name and put mine in. I started subbing everyone’s class, I was the go-to girl for subbing. I subbed Mommy and Me … I subbed Children 5-8 (which you know was a disaster!) … I did every class I could to get in the room to find what kind of yoga, what kind of environment I really connected to, and if the students responded to me.
By January 1st, I was on the schedule. But, even though I got on the schedule, I was still taking my teachers trainings behind the scenes – so simultaneously teaching, subbing classes, doing my training, and hustling. I taught whenever I could and I didn’t think about it in terms of career, but I look back at it now and realize I was a professional from the beginning; meaning that once I had a set schedule, I didn’t move it around. Even if I had what you might consider “crappy time slots” – let’s say 2 o’clock in the afternoon – it didn’t matter. I knew that if people at that hour knew they were going to get their 2 o’clock yoga, that I was going to be there … that they didn’t have to call … that they weren’t going to drive all the way to the studio only to find out that someone else was subbing for me … then I would be able to book that class; and I was right about that.
It didn’t matter what time slot I had, I had to be pretty much hospitalized to miss a class, and that went on for years. You just could count on me; and I always showed up on time. I didn’t show up disheveled, with holes in my leggings, sand on my feet, you know still half-stoned from afternoon lunch … I really showed up and was ready to go.
And I stayed after class for a really long time to talk to my students. Building relationships with my students wasn’t strategic, it’s just my nature, and it made people feel really welcome, like they had a community. I also remember at that time knowing how important it was to remember people’s names. Working behind the desk, I remember people would walk in and I’d say things like, “Hey Stacy, how are you doing?” and I could just see in their eyes how pleased they were to be acknowledged, to be known somewhere. For whatever reason I remembered names really well and I could connect names to faces. When I would see someone I would remember certain details they had mentioned to me, even if it was months before … something about their mother, something about a shoulder … and I would say, “How’s your mom doing?” It wasn’t contrived, it was just my nature – connecting to people – and that trickled through in my classes. Still to this day, if someone outside of the yoga community remembers me and I haven’t seen them in awhile, that means something. I feel like they really took the time to get to know me, that they were present in that moment. And that presence is really what it’s about, and so with that presence my career started to evolve very quickly.
I worked behind the desk for probably another year/year and a half. I still would teach classes and then go run behind the desk at work, because I was so afraid that the yoga teachings weren’t going to work out. I always kept one desk shift just in case. It was finally Maty who fired me, saying that it was time for me to let it go. I said, “What if it doesn’t work?!” And she said, “If it doesn’t work I promise you will always have a job behind the desk at Yoga Works.” And so I remember getting fired from being a receptionist and how scary it was that I was acknowledging that I am a full time yoga teacher now, and that was a responsibility, but also a real blessing.
My career happened very fast, and it’s not because I was a great teacher – it’s because of timing, of circumstances. 1994 was a year when Power Yoga and Vinyasa Yoga became very popular here in Los Angeles to a more mainstream group of people who normally didn’t come into the yoga studio. They were the people going to the gym, and suddenly the people going to the gym were the people going to Power Yoga. At the time, there were not that many people in Los Angeles teaching it, and I was one of them. Teachers at that time suddenly saw their Power Yoga classes get much busier than all other yoga classes, in extremes. I’m not just talking 5 more people, I’m talking 40 more people than every other kind of class; and that’s really when the shift happened, where it became more main stream.
So people like me were getting packed classes, but it wasn’t because of our skill; it was because of our timing. And the ones that really stepped up, that really rose to the top, were the ones that were able to manage the room; meeting the intensity of those personalities coming into the room while simultaneously staying committed to their own studies and being consistent.
During that time as yoga became more mainstream, it also became more commercialized. It was being done in a way that we in the United States had never really seen before, and I was positioned very well to be in some ways “head hunted” or “scouted” by the media to represent yoga … which was good, but also problematic.
And so I started getting a lot of media attention only four months out of my teachers training. I was on the Today Show in ‘95, did my first cover in ’99, and then did a campaign for Nike following that. For the first time the media and corporations like Nike were acknowledging yoga on the same line as any other really intense sport. I was in a commercial with Mia Hamm and Lance Armstrong at the time, and all these other world class athletes, in an ad that was shown during the Super Bowl. That was the first time that had ever happened, and I was really positioned to be a part of that. Again, it’s not because I was a good teacher, what it really had to do with was that I was marketable – I was something that the mainstream media could consume, could market to. As white, thin, and flexible I fit into a standardization that is, in our culture, considered an ideal; although it doesn’t represent the communities of yoga in any capacity, and certainly doesn’t represent the ideal yoga body, which of course is way more diverse.
So that really helped elevate my career very, very, fast – faster than a lot of my friends, even though a lot of them were better yoga teachers than I was, they just weren’t getting the opportunities. That all happened very early on, before the year 2000; it was a sink or swim time for me. I knew it was one thing to be a popular teacher, but I knew for longevity I had to be a good teacher, and that was what I did behind the scenes. I remained very grateful for the opportunities, but my brain – and I think this comes from my blue collar ethics – kept saying, “You better work! You know, you need to deserve this!” … I knew it would be a flash in the pan if I didn’t do everything in my power to make sure that the amount of trust and authority I’d been given in a practice that at that time I really knew very little about was earned. And I’m still doing everything in my power to earn that privilege, that’s why I work as tirelessly as I do today.
- Based on your experience, what would you tell other women who are in the midst of trying to “find” a career path aligned with their hearts? How would you say you seek and move towards something as concrete as a job, while staying open to what may “find you” along the way?
You know it’s a great question, and I’m not 100% sure how to answer it. Because in many ways I often feel that the fact that I’ve been able to follow my heart, the fact that I’ve been able to be so committed to this particular art, is a real privilege. Even though I came from a blue collar family, I also knew I had the kind of family that if shit hit the fan, I was never going to starve. I think that having that knowing in the back of your mind, that privilege alone gives you some more freedom to follow your dreams. I didn’t have any children – I don’t have any children – and my responsibilities were really on myself.
I’m very aware that there’s a lot of people in this world who, because of certain circumstances, might have some compromises they have to make in their own lives. So I want to be sensitive about how I approach this, just in terms of recognizing there are people whose purpose is to survive, and the survival of themselves and their family is priority. I recognize that being able to follow your dreams in the capacity I have is a privilege.
So anyone that’s reading this, you have to first be in gratitude that you get to pursue this life. Also, if I went into this thinking I was going to be on the covers of magazines or thinking that I was going to make a lot of money, I don’t think that’s right; that’s not the healthiest reason to go towards this. Odds are, especially teaching yoga, most of the people aren’t going to make much money. Most people are not going to become what they call a “celebrity yoga teacher.” They’re going to hustle teaching 12 classes a week – 12 privates a week if you’re lucky – just to make enough money to pay the rent.
So it’s difficult, but if you’re in your purpose you have to trust that there is abundance in the universe. If you are 100% committed to putting your energy out there, I do believe that the universe does respond – because everything is energy, and the energy comes back at you. This includes limiting beliefs, so if there’s any unconscious limiting beliefs that you haven’t identified, those can be sabotaging one’s own success. It’s a matter of digging deep, of looking at the mental belief, of looking at the shadow self … looking at the ways in which we sabotage our own success … looking at what success means to a person, at what one values; these are the things that are really important.
Just because I make a good living at this doesn’t mean that’s how I define success at all. I’m grateful for it – I think it’s amazing – but it’s not how I affirm that I’m doing a good job. I know I’ve done a good job when I look at the faces at the end of a class, and listen to their response. The way I feel in my body after I’ve taught … if I feel that I’ve served God’s will, that I’ve been completely present to the environment in which I’ve been asked to serve, and that I gave my entire heart to the process … then I know that I’m in alignment to my purpose, and to me that’s what success feels like.
So I think someone really needs to look at what success means to them. What does it look like to be in a career that is clearly different from a job? Are they doing it because they want external validation? Meaning if they have more money, they have a better title, will they be more lovable, will they be more adored? And if that’s the reason they’re doing it, where is that coming from, and how much money can fill that void? So these are some of the shadows in what a career might mean, that someone would really have to look at – that I certainly look at it.
Especially as I became successful, I really started asking myself if this was all taken away tomorrow … if all of a sudden I wasn’t getting the magazine covers, I wasn’t being interviewed, if no one was showing up in my class … would I still wake up in the morning and teach? Would I still be serving what I think is my purpose in this world? And for me the answer is yes, but I’ve had to do much soul-searching over the years to make sure that I stay really present to that.
Also when one does become more successful, they get a lot more validation from the world and that can really feed your ego and make you feel good. I’ve had to look at that and really look beyond the hype, thinking, “What does that mean?” … And then that would have to become the shadow. That’s what would have to be taken away, because that limited belief is actually the thing blocking me from my purpose. So I go into all of the shadows in my own life when I have to look at success, career, purpose. I think, “What are my shadow beliefs, what are my limited beliefs, and how is that impacting choices that I make and what motivates these choices?”
- In your own life, how did the transition from yoga teacher to yoga teacher/activist occur? What can you tell other women about how to bring activism into their careers?
Well, I’ve always been involved in issues related to social justice ever since I was young, especially when I moved to New York City. I’ve always focused on what was fair and what was right, but that lived kind of separate – I had my activism in one world, and my yoga classes in another. As I got more successful in the yoga community, and with it more financially successful, I started to really think about abundance. My first thought was, well, abundance is energy. When abundance comes in, just like energy, if you want it to continue you have to put that abundance or energy outward, otherwise you will stop the flow.
I wasn’t interested in stopping the flow so I started to get more involved in service, and volunteering my time to serving other kinds of populations where I knew that there was trauma. This is the first time I started to see the intersection between my yoga practice and service, from working in environments where there’s humanity, where there’s conflict, and having to witness myself in conflict. In the past, in my activism, I would’ve been rampant, that’s how you’re taught as an activist – you know you’re aggressive, confrontational. Suddenly I looked and realized immediately that if I went in that direction, I was going to create more conflict, more separation. And it started to dawn on me that is not yoga. So then what do I do?
So then conflict would arise and I’d freeze. I’d feel all the sensations in my body and I would take it to the mat. And then I’d go into these environments of trauma and I’d realize that sometimes I would get traumatized, sometimes not even realizing it. I thought, “Oh that’s why I would burn out – that person said or did something or made me feel ashamed, guilty, angry, scared … and if my body wasn’t processing it and I was staying stuck, it would really start to shut down.”
I also started realizing that the people I was working with were also being triggered by me. And I’d think, “Well, what am I doing? I’m just coming in there to help.” And then I thought, well you know that’s interesting: help …Who am I helping? What’s my intention behind this helping? What will it even look like, what will they look like, what kind of historical references am I bringing into this space? Am I re-traumatizing them? And then I started to see there is a huge connection between my yoga practice and the way in which I respond to other people who are different from me – who have different values, different ideas, different ethnicities, different sexualities, different genders. That if I wasn’t acknowledging the differences, then I really couldn’t help to heal some of the unconscious, invisible rifts that might be fixed between us.
And the ownership is on me – to make sure I’m recognizing this, since I’m the one putting myself in this position. In some ways, it’s a power. So I really started thinking about power and privilege, and I got uncomfortable. Thinking about all of that made me very uncomfortable in my body; made me feel ashamed, guilty. And I thought, “Wow, how long has that lived in my body and where did I learn that from?” It made me think, what’s not investigated, what’s making me uncomfortable? And through my own process, I started to realize that it would infiltrate itself into my classes a lot.
So then I started to get a bit more self-organized, I started teaching classes in spiritual activism. I think the real shift came the moment I realized I had a platform. It was a crossroad, sometime around 2003 or 2004. It was after my campaign with Nike and when I was doing my first DVD’s where I realized I was starting to get a lot of attention. At this point I had been on the cover of over 10 magazines, which was unprecedented for a yoga teacher at that time. So I realized I had this platform. I remember being photographed by a very iconic photographer who did a lot of the covers for Rolling Stone Magazine, who was doing the covers of my DVD’s, and thinking “Wow! This is so much attention on one little person, when I’m really not that interesting.” … But I said to myself, the things that I believe in are.
I remember I worked this through even with a therapist at the time because the shadow was so clear to me, that one way or another I was going to be a very successful, recognized yoga teacher. I got that sense and I thought, I can either make it about myself or I can work really hard to re-direct the attention off of me to use this as a platform. To use the attention properly, and put it into places that I think are way more interesting and way more important.
And thus Off the Mat, Into the World was born, and I’m very proud of the yoga community and people’s response to it. Over the years Off the Mat became a leadership training program, to bridge the gap between yoga and social justice, a means of transformation through work and activism. It also became an activist organization in its own right – raising over 4.5 million dollars, with projects in 8 different countries, the US included. We use the money to help fund projects by partnering with local organizations who are on the ground doing really intense work in a culture that they know way more about than we do. And we’ve helped people launch a bunch of other nonprofits as a result of the training.
I think we’ve inspired yogis to really recognize the platform that they have, and the outreach they have in their own community. And that to me is the real yoga – about connections, relationships, and reaching out. We have to look at what’s happening in our own backyard and heal some of the separation that it actually creates when there’s conflict in the world. Again, yoga means to come together and make whole. So that’s really why, and how, Off the Mat evolved, and how my interest in yoga and service and activism all came together. It was pretty organic, there wasn’t too much thought behind it … it just kind of all started happening synergistically. And thankfully I had the privilege to actually make a difference because of the authority I have in the yoga community.
- You’ve said that often when you serve others, you find that you are the one getting served. Your organization Off The Mat Into The World is a great example of this, designed for both personal and collective transformation. Can you elaborate on how activism and service is just as much a benefit to ourselves as it is to others?
You know, people often respond to me about my selfless service. I’ve been hearing that for years, and I never understood it. Because in my experience, every time I’ve had the privilege to walk into an environment and hold space for another human being and to be present to their experience – to witness it and to in some capacity, support them, engage with them, learn more about them – I have gotten so much more emotionally and spiritually, so much more education, fulfillment, awareness, and empathy, than I could possibly have gotten had I not been in that engagement.
It wouldn’t have happened had they not allowed me the insight into their experience. And for my own personal emotional spiritual evolution, it very much has been dependent upon the experiences – they served me. They have held a mirror up to the best part of my nature and to the worst part of my nature. I’ve experienced my prejudices, my biases, my assumptions … and it’s only through recognizing those aspects that I’ve been able to work towards transcending them. And they’ve given me the gift of that; I don’t take that for granted.
And so for me there’s nothing I’ve done in my service that’s selfless, I’ve always known in my soul how much I’m getting back. It just doesn’t look the same way – they may be getting something for their survival of their physical body, but what they’ve given me is survival of my soul, and I don’t take that for granted.
- You recently announced, “My new Times Square Billboard is right above where I got my first fake ID at age 14!”, and I had to say it made me laugh out loud. What I appreciate most about you, and what I think most women can relate to, is your humility and humanity. You’re not trying to preach to anyone or pretend you’re perfect, and you’re not afraid to be your authentic self (sense of humor included!). What can you tell other women about bringing this attitude to life and career?
I can only say for myself that it has become necessary for me. When someone becomes successful there tends to be a lot of projection and in many ways it’s very de-humanizing to an individual. It’s like, “How do I live up to a projection?” … Especially a projection I don’t want or I’m not interested in. And then when I do mess up – and I will mess up because I’m human – the fall is huge, and I’m not particularly interested in that fall.
So for me, I name the shadow from the beginning. I make jokes at my own expense. I can tend to be a little self-deprecating, but I also know where I’m really talented. I know where you’re not going to throw me off my game, and I can pull both my light and my shadow with no apologies. I’ll make jokes about myself, but I’m also going to celebrate me in other areas. So I hold both, and I’m hopeful that the more honest I am about my humanity the more space it gives other people, who are paying attention to what I do, to be themselves. To be in their experience, to trust their process, to not buy into the hype, to honor their humanity – their light, their shadow; to pull from the human experience that both need to be understood, nuanced, and embraced.
If I want to take ownership for my light then I have to be in relationship with my shadow – and that’s yoga. If I deny my shadow, then I’m going to deny my light because everything is relationship and has an interdependency. So I have to look at my arrogance, my ego, my shame, my guilt … all that stuff. I have to look at all of it, breathe into it, feel it as sensation, see my attachment to it; the impact that that sensation has on the choices I make. Only then, when those feelings come up, can I just take a deep breath.
So acknowledging that about the fake ID is no big deal to me; that was just funny when I looked where the billboard was. I remembered the building, and that was where for me in the early 80’s – I only grew up a half hour out of Manhattan – I spent a lot of time. That was where you got your fake ID’s, and I recalled myself getting wasted and just how full circle everything seemed. But I don’t look back at that with any shame … that moment brought me to this moment, having this conversation with you, therefore I’m grateful. If I want to be grateful for this moment, I also have to be grateful for that one. Because it was the drugs and alcohol that got me to the mat, the mat that got me to LA, LA that got me to that job at Yoga Works, that job at Yoga Works that got me into my teacher’s training, and my teacher’s training that gave me the opportunity to talk about social justice … and on and on and on.
So I think other people should feel the same way: celebrate their experiences, take ownership of their story, make amends when you do mess up, recognize the shame and different emotions that come up and process them. Use the tools that hopefully people know exist – yoga, meditation, prayer, diet, sleep, therapy; those are my six non-negotiables. I know that if they’re off, I will be off. When I’m off, I’m aggressive, I’m sarcastic, I’m critical, I’m hyper vigilant, and I’m judgmental – and it will all feel justified in my body. And that’s when I create more harm than good. So I have to make sure that I do my yoga, so that when those sensations arise I know how to stay in my body, take a breath, stay in my center, and make a healthier choice.
- Yoga is described as the unity between mind, body, and spirit. However, in the western world’s interpretation of yoga, spirit seems to be a gray area that is often under-emphasized and sometimes left out altogether. From your experience, why is spirit an important part of the equation that we shouldn’t ignore, in both yoga and life?
For me it’s what I serve, it’s the essence of love that is beyond the physical body. And when you strip us away of our humanity, it’s the vibration that all souls share when we’re in our highest evolution. I think that spirituality is a little tricky for people because of an association they may have with it based on their upbringing, which can be very alienating and dogmatic. When people think of God and spirit, sometimes they can go back to some of the dogma they were raised in and it doesn’t feel like home to them anymore. Some people don’t, but some people do, and they reject the notion of God because of how it lands in their body at this time.
For me, God is just that which is within that is truth and love. As far as I’m concerned, you could be an atheist on this path and still have a very strong spiritual practice if you practice truth and love. I’ve met many religious people who claim to be spiritualists who treat people with such disrespect and such disregard for their own humanity that to me, there’s nothing holy about that. I’ve also seen people who are devotedly atheist, who do not believe in God, and yet all their actions in the world are so grounded in compassion, thoughtfulness, and non-judgment … that’s holy; that to me is what spirituality is all about.
I’m not a religious person myself, I’m not a big fan of a lot of these dogmas that tend to say one practice is better than or that God would love or respect one particular kind of person more so than another. That doesn’t even make any sense to me on a personal level, let alone a spiritual and practical level. It’s just so out of context to everything I’ve heard about God, so wrong, I’m not really interested in aligning with that notion of God.
When I’m opening myself to spirituality I’m opening myself to the highest aspect of who I already am. Being in a spiritual relationship is not something that we have to create, it’s something that we awaken to. Because to seek spirit means that we are looking outside of ourselves, when really it’s within. When we awaken to it, we see that our capacity for this love is our humanity, and it is the shadow parts of ourselves that disconnect us from the planet and from each other – then we’re able to understand the attachment we have to that energy.
Because everything is energy: love is an energy, truth is an energy … but so is rage, so is guilt, so is shame. When we’re addicted to those energies because of familiarity, we stay stuck and repressed. When we suppress that energy it creates tension. When we practice yoga, we release the tension. That’s why often during yoga people become so emotional. But what we also see in the practice of yoga is that when people become more vulnerable, more open, they begin to connect to something in themselves. They have that moment where they remember who they are, where they feel more open, more available, and more present. They glimpse into their authentic nature – love.
To me, it’s the elimination of the tension that gives us space for that recognition. Spirituality in the form of truth and love is something that dwells within each soul, and when we’re able to let go of the trauma and confront some of the tension, we’re able to access those parts within ourselves so that we can engage in the world in a way that is of God, that is of spirit, that is of love, through our compassion and our sensitivity.