nathalie shushan

There was an opening ceremony on the first night of our yoga teacher training at Lakshmi Rising, nestled in the jungle between two rivers on Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula. It gave us each an opportunity to introduce ourselves and learn about the people we would come to know intimately over the next three weeks. We sat in a circle, cross-legged and upright, and were invited to declare our intentions, first on paper and then aloud. I sat and wrote for ten straight minutes, pen never leaving the page, arm sore gripping to get down all of the things I hoped to find before time ran out. I had intentions. I knew what they were. Still, third in line to share, when the time came to introduce myself and announce them, I froze. I closed my eyes while I inhaled to gather my courage, and said the only thing I could think that was true: “Hi, I’m Nathalie. I’m working on a book about my experience of bridging the disconnect I’ve felt between my mind and my body.” Every person that came before and after vulnerably described their journeys, expressed their hopes and fears. I listened intently, moved by their stories, and occasionally wondered how I thought I could describe my reason for being here in one sentence that hardly touched on what I hoped to get out of this experience and didn’t explain at all how I found myself here. For all of my willingness to bare my bones on this blog, the idea of opening myself up to a group of sweet and interested strangers intimidated me – but I have no questions about how I got here. I can easily track the markers on my journey from the very first time I stepped on a mat.

If you would have asked me ten years ago whether I expected to learn how to be a yoga teacher, the answer would have been a quick and definitive no. My only aspirations were to embrace the challenge and peace that the mat offered me, my reprieve from the mental activity that consumed me. It was one of the few places that I truly was able to be present. I wanted to protect my safest space from burden and responsibility. And since it took me eight of those years to touch my toes, the barrier of entry to become a yoga teacher felt too high. Since I broke my shoulder, my body no longer made the shapes I thought of when I imagined yoga teachers (or yoga students, for that matter). My downward dog was clumsy and crooked. Years later, when I was in India shortly after my most recent shoulder injury, my yoga practice was reborn. My time on the mat became about accepting my body as it is today, each day, which was devastating long before it became empowering. My focus necessarily shifted toward the philosophy and history and all of the ways it can be put into daily practice. I was energized by the influx of information I received. When I left India, nurturing my body back to health was paramount. The challenges I faced in my asana practice manifested in a desperate need to learn about the details of my bones and the safest way to move them.

So I am here to repair my relationship with my body, to regain my own trust. I want to root down deeply in myself so I can hear my intuition clearly and connect to my sensuality. I need to learn how to feel the difference between discomfort that should be leaned into and pain that should be avoided so I can alleviate my body of its fear. I want to heal my back and my shoulders. I just want to be comfortable and unafraid in downward dog. I need to learn what I’m capable of, to find the boundaries that I drew when I didn’t believe in myself and push past them. I want to build physical strength with compassion, not asking that I be in a body that no longer belongs to me. I am drawing a line in this jungle mud to remind myself that I am here (and figure out where here is for myself in real time). I am not starting from scratch; I have spent twelve years on and off the mat (and intermittently dreaming of the mat when I couldn’t physically make it there). I want to recognize my progress and my healing so I can continue to cultivate a safe space in my body. I am compelled to deepen my understanding of yogic philosophy, of its history, so I can interrogate who it serves, who profits from it and how we can honor its origins with sincerity. I want to be in space with like-minded people who are looking to grow and expand in the same ways I am. I hope to find clarity on where to go next.

And if, in the end, this becomes an avenue through which I am able to be in service to the world, I welcome that with arms as wide as they’ll go.