A letter to my yoga teacher - Abirami Nachammai
Dear Ramya,
When I reached out to you in June of last year, it's fair to say my life was chaotic at its best. I had just graduated in the middle of a pandemic; I had no clue where I was going to be a month from then and all the voices and opinions of others that I had internalized over the years had created a strong sense of distrust within myself - of my own identity, of my own judgment, of my own body and my own capabilities.
In my first yoga class, I reluctantly placed my yoga mat and expected it to turn out to be another failed attempt to feel comfortable in my own body and mind. But to my own surprise, the mere act of breathing and moving from one pose to another was immediately pacifying. I spent so many hours in the past few months bound by paralyzing anxiety that it was such a relief to experience peace, even if it was only temporary.
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Your voice was strangely familiar and asked such simple things from me, to trust myself, to maintain balance, to engage my core, and most importantly to know my limits because chances are they will be different from the person next to me.
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"This freedom from having to be a certain way invoked a feeling of calmness when I was on my mat and for that alone, I kept showing up time and again. And every time I showed up, I found balance far beyond that which my body control allows."
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Yoga balances my entire being in ways that put me back together and pulls me from a life of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Contentment has started becoming an inside job that isn’t so dependent on societal validation and pressures. Instead, it solely depends on me being present and focusing my attention on things in front of me and nothing else.
You always emphasize yoga requires a lot of kindness – a willingness to be gentle with myself and react with compassion to my body. There will always be a deeper variation of the pose that I am in, some far-off goal to strive for, but knowing where I am today and accepting that demonstrates a kind of self-love that I don’t often give myself. Knowing that kindness and love might just come down to gentle, non-judging acceptance of who we are and who we are not, makes it so easy for me to extend that compassion towards who others are and who they are not, and allowing it all to be right and okay either way.
You also push me outside of my comfort zone and make me learn something new about myself each time I show up at the mat. It has become a daily opportunity to strengthen my understanding of myself and the world around me while at the same time recognizing I will never have a full understanding of either. In this way, yoga teaches me to value the journey – the process of the work – over any outcome or result both on and off the mat.
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"As I deepened my pranayama and meditation practices, I realized that every day we each do something that’s entirely and irrefutably authentic: breathe."
After all, there are few things as truly authentic to each of us as our breathing – we do it day in and day out, without ever giving much notice to it or questioning whether we’re doing it correctly. Just being mindful of this fact has been so instrumental in me learning to embrace my own authenticity as an architect, a daughter, a sister, a partner, and a friend.
But the most magical thing that I might have learnt in the last year is gratitude. I’ve never experienced something that forces me to slow down and take note of what is happening around me and inside me like yoga. In spending an hour a day consciously paying attention to the simple act of breathing, I allow myself to experience a sense of awe at how these bodies of ours work so effortlessly without asking anything of us. In spending an hour a day consciously paying attention to what my body is able to tolerate, I allow myself to resonate with how strong and resilient humans really are.
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"And when I roll up my mat and face the day, I find myself more able to stop and appreciate the world outside and the myriad of possibilities it lends us each day."
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As I continue working with you on the mat, I am also learning to respond to negativity calmly and never react to it in the spur of the moment. I am slowly shedding my inhibitions, understanding how to balance my energies, exploring my creative identity, setting myself up to feel joy in everything that I do and also be a happier and kinder person. You continue teaching me every day that there is always room to do better and be better and for that and everything else I am forever grateful.
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I look forward to hearing your cheerful guiding voice every day and can't wait for the day when I can practice with you in person.
As you always say, I am loving you and everyone in those tiny zoom windows so much,
- Abi
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P.S. Dear readers, yoga has been one of the truest quantum shifts of my life, and I truly wish you find yours or are on your way to finding it, whatever it is. I read somewhere that when you’re on your head you’re in the only position that puts your heart over your head. Love over logic. Who couldn’t benefit from leaping without looking and listening more often to your heart? Don’t talk yourself out of trying; be prepared to not get it right. Keep in mind that you’re not preparing to fail. You’re preparing to do it wrong until you can do it right.