Yoga teachers-
Please stop making me hug total strangers. I know you want to cultivate community in your classes and that is a beautiful thing. But for me, I feel forced into hugging people I don’t have a connection with. It feels like forced intimacy. And I feel like shit for feeling that way, and that’s not why I came to the yoga class in the first place.
I know sometimes you want to “get students out of their comfort zone”, and I get it. The path of yoga can be very uncomfortable as we confront different aspects of ourselves that maybe we didn’t know were there, and parts perhaps we don’t like. A lot of people who come to yoga are looking for healing of some sort. To “feel better.” And dare I say, it’s not my job to make you feel better, that’s not even the job of yoga. The idea of “feeling good” is fleeting, just like every other emotion in the body. The purpose of yoga is to connect with the subtle pranic energy in the body and use it wisely. I can’t do that if I’m in my head judging myself and hating every single minute of the group hug.
I see so many pictures all over social media of big group hugs from yoga classes and all I can do is cringe. I have never liked the idea of sweaty group hugs. It doesn’t instill the idea of community to me at all. In fact, it brings up a lot of tension in my body. It makes me feel pressured to do it. It makes me feel shitty and ashamed that I don’t want to. For so long, I kept thinking something was wrong with me as these beautiful yoga teachers were encouraging us to go and hug a stranger and worse, to have a group hug.
My thoughts went like this, “what is wrong with you Erica? You are so cold! How could you not want to hug these people! The yoga teacher is enlightened, they know what’s best! You should want to hug them!” Then, reluctantly, I would it. Hating it, and hating myself.
I don’t know these people, and that doesn’t mean I won’t want to get to know some of them, but the best way to get to know someone isn’t necessarily a hug. How do we know the individuals in the room and the traumas they may have experienced? Are there people in the room who are coming out of abusive relationships? Who have been attacked on the streets by a total stranger? Or maybe there are more like me, who just flat out don’t want to participate in you big group hug and now instead of going into or ending my yoga practice with a feeling of being able to better sense the pranic energy in my body, I am frustrated and beating myself up for not wanting to participate and also for actually participating in something I felt forced to participate in.
As a yoga teacher, it’s not my job to force students to like other people. It’s not my job to rip someone out of their comfort zone and force them into a zone that I determine to be a “good type of uncomfortable.” It’s not my job to make someone else feel uncomfortable, and honestly, we don’t know the different ranges of comfort and triggers of other people. Just coming to a yoga class was far beyond my comfort zone at one point in life. Things have changed and I have to figure out my own way to get out of my comfort zone, and I don’t like doing that on someone else’s watch just because they told me to.
Thich Nhat Hanh says that things will manifest as soon as their ready. We can’t force something to manifest, it will happen on it’s own, when the time is right. Community will manifest when it’s ready. People getting to know one another will manifest as soon as they’re ready and guess what? Hugs are personal and will manifest whenever they’re ready, too. No need to force them.
My job as a yoga teacher is to hold space for you. I teach the principles of yoga, we do some breath work and postures, and you get what you need from the class, not what I feel you need. If I am forcing my beliefs on you, that’s my ego, and that’s not fair to you. I see the fine line I walk as a teacher and I try not to force anything on anyone.
I don’t mind, however, a teacher encouraging us to say hi to someone we don’t know. That’s a great way to encourage community, and without the threat of having to hug someone I may find creepy, or they’re perfectly lovely, but I don’t feel comfortable embracing them. I do love walking into classes to teach where all the students are talking and know each other. I love seeing students connect, but its not my job to force that.
This isn’t to poo poo on the teachers who do this. I know their hearts are in the right place. I know they mean well, it’s just to give a different perspective on it. And if I am ever in your yoga class and you see me not participate in the group hug, please understand it’s not personal to you, its my personal preference not to. And if you feel the same way as me, know that that’s ok too.