Q: I am a yoga teacher on the East Coast & have been teaching for 6 years. Last week, I found out a young student in one of my gym classes died (suicide, 2 weeks ago). He had been attending this class fairly regularly for the past 2+ years. The class is small, but it is not the type of environment where the students have developed close relationships with one another. They show up, practice & leave (it’s an evening class). We would have a few minutes before class to sit & wait for the earlier class to finish, but that’s the extent of any interaction that I’m aware of taking place.
I am struggling with whether or not I say anything to the group or let it go. He occasionally attended the class with a young woman, who it seemed he knew from outside of class, but I'm not sure how.
Any words of wisdom would be appreciated!
A: Firstly, let me express my sadness at your loss. Although I have not lost any students to suicide, I have had students who died suddenly, and found I was impacted by the loss more than I would have anticipated. Then, of course, there are two questions that seem to arise: Do I share this with the rest of the class? And, from a teaching perspective, how do I cultivate community in settings where it does not yet exist in a very tangible form?
I don’t think there is right answer to the first question, as many variables might influence the decision to tell the group of the death of a fellow student. But I, too, teach in a gym setting twice a week and have done so for almost 10 years now. I sometimes feel a lack of community there as well, although in reality, I have some students who regularly attend these classes, some for many years. Remembering this encourages me to speak with this group in the same way I do my studio students where community is perhaps more obvious. And every time I do share some difficult or personal information that has some relevance to our work together, I am invariably delighted with the feedback that I receive, and the interactions amongst the students that ensue. So, if you’d like a greater sense of community, situations like this and many others are perfect ways to get students connecting in ways beyond just their asana, pranayama and meditation practices.
One of my favorite sutras, which I have probably alluded to before, but which has some relevance here, is 1.33, where Patanjali gives some of the only guidance in his collection of sutras about how to behave and interact with one another.
1.33. By cultivating friendliness towards happiness and compassion towards misery, gladness towards virtue and indifference towards vice, the mind becomes pure.
Here Patanjali suggests practicing compassion, karuna, when encountering suffering (misery in this translation), dukha. How one applies that, he does not say, but the reality of this loss to suicide, shared and discussed openly, may have the beneficial effect of making all of your students feel more connected, less lonely, and perhaps could conceivably prevent another such loss. All the best to you, your students and all of our readers this holiday season!
—Baxter
Showing posts with label community. Show all posts
Showing posts with label community. Show all posts
Friday, December 21, 2012
Monday, October 29, 2012
What Really Helps Foster Healthy Aging?
by Nina
As some of you may have noticed, the Sunday New York Times Magazine had an major article on aging with the rather overly dramatic title The Island Where People Forget to Die about the island of Greek island Ikaria. A study at the University of Athens concluded that:
“people on Ikaria were, in fact, reaching the age of 90 at two and a half times the rate Americans do. (Ikarian men in particular are nearly four times as likely as their American counterparts to reach 90, often in better health.) But more than that, they were also living about 8 to 10 years longer before succumbing to cancers and cardiovascular disease, and they suffered less depression and about a quarter the rate of dementia. Almost half of Americans 85 and older show signs of Alzheimer’s. (The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that dementia cost Americans some $200 billion in 2012.) On Ikaria, however, people have been managing to stay sharp to the end.”
As usual with studies of long-lived communities, it was impossible to identify a single factor that was responsible for the long and healthy lives of the individuals within it. As the New York Times article says:
"If you pay careful attention to the way Ikarians have lived their lives, it appears that a dozen subtly powerful, mutually enhancing and pervasive factors are at work. It’s easy to get enough rest if no one else wakes up early and the village goes dead during afternoon naptime. It helps that the cheapest, most accessible foods are also the most healthful — and that your ancestors have spent centuries developing ways to make them taste good. It’s hard to get through the day in Ikaria without walking up 20 hills. You’re not likely to ever feel the existential pain of not belonging or even the simple stress of arriving late. Your community makes sure you’ll always have something to eat, but peer pressure will get you to contribute something too. You’re going to grow a garden, because that’s what your parents did, and that’s what your neighbors are doing. You’re less likely to be a victim of crime because everyone at once is a busybody and feels as if he’s being watched. At day’s end, you’ll share a cup of the seasonal herbal tea with your neighbor because that’s what he’s serving. Several glasses of wine may follow the tea, but you’ll drink them in the company of good friends. On Sunday, you’ll attend church, and you’ll fast before Orthodox feast days. Even if you’re antisocial, you’ll never be entirely alone. Your neighbors will cajole you out of your house for the village festival to eat your portion of goat meat."
In fact, if you leave out the rather sensationalist aspects of the story (the man who was cured of cancer just by returning to the island, a tale which may or may not be true), the main conclusion of the author had to do with community.
"The big aha for me, having studied populations of the long-lived for nearly a decade, is how the factors that encourage longevity reinforce one another over the long term. For people to adopt a healthful lifestyle, I have become convinced, they need to live in an ecosystem, so to speak, that makes it possible. As soon as you take culture, belonging, purpose or religion out of the picture, the foundation for long healthy lives collapses. The power of such an environment lies in the mutually reinforcing relationships among lots of small nudges and default choices. There’s no silver bullet to keep death and the diseases of old age at bay. If there’s anything close to a secret, it’s silver buckshot."
So, what, if anything, does this have to do with yoga? Well, did you know that all of us here at Yoga for Healthy Aging, even those of us who teach, take regular yoga classes? And we certainly do not attend these classes because we don’t know enough to practice on our own home. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we do it for two other main reasons. The first reason is for the wisdom we continue to receive from our teachers, which helps keep our home practice inspired. But the second reason has more to do with the other people in the class than with the teacher: we want to stay connected to the yoga community. Being part of the yoga community is like belonging to a small “ecosystem” within our larger culture. Practicing with other people helps us stay steadfast in the healthy choices we have made, whether that is a having regular asana or meditation practice or even making career, family or other life decisions that we believe will be better for us.
So, thank you, thank you, thank you to all my fellow students in my regular class (you know who you are!). And, dear readers, I hope you, too, find the same sense of community in your yoga class. And if you don’t feel supported and encouraged in your current class, I urge you to get out there and look for one where you do.
 |
| Leaves Starting to Turn by Brad Gibson |
“people on Ikaria were, in fact, reaching the age of 90 at two and a half times the rate Americans do. (Ikarian men in particular are nearly four times as likely as their American counterparts to reach 90, often in better health.) But more than that, they were also living about 8 to 10 years longer before succumbing to cancers and cardiovascular disease, and they suffered less depression and about a quarter the rate of dementia. Almost half of Americans 85 and older show signs of Alzheimer’s. (The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that dementia cost Americans some $200 billion in 2012.) On Ikaria, however, people have been managing to stay sharp to the end.”
As usual with studies of long-lived communities, it was impossible to identify a single factor that was responsible for the long and healthy lives of the individuals within it. As the New York Times article says:
"If you pay careful attention to the way Ikarians have lived their lives, it appears that a dozen subtly powerful, mutually enhancing and pervasive factors are at work. It’s easy to get enough rest if no one else wakes up early and the village goes dead during afternoon naptime. It helps that the cheapest, most accessible foods are also the most healthful — and that your ancestors have spent centuries developing ways to make them taste good. It’s hard to get through the day in Ikaria without walking up 20 hills. You’re not likely to ever feel the existential pain of not belonging or even the simple stress of arriving late. Your community makes sure you’ll always have something to eat, but peer pressure will get you to contribute something too. You’re going to grow a garden, because that’s what your parents did, and that’s what your neighbors are doing. You’re less likely to be a victim of crime because everyone at once is a busybody and feels as if he’s being watched. At day’s end, you’ll share a cup of the seasonal herbal tea with your neighbor because that’s what he’s serving. Several glasses of wine may follow the tea, but you’ll drink them in the company of good friends. On Sunday, you’ll attend church, and you’ll fast before Orthodox feast days. Even if you’re antisocial, you’ll never be entirely alone. Your neighbors will cajole you out of your house for the village festival to eat your portion of goat meat."
In fact, if you leave out the rather sensationalist aspects of the story (the man who was cured of cancer just by returning to the island, a tale which may or may not be true), the main conclusion of the author had to do with community.
"The big aha for me, having studied populations of the long-lived for nearly a decade, is how the factors that encourage longevity reinforce one another over the long term. For people to adopt a healthful lifestyle, I have become convinced, they need to live in an ecosystem, so to speak, that makes it possible. As soon as you take culture, belonging, purpose or religion out of the picture, the foundation for long healthy lives collapses. The power of such an environment lies in the mutually reinforcing relationships among lots of small nudges and default choices. There’s no silver bullet to keep death and the diseases of old age at bay. If there’s anything close to a secret, it’s silver buckshot."
So, what, if anything, does this have to do with yoga? Well, did you know that all of us here at Yoga for Healthy Aging, even those of us who teach, take regular yoga classes? And we certainly do not attend these classes because we don’t know enough to practice on our own home. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we do it for two other main reasons. The first reason is for the wisdom we continue to receive from our teachers, which helps keep our home practice inspired. But the second reason has more to do with the other people in the class than with the teacher: we want to stay connected to the yoga community. Being part of the yoga community is like belonging to a small “ecosystem” within our larger culture. Practicing with other people helps us stay steadfast in the healthy choices we have made, whether that is a having regular asana or meditation practice or even making career, family or other life decisions that we believe will be better for us.
So, thank you, thank you, thank you to all my fellow students in my regular class (you know who you are!). And, dear readers, I hope you, too, find the same sense of community in your yoga class. And if you don’t feel supported and encouraged in your current class, I urge you to get out there and look for one where you do.
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