The Transformative Space of Yoga Teacher Training

Transformation
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"Do you really want to be a yoga teacher?" 

"When are you going to find the time to teach yoga...aren't you busy enough already?" 

"Why did you sign up for this teacher training?"

Just a few of the questions that have been asked by others and by myself as I complete my first month of Authentic Yoga Teacher Training at Exhale with Julie Boyd and Cheryl Oliver. All have been heavily considered.


I am really enjoying the book, Yoga and the Quest for the New Self, by Stephen Cope, and wanted to share a passage that resonated with me and reminds me of my Yoga Teacher Training.  It is not about the outcome of this journey that drew me to it...it is the process. A process in which I have wholeheartedly immersed myself, willing to let go of expectations and open to receive. 

"When any of us gets ready to "hatch out"into the next developmental expression of self, we begin looking for cocoons that will help us through the rebirth process. I like to call these cocoons transformational spaces--environments made up of webs of special kinds of relationships, safety, freedom and challenge. We intuitively search for these spaces at those times in life when we're attempting to align with an internal developments thrust. At these times of growth we seek out "training environments"--schools, college, the army, a mentor, a spiritual community.The transformational spaces we choose have certain qualities that are essential to the work of development. Without them, we cannot truly find ourselves.

Effective transformational spaces create the conditions for our growth and make our growth all but inevitable. Once we find them and commit to them, transformations pretty much a 'done deal' ."

I realized that I have chosen, in yoga and in my teacher training, a tradition that had in abundance of the qualities of a mature transformative space: powerful teachers and mentors, the constancy of thousands of years of teachings, effective practices and techniques, inspirational scriptures and texts, and the comfort and companionship of a community of practitioners. Powerful stuff.