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One of the most liberating times of my life has come, a yoga community that I used to be a part of has been exposed. Before I get to the exposé part, let me start from the beginning. My consistent yoga practice started when I was 20 at a donation-based yoga studio near NYU where a friend took me. At the time, I had broken off an engagement to an older Italian man who had abusive tendencies towards me. Looking back, I can connect the dots because they often say that until we fully heal from abusive situations, we will replace one for the other.
Although I was in therapy too, there was something about that yoga studio that was magical and I wanted to be a part of it forever. I began to practice yoga almost everyday there and was so grateful. I loved it so much that when they opened their other location, I went and tried hot yoga for the first ever in my life. I felt renewed. A lot of my internal transformation came from this place and because of that, I felt a sense of debt and gratitude.
In 2012, I decided to go back to school to become a school teacher and I expressed this to a yoga teacher of mine. He replied, ‘Why not teach yoga? People act like kids in the hot room.’ After thinking about it and calculating, I decided to do it, I put down my money to become a yoga teacher and felt like my life was about to change. Little did I know how much it would change.
It’s been 7 years since I taught my first yoga class and it seems like forever ago that I graduated and became a yoga teacher but some of the pain still remains. I went through a manipulative training that used mind control tactics to depreciate my self-worth as a human-being so that once I started teaching, I would put up with anything and it worked. When I started teaching, I was broken and lost. As a result, I took a break from teaching because I felt like I was being a hypocrite. How could I preach wellness when I was the opposite. I was clearly unwell.
Here are 4 things I wish I knew before I joined an abusive yoga community:
1. Those who abuse you know what they are doing more than you might realize.
I was a 24 year-old New Yorker when I signed up for this training. And, just like most New Yorkers, I hated being told what to do. I thought I knew it all and was not interested in humbling myself. I was going to be a yoga teacher at all costs and no one could stop me. From the day of orientation till graduation, everything felt off. The only thing that felt genuine were the connections that I made with my peers, some are still my closest friends after all these years.
One incident that stood out to me was when I had to co-teach with a male teacher after I had revealed my issues with men in an inner circle during the training. The male teacher degraded me and told me I did a terrible job and was not fit to be a teacher. I am all for truth being spoken and am willing to work on what I need to but he didn’t tell me what I could work on; he just wrote me off. My intuition told me that he had been told to make me feel uncomfortable about teaching so that I would not be able to teach right away after graduation and that I would need to work for it.
With this in mind, I asked other graduates if their co-teaching experience went well and most told me that similar situations had occurred to them. I understood clearly that this was to manipulate us into group thinking and silencing one another.
2. It’s not in your mind.
During my almost ten years of practicing and teaching for that studio, I would notice some odd behavior. But I would brush it off and put it in the ‘I am crazy, it didn’t happen’ category. Even though I knew I wasn’t crazy. Something that was very prevalent in that community and in most yoga is/was sexual harassment. I was targeted by the same teacher who had suggested that I become a teacher. I thought he saw something in me and we could have a mentor/student relationship until he put his hand down my bra during a class and was disappointed that he saw me as a piece of meat. I also understood that he needed healing and that I should stay away from him as much as possible after I told him to stay away from me.
I would notice this particular teacher treating women differently and intentionally targeting us during class but I thought it was in my mind. Once I accepted what was going on, I was aware of the truth and inner-workings of this yoga studio. It was heartbreaking but I had to accept it to heal from it.
3. Take care of yourself.
Proof of loyalty to them was being overworked and always ‘happy’ about what was going on at the studio; whether we actually were or not was irrelevant. After teaching for them on-and-off for 3 years, I decided to leave because I was so exhausted and I actually ended up moving to Los Angeles.
My first month in Los Angeles, I had memories of being there and how happy I was to begin with and then how I was emotionally abused as a teacher and apprentice. The pain was so overwhelming but I had to sit with it. I felt myself recreating what had happened and victimizing myself. It was challenging but what got me through is the light side of being in that community: being able to teach, the friends, the lessons and the transformation that occurred. Dealing with that community taught me that if happiness requires self-sacrifice, it is not worth it because the two cannot co-exist in wellness.
4. Abusive situations highlight what we need to work on.
Just like most of us, I grew up in a conditional love atmosphere. If I did what was expected of me, I would be loved. If I didn’t, I would be ignored and unloved- this is emotional abuse. I have been healing from this dynamic for the past few years and noticed a trend as I began my healing process, I kept recreating the cycle of abuse that I had encountered as a child. Scenarios of silence, secrets and weaponization to ‘keep me in my place’.
I did so with jobs, relationships and friendships until I freed myself of my subconscious conditioning and accepting that I am worthy of health and kindness. In basic psychology, the idea of recreating scenarios that leave us vulnerable in order to heal them is a very real one because ultimately, we want to heal. I learned clearly that my healing was not going to take place if I kept lying to myself and being amongst/ in communities that silence me, manipulate me and use my weaknesses against me. Nothing good will come if I surround myself amongst people who want to break me because I am not meant to be broken; I am meant to be whole.
If you are experiencing abuse or harassment, please seek professional help.
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