Always A Student

 

I swore after I had finished my graduate studies that that was it.  No more.  No more studying, homework or spending the weekend at the library writing and researching.  At that point I had been a student on and off for 30 some years.  Enough already.

 

Or so I thought.  When I moved from Australia back to the USA and started growing my personal training business, I came across a course in aromatherapy.  The brochure and course looked so appealing, lovely scents, healing properties and blending of essential oils seemed so attractive.  I signed up and for the next year or so delved into the studies.  Sitting the exam was much tougher than I had anticipated but I passed and that was that...the end to my life as a student.

 

When we moved from the Bay Area, leaving the personal training clientele behind, and arrived in the desert my interest in learning how to become a yoga teacher blossomed.  It took about two years to complete the first phase of a 200 hour teacher training.  And I thought, there you go...that was that.

 

The next wave of student inspiration came following wrist surgery and having intensive hand therapy for three months.  I remembered how much I enjoyed the therapeutic aspect of healing and my awareness was brought to a yoga therapy training course, another 300 hours over a summer intensive.  Two weeks on, five weeks off, another two weeks.  And that was that...

 

Or so I thought.  What I have finally surrendered to is that I will always be a student.  Swadhaya is one of the niyamas within the yoga sutras of Patanjali.  Nischala Joy Devi translates it as "Sacred study of the Divine through scripture, nature, and introspection (Swadhaya) guides us to the Supreme Self". (p. 219 in The Secret Power of Yoga).

 

Being a perpetual student is part of living your life from a yogic perspective.  I obviously have always welcomed the opportunity to learn, to embrace the role of student.  From this place I can more fully embrace the role of teacher.  And in the role of teacher I am once again a student as what I learn from that perspective continually challenges me with the question of "What's next?  What else do I need to learn more about?"

 

And as I am spending this weekend studying with my teacher, Judith Hanson Lasater, I will once again grab my notebook and sit with the intention of soaking it all up.  Enough already?  I guess not.