I don’t get frustrated when my kids interrupt my meditation. I should preface this with it having nothing to do with me being shrouded with patience (I’m not), or “always calm”, as most strangers (incorrectly) assume when they hear I teach yoga.

Looking back, I was just sh#t scared with no clue how to work with my fear.

I’d transfer feeling scared into getting angry and sure, I put up a good fight, but none of these behaviours set me up well later on in life.

Teacher dependency, it’s a thing amongst many students and teachers as we try to live the life of a seeker. It’s no surprise, especially for those of us who have experienced some sort of awakening or transformation through the practice of yoga.

But what happens when this dependency leads us to seek outside of ourselves, believing that the only way our yogic journey can go on, whether that’s teaching or practising, is under the guidance of another whom we place above ourselves?

Is anyone is truly capable of getting older without fear?

I recently celebrated 45 and up until now, I’ve been pretty relaxed about the idea of ageing. Rather than interfering with the changes that work alongside with gravity, I’ve been winging the young-at-heart attitude.

But ageing feels different this year, and it’s not just appearance related concerns shaking things up. It’s a shift in mojo.

The normalcy of the term pandemic has been troubling me lately.

The fear we’ve been carrying is revealing itself in ways beyond feeling scared. Grief, anger, defensive, exhaustion, instability and more.

Adam Grant wrote about some of these emotional impacts in The New York Times recently, looking at specifically at languishing.

“Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield. And it might be the dominant emotion of 2021”, Grant writes.

Anyone else relate here?