I believe our generation has become adept at gorilla warfare cloaked in lululemon bag cliche’s.
I recently had a negative interaction with someone in my community. Although I hoped to communicate face to face, this person chose email.
What bothered me most about this interaction was not so much the biting emails or our disagreement, but the signature “Blessings to you”.
Has this expression become the modern day passive aggressive fuck you, or a way to feel superior with a pat on the head, you poor thing response?
I’m finding that oftentimes, my generation’s twist on spirituality is just a new way to passive aggressively strike and attempt to clear karma. We Om together in yoga class, bow our heads in Namaste, and then gossip in the locker room about whose breasts are new.
Sadly I’ve found that yoga studios are no different than the corporate boardrooms from which I escaped years ago. Politics, ranking of power and sabotaging gossip still prevail despite the holistic Zen atmosphere. At least in corporate America we were dressed in our suit armor rather than half naked in corpse pose.
Have we learned to talk the talk but not to walk the walk? We’re often namanasty instead of namaste putting on a pious personae at the front of our classrooms and the top of our mats while harboring judgments of fellow students and teachers.
Will judgments, politics and gossip stop in the yoga world? Not likely. We’re all human. But as one limb of yoga Satya teaches, let’s be truthful.
As the generation before taught us, if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all, especially not sticky sweet spiritual euphemisms that aren’t authentic.
xo
Image courtesy of lululemon.
Yes, there is some intrigue that goes on in yoga studios behind the scene and I felt kind of shocked when I became privy to them. In one studio, all the teachers left in one month. I got the vibe that the owner was freaking out financially and was cutting what the teacher were getting paid.
“Blessings to you”…;)
Recently, about the time I turned 50 years old, I adopted a principle to stop dealing with people for whom, when I think of them or look at them, I see question marks over their heads. Trusting in and relying on individuals that can’t be genuine, are manipulative (for whatever childhood traumatic experiences) or subversive, deceptive and can’t appreciate authenticity coming their way, is foolish and way too challenging to try to overcome. To them I say, “Intercourse you!”
[…] Are Blessings to You the New F*ck You?. This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. […]
The last yoga class I attended featured an instructor who was trying to”help” an older, slightly overweight woman do a headstand. (This was beginning yoga.) When the woman wasn’t able to do the pose, the instructor said: “With your dumpy little body, I am not surprised.” When the class expressed their dismay, she exclaimed: “She does have a dumpy little body and she knows it better than anyone else.” Needless to say, I left the class and have not returned. I do yoga via dvd instead.
Oh God, that made my stomach tighten. Seriously?
That class reminds me much too much of a studio I left and will never return. Although the teacher did not make an issue of it (what was she on … truth serum?!), still, from time to time there were looks and mutters under the breath about my certain ability with postures.
All I can say is, “Blessings to them!”
It is very difficult for me to understand why someone would ever say something so terrible–especially in a yoga class!
Nancy, I hope that experience will not keep you out of all yoga studios for the rest of your life! We all have our own yoga horror stories– I had to leave my first class because the teacher just kept pushing us to do the full poses, rather than listen to our bodies. And now I’m a teacher. I just had to find the right supportive atmosphere for me.
Also: headstand? In a beginner’s class?! Very strange.