Is it okay for a yoga teacher to have surgery?
Recently I had knee surgery. For a torn medial meniscus. The injury originally happened almost a year ago. A little bit too much of a twist and POP!!
I did my best to be careful, not to exacerbate the injury, to allow time to heal. But it got worse. The knee continued to lock up, each time closer to the previous episode, each time worse. I knew it wasn’t going to get better and against much advice I resisted surgery.
Because of yoga. Or some ideas about yoga that I’d noticed, but thought I’d rejected. I guess they had got a grip after all. So many in social media rave about yoga’s ability to heal. So many articles in yoga publications talked about yoga curing this, that, and the other. I had a teacher who believes yoga cured her of cancer.
Part of the Western concept of yoga is that it makes us better. Physically, mentally or emotionally, yoga will pinpoint our weakness and turn them into strengths. Working on the assumption we are not good enough the way we are, the purpose of yoga has become to make ourselves better in any and all ways. Have you noticed almost all the yogafamous include in their story how yoga unlocked their agonised spine, cured their addictions, swept them from suicidal depression to overflowing joy?
I realise now, I’d unwittingly bought into that. Gotten this idea that being a yoga teacher meant I had to model myself as invulnerable. That “healed by yoga” was a necessary attribute for a teacher. I needed to be a shining example that belief, prana, meditation and asana would fix everything. That as a practitioner of yoga my body would rejuvenate rather than deteriorate. There was a sense of embarrassment and shame that yoga had not cured me.
It had got to the point of believing myself a great big yoga failure if I couldn’t heal this injury. Just look at all the #yogaheals and #yogahealing posts on Instagram to see how widespread, how deeply entrenched and integral to the idea of ‘modern yoga’ this curative notion has become. One might even think that it’s not yoga if it doesn’t solve some sort of problem. How dare I be a yoga teacher with an uncured body? Wasn’t I doing it properly? If only I tried harder, or meditated with more focus, or really and truly ‘connected’, if I just breathed it away.
Surely students wanted to come to a teacher who could heal themselves, and who could possibly levitate on the occasional Saturday.
But then I remembered another post I’d seen. It said “Yoga IS NOT Medicine.” And remembered I believe that to be true. Yoga is wonderful, incredible, fantastic. Yoga has a multitude of benefits and has enriched my life in ways innumerable, but it cannot heal a torn meniscus. Surgery can.
Already I’m walking without the limp endured for the past month. I’ll be back teaching this week and practicing next month. I’m remembering to discard the tinsel-wrapped idea of yoga as a magical, unicorn-riding, cure-all and knowing that it’s okay to have skepticism of those who try to sell yoga as snake oil, good for whatever ails ye.
Yoga is enough for the good it does do. It doesn’t need to do more. It may not replace surgery, it shouldn’t replace common sense. How foolish I’d been. To push Ahimsa and Satya aside for some ridiculous Oprah-esque story of self made salvation. What a noodle. What ego.
There’s many stories of teachers injuring themselves in one way or the other, trying to get to this pose or that, because they want to be a good example of a yoga teacher. Dialogues internal and external sow seeds of doubt. “No handstand? You’re not a real teacher if you can’t handstand” or “Call yourself a yoga teacher and you can’t put your foot behind your head? Pfffft.” “You’ve got the flu? With all that yoga you do?” or “That knee still isn’t better?” or even stuff like; “You ate YOGHURT??” All dangerous ideas, all highly contagious.
Maybe I’m not the only teacher out there holding myself, my body and my yoga practice to unrealistic standards. My teachers don’t need to be bulletproof, or superhuman, or godlike gurus. Just humans. Just people willing to share a part of this ancient wisdom. Who believe that yoga is enough. The belief that a yoga teacher must embody perfection is surely just a path to disillusionment. It was for me.
The outpouring of kindness, support, care and love from everyone at the yoga studio, teachers and students alike, when I finally told them that I’d be away from class for a bit while I had surgery made me realise that they know I’m not bulletproof - and don’t expect me to be. This was the best lesson of all. Thank you.