Feeling Silenced + Yoga is Dead

It's with continual disbelief and newfound certainty that I type this to you. It's been over a year since the podcast Yoga is Dead came out and I'm still experiencing the aftermath through emails, interviews, articles, and events. Don't get me wrong, all the support, press, and feedback has been wonderful, mostly. But there have been moments in the last 15 or so months that gave me pause and sometimes concern. Like when I was called racist for doing this work, or when I was accused of talking the talk but not walking the walk. Yeah, those moments started off as maddening and confusing and gave me homework. Let me explain.

When I received negative feedback on speaking up I decided to do what previously came unnaturally to me, I decided to show up yet again. In the past, I may have slunk back or walked home. Even Michelle Obama shares an experience in her book Becoming, when a young male classmate punched her in the face while standing in line at school, unprompted. Her response? To walk home with tears in her eyes, feeling ashamed, and share the experience with her closest loved ones. She didn't fight back or defend herself in that moment. She had her reasons I'm sure and in her life's work since, she's shown how capable she is of taking a hit or two and come back swinging, in a very classy, elegant way. You know what she says, "When they go low, we go high", and I'm reminded of how humxn we are all in the ways we grow up.

But still I've been questioned about my responses when faced with injustice and discrimination. Because unlike what the overall podcast message itself conveys, there were times when I, like Michelle, walked home dumbfounded, confused, and ultimately defenseless. And it took the better part of my life, to process these experiences and distill the lessons learned into palatable podcast form.

Our first episode took many people by surprise and not just for the bold title of White Women Killed Yoga. The response even took me, the co-author, by total shock and surprise. It was recieved with majority positive reviews, several 1-star reviews (that's how you know you've made it), and an onslaught of emails. The emails were interesting because people wrote us with their yoga life stories sharing intimate and private details, some sent sarcastic hate messages, and then there were a few that struck me by the sheer audacity of the tone. One person applauded our efforts and then quite brashly asked us, "Why didn't you just leave the training session if you felt so offended"? This was such an interesting question because we felt our actions were backed by several obvious-to-anybody reasons. But then we began to really talk, like Jesal and I tend to do and we ended up writing an entire blog article about the Why. Here's an excerpt:

"A lifetime of not being “Indian enough” or “American enough” instilled in us that sitting silently and keeping our head down was the path to success. It taught us how to live in constant inquiry about our own identity. Perhaps that’s why we both quit corporate jobs to pursue yoga as a career."​

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this article. Read in full on the Accessible Yoga Conference blog: http://accessibleyoga.blogspot.com/2019/08/speak-up-and-yoga-two-indian-americans.html​

(content edited for outdated schedule)

xx,

Tejal

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