I asked Dawn for some sessions when I knew a time of transition was coming. I was leaving my second yoga teacher training that lasted 6 months. Having been through intensive experiences of great growth before, I knew that going back into the world cold-turkey without the safety-net of a community of reinforcement to go back to every week would be difficult. I went to Dawn hoping she could help me ease the transition and help me create ways to apply all I had learned into some kind of forward moving application. I was terrified of reverting back to old habits or that I would not be enough without the connections I had made during my training. I was full of self-doubt whether I wanted to admit it or not. (And who wants to admit they have self-doubt after going through a second yoga teacher training!?) 

 

What I didn't realize is that I was looking for someone; a mentor, a teacher, a role model, to tell me how to carry myself into my own life.  

 

I had been looking for this mystical someone for most of my life.

 

I refused to believe that this powerful teacher and person was me.  

 

Before my sessions with Dawn, I had put myself into many aggressive training programs with aggressive leaders/teachers. Hoping to kind of shock-therapy myself into believing in myself. Because if I put myself into enough scary situations and in front of enough ‘intimidating’ people, I’ll wake up, right?!  This approach does work for some, but it wasn’t for me.  Because I was stepping into those arenas with the intentions of hurting myself.  Punishing myself into healing. Beating myself up until I loved myself. I know exactly how it sounds, I’m writing it.

 

It was very clear from the beginning, I was going to have the opposite approach from Dawn and she was not going to feed my habit of self-punishment. Her approach was so different than what I was use to that it almost felt like I was doing nothing, but I was doing everything. Literally everything. Dawn was not going to tell me how to do anything or how to create any of the things I wanted. 

 

Dawn’s tools and strengths are gentleness, patience, and sharing. She listened versus told.  She shared vs. projecting. She offered vs. prescribing. I was not given a structure, or a plan, or a list of invasive questions, books to read, or tons of homework, instead I was asked to create all of it on my own. Our first session began with the question:  “How do you want to start this session?”  Usually you have a therapist or a teacher saying: “We’ll start with”…or “I thought that we would start with” - making it about their style or their way.  These sessions were immediately discovering that I already knew.  

 

As I created, I wavered in and out of honesty and self-acceptance.  I crafted new bullshit and walls.  Dawn watched me pick up the bricks or dodge the light.  She didn’t try to fix or explain her observations.  She shared what she heard with no judgement or possibilities of outcomes. She bounced me right back into my own arms for the remedy. 

 

In a way, Dawn did nothing and I mean that in the most therapeutic sense. She did not ask me to trust her, make her promises, or even make commitments. I was not saved or rescued.  I was not judged or coddled.  I was not scolded or cheerlead.  I was watched with gentleness and compassion. Dawn stepped into the mess with me, she did not sit above me or below me.  She did not perform that she knew what to do or that she had anything figured out. When she did do something, she did it to herself. The most effective choice she made as a coach was treating herself with love and compassion in front of me while she felt her own mess.  

 

Your sessions will be nothing like mine.  Your sessions will be your own because you will create them. It takes courage, compassion, and patience to let someone create their own way versus show them a way or hurry them along a way. 

 

Since our sessions, I’ve been letting myself move gently in the world, without desperation for growth or change. I’m letting myself move towards what I want and not what anyone else thinks I should want. Everyday, I’m getting better and better at checking-in with the love I have for myself versus the opinions and hopes of the rest of the world. I know what’s best for me because I love me.  Life will still have its storms, but it will also have its sunrises and sunsets. And at both of those rising and setting suns, I will be there with myself.

Brittany (Nashville, TN)