Monday Motivation from Yoga PhD: Put Yourself Out There!!!!!

When I first started my doctoral program, I was super lost! I am pursuing my PhD in Teaching and Teacher Education and minor in Education Policy. Because I am pursuing PhD and not an EdD, it requires a different level of thinking. I had never taken an philosophy course, or statistics course in my life! I began to doubt my abilities and my purpose of changing the arena of education for students of color. I knew that I was supposed to be in a doctoral program, but the only way that I was going to survive was to build relationships with people to develop skills that I lacked in, and further develop my strengths. This seems like a no-brainer right, but it was a bit intimidating being the only Black person in classes advocating for students of color that didn't reflect a deficit paradigm. (This is a different subject for another post.)

The act of building relationships was also transferred to my yoga practice. I wanted to learn more complex inversions in yoga, so I closely followed BendiBobbi (Instragram/Facebook) and asked her questions, or followed her videos. I remember the first time she ever posted an inversion, and I thought to myself, "I can do that." But I was nervous to post my video, so I sent it to her in a direct message. Here is the video I sent to her. 

I was very unstable, and nervous to put myself out there. But this is kind of how it works. When it comes to building relationships, some times you have to just put yourself out there. I have definitely put myself out there when it comes to my yoga journey and doctoral program. I have reached out to all types of yogi's on Instagram that I learn facets of the yoga practice from. I have also been honored to sit at the tables with gurus in education and evaluation all around the world. Look at what @BendiBobbi taught me; Fallen Angel Pose. I struggle with forearm stands of any kind, but when I reached out to her she assisted me. 

BendiBobbi #FallenAngel 

YogaPhD #FallenAngel 

Don't underestimate the relationships that you can build, when you just put yourself out there! I hope I can inspire you to start your yoga journey and put yourself out there! Be great on purpose.