267 - Bringing Spirituality to Movement Classes

How do we integrate spirituality into movement-focused classes like yoga? And how do we do that in ways that are authentic? And what does spirituality even mean? 

Today I share some ways I approach these questions, and how I combine a practice of paying attention off the mat with storytelling, to create moments of connection to self and spirit during class. 

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The music for this episode is Threads by The Light Meeting.
Produced by: Grey Tanner

Transcript

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (00:01.056)
Welcome to the podcast my loves. Today I want to bring you...

the topic of spirituality and how to bring this idea of spirituality into a movement focused flow and how to bring it into a class in a way that feels authentic and that it gives community more than just a workout. And I want to say that I'm okay with if a class is just a workout and that if the yoga you're teaching or the yoga you're taking right now is currently

feeling the need of moving your body as a workout because I am, I'm cool with that. And I'm cool with a class that is highly philosophical and story-driven and themed. I'm cool with that. And as somebody who really loves teaching creative sequencing and as somebody who teaches to a peak flow and I create circular flows that do not include

any sense salutations. And that is a different thing in the yoga world and the way that I do it and the way that I get people there is different. And there is a lot of movement directions. There's a lot of queuing for how to help people understand where to put their bodies and a big understanding of the order of operations for how to say things and understanding pace and tone and the language you use and the patience you bring and the

the joy and the humor you bring to the class too, to help people do new things with their bodies. It's a whole thing. And I deeply believe that all of us need to have an understanding or an embracing and an embracing of our spirituality. And how do we bring themes and story into our classes, even if they are highly movement focused?

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (02:05.548)
And where do you strike that balance? And oftentimes I get this question from teachers saying, how do I, how do I bring spirituality into my classes? And I use the word storytelling. Like what story are you going to tell? And I want to share with you a couple ideas of how I approach this. And so if you are somebody who feels really comfortable saying like, okay, I can stick with the movement. I don't know what to do from here to bring.

more story and spirituality and philosophy and theme to my class? How do I do that? So if that's your question, this podcast is for you. Now, first off, do I, Bonnie, have all the answers? No. Do I, Bonnie, do it the same way every single class? No. Am I, Bonnie, still learning how to do things? Yes. So I will share what I have to give you.

and you will know that I continue to find myself in my own teaching journey. And that the way also that I defined things might be different than the way that you define things. And I think mostly that this is about a deeper connection to yourself.

and figuring out how to speak in the room and show up as you without apologizing for it, without feeling like you have to prove anything.

and making space for your own permission in a way that is big enough to hold other people's permission of their own definitions and being and self and exploration in the world.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (03:55.31)
So when I think about all this, think one of the phrases as I was sitting with a couple of notes before I started this podcast, the phrase, let your life all the way in was a phrase that I thought. I think it is that. To let it all the way in and to not hide it. Now this doesn't mean that.

where you don't have boundaries and you don't have things that you do or don't talk about or share or whatever. But I think first of all, you have to let your life in with yourself. So I'm to speak a little philosophically for like self awareness and a self journey, because ultimately how you stand up in front of the room and how you share and how you tell stories and how you invite other people to examine what spirituality means to them has to be led by you first.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (04:55.214)
So for this moment, I feel like it's important to define for you what I think of as my spirituality. And in my journey of what is spirituality to me and what I was born into, the culture I was born into, to now, I have gone through a lot of changes and understanding self. And I know that my growing up and being an adult in and participating in

a highly religious culture has helped shape me. I cannot escape that, right? So there's parts of me that are undeniably have been affected because of how I've grown up. yoga has, it like came into my life in a really important time when I was in my own faith transition from the Mormon church. And it's part of my own yoga story that yoga helped me define spirituality bigger than the religion that I was part of.

where I thought that the religion that I was a part of owned my spirituality in a way. Like this is what being spiritual was, was to believe X, Y, and Z, was to participate in these ABC things, was to show up in the world in this way, right? And then I found yoga and showed up in my power yoga class and the small ways that teachers talk.

talked about gratitude, talked about community, talked about self-awareness, talked about listening to yourself, talked about letting, like, it's gonna be okay, talked about the discomfort and letting yourself sit in it, talked about, like, this experience of letting things be hard but also letting them be easy, finding that effort and that ease, finding what you're standing for in your body. I remember one class where a teacher was like,

We were standing in some posture, whatever standing posture we were in, like more upright, like a Tadasana or a tree pose or who knows what. And I remember saying the phrase, what do you stand for? And in my childhood, there was a phrase that automatically came to my brain that was a, I'm not gonna say a rote, but a common phrase of like we stand for, and then there was always a phrase we said afterward for church times. And in that moment, when she said that,

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (07:18.508)
all of a sudden I got to look at myself and inside and say, this is automatically what came when I thought I stand for, but is that what I stand for? And where the things that we say as teachers, we do not have to try to be prophetic. We do not have to try to initiate a ton of change or like think that we're changing the world with what we say. I remember that teacher, I talked to her like, I don't know if it was right after or later, like we became close friends.

and I told her how that moment impacted me and she had no idea. She couldn't have guessed what that meant. And I think as teachers sometimes we say things that we don't expect to be profound. But that's part of trusting the practice. That's part of why it's worth it just to show up in the room and be the best, do the best that you can and let it be enough and know that it's not up to you as the teacher to give everything to your student.

that they are there and are an active participant with the practice. And really the practice being to move, move your body, because that's gonna shift things, to breathe, be with your breath, and to not be talking. And it's such an internal experience. Everybody's having such an internal experience in that room. If you could see all the thoughts popping off in people's brains as you're teaching, right, it would be a very full room. So we gotta move, we gotta breathe. We're gonna be with ourselves.

and we're gonna find rest. And in all of that, we're gonna find growth. And the growth is gonna look different from person to person and class to class. And to me, when I found yoga, I was able to look at my definition of spirituality. I listened to the podcast On Being, and I would totally recommend that if you have a desire to dive deeper into spirituality and what it means and what it can mean for a lot of different people on being, O-N-B-E-I-N-G. Really, it's a fantastic podcast.

But it really was through listening to that podcast that I came to this definition for myself, spirituality being, for me, my connection to myself, my connection to others, and my connection to the world around me, including the unknown parts. The parts where you can feel the energy in a room, the parts where you can tell when somebody is one of your people and you meet them, you're like, we have a journey. We are connected in some way, right?

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (09:40.948)
and includes the natural world, like the world around us. That this is spirituality to me is these connection pieces. It's the way we connect. It's the way I connect with me. And so how do we bring this to a yoga room? How do we bring it when we're terrified and we can't even remember lefts and rights and how do we structure it all in a way that makes sense and...

if we're so highly focused on creative sequencing and teaching, really feeling like people are gonna walk out of the room learning something new from us and really having to use a lot of words to teach that, but really using clear, concise, commanding, compassionate words is what I teach in flow school. How also do we weave in story? And is it possible to have a brain game sort of class?

and to bring a spiritual aspect to it. And to me again, the spiritual being, this connection to self, others, to the world around me, including natural world and the unknown.

So a couple ideas for you. This is really all about the practice of paying attention, which is why we're here on Yoga Strong with this idea that yoga is the practice of paying attention. Now it's paying attention on the mat and it's paying attention to the movement and paying attention to how we connect poses and what's happening in the pose and how are we breathing. So there's like the physical paying attention, but when it comes to storytelling.

And I love using the word storytelling because stories, I mean, you talk to any business, what sells? Stories. How do you, how do people like learn to trust you in relationships? You're telling each other stories. How do kids learn something? Stories, songs are stories, right? All the things. So stories are inbred in us. Both audible stories from mouth to mouth, reading stories, listening to stories. So we're telling stories.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (11:44.818)
And there's something about that too, when you're like, okay, story time. And as a mom, three kids, I mean, even the other night, my two younger kids are 17 and 13 right now. And the other night they were getting ready for bed. I was like, okay, y'all like go get ready for bed, brush, potty, jam. That's what I say, brush, go to the bathroom, potty, jam. Get your pajamas on, brush, potty, jam. And grab me a children's book.

and then they came and they sat in my bed and I read them a children's book. And they're like, okay, story time, right? And to sit there and be read to is something different. So I wanna offer you to have a story time in your class and to offer it at the beginning. There may or may not be some sprinkling of words throughout and then bookend it with some sort of callback to the beginning. And it does not have to be difficult and it does not have to be long.

If you're there for an hour long class, then it's time to get moving. It's time to really drop in and get going. So this is not about talking for a long time. This is about saying something though, that one, you have processed. You're not there to have them emotionally hold you. And two, that can relate to the practice. That can relate to actual physical movement and can help them guide and help guide the students into some reflection.

So what I mean by this is this is about the practice of paying attention off the mat as a teacher.

The idea being that you are paying attention to your life and when you feel those pings of something, right? Are we going about in life blind to the feeling of the life? Are we going about life not paying attention to the conversations around us? How are our children interacting with us? What did we learn from our dog? What did that diagnosis from your mom just teach you about being really alive?

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (13:44.472)
What did you see on your way to the yoga studio that made your heart hurt or filled your heart with joy? What's a lesson that you learned from overhearing a conversation at the coffee shop the other day? What's something from your practice that you found? And perhaps it is a word, perhaps it is a phrase, perhaps it is a need or a desire. What's the lesson that you've been learning in this season of life? And how can it pertain

to movement.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (14:18.668)
So that's maybe it doesn't feel very specific. So let's get into more specifics, okay?

I would invite you to make a note in your phone, to make a folder and you can make individual notes in that folder and you can call it the practice of paying attention off the mat. And anytime you get this ping, you notice and you're paying attention off the mat in your actual real life, you can write something down. I'll give you an example from a conversation I had just

a couple of ago. One of the people that I mentor, I mentor a handful of people who are connected to yoga in some way. Some of them are yoga teachers and building business. Some of them are studio owners. If you're interested in mentorship, you can reach out. just, I only will take a couple of people and I have a handful right now, but if there's anybody who it's, they're like, if you're like, OMG, I need that today. Right? So it's personal. It's

the business, it's teaching yoga, it's sequencing. We get to personalize that. So just putting that out there. But I was talking to this person and we were talking about storytelling, that's something that they're really interested in. And we were talking about this and she told me about how she was going to the studio the other day. And as she went, that she saw a car that had totally flipped and was very smashed on the side of the road and looked like it just happened.

And there was a person standing on the side of the road and she pulled over and she pulled up and talked to this person says, are you okay? And they said, yes. They're like, is anybody not okay? And the person said, it's just me. I'm okay. She's like, okay. And then there was help coming. So she left and she shared how she felt really overwhelmed because she was expecting by the look of it for some people to have died.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (16:23.418)
And when she got to the studio then began this class, she thought, she told people, she's like, on the way to the studio, I saw this car and it looked like it was gonna be fatal. And I talked to this person and it wasn't, it was, just is this whole experience in me. And I just am feeling so grateful to be here right now.

And I, as I listened to her talk about this and how it felt in that room when she shared this and how everybody was like, yeah, right. How grateful we are to be here right now. And that she was paying attention enough to her experience in her real life and brought a story from real life into the room. Not something where she was trying to like emotionally dump on her students, but to say, how lucky are we that we get to be here?

and how lucky are we that we get to move on our mats. And so then the invitation gets to be to share a story like this and it takes literally like a minute or two. You don't have to talk for very long and say, with this idea of gratitude to be here, right here, right now, fill yourself up with this gratitude, move with this gratitude, be right here, right now. How lucky are we to be right here, right now?

And maybe the phrase throughout class is right here, right now. And maybe the end of class after everybody has moved and you've guided them through the sequence and then they're ending and they're seated and you're like, wherever you go from here today, thank you for being here, right here, right now. And wherever you go, I hope you're really there too because I don't know. I don't know when things are gonna change for us. We know that an end is coming for us all, but we're lucky to be here right now.

and to bring a story into class like this,

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (18:23.598)
Here's another one. I was making crust for quiche and I've been playing with some crust recipes. And so perhaps I would walk into class and be like, hey y'all, welcome to class. I've been making crust for quiche because I love quiche so much.

And when I work with Keesh, it's a little bit different than bread dough, but there's something about it. You know, when that dough is really squishy and really malleable and it's warm.

I want you to imagine yourself as soft dough. I want you to picture that in your head. And you know, as I've had my hands working in this dough and then rolling it out and it can be shaped in so many different ways, I want us to approach this practice today and be soft dough. How does that feel in your body to drop any sort of rigidness?

So release the tension to be like, yeah, now I'm gonna sway this way and sway that. So as we move through practice, as we go through our funky transitions and play today on our mats, imagine yourself as soft dough and let yourself be carried from one place to the other as you need yourself, right? As you play with your shape and play with the shape of you. And so maybe it's an invitation like that, okay?

Okay, let's go to another one, another idea. Perhaps you step in a room and you say, welcome to class, y'all. Have you ever, or maybe you say, okay, wait, I'm gonna start this way. Say welcome to class. Perhaps you too have had an experience where you felt like you needed to prove something. You needed to prove yourself. You need to prove your worth and your value and that you belonged there and that you had something to offer.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (20:23.618)
that you're worthy of love. Maybe in you, you can take a pause moment and say like, what does it feel like to feel like you have to prove yourself over and over again? What does that feel like?

Okay, now I know that feeling too. Today in class, I want us to do the opposite. What happens when we make a space together in this moment where we don't have to prove ourselves? You don't have to prove that you're strong enough to do anything. You don't have to prove that you're flexible enough. You don't have to prove that you're stable or resilient or you can push to an edge as hard as you can.

You don't have to prove you can stay. You don't have to prove you can go. You don't have to prove anything. You get us to arrive here in this moment and in this moment and in this moment and be enough in every moment and you have nothing to prove. Let that be the energy of freedom in this class today.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (21:34.138)
Okay, now I'm feeling the things, right? So I'm speaking to that because I have felt the need to prove. So let me speak to that thing, right? Okay, let's use another one. My dog, I had a dog and once I had gotten these orange cardamom muffins, I've told this story actually in yoga for sure. I was like, got them and I was so excited about them and in like 0.2 seconds, dog.

jumped up on the counter and wholly swallowed muffin with the paper and all. Like, much time as it took to gasp, she had swallowed it. And then was over spitting out the paper. And I had just gotten enough muffins for me and my kids. And I told my kids, I'm like, that's fine. You can have mine. It's fine. That was like gonna be one of theirs. And then the next day, one of my kids was like, mom.

Seems like a dog, Millie, is really not doing well with her training of not getting on the counter. It's like, yeah, well, we just need to be more consistent and pay attention.

And then I started laughing when I said that, because I was like, right. know, like paying attention to the things that come out of our mouth sometimes when we're just like talking and not trying to be fancy, not trying to be profound. But if we listen to ourselves and if we listen to kids, there's so many things that are said. And so in this moment, I said, we just have to pay more attention and be more consistent. And I thought, gosh, that is literally everywhere with everything. And so when I brought this to class and be like, told this story, I'm like, so today.

We gotta really pay attention and we're gonna play with consistency. What does it mean to be consistent? What does it mean to like show up in the shape again and to try again? And maybe the consistency is just trying again or to ask yourself what you need in this moment. Maybe it's consistency of showing up and saying and being willing to be curious. Maybe it's that. And how do we pay attention in this moment and in the next? Yeah?

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (23:39.511)
Okay.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (23:43.182)
Perhaps there's a theme of saying, you know, I don't know about you, but sometimes for me, I want to say yes to something, but I've already said yes to too many things. And you have to say no to something. You have to be empty before you can fill. So maybe you walk into class and you're like, y'all, I just want to celebrate any of you if you have said no to something recently. And if you haven't said no to something recently, then maybe that might be interesting.

I've been looking at places that I've been saying yes and no, and really thinking about how there's some things that I want, but it's also gonna require more space. And you can't just keep cramming in and cramming in and cramming in, because you start to get full and claustrophobic. And you can't keep your promises to yourself, you can't keep your promises to other people. You feel overwhelmed and stressed out, and it's not gonna be good for anyone, you or the people around you.

So today, as we go through class, rather than trying to do more and do more and do more, see where you can let go and make space. How can you do less so that then there's more room to fill up with what you really want, what really is lighting up, what really brings you a lot of pleasure and joy? I want you to find those places in class today.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (25:10.734)
And one more for you.

These are all random things for my brain for y'all guys. So once, and these are all stories that I would like to tell at the beginning of class, right? So I'm just going through and giving you a random list of things. And this would be like little journal entries of saying today, like today in my life, this is what I saw. This is what I paid attention This is something I learned. And you could start this journal and like create it be like, today I learned what? Say one thing that you learned. It could be the weirdest, smallest thing.

but it might help you pay attention. So for me, one time, one of my kids gave me a note when they were eight years old. This person is not eight anymore. But on this note, I opened up this card, he's like, sweet, they gave me a letter. And they're like, dear mom, I don't like being told what to do. Love.

I definitely kept that note, I love it. And I get it, I don't like being told what to do either. And they were like happy, there wasn't like a hard moment. And so today in class, if I was telling this story, right, today, I'm gonna tell you to do a lot of different things. I'm gonna tell you how to do it, where to put your body, you know, all that like yoga teachers do. But I want you to bring your own flair to them.

I want you to remember that these are suggestions and if there's something else that you're like, well, actually you said that, but I think this might feel really good to me. I want you to remember your own autonomy and that you get to choose here and that really I'm trying to guide a practice that gives you more freedom to move.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (26:51.182)
So loves. To bring spirituality into yoga, to me it means these sorts of things. How to give yourself permission. Where do you find gratitude? Where do you make space for yourself to feel things? Where do you show up in community? Like the list goes on and on. You can literally say every single subject. You could connect with every single teaching in the philosophy of yoga. You can bring the philosophy yoga into it and Sanskrit words.

And sometimes it's these things and sometimes it's reading a quote out of a book. And sometimes you're going into class and I'm like, wow, I am overwhelmed AF with other things in my life. And today we're going to talk about gratitude to be showing up on our mat. And then we just go with it, right? It doesn't have to be a story every time, but if you are interested in it, then start to pay attention to your life off the mat. And it's easier to remember those things sometimes when you write them down.

And then it might be uncomfortable to start saying it because there might be a little bit revealing to be like, my kids know, or like my students know now that I'm a mom and that my eight year old was like, don't tell me what to do. And maybe that sounds sassy and maybe like, I don't know what assumptions could they have about me as a person. Right. So does that share a little bit? Yeah. But also you're in charge of what is shared. You're going to not give them things that you haven't processed and you're going to be patient with yourself.

in your learning of how to tell stories and open and let these stories be an opening. Be the expanders, not contractors. Let your stories be expanders for who's in the room.

Hmm.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (28:35.564)
This one I'll leave you with. We could keep going. Talk about storytelling within Flow School. So if this kind of conversation is interesting, online flow school is starting and we're gonna be kicking off here soon in this next couple of weeks at the time that this podcast is being released. So find me there or reach out to me. And there's some nuance in this, but there's a lot of possibility. Thank you for listening to my stories and.

I hope wherever you are today that you find those little moments that make you go, that's what this is about. Right? And then you find those little moments that maybe you wouldn't have been paying attention for otherwise. Okay, loves, till next time.