282 - Letting Ourselves Be Seen

If you're a yoga teacher or someone wanting to own their voice in other ways, this one's for you. Today I share a collection of things you can do to practice letting yourself be seen. 

Note: In this episode I refer to my "95% rule" when leading a class. You can find that episode here.

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Listen to Bonnie's other podcast Sexy Sunday HERE

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

Transcript

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (00:00.84)
hello lovelies.

I am looking forward to this today, but I want to reference first before we get going. I recently recorded a podcast called the 95 % rule. Well, it's about the 95 % rule. I'll link it in the show notes. So it'll be there. So you can go and have more content on what I mean by trying to watch the room. So this is a conversation that's really for yoga teachers and

for anybody who wants to become more comfortable being seen.

When I talk to teachers about looking at the room and looking at their students, I had this experience in flow school where we were talking about this and sometimes it turns into this conversation of am I demoing or I'm not demoing and what makes you a quote unquote good teacher? Do you demo? Do you not demo? And that's not this conversation. I believe in demoing. I think it's actually really helpful for students. This is a conversation about eyeballs though. 95 % role means that I am trying to look at my students 95 % of the time.

that it might be 5 % that I'm not, but that's ultimately the goal. It's not even about what my body is doing, it's literally just what my eyeballs are doing. friends, if we're looking at people, we're gonna see them and where they're looking, and they might be looking right back at us. And what is your relationship with being seen? That's what I wanna talk about today. So welcome to Yoga Strong.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (01:38.156)
Welcome to the practice of paying attention where our paying attention today comes in the form of letting ourselves be seen. And if you are trying to step up in the world, in yourself, in your community to lead a thing, to create an experience, to be a force that makes an impact that helps people's worlds and lives expand in powerful ways, you're going to be seen. And it's sometimes not a thing that we feel very comfortable with.

And I kind of think that all of my work could almost be boiled down to this is helping people sure own the hell out of their voice is the thing that I say like that is what I'm here for. But I think owning the hell out of your voice is really just a part of letting yourself be seen to own your voice. Like the owning your voices comes from you. We're being seen is both.

your own grounding in yourself to let yourself be seen but also other people to see you in any way right if you're sitting around an airport people watching people are also sitting around airport people watching are people watching each other so we are seen we are seen and so this experience of leaning into that and i want to share with you a couple ways off the mat not in the yoga room

that you can practice being seen. Because when we get comfortable with that, and by comfortable, I don't mean 100%. I mean 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 5 % more comfortable. Let's start with anything there. And then maybe it's 13 % more comfortable. Maybe it's 23.

percent more comfortable maybe then it's 29 % more comfortable right we're not here for a fast game and our relationship with ourselves with our voice with our bodies with the way we show up with what we know or what we don't know or who we're working with or who we're not working with like all of these things will play a part in our story so we just want to start to expose ourselves to controlled discomfort this is why I like cold plunging

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (03:59.734)
It's controlled discomfort. You get in the cold water, you close your mouth, you breathe through your nose. Only breathe through your nose. So if you wanna go cold plunging, this is a good way to, this is a good way for controlled discomfort. So I wanna give you some controlled discomfort experiences. Cold plunge, you're gonna get in, you're gonna close your mouth. You're gonna breathe in and out of your nose, you're gonna slow it down. Focus just on your belly. Your belly moving in and out. You're gonna unclench your fists.

You're gonna un-grip your toes from the bottom. And when I go in the cold, I'm either dunking all the way under and then coming up just so that I'm right underneath my neck, like right underneath my chin, or I will drop down so my shoulders are covered. But you can't hesitate. You just gotta walk in. You take a breath, you go, you can't stop. Because if you stop, you probably won't keep going. So you can also go in and come right back up. You are the setter of the time. And the longer you stay, the...

Difficulty changes. Sometimes it changes too when you have somebody to do it with you, talk you through the experience, but this controlled discomfort. Then you get out. That's a thing, right? It's a thing, because then you're seen in that discomfort. Actually, we love watching people experience cold. And I was just at a place yesterday where I got to be in the cold water and to witness that because it's uncomfortable. And being seen can feel uncomfortable.

And I want to give you this conversation too because this is part of how I am here talking on this podcast with you. I am here because of my continued curiosity and courage to step into letting myself be seen and letting myself mess up and letting myself be not have to be perfect.

And I remember a time years ago where I was afraid to say things, because what if I misrepresent for myself? What if I, what if I want to change my mind? Can I say something? And to grow into this place where I trust myself, let me show up in integrity. Like in the most honest and do the best I possibly can right now. And my capacity will change. It will automatically because I'm going to keep evolving. But then I still get to show up right here right now too.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (06:20.462)
So I've had my own experience with this and it's why, it's part of why I love photography and in particular being the subject of other people's pictures and letting the artists of like the photographic artists be behind the camera and me in front of the camera because I have to be seen in ways that I cannot control. So today I want to share

a kind of a short list, long list, I'm not sure. We'll see what, we'll see what, length of list this is. This is a list of some things, like these are some ideas. This is a collage of ideas for you to practice in a lot of different ways the experience of being seen. Especially if you're trying to stay out in front of the room, you're the one talking in a yoga class. You're the one creating the experience. You're the one that has to hold its center when things get weird and students...

do funky things and you're holding a lot of people and there's a lot of trust building in this. So you gotta learn how to hold yourself, how to embody what it is you're trying to teach and how it is you're trying to lead. And man, I've talked to lot of teachers who say like, man, I'm in the middle of a funk, I'm in the middle of my life and I don't even have things figured out. So who the hell am I to stand up in front of the room and to lead these people? I can't do that. Is this a lie?

Who am I to be here sharing these things when I don't have my own shit figured out? And so I want to turn this on you and say, who does? Do you think I do? No. What does it mean to have your shit figured out? Does that mean you have zero problems? That means you're dead. That I have nothing left to learn? I'm dead. So we're going to be constantly in this experience of exploring self and life.

and we're going to keep showing up and we're going to show up in the messy middle and we're going to keep doing the damn thing. Okay. So upfront, we're all doing this. And these are things in this short list of ways you can live your life and pay attention off the mat, but then take them into the classroom. Cold plunging could be one of them. Get uncomfortable. Some of these things are, are, might feel uncomfortable because being seen might feel uncomfortable being in your body, not trying to escape from it to work with it.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (08:46.9)
not against it, to be in your body. We want to lean from that, lead from that place. Lean, lead from the body, right? Cold bludgeoning, that could be a thing. Another thing is eye contact. It is very common for us when somebody is talking to us that we have a lot of good eye contact, we're watching them and people will like look in a lot of different places, but start to pay attention.

to you when you tell stories, when you're with somebody in person, where you look when you're telling a story. There are some people that feel very uncomfortable making eye contact. Your cultural will also play a part in this. So depending on the country that you live in or the upbringing you had, your parents, so there can be family culture, larger country or religious culture. So there's a lot of different culture that

could play a part in this and be a unique experience, but just pay attention to when you talk, what's the eye contact that you make? Do you avoid making eye contact with new talk? And is it different than when you listen to other people talk? So in your next conversation, pay attention to that. And it is kind of weird if we just drill our eyes directly into somebody and we're like not even blinking and you're not even moving. And I want you to think of it almost like,

like a meditation when you're really trying to focus on your breath, your thoughts are gonna take you somewhere else and we're like, we're gonna come back to our breath. we're going somewhere else. we're coming back to our breath. So you're just playing this and it's, I'm also taking my hands wide and then bringing them close together, right? We are this wave, we are this accordion, this breath that's like we're expanding and we're coming back to focus. We're expanding, we're coming back to focus. So you don't have to look 100 % of the time, but how much can you slow things down?

and just watch where you're looking and be willing to be seen in your speaking and to see if you're looking right over somebody's shoulder and so it kind of feels like they're looking at somebody behind you or if you're looking off to the side. We can often have a thinking phase where we look up at a random corner. We're not even looking at a corner. It doesn't even feel like we're looking at anything in particular but it's like our brain

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (11:12.062)
is searching for the idea so we look a certain direction. So all this does exist. So just pay attention to where you're looking and see what kind of eye contact you can play with then when you're speaking one-on-one, right? And see if you can look at people. Slow it down. We wanna be there. We wanna hear what you have to say. Another thing is when you have the urge to do a thing, switching gears, and it might feel like it's a little bit cringy,

AKA like too much, weird. Who are you to be doing that thing? Am I too old? Am I too young? Is this what quote unquote normal people do? Do it. Even if it's just a little bit. Even if you're all alone in the forest, but you're like, can people do this in the forest? Can I just take off my clothes and run around naked in this forest where nobody else is? Yes. Can I do a handstand on the sidewalk?

Even though it doesn't seem like grown people do handstands on the sidewalk. Yes.

Can I walk around barefoot in this place? Yes. Can I, like it doesn't, like whatever it is, I don't even, it doesn't matter. Like be safe, keep yourself safe. Be safe with the people around you. But do it even if it's a little bit more than you usually do. Do that. Might you be seen? Yeah.

You might. And pay attention to how many times you have an urge to do a thing and you shut it down. And you're like, no, that's too much. No, that's too weird. What happens if you followed it a little bit more?

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (12:54.766)
Sometimes I truly get the urge to do handstands. So I'm like for the most part, I just just lean in. I'm like, okay, it's handstand time. It's not like a show off thing. I don't know, like it's a particular circumstances or if I've been sitting for a long time or I don't know. Like that's like its own sort of funny thing, but that does exist sometimes for me. But there's other things too. I just want you to pay attention to that. Give yourself a little bit of permission for that. Another thing, practice being seen. This is for you to you.

I want you to talk to yourself and say, I'm amazing. You made dinner for like the 50,000th time today, like all the 50,000 days ahead of day, you made dinner again. I am amazing. I'm amazing. You folded your laundry. I'm amazing. You taught a yoga class. I'm amazing. You...

sat for 30 minutes and listened to your kid. I'm amazing. You called your grandma. I'm amazing. You got up and got dressed for the day. I'm amazing. I don't care what it is. I want you to start telling yourself, I'm amazing and let yourself see you. You see you. That's an important piece of this. And then on the other side, I want you to practice seeing others. And in this, I'm going to give you two different phrases and I want you to fill in the blank with an expansive thing.

in a way of seeing others not saying anything about their hair, their physical attributes, but saying, hey, you make me feel blank.

You make me feel a lot of ease when I'm in your company. right, you, or another phrase so you can say, you make me feel blank, make it an expansive thing. Another phrase I wanna give you is, I don't know if anyone's had told you this lately, all right, so I don't know if anybody has told you this lately, but when you come into the room and the way that you,

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (15:02.356)
organize it and bring your sort of magic, then it makes the room feel more beautiful and it's subtle and I don't even think you're meaning to do that but that's what's happening. I don't know if anybody has told you lately but the words that you use when you talk to your kids and I observe you make like inspire me in the ways that I want to talk to my kids. So practice seeing others but in specific to to

to these types of things where you have to really pay attention, right? This is the practice of paying attention off the mat. Another one, the practice of being seen. I want you to wear something that makes you feel sexy or powerful. I was talking to somebody once and mentioned how there's oftentimes I'm in my closet and I'm like, oh, why am making you feel sexy today? That's not mean I have to have sex that day, that is not like whatever, just like that phrase. And my sexy, what I really mean is powerful.

powerful, right? I'm in my body that I feel good and some days that can look like a sweat suit, other days it looks like something totally not a sweat suit. Wear something that makes you feel powerful and that could be something hidden under your clothes, could be a certain type of underwear, that could be something on the top, I don't care. But in this practice of being seen

What we wear impacts the way we stand, impacts the way that other people respond to us. So play with that. practice of being seen. Move your body in a way that makes you feel strong. Big shout out for lifting weights. When I lift weights, you can't like lift up heavy shit and be like, I can't do nothing. As you're doing things and it's heavy and so you're gonna lift it. And so when you lift things, it feels powerful, right? So.

Do something that makes you feel strong physically with your body. Heart stop. And that can look like a lot of different things, but definitely lifting weights for me. And then make something with your hands where you can see the finished product. I started online making aprons. You can see an apron. You can make something, food something, right? Like create something with art where it's not a digital project, where it's just on the computer, right? Have it so you can...

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (17:27.864)
Feel it with your hands, where you can see it when it's quote unquote done. Do something with your hands. This practice of being seen, online world, I work online, I get it. And it's kind of invisible sometimes. So practice seeing, because you have to see your work if it's in person, right? You can't escape it. We're not here to escape. I am zero interested in hiding. Right, here to hide, right?

I to stand up, so make something. I love walking in the middle of the street too. So invitation for you to go on a walk in a non-busy street and walk in the middle of street, spread your arms out left and right, make it wide. Stand tall.

walk down the middle of street, make yourself big. So it's like star pose while walking. And that said, when you're standing, I think about this in the grocery store line. If you're gonna go check out in the grocery store, how are you standing? And I want you to imagine like you were to grab a string from the middle of your chest and lift yourself straight up towards the ceiling. And you get taller. I want you to lift up from the center of your chest as you stand. Lift up from the center of your chest as you walk.

Your shoulders might go down and back. Your chin might get higher. The top of your head might feel like it goes up more towards the ceiling. Lift yourself up from the middle of the top of your chest. Stand up. It's gonna change the feeling of yourself in the room. And it will also change the way that people see you. This is all experiment land. A weird one is I want you to lay in a weird place.

in your house somewhere, the ground somewhere, like lay down, lay down. So there's a starfish in the ground, lay yourself, relax because it's not a relax, it's relax, it's a scene, it's a giving yourself permission to do something different, because that's what we're here for. If want something different, you gotta do something different. Lay down, lay down in a weird place, Shavasana, right? It's not Shavasana. Shavasana is like this lay down pose in yoga, like the ending of class, but just lay yourself down.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (19:44.814)
How often do you let yourself just do that? There's a seeing of self in this and in all these little hidden ways, yeah? Okay, next one. I want you to be in the car. Next time you're in the car or you're riding a bus, you're riding public transit, doesn't matter. You have music on. If you're riding public transit, it's probably gonna be headphones. I want you to tap your fingers. I want you to move a part of your body to the beat of the music. If you're in your car, if you're on headphones and that music's playing for your speakers, what happens if you have the window rolled up?

but you're bouncing your fingers, you're tapping your hands on the steering wheel, or you roll that window down, you have your elbow on that window. I know it sounds like weird. I'd be like, why is this even a thing that I'm talking about? But this is a practice of being seen. It is controlled. You're in charge. It's your music, whether they can hear it or they can't hear it, but you're gonna be seen in your body and in your joy with your music. Your joy is important. Your joy moves others.

When you are lit up and you move from a moved place, you can't not move others. This is this practice. Two more. If you read children's books, read it with all the voices. Make up voices when you read it. It's gonna make it really entertaining to listen to and then you get a practice using your voice. It's a version of being seen and it's kind of fun. Make it weird. Make it so weird that

if you're reading it to kids and you're not reading in front of adults, but if adults were in the room that you would feel like, oh my gosh, I cannot read the book in these voices with other adults in the room, because that would make you feel uncomfortable. Those are the type of voices I want you to read it in. And if other adults are in the room, great, even better. And one last thing in this practice of being seen is to try something new, especially in a class setting. Because you are giving students this experience in a class setting, giving them something new to do.

Then like put yourself, keep putting yourself in those experiences as well. Go do something new because then a teacher is going to see you in a way, in a new way. You're going to put yourself in the student seat. And what does it feel like to see the teacher? What are your judgments or non-judgements of that teacher? How do you practice compassion for yourself as a student? What do you really need as a student in these new settings?

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (22:04.366)
And then how can you translate those lessons from being a new student in a different class setting into the thing that you want to offer? How valuable does it feel for the teacher to see you and to be seen? You can take those, flip them and apply them to your own personal life. Being seen can feel scary. It can feel vulnerable. It can feel intimate. And it is, it can be all of these things. And...

creating opportunities for us to have controlled discomfort, to start to build the nervous system response to say, I'm safe to be seen. I'm safe here. I'm safe here. I didn't die. Okay. Moving forward.

All those things stack on top of each other and help you be able to stand in yourself, be able to own it. And when you own it, then you can send it, you can be there with them. And people just want you to be there with them. We are in an age where there's a lot of technology, there's a lot of fake things, right? There's a lot of...

like using AI is like there's a lot of benefits from that that can be in the world that can happen. And there's also like what's real and we want real people. We want people to be with us.

We wanna be with them. So we gotta practice being seen and showing up and letting it be uncomfortable, but leaning in. If you put any of these into action or come up with something else in this listening time where you're like, that's actually a thing you can do and this has sparked something even adjacent to anything I've shared, I would love to hear about it. I love to hear if you experiment in any of these ways, being seen, how it went down.

Bonnie Weeks (she/her) (23:55.116)
how it impacted you. Try to find these small little moments where you can find a little expansion in yourself. You stand up just a little bit taller. Feel how it feels. How does it feel different? And shoot me an email. Hello at bonnieweeks.com or message me on the gram, carrot, underscore, bowl, underscore, bonnie. I would love to hear about it. You being seen is important. You are leading others and that is not small work. And you are doing

so much already and what a gift you are to the communities that you are in. soon.