I hope her name was Megan....

She had this quality of respectability to her that I have striven for my entire life. It's a way of being that transcends the limits of joviality or seriousness, and ignores the boundaries of free-spirit or stickler.

The way she spoke it was as if she had utter respect for the best of every person.

It also made me feel incredibly ashamed of the way I had been talking. As I entered the studio, probably because of my own insecurity or ego, I was sort of using what Lindsay would call 'my yoga voice'. You know, that voice you use to let everyone know that you are totally calm and in control of a situation. Sort of. Ok, not really. More like the voice you would use on tv if you had to play a character whose role that was.

And what that does is it limits people. It's more a way of controlling them and their emotional reactions than of really encouraging them to grow and be.

I was so ashamed of that. After class, I felt like my head was spinning.

Not the bad kind of ashamed, which is external. Not the sort that Douglas Adams would describe as 'the heat crinkling in your neck as you remember the time you dropped the football in 4th grade', but a more profound kind that leads to growth.

I will to do that. I will to try to notice, emulate and create more ways to do that....

It doesn't really work that way, though. It's not like painting the walls of your living room (which requires various degrees of effort, but is a very straightforward practice). It's more of a letting go process. Letting go of the need to please others, letting go of the need to have them trust me.

You can't force someone to trust you. You can't rationally convince them, you can't beg them, you can't really do much. All you can do is keep your integrity and consider yourself trustworthy and hope it's something like the flu.

That's....really not a good metaphor for being trustworthy..........