My friend was telling me about her recent medical issue. She decided to meet with a physician to help resolve this issue. The physician asked no questions of her and simply said it’s a typical medical issue and wrote her a prescription. He did not try and understand her diet or potential gut issues, stress issues, environmental issues, or any external factors that could be contributing to this imbalance. My friend left this appointment feeling empty and incomplete. The pill he prescribed may have temporarily solved the external reaction her body was experiencing. But would it solve the underlying issue?
This type of transactionalism doesn’t just exist in the medical sector. It exists everywhere. As people have we become transactional? How many yoga teachers are transactional? A person becomes transactional because they’ve become programmed and institutionalized. Their intelligence zapped, losing the capacity to question – which leads to critical thinking and more comprehensive understanding. But laziness (from depressive states) and impatience (from anxious states) suffocate a person intelligence and fragments their mind into the small corner of consciousness making the familiar more familiar. Eventually you become so good at this you fool a lot of people into believing what you are selling. They have fragmented their mind to a part which they have gotten good at. And that part allows for an escape from the whole. This is their “safe space”. And with everyone existing in “safe spaces” no one wants to disturb anyone, so you have a society that becomes numb (dumb). If I only fixate on a part I can escape the whole and move on to the next patient and do the same with them. All these transactions lead to “seeing many patients” and that gives me some superficial satisfaction. And most the patients will go along. On the surface I accomplished a lot (seeing “alot” of patients). But fundamentally I did not transform anyone. A superficial and fake way of operating may feel good temporarily, but it won’t fulfill. Just as these patients may go on and develop other ailments, diseases or health or medical issues. This very example points to the lopsided statistics of our healthcare system and overall health. Our healthcare / medical system has grown substantially while our health has gotten worse. Common sense would tell you that if our healthcare system is growing than our health is improving. But as whole we lack common sense. We may be highly educated on a part, but less sense to the whole.
A yoga teacher, teaches from the part they know. They don’t see the whole room. The don’t leave themselves naked to what they don’t know. They don’t nonverbally question the energy of the students, their energy, so they never realize any new possibility. They are stuck in their part. And in doing so, they teach transactionally. They teach based off what they’ve done before or strictly what’s known to them. Like the doctor with my friend. The doctor had no interest in what wasn’t known to him, meaning my friends situation. These are transactional people, not transformational people. A transactional teacher is satisfied with the exchange of the known. A transformation teacher wants to develop from the known to the unknown. And from unknown back to known. There’s a revelation the transformational teacher is seeking. The transformational teacher realizes there’s more to it, than what they already know. The risky feeling that no one wants to experience, is the “not knowing”. The transactional teacher doesn’t care about what they don’t know – they are fixed in the known. So there’s never any transformation. Just a transaction. And many people have become so numb to this, anything that disturbs this numbness, sends them in a state of shock. And that shock threatens there so called “safe space”. You don’t transform staying in a safe space. The person has become numb or insensitive, because their intellect has blocked any new feeling from getting inside their body. Their thoughts guard them from any foreign information so their body or energy doesn’t have to be disturbed. This is likely unconscious to them. They are attached to thought. You access humility when an internal thought, idea, or belief has been destroyed. You have this internal feeling of having to start over. You feel this in your gut. When you lack humility you lose access to your whole bodies intelligence (your brain is connected to your gut). Most people don’t feel or think this deep because they don’t trust that feeling in their gut. They don’t give that ‘gut feeling’ a chance, because it’s too scary and creates anxiety, so they pivot and become clever and crafty at escaping from that painful feeling through explanations. To quote the 13th century poet Rumi, “the cure for pain is in the pain”. This is what he is referring to. Going into that anxious feeling, that most people avoid. They stay in the “safe space” of their head or intellect crafting convincing explanations for everything that doesn’t go their way. They’ve lost sensitivities. They lost common sense. And without senses being available, open and active they become doormat and so the person becomes numb to feeling / life. And the whole body will suffer as a result. Their energy will lack. It’s easy to become a yoga teacher nowadays because it’s all about acceptance. And as result of that, there’s no transformation. Only transactions. The celebrity of teaching is more exciting for some then the actual teaching. Eventually the celebrity loses its excitement and will either guide a teacher to go deeper or they will check out and move on. Many teachers will get over the hump of “being accepted” by their peers and that is enough for them. This illustrates how soft and fake yoga has become. Acceptance is necessary because we are dependent on each other. But when you accept yourself, you don’t attach to other people’s acceptance. You can tell when a person is full developed in their acceptance of themselves. You feel free around this person. A person seeking acceptance, you feel trapped around. You see many famous people burn out, overdose, or struggle mentally because of this desire for acceptance, constantly chasing approval of others. When your need for acceptance and reassurance dissolves you either retire from life because you’re too old and exhausted or use that freedom to create transformations. Because only when you can firmly stand independent of the need for acceptance of others are you free to create. That’s when transformation is possible. Otherwise you are trapped in transactions.
Interested in discussing these topics? BE BAD yoga teacher training we will dive into this on personal levels to see where and how we are transactional to become more transformational. BE BAD
***It’s easy for me to write this. Its harder for me to be this. Because it’s easier to conceptualize and harder to take action. The concept is meaningless without action. In the writing I am trying my best to be objective as possible, which does not come without the risk of error or misinterpretation. The more objective a person can be, the easier it is to distinguish truths. When you stand on truths you can be transformational, not transactional. – Steve K.
