I have been composing this message in my head for a while now, but before I worked out any of the details, I did have a solid grasp of the title:
“This is my job now.”
At least, that’s what I keep hearing in my head every time I return to the challenging, complex work of building my new web platform at BreathingProject.com. It’s been a real stretch for me, not to mention a shift in identity. My skill sets as yoga educator, bodyworker and anatomy teacher have been built by working directly with other people, not by wrangling with audiovisual editing programs and web hosted content management. I am definitely in my wheelhouse interacting with other humans, not as I am now, sitting alone at my workstation, but…
This is my job now.
So much has already been said and written about all the ways work conditions have changed for us in the last two and a half years. Speaking from personal experience, I can look at just one fact that sums it all up: after nearly two decades of teaching and traveling to lead multi-day workshops in locations around the globe, since March 2020, I’ve taught only 22 workshops. Excluding two week-long cadaver dissections, I have only shared physical space with students in six of those 22. Everyone else who’s learned and practiced with me since the pandemic has done so by looking at screens and hearing voices transmitted from spaces far away.
By contrast, in the previous two and a half years, from September 2017 to March 2022, I taught at 60 live workshops, conferences and other events. So basically, my in-person contact with students has been reduced by 90% since Covid. So, for better or worse…
This is my job now.
I have accepted that this reality will never fully go away. Of course, I still gladly welcome all invitations to teach in-person events, but it is clear the conditions allowing that to be my primary focus are in the past. We’ve been working with all our hosts to produce hybrid events, live streaming the workshops and posting the recordings for ongoing access. All these recordings will eventually be archived permanently and fully searchable at breathingproject.com.
This is my job now.
And, I’ve become deeply aware of the difference between my job and my career: a job – any job – can be taken away; a career cannot. Personal, societal or technological changes are perpetually making certain jobs less relevant, or even obsolete. My career as an educator is a lifelong commitment, a deep part of who I am, and I will always find the means to keep doing it.
Growing up I never had a master plan. I could only have become an educator, anatomist, bodyworker by dropping out of formal education at a pretty young age – and by following my interests – by observing and absorbing from some of the best people on the planet I could find – and by having the stubbornness to stick with it long enough to see the world come around to share enough of my interests. Since I never had a “Plan A,” I certainly do not have a “Plan B.” So, I’m on this train all the way to the end of the line. I invite you to hop on and ride with me for a while and see where it leads us.
P.S. Oh, yes. I almost forgot. This message has been a rather wordy way of saying that BreathingProject.com is officially out of Beta, which means we have hopefully worked out all the major kinks and glitches. Since some of the tech we are using is quite new, it took a bit longer than we had planned. Please continue to let us know about any functionality we still need to improve