As I sat on my yoga mat on the wood floor, I thought about how much my lower back was killing me. It was day three of a certification course, and the twelve hour days sitting on a floor were getting exhausting. I strategically placed a bolster under my knees and leaned back against the wall in an attempt to get as comfortable as possible before the lecture portion of the afternoon began.
Louise, my instructor, stood in the middle of the room. We all sat quietly and waited for her to begin talking… She turned to face the windows, then sat and gazed out toward the adjacent building for more than just a moment. The class glanced around at each other, wondering what was happening.
Then Louise finally began to speak.
“Years ago, when I began teaching yoga to children with special needs, I had the most incredible experience with a little boy with Autism.” She leaned back, resting the palms of her hands on the floor behind her, and stretched out her legs, crossing them at her ankles. “He seemed to be impossible to get through to. I worked with him for months with what seemed like no progress…”
“Each week I would show up for my session with him, and the same thing would happen. He would just sit and stare off into space. He refused to acknowledge anyone’s presence, and looked straight through anyone who tried to communicate with him… Gazing out into nothing.”
“Week after week I tried every strategy I had to get him to participate in a yoga session. And week after week he just sat and stared. I was at a complete loss as to how to help him, until one day I asked myself a question I hadn’t before….”
“I wonder what’s he looking at?”
Louise paused and looked around at all of us, shrugged her shoulders and continued, “The truth is, I don’t know. No one does. Only he knows.”
“And who’s to say he sees the same things I see? Maybe he sees angels, and he’s in complete awe of their beauty. Or he sees the cosmos, the Universe, God, or whatever it is that might be out there beyond what we are able to see or experience.”
Then she stared back toward the ceiling and said, “You know... It’s impossible for any of us to know what’s happening inside the people around us. All we know for sure, is that we don’t know. So I decided to do something different.”
“On my next visit, rather than attempting to engage with my student, I simply sat next to him. I gazed out in the same direction as he was, and imagined what he was so mesmerized by. Then I attempted to embody how it might make me feel if I too could experience what he was experiencing. For three weeks this was how we spent our time together. We sat, side-by-side, and gazed up toward the ceiling. Until that magical moment on the fourth week.”
“As we sat together, he suddenly scooted a bit closer to me… Then closer. Until his knee rested against mine. A moment later, he placed his head on my shoulder, and relaxed against my side as I wrapped my arm around him.”
Woah.
I wiped the tears out of my eyes as I looked around the room. Every person openly wept at the beauty of that amazing moment. And we simultaneously experienced an awakening of sorts. A moment of unity… A knowing… That not knowing is what helps us know. It helps us to consider another’s perspective.
And allows us to walk through life with less judgment and more acceptance.
I’ve carried that moment with me ever since. And I think of it often. At the angry person in traffic. When my daughter cries at night saying she’s afraid of the dark. At a restaurant when I notice the person sitting alone, deep in thought. And at work, with every parent and child that walks through my door.
I acknowledge and accept that I don’t know what anyone else is experiencing. And not knowing is my guide in helping to know how to hold a space for them, and to care without conditions.
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