Teaching hope in heavy times: a guide for yoga teachers
In a world flooded with conflict, division, and heartbreak, many yoga teachers are quietly asking the same question:
“How do I continue to inspire my students with hope when I myself feel drained, anxious, or uncertain?”
This question is not just a personal inquiry—it’s a spiritual one. And the answers, like so much of our work, live in the heart of yoga philosophy.
Holding Space for Hope When You Don’t Feel It
Yoga teachers are often expected to be beacons of peace and positivity, but we're also human. We read the news. We worry about the planet. We carry personal and collective grief. The good news is: Yoga never asked us to bypass these feelings. It teaches us how to move through them with grace.
The Bhagavad Gita offers a powerful teaching through the story of Arjuna, who is paralyzed with despair at the edge of battle. His teacher, Krishna, doesn’t tell him to suppress his feelings. Instead, he offers wisdom:
“Be steadfast in yoga, O Arjuna. Perform your duty and abandon all attachment to success or failure. Such evenness of mind is called yoga.” (Gita 2.48)
In moments when we feel hopeless or overwhelmed, our job is not to pretend we’re unaffected—it’s to return to equanimity (samatvam). To do our dharma—our purpose—without clinging to the outcome. As yoga teachers, that might look like simply showing up to teach, breathing with our students, and trusting the ripple of our work, even when we can’t see where it leads.
The Inner Work of Caring for Ourselves
One of the foundational principles of yoga is ahimsa, non-harming—including toward the self. That means tending to your body, your mind, and your energy with compassion, especially when the world feels heavy. The following are a few tools I have recently recommended to students looking for guidance during this tumultuous time.
Restorative asana: Slow down your nervous system with postures that support the body without strain. Legs up the wall, supported child’s pose, or gentle reclined twists can create a felt sense of safety.
Pranayama: Alternate nostril breathing (nadi shodhana) balances the hemispheres of the brain and brings clarity. Even just 5 minutes a day can shift your internal state.
Meditation on the Witness: Return to the inner observer (drashta), the part of you that notices thoughts, feelings, and chaos without being consumed by them. In this space, peace is always possible.
Teaching from the Heart, Not the Mask
Be honest. Let your students know, gently and appropriately, that yoga isn't about feeling good all the time. It’s about being present with whatever is here—and choosing love anyway. You don’t have to always be peaceful to be a good teacher. You just have to be real.
When you authentically share how yoga helps you ride the waves of difficulty rather than run away from them, you offer your students the greatest gift of all: permission to be human.
So yes, continue to offer hope—but not the false, performative kind. Offer the kind of hope rooted in shraddha—faith in something deeper, steadier, and more timeless than the current moment.
As the Yoga Sutras remind us:
“Shraddha virya smriti samadhi prajna purvakah itaresam.” (1.20)
“For those who have faith, energy, memory, and a deep meditative absorption, self-realization comes sooner.”
Let your hope be a practice, not a performance.
You Are Not Alone
If you're reading this and feeling tender or weary, know this: you're not alone. The fact that you care enough to wonder how to keep teaching in hard times means you are exactly the kind of teacher the world needs right now. Not perfect. Not always peaceful. But honest, devoted, and willing to return—again and again—to the path.
And that, dear teacher, is enough.
—— Denver Clark, CIAYT, ERYT-500
