When the kid was little, one of our favorite books to read together was The Peace Book by Todd Parr. I recommend it if you’ve got little ones – or hell, even if you don’t. It’s full of delightful sweetness. But I’ll never forget one time when we got to this page and suddenly her little brain just LIT UP as she pointed to these two figures and said, “he loves his dog, and his dog loves him! Love, LOVE!”

These are the best moments of parenthood, when you see these major life lessons come to life in their perfectly chirpy joyful voices. You realize suddenly that they’re GETTING IT – you’re helping to shape them into what will become their best selves someday. It’s thrilling, frankly. Magical.

But I was reminded of this again today in yoga training. We were taking turns practice teaching each other sections of the 90-ish minute sequence we’ve been learning (Baptiste’s “Journey into Power”), and I was given the section on “opening” – half pigeon, double pigeon, and frog pose. And some down-dogs in between. This is toward the end of the sequence, when we’ve been through a lot of strenuous “tapas” (heat, not the appetizer) and are ready to move into cooling down and releasing. These poses open the hips, and often pathways to deep emotions. We linger for several deep breaths in each, and our teacher had suggested I share a story as the class moved into them. “You’ll be great at this,” she said. No pressure or anything!

As my classmates began teaching the initial sun salutations that begin the sequence, I went down a little spiral about this. Stage fright is real, friends. What story would I tell? What wisdom do I have to share, as I’m sweating to keep up with all the chatarungas (and there are so, so many chatarungas. gah.)

But then it hit me: it’s “opening.” Just leave it open. Words will come.

And when it was my turn to get up there, I looked out at all these beautiful souls who are honestly some of the bravest, kindest humans I’ve ever had the privilege to know, just poised in down-dog waiting for ME. And I was overcome with love for them. And the words came, of course. I don’t know if I did it perfectly, because who cares – it’s practice. But as they bowed to the floor in half pigeon, I could almost physically feel their release sweeping towards me. Their internal spaces opening. And their love, echoing back.

Love, love.

We think that when we get up on a stage or at the head of a classroom, or when we sit down to read a book to a child, that we are providing a one-sided service to a passive audience that merely receives it. The pressure comes from wanting to do it right, be the expert, give them their money’s worth. But we forget that it’s an exchange. They are giving back just as much as we are – we’re merely opening that channel that we’re both experiencing, co-creating, together.

It’s still magical.