The power of NO.
In 2014 three significant things happened.
I started and actually finished my initial yoga teacher training.
I turned 3
0
I started saying no.
On the last day of March 2014 I stood swaying with shock on the multi-coloured pavement in St Peters on an unseasonably hot Autumn day. I
’d done it. According to the certificate in my sweaty hand I was ‘a yoga teacher’. After years of drifting I’d actually completed something. I had a purpose. A reason to live. An intricate flurouscent octopus stared down at me menacingly. 10 years ago St Peters was an eclectic haven of artists often squatting in long abandoned warehouses, young families who couldn’t quite afford to live in Newtown and trendy design studios. The smell of weed and nag champur filled the streets.
It was also home to the best cafe I’ve ever been to, the long closed and sorely missed ‘Velvet Garage’, a crazy concoction of mismatched retro furnititure, offensive art, screaming slogans, even louder punk-rock blasting from tinny speakers and the best coffee around. Yes, there was a lot of velvet. In my Tinder phase, I would meet potential lovers here under the amused smirk of the barista who saw me most days. She could tell, she said, by my face as soon as I saw them if it was going to be yes or no. Most of the time it was no. Tinder taught me how to say no, kindly and firmly. On the rare occasion the date lasted longer than 10 minutes she’d smile at me and give me a surreptitious thumbs up behind a never ending torrent of steam.
Velvet Garage was conveniently just around the corner from the yoga studio where it all began. The yoga studio that housed me and employed me and taught me a myriad of lessons until 2018 when, sick of the concrete, the ever expanding highways and the men with moustaches I hightailed it out of there in a Ford Econovan to wilder, more grounded climes.
I stepped into that first training completely naive and blind to what I’d let myself in for. I’d been practicing yoga for a couple of years on and off, most seriously and devoutly at Moksha Hot Yoga studios in Toronto’s trendy St Clair West. I was the classic ‘lost girl’. I’d somehow found myself in Canada with my then boyfriend, eating into my tiny and dwindling savings (me) racking up a huge credit card debt (him).
I couldn’t get a working holiday visa so I was limited to cash in hand jobs which meant working for a laughably mean restaurant owner who would scream at me on the daily and have me balling my eyes out whilst trying to smoke so I could have a break behind the garbage bins.
I’ve done A SHIT LOAD of unglamorous jobs in my time, from a fishmongers in Woolgoolga scraping fish guts out of the tiny holes in the drains to picking mouldy grapes for 80 cents an hour in Robinvale but this job at ‘Invictus’ cafe (again, long closed) topped them all. I would be expected to work without breaks from 12pm when the place opened until whenever the owners entitled son and lecherous friends would decide they’d finish drinking for the night (often as late as 3am). The only way to survive these 15 hour shifts would be to smoke endless cigarettes which were the only thing that entitled me to a break. Sometimes the chef would shove some pizza our way, but often the other waitresses an I lived on a diet of coffee, smoking and the occasional tequila shot. Needless to say I got very skinny for the second time in my short life and my disordered relationship with food became dire again. After our shift the other girls and I would go out. We’d be way too wired to sleep so we piled into taxis to all night diners in the CBD which surprisingly weren’t at all seedy, and served delicious high quality food (totally wasted on me) and cocktails (I’d drink as many as possible) and were absolutely heaving. The amount of people eating dinner at 3am in Toronto was (still is maybe?) insane. Then we’d often go out dancing until the sun came up, stumble into bed and do it all over again.
I wonder now how I even had the energy to walk down the street, but somehow my yoga practice became an obsession. I was totally devoted. It didn’t matter how hungover I was I was going to class. Maybe it was partly fuelled by my eating disorder but more than that, it was the only place I actually felt like me. I fell head over heels in love with the studio and one teacher in particular, a petite Candania woman around my age called Jaimee (Hi!!)who can be credited with me ever having the courage to do a yoga teacher training in the first place.
I found the yoga studio whilst looking for paid work. It was January. Everything was grey. Snow and sleet hammered down relentlessly turning the streets into mushy glass. I was perpetually freezing. We were living on the floor of my ex boyfriend’s mates basement and every day I’d wake up with no windows and wonder why the hell I’d left the mid north coast of NSW for this. I like to think that yoga bought me there. I like to think that about a lot of things.
I was shuffling along the trecharously slippy sidewalks with a bunch of partially damp and crumpled resumes in my hand. My resume itself was a joke.
2010 - 2013: travelling the world. References: zero.
I’d been turned down multiple times for good reason. I dont have a visa I said. No visa, no work, they said. In the end I lied. I dont have a visa ….yet, I said. It’s coming any time now. I’m just waiting for the paperwork to come through. I smiled manically as my stomach turned. It was late in the afternoon. I felt dejected, and cold, and sick of being cold. Like an oasis in the desert a sign appeared before me, looming out of the Toronto afternoon fog in warm orange lights. HOT Yoga. HOT. HOT.
I walked straight in and up the bare stairwell I’d come to know so well. I opened the glass doors. Barefaced girls with glowing skin welcomed me. They seemed genuinely pleased to see me. I almost burst into tears. ‘There’s a class starting in 15 minutes!’ one angelic apparition said brightly. You can join if you want! It’s $30 for the intro pass, a month unlimited classes! I gave her my last $30 and filled out the form with shaky hands.
I walked into the heated room. 35 degrees. Mirrored from floor to ceiling. Beechwood floors and white walls. I’d never been inside a yoga studio before. All the yoga I’d done up to that point was either on the beach in Byron or in a musty community hall. ‘Blessed we are’ played through the surround sound. It was like entering heaven. I sat down on my hired mat and picked at my fingernails. i suddenly felt very self conscious. My cotton leggings had holes in them and my t-shirt was covered in stains. I realised everyone else was dressed in slick lycra with a matching circle logo branding every crop top and tights combo. I was in the birthplace of Lululemon after all. People were preparing for the class by wrapping their legs in straps or folding themselves in half or in some cases balancing effortlessly on their hands in the middle of the room. I suddenly thought I’d made a huge mistake and I was about to leave when Jaimee entered the room. She walked like she was walking on air. She glided over to me and whispered, thank you for coming! Have you done yoga before?
I shook my head, too embarrassed to admit I had, in case I’d been doing it all wrong.
Her face lit up. It’s ok. She said. There’s nothing to be nervous about. You cant get it wrong.
I looked at her puzzled. How had she just read my mind. I nodded and smiled and looked around. Someone is going to find out I’m a fraud I thought. I’m not supposed to be here. I’ve done too many terrible things.
I dont remember much else but by the end of the class I was lying in a pool of my own sweat dying to be back outside. Even though the discomfort was huge, I felt light. In that moment I didn’t care about my terrible employment prospects or the same argument I kept having with my boyfriend or the harsh reality of being almost 30 with nothing to show for my life about from a falling apart backpack and a passport full of stamps. Whatever this feeling was I wanted more of it.
I lived in Toronto for just over 9 months. In that time I went to as many classes as possible, often multiple times a day. I started to understand the postures. I started to build strength. One day I unexpectedly lowered myself half way down from plank without collapsing. My first chattarunga. I was ridiculously happy. I spent hours practicing headstand in our tiny bedsit apartment, once even falling smashing the glass lamp all over my boyfriend’s head (luckily he was fine). I started to be able to balance on one leg. I started to eat a bit more. Even though I was hungover 90% of the time I started to experience changes.
One morning after class a fellow student approached me. ‘Are you a yoga teacher?’ She said. I stared blankly back.
ME. A yoga teacher. She was clearly delusional.
I laughed it off, but something stuck.
That night as I opened beers for dollar tips and fake smiled until my jaw ached I kept thinking. ME. A yoga teacher. I imagined the pure joy I’d feel to see my name on a class timetable.
Even though I wasn’t religious in that moment I made a pact with God. Please. I dont ask for anything. But if you’re there, that’s my one wish. To see my name on the timetable. Clare Lovelace, yoga teacher.
‘Table 7 said they ordered fries!’ The chef screamed. ‘Helllooooo are you in there??”
This is stupid I thought. It’s never going to happen.
The next day at the studio Jaimee came up to me after class. You’ve been so consistent in your practice’ she said.
‘There’s a teacher training here next year, I think you should do it. I really see you teaching yoga.’
That was it.
The idea was fully planted and it wasn’t letting go. For the first time since I was a little kid I felt the glimmer of excitement come back. I suddenly had a reason to live, and I know that sounds dramatic, but in many ways it was true. I had a reason to get out of bed. I had touched a part of me that had laid dormant for many, many years. This spark was there when I was a child. It was the spark that drove me to create worlds at the end of the garden and write story after story, and create complex lives for my dolls and stuffed animals. It was the spark that sent me out into the garden, carefully collecting caterpillars for my ‘caterpillar wonderland’, a huge enclosure I made from cardboard boxes with the sides cut out and mesh to keep them safe. I filled the enclosure with all kinds of vegetables and made complex climbing frames out of pipe cleaners. I dont think the caterpillars liked it very much, of course they’d prefer to be outside, in the real caterpillar wonderland but seven year old me didn’t know that. My parents gently convinced me to set them all free again. A few weeks later I got stick insects as pets, but as they morphed and changed and evolved, they started to freak me out and I had to set them free too.
When I embarked on my own teaching journey I felt that same creative drive return. Finally, here was something I was passionate about. I wanted to learn. I wanted to study and write assignments, which I did furiously, on the train in the mornings, surrounded by tradies in high vis drinking cans of Monster. I once learnt that the word Enthusiasm comes from the Latin root ‘en-theos’ - lit by the ‘God within’. And thats exactly how it was.
I left Canada and found myself again waitressing in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire. As soon as I returned to Australia I googled Yoga Teacher Training. I chose the first one that popped up. I liked the logo.
On the first day of yoga teacher training my teacher Mathew Bergan sat down and greeted us all with a steely gaze and stern professionalism. There was no fluff. this was a grungy inner west studio with carpeted floors and fluorescent green and orange walls adorned with pictures of Kali, fierce with her tongue out.
‘OK, first thing.’ He said
‘Be prepared to let go of everything. Be prepared to say goodbye to relationships that you’ve outgrown. ‘
I gulped. I’d been clinging on to mine for much too long.
Second thing.
Under no circumstances should you attempt to do anything else whilst you’re doing this training. Say goodbye to your normal life. Dont try and work or study or even cook. This will be all consuming. IT’s every day, intensively for a month. Expect to be really tired. Rest. Get someone to cook your meals for you.
I shrunk under his gaze.
Here I was doing the complete opposite. I had no money so I was working on the side to pay for the training.
It was a small group. Only 5 people. It was a month long training. Every day apart from Sundays for 30 days. I lived in Yarrawarrah, at the very end of the trainline in Southern Sydney. I would leave the house every morning at 5am and catch 3 trains to get to Newtown where the training was held, above a coffee roasters in the grungiest part of town. These days I’m up every day before 4am, and the early mornings never phased me, but I was also working full time at a bar in the Sutherland Shire, which meant late nights. I was probably averaging about 4 or 5 hours sleep each night. I worked all day Sunday when we were supposed to be resting. My teacher Mat said rather sternly on the first day ‘clear your life. Dont attempt to work, or do anything else whilst you’re in this training. It’s not possible. You need to be fully present. Even get someone else to cook for you in you can.’
Kali was with me then. She was the energy allowing me to bend time. She was with me on the train as I furiously wrote my assignments, balancing coffee on my lap and warding off unwanted attention from the tradies with their red bull confidence.
Kali was with me when I said enough. My boyfriend and I had been moving in different directions for a while. He was a musician. A drummer in a punk band. He was also cheffing on the side. His work involved late nights, late mornings and lots of noise. He was constantly listening to music and practicing. He’s an amazing musician and I had (have) so much respect for his craft, but it was at direct odds with my new yoga teacher/yoga student/yoga obsessed life.
As soon as I could I quit all my waitressing jobs. I couldn’t get out of there soon enough. I’d been polishing cutlery and being shouted at by chefs and sneered at by customers for over 10 years. I was DONE. I threw myself into teaching like a woman possessed and I was. Lit from within. En-theos. The goddess within.
I no longer wanted to go to his gigs. I no longer cared about staying up late. I took every class I was offered, including 5am classes at a CrossFit gym. I started going to bed at 8pm. My boyfriend would come home past midnight with his friends and make noise. This was understandable. We lived together. He was also paying rent, technically he could do whatever he wanted. But I got mad. Kali came out in full force. I would throw tantrums and shout at them to be quiet. The resentment between us grew and the sweetness left the building. We’d been together for four years. We’d travelled the world together. We’d met in a tiny village of Woolgoolga before I found yoga when I had no responsibilities and nothing to lose. We’d had so much fun. But I wasn’t that person anymore.
One night he was out drinking with his best friend. Kali was with me. I knew I couldn’t leave it any longer. We need to talk I said.
We sat on dingy stools under too bright lights near a fading pool table. ‘We dont even like each other anymore, I said. We’re tearing each other apart. We cant do this. We need to end it now before we really do some damage. ‘
He didn’t say much, but then he was never a man of many words. He sat quietly for a long time. Looking into his beer. Not drinking it.
I’ll move into Justin’s place he said.
And that was it.
I’d set my boundary. I’d said no.
Today as I write this on the studio floor the afternoon light is streaming through the windows from the West. I can see the shadow of my face thrown out across the white floor. My studio. My name on a timetable. Multiple times. I did it! I made it.
There were so many things I had to say no to to get here.
I’ve been feeling a shift.
I’ve been setting more boundaries. I’ve been saying no a lot.
It feels good.
A student bought a Kali statue into the studio a couple of weeks ago. Since then Kali has been with me. It is written that if you summon Kali, prepare for your whole world to be turned upside down. Dont summon her if you’re not ready.
What I’ve realised is I’ve got caught in indulging emotions and states that are not helpful. I’ve noticed myself nagging Kane and Rod and getting frustrated about the little things, the towels under Kane’s bed or the socks always left outside the door or the compost not put in the compost bin.
I have to let people make their own choices. I need to let go of control. At the same time I need to be firm in my no. My no is my no. It’s not other peoples.
My boundaries are about my own inner landscape.
I notice the slightest thing will send me into a fear spiral.
I’ve been repeating
‘I release all fear. I release anything that doesn’t feel good in my system.’ I’ve been tapping as I do this.
I’ve heard all of this millions of times. The classic ‘worrying is like praying for what you dont want to happen’.
It’s finally sunk in. I feel so empowered because I actually do have a choice. I dont have to entertiain those fear based thoughts.
I choose to trust.
I choose to believe that everything is always working out for me.
I choose abundance over lack.
I’m either in abundance or I’m in lack. It’s one or the other.
I have a choice.
Thank you Kali for illustrating this so clearly. Thank you to all my teachers and mentros for reminding me of the truth. Thank you to all my friends and family for being such beautiful mirrors.