Scar tissue

Recently in my cyber-meanderings, I found a wonderful forum for Bikram devotees: Hot Yoga Doctor. I've spent the last few hours reading post after post - q&a regarding this marvelous exercise. In response to a poster's dilemma about what to do when you try to modify a pose and the instructor gives you the unhelpful "Bikram's way or the highway," edict, Gabrielle (the doctor) states: 

"It really annoys me that sound physiological principles are completely thrown out the window in favor of dogmatic teaching."

I'm going to memorize this quote. Even though I practice at a great studio and introduce myself to all the teachers to inform them of my back issues & lack of balance, to which their response has been nothing short of amazingly compassionate, I have a mental wound from a previous studio that was way more rigid. A few teachers stick out in my mind - those who criticized me when I attempted to modify a pose due to pain or inability to do it at all (such as the balancing postures) or when they gave me a modification that provided absolutely no stretch at all. All while saying, "This is YOUR 90-minute moving meditation....take care of yourself..." Blah blah blah. Like, I would have taken care of myself if you hadn't come over here and hissed at me for taking care of myself.

I never confronted the two teachers in particular, and after a while, I found I lost the motivation to go to class at all. I was so worried about getting bored with the same sequence day after day, but what killed my pratice was lack of courage - not garnering the assertiveness to address my feelings and needs with these teachers. I felt that it didn't matter what I'd say, that they would just repeat the dogma and hope I'd either go, "Wow, you're so right!" or just go away. At this studio there were so many invalidating words tossed at me, like when I wrote on the intake form that I have brain damage and need to use the wall for balance, instead of saying, "Sure, do whatever you need," they'd go, "Oh, you'd be surprised [to find how yoga can cure you of that]" or, "Well, you want to work to where you don't need the wall." Like, are you neurologists? PTs? Do you understand cerebellar or vestibular dysfunctions? Are you even listening to me? Just say no.

Even though in my mind these instructors acted very non-yogi-like, the trigger points that have resulted from this have been because of my refusal to speak my mind. How do you heal this kind of scar tissue?

I do know from a number of the posts on HYD that I'm not alone. I can only hope that one day some of those dogmatic teachers experience an increase in consciousness, that they turn around and remember some of the unfeeling things they've said to students, and gone, "Damn, I was such a douchebag."