Have You Ever Felt Judgment From A Spiritual Teacher?

Many years ago, when I lived in Connecticut and had a debilitating chronic illness, I attended a gentle yoga class. I enrolled in the class for relaxation and socializing. The teacher said that the class was intended to be slow and gentle unlike many yoga classes which were competitive, high-energy, and athletic. I had chronic fatigue and no stamina, so slow and gentle was definitely my speed plus this class was spiritual, so she seemed to be the right teacher for me at the time to try to muddle through my chronic illness. But even though she seemed spiritual, I was surprised to see that she was judgmental. On one instance, during her yoga class, I’ll never forget it, she asked us to do a pose which I wasn’t able to do. She asked us to thread our fingers through our toes and I just couldn’t do it. She looked at me, shook her head, and started laughing. It would’ve been different if I was laughing and making fun of myself, but I couldn’t do it. I was frustrated. It was preposterous to me and she just looked at me and laughed.

Another time my yoga teacher set up a mandala workshop. This sounded fun! I had never been to a mandala workshop.

An example of a mandala, before it is decorated.

My teacher was from India, so I was excited to learn something new. What this mandala workshop entailed was decorating a mandala with flowers, seeds, and other natural ingredients that she provided. The mandala was drawn out with black marker on a piece of large white poster board paper. It had lots of different shapes and the whole point was to fill in the spaces with the different pieces of flowers, seeds, and other natural ingredients to make a pretty mandala together. It was meditative art work. The whole purpose was for this exercise to clear our minds, bring us more peace, release judgment about the world, and still our minds so that we didn’t think about our problems or our to do lists, but we were just present, collaborating on art together.

In the beginning, everyone was overwhelmed thinking how they would make this mandala look pretty. Many didn’t believe they were artistic. But my yoga teacher assured everyone that there was no right or wrong, to just fill in the spaces with whatever ingredient felt right and not to overthink it. We worked in silence.

But after a few minutes, I noticed that my yoga teacher was taking my flowers and seeds and removing them from the board or placing them somewhere else on the mandala. Sometimes she was just taking them completely off the mandala and putting on her pieces in the place. I observed in silence and noticed that she did this just to the pieces that I added, only mine, no one else’s. And there were no words about it, it just wasn’t good enough. I felt that she was judging my placement and the aesthetics that I was creating. But in the beginning she clearly said there was no right or wrong, so I didn’t understand why she was moving my pieces and putting hers down instead. For me this exercise didn’t bring me peace because I felt that no matter what I did it wasn’t good enough. What was the point of me adding to the creation if it was going to be moved?

Then she created a woman’s support group at her home. I thought that was a nice idea. I moved to Connecticut, but didn’t have a lot of friends or support. I was curious what she was going to create. She invited everyone to go around and say something they liked about the other person. This struck me as a bit odd since we just met; we didn’t know anything about each other. Therefore, everything was superficial, based on appearances, since we didn’t know anything about each other. I can’t remember what everyone else said. Maybe some ladies said that they liked my smile or my eyes, but one woman said that she always hated her breasts, so she liked my flat-chest.

I was seeing cross-eyed.

What? What did you say?! Did you call me flat-chested?

She was trying to make it a compliment saying, “You probably don’t think it’s so great to be flat-chested, but I want you to know, it is.” Like I was the one who needed self-esteem, a pep talk, about how I looked.

First of all, I didn’t consider myself flat-chested. I was a woman. I had breasts. I was not a girl who hadn’t developed any yet, to me that was flat-chested. She was larger than me, but I didn’t even consider myself “small-chested.” I was happy with my size. I didn’t have any body shaming at the time. For someone to assume that I hated something about myself because she did and I had to be told it was OK to be me, was weird. Second, I didn’t come to a support group for someone to give me a backhanded compliment which was really showing her self-hatred for herself. I was surprised my yoga teacher didn’t chime in and say, “Don’t say anything negative; just say something positive about the other person.”

Instead, I sat in shock as everyone nodded saying, “Yes, some people don’t realize something they don’t like about themselves is something somebody else wishes for themselves.” Who said I didn’t like myself? I didn’t like this idea that because of the size of my breasts, I should feel body hatred. This wasn’t a compliment; this was a confession of someone else not liking her breasts or accepting herself. I didn’t think this was really a support group. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I felt worse, instead of better, by the time I got home, than before I left.

My yoga teacher was not embracing me for who I was. It took me a long time to see it. She was soft-spoken and gentle and a spiritual teacher. I never expected her to judge me. It was hard to see the situation clearly because I was struggling with my illness. I liked her as a person and I saw that she was trying to help me, but I couldn’t see it at the time that she was judging me. Sometimes it takes distance to be able to see, to have perspective. All of that happened over 15 years ago.

Share below. Have you had a similar experience of not realizing that someone judged you until after the fact? Have you ever felt judgment from a spiritual teacher?

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