Yoga and Philanthropy
Please read to the end.
I had a plan for my life, and Yoga was a big part of that plan. Schizoaffective Disorder derailed that plan, but now as Ive gotten healthy again, I don’t want to go back to Yoga because it’s changed.
One thing that really bothers me about managing Schizoaffective Disorder is that I failed to build my Yoga dreams and do Philanthropy. In 2010, before falling ill, I went with a group of students from British Columbia, Canada to the Philippines, South East Asia to build the beginning stages of a School House for women in Cebu, Happy Valley. We dug and set the footings for the future School House in an impoverished area with Developing World Connections, a non-denominational non-profit organization who connected us with a Catholic Group called ‘Rise Above Foundation Cebu’. Their slogan for their work was ‘Together, we can make a difference' and they do. All the volunteers put money into the project and their physical labour for the school to come to life. Rise Above had several groups come to the site to build until the project was finally completed. Today, women and children come to the centre for education and meals. They make sustainable recycled Rice Sack Bags to sell to rich people from the West and around the world.
I also, with the help of my Lifeguarding, First Aid / CPR-C, Swimming Lesson and Aquafit job, was able to volunteer at different organizations to teach yoga to low income folks. I felt originally that as an ex-athlete that teaching people how to take care of their bodies and health was a worthwhile pursuit. The original plan was to build foundations for my student’s success and then monetize my business later when I had a following.
I’ve done 3 trainings for Yoga, one for general Hatha starting in 2010, one for mental health with a psychotherapist and one for the disabled. Nowadays, I struggle myself but I also notice that the yoga industry has become a different animal and they want ‘yoga’s roots’ to be at the forefront of it’s teachings which means it becomes a religious practice. I have some concerns and questions with that and here’s why. I believe that the moral basis of all religious teaching is the same. And I’m worried today, living in Northern Canada that to teach a brand of yoga to Indigenous People’s that will be labelled as too religious or racist due to it’s commonly white western goers. I don’t want to be a missionary up here. But that’s what happened in the West. It’s history of Yoga was not of swamis and Gurus, it was of fitness and beauty. And as much as I have respect for peoples religious choice, this is a really tough conversation for somebody with Schizoaffective Disorder. I don’t want to get into it further than that. It stresses me out that I still like western beauty products. I believe that loving yourself results in good self-care and I don’t want to collapse the Nation State with extreme decolonization of yoga.
I don’t know who to be anymore. And I am unwilling to train myself to have a new ‘identity’. I just want to be a woman and have my beauty products legal. I’m writing from the perspective of the person I used to be, not religious and today, as the struggling schizoaffective I have delusions that are religious in theme. Textbook schizophrenic delusions have general patterns of religious experiences. People with psychotic disorders often have a hard time understanding religion and pushing Hinduism on them makes yoga less accessible to the mentally ill.
I hope I don’t have to be a religious extremist, because I’m not that. And I hope that there’s a place for me too in this world where people don’t press their religions on me. I have a lot of struggles with religion and being pressured by another fundamentalism isn’t of my liberal belief. I don’t like, just like my Grandpa taught me, to push religion onto people and change them in exchange for food, clothing and shelter. I see that dogmatic approach in Yoga, and it is wrong.
I know that there are lots of people who need Canadians to build a well for clean water, a school or sustainable energy. Poverty and the housing crisis is still a global issue.
I think that things like gender equality is important. In Cebu I learned something, that the men, when they had money, spent it on drugs and prostitution. Women would do the community work when they had money and look after the children. Gender equality means that women and girls aren’t stuck in relationships in which they are exploited and are dependent financially for their next meal. Education and leadership in impoverished communities is essential to building healthy societies.
You can contact Rise Above Cebu and import their Recycled Rice Sack bags. They are durable, cute and a great gift for your friends and family.
https://riseabove-cebu.org/
