Whisper #20The Work Beneath the Work

For years I lived in a quiet split.

Engineering on one side.
Yoga on the other.

When I leaned into engineering, I felt fake in yoga.
When I leaned into yoga, I felt irresponsible toward engineering.

People asked how I held both.

I didn’t.

I oscillated.

And when you oscillate long enough,
you start trying to prove that you’re stable.

That’s what being split does.

When you don’t feel steady inside,
you try to look steady outside.

You over-structure.
You over-explain.
You try to look integrated before you actually are.

I see the same pattern in teaching.

There’s another quiet split that creeps in:

Teaching versus self-practice.

Output versus private work.

I remember teaching five times a week.

I told myself I was immersed.
I told myself teaching counted.

It didn’t.

Teaching is visible.
Self-practice is private.

Teaching is performance.
Self-practice is confrontation.

When the private work thins out,
the visible work gets louder.

More creative flows.
More complex transitions.
More choreography to feel solid.

Somewhere along the way, we started confusing complexity with depth.

But complexity is often a shield.

When you don’t feel grounded,
you add layers.

Imposter syndrome doesn’t show up because you’re incapable.

It shows up when you don’t trust your own ground.

Whether it was engineering and yoga,
or teaching and self-practice,
the pattern was the same.

When I felt unsure inside,
I tried to look certain outside.

Integration didn’t happen when I chose one side.

And it didn’t happen because I did more poses.

It happened when I stopped trying to perform a version of myself.

When I sat long enough to admit where I felt small.

When I allowed both sides of me to exist
without trying to make one win.

Self-practice isn’t choreography.

It’s the place where you stop lying to yourself.

Teaching is the embodiment of that honesty.

If your private work disappears,
your presence starts to wobble.

Not because your sequencing is wrong.

But because you’re compensating.

You don’t need to look put together.

You need to stop splitting yourself.

At work.
With your partner.
In the way you teach.
In the way you speak to yourself when no one is around.

Because when you feel unsure inside,
you try to sound certain outside.

When you feel small,
you try to look impressive.

When you don’t trust your own ground,
you build complexity.

This isn’t about yoga.

It’s about the moments where you say yes
when you mean no.

The times you over-explain
because silence feels unsafe.

The way you build more
instead of sitting still.

So I’ll leave you with this —

Where are you performing strength
instead of admitting you’re unsettled?

Where are you adding layers
because you don’t feel solid?

That’s the real practice.

Not the one people clap for.

The one where you stop pretending
and quietly become whole.

With Love & Stillness,
Saf

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If this speaks to the way you teach, move, or relate, you can find my work here → Awareness Training Yoga