Cancel culture and abuses in the yoga world
My Background as an Advocate
I started working and volunteering with populations that have experienced domestic and sexual violence in the mid-1990s and was more recently given an award for working to end sexual violence in our communities in 2013, I’ve taught trauma informed yoga for over a decade and lead the way in creating a culture of consent at the large yoga studio I worked at and owned from 2011-2021. As a long time advocate for women and children who have experienced sexual violence I’ve found myself navigating interesting waters as a yoga teacher in a community where sexual harassment and abuse is not uncommon. Throughout my time at my old studio I refused to use teaching books by an instructor that had been accused of sexual harassment, I gently pushed back against team members who I felt were making excuses for bad behavior and/or victim blaming, choosing to privately call them in. I encouraged changing the name of some of our ashtanga classes and navigated complex student issues trying always to put the ‘victim’/‘survivor’’s needs in the forefront.
iRest: Richard Miller Sexual Harassment & NDA
Most recently, I’ve been inquiring into the sexual harassment of a former employee by iRest founder Richard Miller.
I took my first iRest training in 2012 and since that time have taken all their trainings in order to be a certified teacher and also attended numerous 10-day silent retreats. Though I have always felt grateful to Richard Miller for making the teachings available, I have never considered him a main teacher of mine. Perhaps this is why I knew where I stood when the news came out and had no problem writing (with my then business partner) one of the only public letters in opposition to his behavior.
After the news broke that Miller had been involved in a sexual harassment settlement in 2012 and that the survivor had been silenced with an NDA, Miller wrote an apology letter, which was better than almost any we’ve seen from yoga teachers or other abusers, though it fell flat for me. I reached out to iRi leadership and had multiple important conversations with their Executive Director Alana which made me feel as though the institute was willing to take steps to protect their employees and students. (You can read a excerpt of an email I sent detailing my issues with Richard Miller’s public letter regarding the harassment here. Alana was extremely receptive to my thoughts and input at this juncture.)
Though I have not been completely happy with all the choices they’ve made regarding Miller and his harassment of a former student/employee, they have always been open to reading my emails, taking my calls and hearing my issues. They have also repeatedly assured me that they were in ongoing conversation with the survivor and were making sure that her needs were being met by the steps they had taken.
Learning that they’d worked to make things right with the survivor was encouraging news. It also didn’t completely alleviate my concerns. The needs of survivors aren’t all the same, therefore advocating for one survivor can be different than advocating for the needs of a larger vulnerable population (vulnerable b/c of power differentials).
My question remained, had they done enough to protect students going forward?
I feel responsibility for my students, and if I recommend a practice, I want to do it without reservation. I want to feel relatively sure that, to the best of their ability, the organization will endeavor to protect our students from predatory behavior. And in the unfortunate event that something would happen, I want to believe that they will work with transparency to right the situation. I remained curious as to whether the leadership had truly woven consent, equality, and transparency into the institute.
Some of my questions (with generalized iRest answers according to my recollection, these are NOT direct quotes) were, for instance:
How could current and future students find out about this event? (Karen Rain who was abused by Patabi Jois spoke and wrote about how sexual abuse by teachers often fades away so that later students don’t know about it.) Answer: Not through us.
Don’t people have a right to know if their teacher has been called out for an ethical violation? Answer: Sure, but we’ve done so much to make things better we don’t really see this as our responsibility.
Are there pathways for students to receive their training and certifications without having to interact with Miller? Answer: Yes!
Would this situation be reviewed or at least mentioned in the ethics section of their Level 1 and Level 2 trainings? Answer: No.
Of the senior teachers, James Reeves came out publicly stating Miller’s behavior was unethical and Fuyuko Toyota posted on the survivor’s Facebook account in support of her. One very senior teacher left the institute all together, but made no public statement. I have concerns that only 2 senior teachers spoke out about this event in opposition to Miller, what are you doing to create a work/community environment where dissenting opinions are received gracefully? Answer: We’ve made lots of changes and removed Miller from the board.
In the grand scheme of things, and compared to other yoga scandals, Miller’s harassing behaviors were relatively low-level. (Hold your horses peeps, I’m not saying they weren’t harmful and I’m not saying he has nothing to apologize for. I have held him and iRi to task more than most in the wake of this news.) He repeatedly asked a young employee to have a romantic relationship with him, and continued to do this after the young woman made it clear that she was not at all interested in him. He was her employer and her spiritual teacher. Did he touch her inappropriately? No. Did he verbally or physically threaten her? No. Did he make the work environment fraught and create a situation where the young woman felt forced to leave? Yes. Did he and his best-friend lawyer have the young woman sign an NDA so that she could never discuss the harassment and financial settlement thereby silencing her? Yes. Did he seek therapy around his behavior? Yes. Does it seem like he understands the impact his behavior had on the young woman? No, not in my opinion. Was he defensive in his apology letter? Absolutely. Did he name the woman that he harassed publicly after she asked not to be named? Oh yes he did. Will I study with him again? Nope. Am I sometimes annoyed that people who I know disagree with his behavior have paid money to take courses with him since? Yes.
Navigating Teaching Relationship
Do I want to cancel iRest completely? I’m not sure that I do. There is a lot of good in these practices, and I have personally received tremendous healing through the teachings.
I haven’t taught an iRest class since this news broke. However, having studied it for years, the practice is woven into much of my teaching. Recently, I assisted in a level 1 training when asked to be the staff manager by a dear friend. When she asked me, I let her know that I had reservations.
I shared that in order to feel comfortable (since the iRi site doesn’t mention the ethics violation) that I would need to write a blog speaking to the harassment so that I could link to it in my class description should I ever teach iRest again. It feels important that students have access to this information.
She was totally fine with this.
I shared that I felt strongly that some mention of RM’s “transgression” should be spoken of in the ethics section of the iRest trainings. I feel this is important 1. for ongoing transparency 2. so teachers of iRest are informed should one of their students ever ask them, and 3. because iRest is supposed to be a practice where we welcome ourselves just as we are. It is a practice that teaches us to hold our human imperfections and frailties at the same time as our blisteringly beautiful non-dual perfection. I want to see the practice in action from the top down.
This was a hard no from iRi, which I can understand from a business perspective (even as I cringe at it from a spiritual lens). Bizniz says: They’ve done the clean-up detail, why make a mess again and again?
We had emails and conversations back and forth about language that would be agreeable to me in the ethics section - I wanted some acknowledgement of “when ethical breaches have happened AT iREST, this is what we’ve done”… at least a nod to it. She was amenable to this.
So it was a yes from me - happy to be reunited teaching meditation with a dear friend and also wishing we would be able to talk to the students about the fullness of the ethics situation.
Can you separate the teacher from the teachings?
Many of us have asked this question. (Here is a pdf that I include in my TT that is a list with links of many yoga abuses). Students of John Friend who loved Anusara. Students of Yogi Bhajan who have been tremendously helped by Kundalini yoga. Students of Patahbi Jois who credit Ashtanga yoga with their recovery from any number of -isms. Students of the Bihar school, students in the Sivananda lineage, Muktananda’s SYDA lineage and those who are devoted to the heat and intensity of Bikram Yoga. Osho - wild, wild country anyone?
When a particular practice has been part of your healing journey, part of your joy, and the leader or founder is accused of abuses, is it ethical to continue practicing that form of yoga?
Students in these lineages may ask themselves:
If the creator is a bad person, does that taint the whole practice?
I believed that this was a path to spiritual liberation or simply to leading a better life. If the person who created it is a jerk/a-hole/abuser/psychopath it obviously doesn’t work that well.
What have I been programming into my body-mind?
Is it disrespectful to the survivors of this leader/guru’s abuse to practice this lineage?
Does it cause the survivor further harm to have people continue practicing and venerating the abusive teacher/lineage?
Does any of the money I spend on this practice flow back to the abusive leader and/or those who helped facilitate or cover up the abuses?
How do I simultaneously hold the truths of the beauty of the practice with the ugliness/cruelty of the teachers behavior?
Restorative/Transformative Justice
I want to be really discerning about who I work with and for. So, I continue to explore and feel into whether I am truly in alignment with iRi. It doesn’t feel right to ignore the abuse, and it also doesn’t feel right to throw away or cancel the person who’s done the harm… So how do we skillfully find justice for the survivor and healing for all? I surely do not have all the answers regarding how to move forward in situations like this.
Partially through my years of working with incarcerated populations (starting when I was a junior in college), and partially through reading Brian Stevenson, Derek Jensen, and Prentis Hemphill I have come to understand how damaging many aspects of punitive justice and corporal punishment are. Hitting kids, detention centers, jails, solitary confinement, etc. are harmful individually and collectively. They are violent, they are alienating, and they are heavy on shaming.
As an alternative to punitive justice, I have responded to the restorative justice framework of Non-Violent Communication. The work of Adrienne Maree Brown’s has taught me about transformative justice which she defines as “the work of addressing harm at the root, outside the mechanisms of the state, so that we can grow into right relationship with each other.” I have found examples of these in the writing of Anne and Terry Symens-Bucher on their beautiful community.
So, inspired by AMB, I’m asking what do I want?
I want freedom from suffering for all beings. Everywhere. Humans, plants, animals, the earth herself.
I want healing for the survivors. Healing that unburdens them of shame and lets them feel complete.
I want healing for the ones who have caused harm - healing that helps them feel complete too.
I want to champion systems that protect vulnerable populations.
And I’m asking myself if there is a framework where all populations are free from human inflicted violence. I want that.
I want to do away with hierarchical power structures as much as possible in my day-to-day life. I am intent on collaboration.
I want honest and authentic communication not individuals and/or systems that spiritually bypass, or let off the hook those that cause harm.
I want to get to the root of supremacy - white, male, ablist, cis, etc. How can we impact genuine, transformational shifts in fear based, domineering, othering attitudes?
I want to acknowledge that capitalist systems where we need to compete for market share and make money to survive often influence the decisions that we make. Specifically, it can keep people who have done harm in positions of power. e.g. their presence, teaching, or work is profitable so they get to stay even when their removal might be the most healing option.
I want to acknowledge that there is a continuum of harm and that some offenses are less and some are greater AND that they often stem from the same social constructs and maladies. I’m not sure I have the words for the varying points on the continuum. And I don’t want to erase people’s experiences of pain or abuse by stacking them greater than/less than.
I want some system of transparency that allows students/clients to be able to make informed decisions about who the trust their practices with AND I want systems of transparency that don’t forever punish the person who did harm.
I want to acknowledge that each of us has been hurt by another and also has been the one to do the hurting.
I also want to acknowledge that when we are in the aftermath of being harmed or abused it is difficult/impossible to show compassion for the one that has done the abusing. We need that compassion to come to us first - and that often includes blame going to the other person. And also, sometimes/often wishes that harm will come to the abusive person. I recognize that language can be challenging here, sometimes hear our abuser called “the one who has caused harm” can be wholly unsatisfying and potentially triggering. We want to call them names, we want their whole identity to be seen as the pain they’ve inflicted on us - thief, cheater, liar, rapist, murderer, narcissist, etc.
When I was in my early thirties my therapist asked me in relation to someone who I have survived: “have they done anything that’s unforgivable?” This is a question that I ask in many situations. And it brings up another question - what IS unforgivable?
I want to be a force of redemptive love in the world.
I want forgiveness for myself and for others. And I want justice for the hurt too.
I want to choose practices that allow me to be love in motion.
Dayum. I want a lot.
What Next?
Now the exploration of how do we get there. First of all, we need to imagine. Imagine a future where activism and advocacy meet and align with transformative justice and mercy.