It was way back in June of 2013-–nearly 8 years ago––when I wrote an online article for Mind Body Green that got some attention.
Even back then MBG was a huge platform.
(They currently have 3 million followers on Facebook and 1.2 million on IG).
I wrote something entitled “7 Truths About Being A Yoga Teacher That No One Will Ever Tell You.”
The piece really struck a chord.
It was liked and shared many thousands of times.
Even now I still get occasional emails from strangers thanking me or asking for free career advice.
But here’s the interesting thing:
I referenced the article in a conversation with a new friend recently and went back to look at it…
To my great surprise, the title had changed from “7 Truths” to “6 Truths…”
In other words, without letting me know or much less asking me, they simply canceled one of my Truths!
I vividly remember when I proposed the article through the website’s general submission email.
Belle snuggling at my feet, I was working on my laptop on a flight from LaGuardia to Florida to work on a summer project there.
My novel DOWNWARD DOG about a bad boy yoga teacher was coming out the following month and my publisher was encouraging me to seek out these kinds of cross-promotional opportunities.
I assumed I would never hear back from the website––as a freelance writer, it’s wise to get used to being ignored––but that didn’t happen.
Suddenly, I was emailing back and forth with an editor who loved the concept.
By the time the plane landed, the article was pretty much drafted.
It came out a week or two after and, as I say, had many thousands of comments and shares.
But now, 8 years later, I found myself wondering exactly which “Truth” did they feel was either no longer true…or somehow necessary to cut.
If you search for my name on the Mind Body Green site, it says the article was last updated on February 26, 2020.
(But not by me, of course).
And, even more interestingly, whatever truth they edited out, it was not done with a surgeon’s skill.
Within the second paragraph, they didn’t bother to change the text that stated I had seven points to make.
In fact, when you click on the sharing icons, the old “7 Truths” title still comes up.
But again…what could I have said that required cutting 7 years later?
The editorial mystery thickened.
I believe that even my harshest critics would agree about two of my virtues, however minor they may be.
1. I’m punctual to a fault.
2. And I back everything up.
Almost obsessively, in fact.
Beyond iCloud and some automatic Dropbox synching that my old tech guy set up, every Friday, I use a backup drivejust to be safe.
I also have a box with four old drives + some CD backups even though for the last five years, my MacBook Air doesn’t even have a CD drive.
So many writers I know are like this.
We’re terrified that, like the meaning of a vivid dream you forget as soon as you awaken, some priceless words will be forever lost.
We’re the ultimate recyclers, hoarding both our language and our experiences.
We’re willing to wait, however impatiently, until the opportunity to express ourselves presents itself.
Yet astonishingly, I somehow can’t find the original essay I wrote anywhere.
After multiple search attempts, even the “Find File” app admitted defeat.
(Note: I’ve drawn the line at unboxing old hard drives since that would be a rabbit hole from which I might never emerge).
So what was that missing Truth, I wondered, and could I retrieve it from memory alone?
And then I remembered…
I’d opened with a joke.
Something like “In the next 3 years, over 27 percent of the women in NYC will be certified to teach yoga.”
In the next sentence, I admitted it was (obviously) a made-up statistic.
And I followed that with my real point: there are lots of yoga teachers out there (maybe too many) and thus it actually matters where you do your training since that’s where you’ll most likely be hired.
Was that no longer true in 2020?
Had a new editorial policy been instituted prohibiting combining humor with marketing insights?
Or did they simply not like the fact that I opened with a joke?
The reason I was remembering this article was that this month I needed to remind myself of another of the Truths I’d written:
“You’re going to get the best and worst of two worlds:
business and spirituality.”
I’ve been experiencing that again––“spirituality vs. business” as well as the close variation of “art vs. business”––regarding various projects and platforms.
When those worlds collide, it can be quite jarring.
Ironically, returning to that paragraph about this proved be a meta experience, a metaphor for itself.
Ultimately, it’s just amusing to me that they cut one of my Truths.
(And there is something to be said for economy; Buddha himself got a lot of mileage out of a mere FOUR Noble Truths).
Even so, I’m sharing this in case you suddenly find yourself edited––figuratively or literally––in your own quest for self-expression.
Or if you’re feeling an (often unnecessary) division between commercial and heartfelt choices.
Unfortunately, I still don’t have a winning formula.
After all, we can never control how our truth will be received.
We can’t even control if we’ll be allowed to express ourselves freely.
Yet even when the world (or an anonymous editor) wants to cut one of your truths, it still worth putting them out there.
Whether in some Dropbox file you’ve yet to unzip, a hard drive still covered in bubble wrap, or in the dim corners of memory, ultimately, the truth lives on.
And, at the end of the day, it’s my job to share mine...and your job to share yours.
Namaste for Now,
Newest Meditation is HERE
And if you want a few gentle reminders for future Book Clubs, just click HERE.
And if you want to read the actual 6/7 Truth Article, it’s HERE.
