Here’s a question that has been quietly stalking me lately, mostly but not exclusively in the context of sharing or teaching yoga: Does this bind or free?
It sounds like the kind of question that belongs in a philosophy seminar or a very thoughtful notebook, not in the middle of real life. And yet, it turns out to be surprisingly useful right at the exact moment things start to get… a little off.
And yet, it keeps showing up in ordinary moments. When someone asks for advice. When we’re about to offer it. When praise starts to gather a little momentum. When someone looks at us as if we might know something important. That moment can be flattering, but it can also be a little destabilizing. There is often a mix of appreciation and a subtle internal signal that says, easy there.
I’ve started to think of what can happen next as a pedestal problem.
The Helpful Ways Teachers Can Get Unhelpful
There are many ways to bind someone, and most of them look like kindness at first glance. We offer a clear, confident answer when the truth is actually more complicated. We respond quickly instead of letting a question sit and breathe. We stretch just a bit beyond what we truly know because we want to be helpful, or because, if we’re being honest, it feels good to be the one with something to offer.
None of this is malicious. It is deeply human. It is also, occasionally, how we end up becoming a lot more authoritative than we ever intended. Or qualified. Influence has a way of accumulating, quietly, gradually. One helpful moment at a time. I doubt anyone wake up one morning and decided, “today I will become a figure of great authority.”
It’s more like, “huh…when did everyone start looking at me like that?” That’s one side of the pedestal problem.
On the Receiving End
Most of us know the other side of this just as well.
We want someone to have the answer. We feel relief when they sound certain. We override the small internal voice that says, “I’m not sure about this,” because, frankly, not being sure can be exhausting. And not especially popular. Longing has a way of softening discernment.
If someone seems like they know, and we are tired of not knowing, it’s easy to lean in. That leaning can feel like trust, or respect, or even wisdom. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it is also the beginning of handing over more authority than anyone should be carrying. Including them.
That’s the other side of the pedestal problem.
Not Just a Yoga Thing
Once you start to notice this dynamic, it is hard to unsee it.
It shows up anywhere human beings gather around ideas, answers, or the promise of relief. In teaching, certainly, but also in leadership, in wellness spaces, in communities, and in the wider world. It even shows up in the quiet persuasion of a well-crafted ad that promises this one thing will finally fix what feels off. (This time for sure.)
There is a particular kind of relief that comes from someone who sounds sure. There is also a reason certainty sells. “Finally, someone knows what they’re talking about,” we think, as we hover one click away from buying the solution. Nothing dramatic has happened. But something has shifted.
The pedestal has begun to form.
The Leaning, and Scale
Wanting steadiness when we feel unsteady is a very reasonable human impulse. But it is worth noticing when that reaching becomes leaning, and when that leaning quietly redistributes authority. Sometimes the signal is obvious. More often, it isn’t.
It sounds like a voice that leaves no room for doubt. It looks like a message that suggests there is one right way. It feels like a kind of completeness that is, admittedly, very soothing. And something in us relaxes.
Ah. Finally.
This is where the question becomes useful.
Does this bind or free?
Does this create dependence, or does it return someone to their own capacity to sense, decide, and learn? Does it elevate one voice at the expense of others, or does it leave room? Staying at the right scale seems to matter here. Not shrinking, which is its own kind of distortion. Not inflating, which is easier to spot. Just… accurate.
That might look like saying “I don’t know” without immediately following it with three sentences that attempt to prove that you do, in fact, know something. (A move many of us have perfected.) It might look like offering what has been true in one experience and resisting the urge to promote it to universal law.
It might look like letting something remain unresolved, even when a tidy conclusion would feel much more satisfying.
What Actually Helps
If you think about the people who have helped you the most, you may notice something. They were clear, but not absolute. Grounded, but not inflated. They did not seem especially interested in being the final word on anything.
There was space around what they offered. They pointed, and then encouraged you to look.
At the time, that kind of teaching can feel mildly inconvenient. It doesn’t always provide the neat answers we might prefer. (Which is rude, honestly.) But over time, it tends to do something more durable.
It does not bind. It frees.
I’ve been fortunate to learn from a teacher who was unusually discerning about this. Erich Schiffmann didn’t just model a different way of holding authority, he spoke about it directly. In teacher trainings, he would caution us not to fall into the habit of thinking of students as “less than.” The setup of the room might suggest a hierarchy, but in one essential sense, there isn’t one. There is a shared field of inquiry, even if one person happens to be standing at the front.
What stood out most was not just what he was clear about, but how he related to that clarity. It was never presented as something handed down or definitively settled. It always seemed to grow out of inquiry, out of not knowing, out of paying attention.
He would speak clearly when something was clear to him. But just as often, he would pause. Sit with a question. Let there be space. Sometimes for longer than felt socially comfortable, which, in retrospect, was part of the lesson. We all survived.
There was no rush to fill the air with certainty. And when he did share something, it came with a kind of transparency. Not “this is the truth,” but “this is what I’ve seen, this is how I came to see it. Mull this over and reflect on it yourself.”
That distinction matters more than it might seem. Because one approach gathers authority. The other returns it.
A Quiet Calibration
So this question has become something I return to, again and again. Not as a rule, and not as a way of getting it “right,” but as a kind of quiet calibration.
Does this bind or free?
It is a small question, but it seems to have a way of keeping the pedestal problem from quietly taking over. And these days, that feels like a fairly good place to stand.
