BH: You are obviously big into service. With all that you do, like Off the Mat, Into the World and the Youth Aids Organization, was there anything specifically that prompted you to get involved in service work?

SEANE:  I first got involved in service back in 1984 dealing with women’s issues but I wasn’t an effective activist at all. I thought I was great but when I look back at it, I realize that I had a lot of unresolved issues around anger that I hadn’t dealt with and so I was really using the actions that I participated in as platforms to release some of the frustrated feelings that I felt inside. I was really quick to point the finger and tell other people how to live their lives but I realize now that it was incredibly unhealthy. It’s how a lot of people still participate in activism today. It’s not sustainable unless you’re doing the work on you. So I got out of activism, got very involved in yoga during this period, did a lot of deep work on myself and then ended up getting back into service.

I got a job that brought in this abundance and the way that I feel about abundance is that when energy comes in, you have to express the energy out, otherwise you stop the flow.  When I had this opportunity I thought I probably should do some volunteer work, I should give back somehow. It was really that kind of flippant. I thought well, the only skill I have is teaching yoga so I could teach yoga to kids. I thought about the different environments where at-risk youth would be. The prison system didn’t seem a good idea to me because I didn’t really want to deal with adolescent boys as I didn’t know how comfortable I’d be in terms of their sexuality. I found a shelter in Van Nuys called Children of the Night which houses, educates and rehabilitates adolescent prostitutes - young women and men from the ages of 11 to 17. I thought, very innocently, super naively, that this would be a good fit for me, that these kids probably have body issues and yoga would teach them how to chill.

I went in to this environment and I was met by 15 girls and boys so rude, defiant, bored and angry and it was one of the most frustrating hours of my life. I couldn’t wait to get done. I got in my car and had all this pity towards these kids and I remember thinking to myself that they’re never going to get better, that these kids are just lost in the system and then it suddenly dawned on me (and I feel like this moment probably really has impacted my life until today), I realized that I had just met 15 manifestations of the disowned parts of myself.

As a child I dealt with sexual molestation and so I was defiant, rude, shut down, angry, all these things that I saw in these kids that I could not deal with because I hadn’t chosen yet to deal with it in myself. That part of them was a reflection of me and it scared me and I thought, oh crap, I think I know exactly where I’m supposed to be. If I don’t heal that part of me, then I’m never going to be able to evolve and transcend in this world. I have no choice. I have to go back and meet that part of my nature head on and when I can learn to truly love these kids, then I’ll learn how to celebrate that part of myself. Because what I was experiencing in the kids was a manifestation of their anger which is really just a manifestation of their grief. So going back in and working with the children, they helped me to reconnect with my own grief and it changed my life.  

And so it all came full circle, very yogic in my experience and it all evolved from there. I’ve never done any service that has been selfless. I don’t even know what that means. I say that because every single time I’ve gone out there into the world to be of service in any capacity, I have gotten more than I have ever given. My life has changed on so many levels and all I have to do is give time, energy, money, or some effort but what I get in return has been truly indescribable and priceless. My confidence, my sense of self, my sense of purpose, my ability to relate, all of this has been a skill learned by working with people who are at risk and identifying not the differences but the sameness. It’s important to learn how to be more empathic rather than sympathetic and the only way not to be sympathetic is to find commonality. It’s not to engage in the story but to really see the soul and yoga really taught me how to do that.

My experience in being of service is really an evolution of my yoga practice, of my quest for transformation. One can’t go without the other. I feel very deeply in my purpose and committed to that purpose of being in service because I know it brings me very, very close to God.

BH:  In spiritual circles there are often those  who believe it’s not a good idea to focus on the “dark side” of things whether it be their environments, their lives in general, etc., with the reasoning that focusing on the more “negative” aspects will bring that into one’s own life. Since you can’t do as much service as you do without dealing with hard issues, can you address that way of thinking?

SEANE:  I’ve heard that perception before, I just don’t personally relate to it. To understand the light I’ve had to also understand and respect the power of the shadow. It is the flip side of the same coin.

Everyone has obsession and jealousy, anger, hate, judgment, blame and all those negative perceptions and if you don’t acknowledge them and you repress them, they come out in other ways. They come out in acting out sexually, or hitting your partner, or screaming at your children and if we don’t want to deal with the acting out, we drink or do drugs or smoke or over eat, or anesthetize ourselves in a variety of ways.

I look at a culture of shutdown and denial and an unwillingness to go towards the darkness as though the shadow is something to be ashamed of. It’s just human, it’s just life and I personally can’t deny it otherwise everyone I meet along the path, I’ll think their path is wrong if I don’t agree with what their struggles or challenges are. It’s when I can understand and respect the power of the shadow in me that I can hold that same shadow for someone else without resisting it or judging it. To me that’s what empathy is.

My quest has always been to move towards that which scares me or threatens me because then I know that I am not running away from the depths of my own soul and so it’s like those sayings: if you spot it, you got it or that which you resist, persists. So for the work that I want to do in the world, especially working with at risk youth, you’re dealing with shadow. You’re dealing with people who have been abused, who do drugs, who do not have tools, who are using their anger as a way of either suppression or protection and if I really want to be effective, I have to be able to relate. I have to be able to get it and I know what it’s like.

Even in my life today, when I get confronted, I can immediately take a moment to sense my reaction, if I don’t breathe I can feel it, I want to lash out, I want to scream, I want to rage, I want to hit. I have tools now to go inside and identify but most people are afraid of the shadow, they reject it, deny it, shame it and then therefore when it’s speaking to them on such a subtle level, they just go into denial and act out. I’m just not interested in perpetuating that. I celebrate the shadow. I respect the courage it takes to pull oneself up out of their own humanity and really live to tell the tale and as a result, they are the best teachers. I’m all about supporting the journey no matter what is revealed because it’s karmic, it’s all soulful and it’s ultimately all God.

I recently got back from a service trip to Cambodia and we worked in some really horrifying situations. I brought 20 people with me and not one of them had experienced anything of this capacity and their own traumas were really triggered.  It was fascinating to watch how they dealt with it. My favorite part was watching everyone go back to the buffet at the hotel and every night everyone would pack their plates with desserts. They were totally using sugar to anesthetize and so we addressed it.  I didn’t judge it, we just looked at it.

If I didn’t have yoga and prayer and therapy and good communication with my friends and family I couldn’t do this. If I didn’t eat well, get enough rest, it has to be sustainable for me as an individual and I know my circumstance is a little more extreme, but this goes for anyone getting involved in service on any level including raising their own children which is probably the greatest service and most complicated service you could possibly do. But if you’re not taking care and nourishing yourself, body, mind and spirit, then you cannot truly be present for another human being in a way that is healthy and therefore sustainable.

BH:  One part of Off the Mat, Into the World is the SEVA challenge which I’ll ask you more about next. What else does it do?

SEANE:  The other part of what we do is leadership training programs that teach people how to deal with their shadow parts, how to make activism sustainable from within and how to see the yoga of activism, meaning that what we believe is that everything happens synergistically and perfectly with the singular purpose of soul transformation.

We’re on this mystical path -- that means there is no right or wrong, good or bad and that everything that everyone is experiencing is karmic. If we believe this, that means that every being, no matter how awful the circumstances might seem, or no matter how bad someone’s participation in someone else’s life might be, there might be something bigger going on that we’re not really privy to on a full level.  It becomes our dharma, our great work to serve someone’s karma without judgment, meaning we have to dignify the human experience with absolute love, not judgment because when we participate in judgment, hate, blame, fear, guilt, or victimization, we then become part of the problem.

If we begin the process of separation, otherness, then it’s the exact opposite of yoga. Yoga doesn’t believe that at all. This idea that there is an other, a you against me is really what’s perpetuating the wars, the terrorism, and all the dysfunction of this planet so as spiritual activists, we have to be willing to go above it and see the bigger picture. There is no separation but if we really believe that, we have to first go into our own life, look to where we are acting as if there is an other, see where we’re indulging in this psychic or even physical separation, feel that which is disconnected form each other and God and then no longer will we be part of the problem.

So the real battle first starts within the individual and then it can transcend out into the community. That’s when we can serve from love and not judgment. Off the Mat, Into the World is a training program that teaches people how to do this. How to take responsibility for the whole of your life, how to discern in a different way, how to shift judgment into compassion, fear into love, anger into wisdom and then how to use organizational skills so as to activate your passion and your purpose in a practical way in your local community through projects, through outreach or service.

It’s kind of an extension of the work that I do on me everyday anyway. I don’t always succeed in this, not at all. I have a very difficult time but I have the tools so that I can be in the fire and be able to maintain my center no matter what I’m being confronted with. I know how to breathe, I know how to connect to God and I know how to pray. As long as I can do those three things, then I can stay in a relationship without running away.

Interview To Be Continued…..

*Note from the Editor:  After learning more about Seane and the work she does, I’ve been inspired to participate in the SEVA challenge. If you would like to make a donation in my name, I’d be honored to represent you in Uganda in Feb. 2009, the next SEVA destination. You can click here to donate.

(Please note that there is a place to scroll through to select the name of the participant you are supporting)
Or you can mail a check made out to The ENGAGE Network including the name of the participant in the memo line to the following address: The Bleeping Herald, 1482 E Valley Rd. Ste 212, Montecito, CA 93108.

If you’d like to participate yourself, Sign Up today and with a little bit of fundraising ingenuity and some major elbow grease, I’ll see you in Uganda!

Thank you!
Katie Elliott