The Importance of Remembering Names
by Kacee Must, Citizen Yoga Founder and Owner
There is something that is commonly said, “I am bad with names”. And guess what, that might be true today; however it is not how it has to be moving forward. In the first blog post of this series, “How to Identify a Higher Ideal” it asks you to review these questions:
During a difficult time in your life, how could you have been supported better? What systems were or were not in place for that support? How could you use the wisdom acquired through that time to serve others in similar circumstances?
In my life, I experienced extremely low points of depression and anxiety due to big life events and undiagnosed illness. In my early 20’s, I played Lacrosse at Northwestern. I found the environment of Division 1 sports, not only toxic to the development of young women’s confidence, but the unsupportive coaching staff treating 18 year olds with little care and concern, a recipe for a very anxious and depressed college experience. It is not very often that I recount and share the experience in my 20’s, mostly because it was often so painful, that though I am very far past that period, it is hard to think I will one day have to send my children off to a school experience that could be like that.
After leaving the Lacrosse team, I joined a sorority, yep I know..that experience was as you could predict, just as, if not more dysfunctional, than the sports team. One positive, I met one of my lifelong best friends, but not without the cost of isolation, bullying, and witnessing of extreme substance abuse by 18-22 year olds. I know, not everyone’s college experience was like mine, but I am providing context to how my passion for mental health and community was formed. At that same time, I lost a childhood best friend to drowning, and a high school coach, with whom I was extremely close, to cancer, all the while, unknowingly dealing with the beginning of PMDD, premenstrual dysphoric disorder. After graduation, I left Northwestern and have literally never returned.
I traveled the world on my own, looked for answers that would indicate promise and connection, and while traveling in Australia, I got a call from my Mom that my oldest sister died by suicide in a very violent manner. To say that the healing from college stopped, would be an understatement. I immediately flew home and spent the next 2 years back at the bottom of the river swimming deep in dark muddy currents. I was seeking answers, felt so alone, and also, unknowingly, was in the beginning of my spiritual path and passion. In 2006, I decided through a connection from a Detroit yoga studio, to move to the Vedanta Academy in India. Everyone thought this was a bad idea, but deep inside, I knew I needed to pursue Truth. I needed answers to my suffering. The suffering of my sister. The suffering of those around me.
I left for India in 2007, strived, very much struggled, and recollected a sense of myself. While one part of me was being rediscovered, my physical health was unraveling. I did not know it at the time, but I was suffering from PMDD, a not so common hormone imbalance that led to extreme emotional ups and downs, physical changes, and inevitably the reason I was forced to move home. There were no answers to this problem other than birth control or an excessive number of supplements, for years. It is one of the reasons I started believing in acupuncture, because it helped with swings in mood and the grueling physical changes of a hormone imbalance. At this time in Michigan, I was alone. There was the rise of the smart phone, which I was completely unaccustomed to, and it left me lost in a world I once knew. After three years away, there are things I noticed that had changed:
People stopped talking to each other in person; there were no more phone calls, only texts; spending time with others meant they were often staring at their phone.
It was a stark change from the society I left in 2007. I also had learned so much about philosophy, yoga, and spiritual study that I no longer fit in any particular yoga space that I had grown up in. I started working at YogaMedics with Ann Fancy and Anne Zemba, and we started to dream of a community where people talked to each other, yoga teachers did not have god complexes or fame aspirations, curiosity was encouraged over dogma, and people knew each other by name.
By name, was my mission, in a new world of so much avoidance and anonymity, which only contributed to my experience of isolation and loneliness, I knew I was not the only one. And even more importantly, I knew that my sister needed more community, more support, and people truly watching out for her. I started creating Citizen Yoga, not knowing if people would understand us (Ann Fancy, Paul Witherspoon, Todd Tesen, and Anne Zemba), but I knew it was the right thing to do. We did our best to create a space where people truly were seen and known.
All this to share, that knowing names is a part of my life. If an action could be a core value, learning names would be it. It is something I have practiced. I am extremely present for the initial connection with another person. And I am not afraid to ask again, because a name is a doorway to conversation and connection.
Today’s Prompt:
The next time you are being introduced to someone:
Pause, stay present with them
Repeat their name
Put them in a context, like “Angela in the back of the yoga room”
Put your phone down
