The surprising, yet obvious integration of yoga and interaction design
If you take a look at my resume, you’ll see that I’m a certified yoga teacher as well as an interaction design student. A lot of people ask me, “why did you decide to study interaction design instead of being a yoga teacher?” “I didn’t,” I tell them. Even though it took me a while to figure out, I’ve realized that studying interaction design and teaching yoga is not mutually exclusive. I can actually integrate both into my life.
During my Ashtanga yoga teacher training in Bali last year, I learned many different poses, various meditation techniques as well as a lot of history and philosophy lessons. This was also a time when I started to grasp the concepts of mindfulness, empathy, and acceptance.
When my training was over, I wanted to keep up my yoga practice and was excited about incorporating the concepts I had learned into my daily life. The following months, I managed to get on my mat every day. Okay, maybe not every day, but definitely the majority of the week. As soon as I rolled up my mat at the end of my practice though, I also lost my sense of mindfulness, empathy, and acceptance.
Fast forward a few months, and I’m studying Interaction Design at the California College of the Arts. During my Communication by Design class this semester, I’m mainly learning how to effectively communicate. This covers having a discussion, giving a presentation, writing an article, as well as giving and receiving critique. To my surprise, the concepts of mindfulness, empathy and acceptance that I had been introduced to during my yoga teacher training reappeared.
When having a discussion for example, the book Connecting Across Differences places importance on all three of these concepts. If you’re not familiar with the book or the Nonviolent Communication (NVC) model, feel free to read up on it before continuing.
Now that we’re all on the same page, the NVC model involves four basic steps that can be expressed in shorthand as “OFNR.” In order to effectively implement this model ourselves, it’s important to be mindful of our observations, feelings, needs, and requests. As a result, others will tend to be more empathic towards us and more likely to accept our request.
When giving a presentation, the book Resonate claims that telling a story is the most powerful delivery tool for information. In order to tell a good story though, it’s key to accept our audience’s risk, resistance, and reward. We also need to create empathy for our audience, as well as be mindful of incorporating contrast.
When writing an article, the book Everybody Writes claims that writing well is part habit, part knowledge and part giving a damn. I read this as accepting that it will take discipline to practice, being mindful of some fundamental rules and having empathy towards your reader.
In regards to critique, the book Discussing Design also stresses the importance of these three concepts. When facilitating critique, we need to accept that everybody is equal. When giving critique, we should be mindful of responding instead of reacting. When receiving critique, we can be more empathetic by using the laddering technique. If you haven’t heard of this technique before, go ahead and read more about it. Only if you want to of course.
I know I just referenced a whole lot of books, but do you see how often these concepts of mindfulness, empathy, and acceptance appear? I’m challenging myself, and you’re more than welcome to join me, to integrate these concepts into all areas of my life, not just when I’m on my yoga mat. I have yet to read a book that says not to integrate mindfulness, empathy, or acceptance.
To really come full circle, I just remembered that the word yoga means “union” or “integration.” Before, I interpreted this as the union of yoga poses, meditation techniques, history and philosophy lessons on the mat. Now, I view it as the integration of mindfulness, empathy, and acceptance into all aspects of life from discussions and critiques, to presentations and writing.
