Course: Befriending Imperfection

About This Course
Do you suspect you have perfectionist tendencies that cause you problems, but feel uncomfortable if you’re not in control? Or maybe you’ve simply started to wonder how much you get in your own way, and want to know more about that?

This spring, we invite you to join us for a mind-body journey into aspects of our shadow side and back into the light. We are experienced and endorsed Insight Yoga teachers Erinbell Fanore and Sarah Jane Shangraw, and our methods include dharma teachings, awareness and compassion practices, yoga, and inquiry.

Together we will learn to more fully accept ourselves as we are, and also become people who can, a little bit more often, let things be. In order to do this, we must learn how to care for—rather than control—what's arising in each moment.

Join Us Online in 2026 for 6 Weekly Sessions

April 12: Perfectionism and Why We Strive
April 19: Accepting Things as They Are
April 26: Responding with Compassion
May 3: Befriending Our Inner Perfectionists
May 10: The Willingness to be Disappointing
May 17: Finding the Joy in Imperfection

Learn to Relax Into Life's Unfolding
Many of us unconsciously exert control over--or compulsively fix--things as a way to cut down on the level discomfort we feel about them. Leading a controlled, more predictable life may seem like a good strategy for antidoting our discomforts and fears, but such rigidity and constriction leaves little room for surprise and delight!

And anyway, it is unrealistic. Humans are messy! We get distracted; we make mistakes; we miss the point.

And life itself is messy! We have little control at best, and our best laid plans often go awry.

The good news is we can embrace this, and the result of doing so is more ease! Through somatic, mindfulness, and compassion practices woven together from ancient yogic and Buddhist lineages, as well as Internal Family Systems, we can learn to:

Appreciate our complexity
Not take our ourselves too seriously
Be okay with not being okay all of the time
Accept our own and others' humanity more fully

Course Details

Six, 90-minute online sessions starting April 12, 5:30pm CEST (Berlin), 11:30am EDT (New York).
Sessions include meditations, dharma talk, mindful movement, and journal prompts.
Meditation audios and journal prompts will be provided between sessions.
All sessions will be recorded and available to view on demand through June 2026.
Students of the 500-Hour Insight Yoga Institute YTT will receive credits for this program.

Course Fees

119 Euro (by contacting Erinbell) or US$140 (by contacting Sarah Jane).