Bouncing Back

Epic failure — it happens to us all. Maybe we gave the wrong change to a customer when working in retail, leaving the till majorly short at the end of the day. Maybe you worked in a hospital and forgot to give a chart to a doctor, leaving a patient sitting for hours. We all make mistakes.

But when we are a yoga teacher, that’s our identity— and epic failures can leave us questioning everything. We mix up our lefts and rights, we pay rent on a class space and no one shows up, we create a digital product and no one buys. All normal.

But I am talking about the kind of failure that has a major effect on your mental and/or physical wellbeing, and maybe even your financial stability and your future. The event that was a disaster. Negative reviews and demands for refunds. The high-maintenance client you couldn’t satisfy. The large corporate event you never got paid for. The yoga studio colleague who undermined you. You try to move on from the situation, but you still feel lost and bereft.

For me, it was a yoga holiday that became my failure. Two years of work, organisation, money, love, hopes, and dreams - and everything went wrong from the moment I stepped on the plane. I was dealing with logistical disasters, culture shocks, and misplaced expectations. I ignored red flags when putting the group, venue, and itinerary together, and despite leading multiple retreats, events and workshops up to this point, perhaps I wasn't ready for a yoga holiday on this scale.

In trying to make it amazing, I gave too much of myself, and sometimes people take advantage of this. I had no support system in place for me; I should have had an assistant, friend, or partner with me. Alone, I crumbled.

I know someday it will make sense, the reason I had this experience. For now, my lesson is wisdom, and I hope you can learn from this.

Remind yourself of your dharma

Very few people go into teaching yoga blind. More often than not, it’s a person’s second career in their working life, maybe even their third, fourth or fifth. They usually have life experience under their belt, their own spiritual journey, their own dark night of the soul that they overcame. They come to teaching with empathy, hope and openness. They are not taking it lightly.

Yoga teacher training is expensive, and the return on investment is often just not there. It’s highly likely that yoga is your dharma (life’s purpose). You didn’t come this far just to come this far. You didn’t come on this journey to give up after this mistake, this failure, this lesson. No, that is not what the universe had planned for you. This is part of your journey, and you will be a better teacher and student for it. I promise.