My Yoga Teacher Training Journey | How I Became a Yoga Teacher

Transcript

hey and welcome to a chatty video I am sharing my yoga journey I have been practicing yoga for years now I've been a yoga teacher for over five years I cannot imagine my life without the practice of yoga but yoga hasn't always been a part of my life and I didn't actually discover or start practicing yoga until my late twenties and what Drew me to the practice in the first place was I was going through a really challenging time mentally and I was just then just you know then curious to find them different ways just to help myself through that and I kept coming across them yoga and how yoga really helped people with their mental health you know reading bold statements like yoga can try you know transformed people's lives and so yeah I guess that started to get me me hooked and I then thought well I'll give it a go what have I got to lose and I actually began practicing yoga following along with an ebook I didn't go to a class there were no classes around in my local area I didn't know any yoga teachers I didn't know anybody who practiced yoga and yeah so I just followed along with this ebook and I used to come home from work and I would roll out my mat and then just start to work through the postures in the ebook and you know I really enjoyed doing that and you know I was very much drawn to the physical practice of that part at that point and I kept looking at all these different asanas and I was like I'd love to be able to do that and it just really gave me a focus that I needed at that point in my life like everything else just felt like really heavy and it just been trying my math was then started to become this safe space without me realizing it and so I started to then become aware of how I was starting to feel like I've been doing it for a while but I was like okay like although I was very much focused just on the physical I was starting to then feel a change beginning to happen I still couldn't link up the old statements of yoga transforming people's lives and then these postures in these shapes on the map because at that point in my practice I'd only just begun I did not know anything about yoga philosophy I literally only knew about that one limb the Asana and it was very basic what I knew knew at that point as well but I just felt so connected to the practice so early on and it then just became a regular thing I really would come home from work and then just started to show up on that daily and it got things weren't quite things got bad and I was just kind of like at a breaking point and I couldn't remember it so vividly I was just struggling to sleep one night and you know really upset and I'm speaking to my my husband and I just said like I'm so unhappy with work and you know I I just can't keep on doing it like something needs to change and you know I was saying I didn't want to to teach anymore I used to be a school teacher and just verbalizing that out loud was really hard for me because once upon a time I loved my job and it brought me such fulfillment and you know it and still like the the the day-to-day teaching of children like that will always fulfill me and you know there's you know a special place in my heart for all my memories of teaching but sadly it's it's not just then the time that you're with the children and I because I you know at one point thought that I would have done that job until until I retired and then to you know come to terms with and to accept and to acknowledge the fact that I just could not keep on doing that anymore I was so burnt out in in every way and really unhappy in a toxic environment and you know reflecting back on it now like I don't know how I went on as long as I did but yeah so I made this realization well just like spoke about it in the in the middle of the night and my husband said to me well you know quit and it never occurred to me that it was just like simple as that and obviously it's a lot more complex than that but it really was just as simple as that was the start of it and I thought yeah I can do this I can I can quit and he said to me well what do you want to do and it kind of it didn't come like from nowhere which is bizarre because I'm really not studied the practice for that long at that point but I just said to him like I want to be a yoga teacher and that was the first time like I'd almost heard it myself as it was coming out of my mouth but it just felt so right and looking back on it now it's definitely my intuition my roaring it was you know like yeah let's do this and just at that night it just got things done things just started happening and I really got the ball rolling and everyone waking up the next day and obviously things that hadn't changed um in my day-to-day life and but I just had got this energy this um you know this desire to really make things happen and make a whole lifestyle change as well and so I then started to explore more than about the practice of yoga I was like well then and you know I just wanted to learn so much about it and so that kind of like is is where then studying from a 200 hours came from as well as then because I had been this it wasn't just a desire to then deepen my my yoga practice but I I wanted to share it like I just felt really called to and so I began looking into different 200 hours I knew I didn't want to do it over a year or a weekend here and there I was like if I'm doing it I'm doing I'm going all in wanted to be an immersive experience and I ended up then handyman notice in very quickly but I think it must have been like that that week I decided to to make the change and booked my 200 hours and and then worked up until that the school year had had ended and which was July and then by the October I then went away to Indonesia to do my 200 hours and it was gone for a month I studied with Stefan camilleri I highly recommend him I will leave his Link in the description box below and it was truly one of the most transformative experiences of my life and I will forever cherish it and treasure it and the transformation that I had in every different way was just so immense in really what was just a short space of time and so yes it was gone for a month and even at this point so even when I'd like it you know made that decision to you know I started to dive into the practice of yoga and and was regularly practicing at home by myself I was developing then a strong self practice I still hadn't really gone to any classes in fact I cannot camp on what I forgot what to say what what's the scene you can't count off one hand you know what I mean anyway I hadn't been to that many classes at all I couldn't count on more than one hand the amount of classes I'd been to and really when I think back to it now I'm trying to think like I I definitely had that but yeah so just to I I mean I I do really think it's important to obviously have that um to regularly practice before making the decision to go and do your 200 hours however for me it just felt so right there was no there was no doubt in my Minds that this was for me and I was prepared to to do do the work and things and then also really I would argue the the Asana the physical is 1 8 of the whole practice so you know really somebody could you know really dive into the yoga philosophy and I've never stepped on the map before they do their teach training um anyway that's just kind of like off on a little rambling so at this point I just knew that yoga was making me feel amazing I wanted to wanted to share it but I had only begun to like scratch the surface into the whole practice and so I went away to do my training and we would do a 90-minute practice every morning and would do a 30 minute meditation and I can remember when we got told what we were doing every day I was like but I'd never meditated for longer than five minutes at this point um but I was like yeah let's do it and you know then soon connected with the practice of meditation and actually really valued and appreciated just the importance of doing it for longer because you kind of like hit this point where your mind's really busy and then everything just goes quiet it's such a beautiful beautiful feeling so yeah we'll do a 90 minute Asana every morning meditation and obviously then learn how to how to teach about to hold the space and I actually really felt head over heels in love with the yoga for Us beside the practice so when we would have our lectures lectures around the yamas and the niyamas I just felt like it was everything I'd been searching for everything I'd been looking for as like guidance and support without realizing I'd been looking for it and I just felt so connected to everything that my teacher was sharing and I very quickly just started to put those teachers into practice in my everyday life and so yeah he's gone for over um over a month and one of the things that really stuck with me that my yoga teacher had said was the importance of maintaining our self-practice and how you know it's very um common that yoga teachers like they they do their training and then they lose their practice which you know I I him sharing that I was like I really didn't want to lose that I really did not want to lose them myself practice and really grateful for him for saying that because I think if he hadn't I would have phoned the Trap of them like not showing up to practice and so as soon as I came back I then you know then starts to have then a morning practice of um Asana and meditation and you know that that's kind of like stayed the same since since then I mean every morning I show up in a different way and what I do on the mat differs in time and duration in intensity if anything I would say now like my Asana practice has like hugely slowed down um but I would say you know I do practice yoga every day but I spend more time practicing yoga off the mat than I do on the mat and when I I when I learned then about yoga philosophy I was like I get it now I I get when people were saying things like yoga transformed my life and I was like I get it I I wasn't living that transformation and really aligned with that statement and I was like this is what I need to share and so I've always then woven yoga philosophy into my practices my teaching at the studio and also online on the Soul Care club we have like separate philosophy videos and you know really just then taking this ancient wisdom this ancient practice it's thousands of years old and just applying it into modern day life and you know there's it's still something that is so relevant and that we've that we can apply and so yeah time's just gone it's you know in in such flow that it's flown by and yeah I guess then that's like my journey um I I suppose then my journey kind of goes then into my journey as a yoga teacher um and I guess then however evolved as a yoga teacher as well I came back from my training by the time I came back that was in the November and then by the January I was like straight in um teaching classes and again there wasn't any yoga locally and so it was so nice to share the practice with pretty much everybody in my class was was a beginner I think everybody was and and it's been so beautiful to see other people's transformation through the practice of yoga and to be a part of that that say that's something really special that I feel very privileged and grateful to to be a part of so yeah I then began teaching classes and I started it off with like I think it's like two three classes a week and then just gradually built them and you know that did taste fine like I you know it it wasn't easy with what's you know that when we when we're practicing when we are building our business office yoga teachers and that's when we practice the yoga philosophy as well like the practice of tap has been disciplined focused determined even when like no one shows up or you know perhaps cancel classes and things it's about them still showing up and having this really connecting with your purpose and your intention of why you're doing why you want to do yoga teacher in the first place and so yeah it it took like it was over a year of building up classes where everything hiring out of space and the it just started to cost them more money in renting the space out than it would be creating my own space and that is when a year later when I opened up the inspired studio and that was four years ago we've had since then so that had a huge impact on the studio I was in close like a year and a half but that's when then out of that and out of that struggle I then created my online membership and you know I get to share then where where before like I would then weave in yoga philosophy I would just be able to then share videos like this talking about yoga philosophy um and yeah so like I said it kind of weaves into my journey as a yoga teacher and I have got a a whole separate video on that talking about my journey and then opening up the studio so I kind of cover along things like that um but I guess for me now not just as a yoga teacher but as a student of yoga because every yoga teacher is a student first for me it's just sharing this practice as a student not just a teacher just sharing the practice of yoga um how with how I live my life and I would say like I live a yoga Inspired Life and you know hopefully then just share those bags and share that energy with what I do daily and then also use the opportunity that I have as a yoga teacher teacher to share it as well so yeah that's kind of like my my own personal journey and I guess that just kind of like takes me up to today which as I mentioned earlier the way that I practice hasn't changed that much from when I came back from a teacher trainer and then just made sure that I have to stay connected to the practice and like I say it's about being flexible and making changes to it so sometimes I like I said I will show up on the map um differently but I do every day I practice yoga in one way or another so I don't think there's anything else to say if you have any questions or anything you'd like to know then pop them in the comment box below and I would love to hear from you and will reply to you and if there are you know lots of questions or I think I've completely missed something out then you know I can always create then another video or if there's anything that I can help you with then please do let me know and but yeah thank you so much for taking the time to you know watch this video and share your time and your energy with me they are two of your most precious resources and I'm always so grateful that people just take the time to share them with me and if you do want to know more about yoga inspired living and what are yoga inspired lifestyle looks like I share weekly blogs here on YouTube and if you two want to dive into the world of yoga philosophy you know that's not my big passion to share a share about um then come join us on the circuit on this Hair Club I have so many videos around it all um yeah thank you so much and I look forward to hanging out with you in another video soon