Spilling the tea — the truth about making a living in yoga with Rebecca Sebastian

Whether you practice yoga, teach it or have built your career around it — the industry you love isn't always what it seems.

In this episode I sit down with Rebecca Sebastian — yoga teacher, yoga therapist and one of the most honest voices writing about what it's actually like to work in yoga today. Rebecca is the founder of Working in Yoga and Inside Yoga Magazine and she has been naming the systemic issues most people are too polite to say out loud.

Yoga teacher, yoga therapist and founder of The Nourished Woman, Keri Marino, talk about our careers in yoga, how the industry has changed, the large scale forces shaping it right now and what the path forward looks like for yoga teachers and therapists navigating it all. We also talk about the transformative power of yoga itself — and the students who make all of it worth it.

If you've ever wanted a look behind the curtain of the yoga world — this is that conversation. And if you're working in yoga and looking for clarity on what comes next — this one is especially for you.

Consider this your water cooler moment.

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Want to find out more about Keri and Rebecca?

Connect with Keri at www.kerimarino.com/ and @the_nourished_woman

Connect with Rebecca at www.thesunlightexperience.com/, www.workinginyoga.com/ and @rebeccasebastianyoga

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Next steps ⬇️

Grab a free yoga practice to Come Home to Your Body

-> https://kerimarino.eo.page/comehome

Start a consistent daily yoga practice in Daily Devotion - 21 days of 10 minute yoga practices plus email support to keep you on track

-> https://thenourishedwoman.heymarvelous.com/product/92272/lessons

Help spread the word. If this episode resonated, share it with a friend and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

Connect with Keri or learn more about her offerings at www.KeriMarino.com  and on instagram @the_nourished_woman

A gentle note: The Nourished Woman Podcast is educational and not a substitute for medical or mental health care. Please listen to your body and consult your provider when needed.

Transcript

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Meet Rebecca Sebastian

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Welcome back to the Nourished Woman podcast. I am delighted to have Rebecca Sebastian here with me today. She is making waves in the yoga industry right now. And she's a 20-year yoga teacher, 10, no, 20-year yoga teacher, I said that right, 10-year yoga therapist and the founder of Sunlight Media. And she is somebody that I I've known for a little while because you started a Facebook group called The Future of Yoga Therapy, whenever some really big stuff was going on in our industry. And but I I didn't know you as well until probably about three months ago when I discovered your podcast and started to learn a little bit more about you. And one of the things that I admire about you is you seem like a deeply passionate woman who's really grounded and you're willing to look at things from a holistic perspective in a way that really like you can tell that you feel feelings about what you write, but that those feelings don't cloud how you write and speak about it either. And that feels so rare in the yoga therapy professional world, that capacity to like see the whole picture, be somebody who's deeply invested, but also somebody who's willing to say, like, here's where we haven't rose to the equation, here's where systems have failed us, here's where opportunities lie and where they don't lie. And I think that just frankly, as somebody who's been in this field for 17 years as a professional and 20 years as a student, it's been damn refreshing.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

I think what I want to say about what you just said is it's so funny in yoga. We have like this collective of humans who are very emotions forward and feelings forward, which is amazing. This is like what we teach, right? Is this idea that we are gonna be whole human beings and we don't have to deny these other parts of ourselves. It's that integration piece that we're looking for as students of the practice. And then we have this whole other collective of people that the minute we talk about the industry, the business, or the organizations, we forget that we're people and we're just gonna talk about, you know, making money or business coaching or whatever else. And I was like, that's so weird to me. Like if anybody as a collective could be able to say, I'm gonna work on seeing the full picture of us as an industry, the way I look at seeing the full picture of myself as a human in my practice, like we train for this. So like I I don't often understand how people divorce themselves from their feelings and emotions about the industry we work in in order to sound more professional. Like I just feel that's weird. That's like weird to me.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

I think it is weird. And I think like, you know, I'm a nervous system nerd. And so I think honestly, like so many of us in the yoga, like my experience. So context, everybody, I'm married to a chef and he is like a 20-year chef. I know he's he's like a good chef. He actually cooks at home sometimes, too, not most of the time, mostly meeting, but sometimes. But like, so I've got this view into an industry where chefs treat each other like family. Like, for example, my husband had a stroke, and the level of people that came together to cook us a meal or to come by and to say a kind thing just to overextend themselves to show up for Tanner was insane. And do you know how many people from the yoga industry reached out and said anything to me or cooked a meal or did this like hardly anybody, Rebecca? And it's yeah, and it's not that I don't have friends in the yoga, it's just everybody in the yoga community is like in this survival bubble. I think if I'm being honest in the workforce, and there's there's no sense of like family. And I feel like that nervous system tone, like my experience of my career, is that when I want to go to coffee with another yoga teacher, it feels like there's competition in the room. And I'm just like, what the fuck? Like

A Hard Truth to Hear

SPEAKER_01 6:14

you're the only person that cares about this as much as me. Why can't we just sit to coffee? Why are we like this? Why are we like this? So yes, I feel it. And I feel the like nervous system of our of our culture in the yoga industry professional space. Like, it's almost just like we've gotten so lost that we don't even know how.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Well, I feel like, and I mean to say something hard because I know every time I say this, this is hard for people to hear. So I'm gonna acknowledge that first. I understand this is hard, but we respond the way people in poverty respond. We have a problem with poverty in our industry, and everybody hates that I use that word poverty. But to me, we can't solve a problem until we've identified the problem. And so it's very difficult for people with nothing to advocate for something better. They're all like, we're just trying to eat dinner, we're trying to keep a roof over our head. And then in that mindset, everybody else who might be getting a little bit of what we could get feels like competition versus collaboration. Like, I want to emphasize that like what a normal human thing. Like, this is a normal thing that humans do.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

We just have to stop it. So, like, we just have to step back a little bit and be like, oh, this is why I feel this way. This is why somebody else is acting this way, because it's almost we pull a bait and switch on people when they come in the industry, right? Like you remember your teacher training and you went in and you you feel like you simultaneously went to war and built an artwork with the people who were in the room, and you feel a lot of gratitude for the human, and you're like, I've evolved, and all these things, like we've had this collective experience together, and then those humans go out into an industry and realize that

The Organizations that Failed Us

SPEAKER_00 8:07

all of a sudden it's like a gladiator-style battle just to get classes, just to talk to people down the street, and we're all in this like mess, and we're too busy pointing at each other. And my hope with my work is that people can step back enough to look that we're in a system that financially and with power benefits from us doing that, and and fuck that entirely. Like, let's build something different.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Oh, completely. And I I I resonate so much with what you said. In one of your pieces of work that you have, I'm pretty sure it was in your podcast, you were talking about how the like the yoga industry shifts and how in the 2010s we had our biggest yoga boom, and ever since then there's been this decline. And so I started my career in 2009. And so I was literally at the onset of that boom, and so, or like in the thick of that boom. And when I graduated from teacher training, before I even graduated, I had a full-time job as a yoga teacher to the point that I could leave, I was in college, so I was also in college, but I could leave my restaurant job to go full-time into yoga, and I made a living off of yoga very easily. But also, the amount of teachers, like when I got my training, anybody that had training around me at that time had done serious study. Like they had gone to a nine-month, two-year-long teacher training program, spent thousands of dollars training, and then all of a sudden, like right as I'm graduating from and I had apprenticed under a teacher for a year. As I'm graduating, yoga fit came into town and trained like two people. And that was the first like fitness-based yoga training I had ever even heard of. And um, and and then now we're where we are now with yoga trainings basically being unregulated. We've pumped out more teachers than we have jobs. I feel for people that have done their training in more recent years, because when I got out, there actually was a lot of job opportunities.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Yeah. Yeah, you're that's one of the things I think that started my internal motivation to really deconstruct how the industry was working. Now, I have famously always said, so I I've actually been teaching since like 2004. And I've I was I started in that weird space where I was actually teaching before I was officially trained, but I'd been a practitioner since the 90s. So somebody was like, hey, I need you for like just come teach this class, um, which is a very different environment than it is today. But as I've been mostly, I've just been a working yoga teacher. Like I've taught classes and workshops, and I became a yoga therapist in 2011. And so that was actually a really financially lucrative way for me to make a living. And then I look at everybody behind me and I go, Oh, you all definitely don't have the same opportunities to build your careers the way that I did. What happened? And then people coming in were like, You we want you to train us. And I just kept thinking, I have an ethical obligation to try and change the system you're entering. If I'm taking your money to train you for said system, like I know it doesn't work. It feels unethical if I'm not at the very least trying to make this better for the people that come behind me because they're good people too.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

They are, yeah. People who care deeply. Yeah. Yeah. I think what you said about the yoga professionals behaving like people who are in poverty, like that response is just so spot on. And I want to name that. And then also I want to name a little, this is very personal share on my part, but so I about in 2020, I moved back to Greenville, South Carolina from a very established yoga career in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where I had a flourishing private yoga therapy practice, but I also had this really large studio and like part of their teacher training program, classes, workshops. I had a great career. And I moved back home, and it's in the pandemic, and I restarted my business completely on my own as a mom of three in a br in a town where I had had a business before, but it was very early in my career. And I realized real fast that I didn't have the business skills to actually be successful. And so then I was like, okay, well, I'll go to business coaching. And so I do business coaching and I pay a lot of money, nearly $20,000, for multiple business coaching programs with different people to learn, like, like basically like a master's degree in business, but without the degree. But then like specialized training programs to fill in the gaps. And then the reality is that I spent all that time and all that money, and I have a lot of business skills, but I never moved the needle financially in the meaningful way that I needed. And so then that looked like the business industry tells you it's all your fault. Like, do more mindset work, do more spiritual work, do more strategy work, change your marketing messaging this way, tweak it this way, just email them more, email them less. And the yoga industry is like, well, you know, money is a construct, and money doesn't even really exist, and you can manifest it, and like you just need to do more spiritual practice. And then so what the women end up thinking is that they're a failure.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

And then part of what just on the mental health side, because I work in like the intersection of yoga therapy and mental health spaces as a yoga therapist, is all about recognizing the systems

Individual Problems vs Systemic Issues - It's Not Your Fault

SPEAKER_01 14:19

that are contributing. They have this like hyper-individualist approach to systemic problems. So women are thinking the like, oh, the trauma recovery is all on them. But it's like you're in a system that keeps re-traumatizing you. And then people like me or other people in the yoga therapy or mental health space are profiting off the fact that you are having hardships that are systemic issues. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

But your work, I feel like, is bringing that systemic conversation to the yoga world. So and it was actually quite healing for me to read the depth of the work and the descriptions as somebody who's been in the industry. You've been in it longer than I have, but I've been in it a long time.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Not that much longer.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Not right. But like to hear you talk about it and describe it with the level of detail that you have has been so healing. And like, yes, I did need to invest money to get business skills, but also a lot of this stuff was never my fault. And this industry has changed faster than any of us could actually keep up with.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Yeah. Including, and this is going to be something that anybody who knows my work is going to be surprised that I'm going to say this, but including the yoga alliance, including the institutions that are in charge of the structure. There's a lot of I am sort of now the voice of holding these institutions and organizations accountable. Like I'm good at that work, I'm good at the structural analysis. But I do want to take this moment and give grace to the humans who were running those or organizations in the 2010s. Nobody saw this coming. Nobody saw chip from Lululemon popularizing stretchy pants that thusly popularized our work. Like, you know, Tai Chi didn't have that. There's so many other sort of like adjacent modalities to what we do. Pilates didn't have that. They're just kind of catching up now.

SPEAKER_02 16:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

And so the systems that were set up in like the 90s, 80s and 90s of people who were like, oh, we need something bigger than us, they weren't thinking that tens of millions to now billions of dollars were gonna flood into a market in a decade. Like, who could have predicted that, to be honest? Like, yeah, we are barely wearing shoes most of the time. Like, nobody's looking at the collective of us and are like, these people are gonna be in an industry that's wildly booming and actually catapulted wellness as an overall industry into a new level. Like, so much of that started with us.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

Who would who would have thought? Right. The Unitard wearing barefoot people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With classic Indian Indian instruments, will be the ones who boom the wellness industry.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

It's true. I was actually weirdly just quoted about the Unitard in Bloomberg Business Week's article about Lululemon. Like they did this whole article about like the rise and fall of Lululemon. And I happen to be connected with one of the writers on there. And my quote, it's like one sentence, and it is about the Unitards. Like, who would have thought?

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Seriously. I didn't see it coming. I mean, I was literally like the weirdo that carried a boom box around with my like my like hand-burned CDs, you know, to class. Yeah, it's been such a lot of change. And I want to kind of name for the women that are listening right now that are like, oh my God, I had no clue the yoga industry was so

What's Happened in the Yoga Industry

SPEAKER_01 18:36

complicated because they're just practitioners, but also the women that are listening that are, you know, some women approach me and they want to become yoga therapists, or they are yoga therapists, or they're yoga teachers. And so they're just they're listening to for their own growth and development here. So can we kind of paint the picture of what happened for them so we all understand a little bit of the story of this evolution through your perspective?

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Yes, I will paint the picture to the depth of knowledge, which I understand there are other experts and people who know this better, people have written books about that. You can find Thea Wildcroft or Amara Miller, both are PhDs who've written very extensively about this. But for the rest of us, I'll just tell you what happened. Essentially, what happened is that we started to get popular in the 80s and 90s. And by the 90s, what was happening is that people were going, How do I find a yoga teacher? And we were, we have like all these. This is the thing that I find very fascinating is we have all these little glimmers of like famous people coming in to find yoga. Like when Madonna came in and started being a yoga practitioner in her sort of like kundalini phase of you know spiritual evolution, that kind of catapulted yoga to a new level. And then, you know, so we have things like that happening and people going, well, we want to build a way for people to find yoga teachers, hence the yoga alliance, right? Like, which was evolved from, I think it was Unity in Yoga, was the original name of the organization, and then evolved into the Yoga Alliance. And at that time, essentially a registry, which is what the Yoga Alliance is, made sense. We just want to give people a website for somebody to find a yoga teacher. And then there was, of course, people who were training to be yoga teachers over a weekend with 20 hours of training. And the same group of people kind of said, Well, that's not cool. And then that process of finding some sort of our standard, which is as we know, the 200-hour standard that the yoga alliance holds is what they sort of settled on. But they kind of settled on it because nobody in the room could really agree. So they just were like, well, fine, we're gonna do hours because we can't agree on what everybody should know. So we'll agree on how many of our hours we're gonna train. Because I am a person who doesn't particularly care for the internal dialogue of only in yoga, because lots of other industries have gone through the same evolutionary process that we're going through. But I will say only in yoga, in the fact that you could be a 200-hour yoga teacher and 190 of those hours could be meditation and breath work, and you could be a 200-hour yoga teacher, and 190 of those hours could be movement and anatomy, and both of those people have the same credential. That, from what I can tell, is only in yoga and kind of weird. Like, like, what do you expect? You have no idea what you're getting. The consumer has no idea what they're getting when they find a yoga teacher because it's very much not standard in any way. You can talk about the complications of that, but that just is what it is.

SPEAKER_01 21:59

Right. Those are the facts.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Right. And then as the 2000s happened, there were people who wanted to take yoga into a more professional path, people who were seeking to, you know, work in bigger institutions, corporations, the medical facilities. And that's when the International Association of Yoga Therapists kind of came on board and said, we're going to start working on figuring out how to really professionalize yoga. So the IYT International Association of Yoga Therapists kind of moved in one direction, sort of that medical model is what they were following. But often like what chiropractors did, from what I can tell and understand, they were mimicking chiropractors and to some degree acupuncturists as they were creating a path. And then we sort of split, right? Like we have all these fitness people over here, we have yoga therapists over here, we have spiritual teachers who are there deeply for the spiritual practice, sort of in their own little bucket, ignoring everybody else. Um, so we kind of have a lot of different factions of people and how they work. Yeah. And then we got really popular. Chip made the pants. The I I do believe that Lululemon specifically contributed a lot to our rise when our pants became very popular, the stretchy pants became popular. Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

People call them yoga pants.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

I mean, athletes, athletic pants or whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Yeah. And the story is he designed them because he became a practitioner in his 40s. And you know, he's a complicated character, but he did like build the pants for the practice. And as that expanded, people got to know more about yoga. I mean, I remember when I first started teaching in the early 2000s, I had to explain to people what a yoga teacher was. And then by 2013, you could buy a yoga mat at the grocery store. And like what a shift in cultural understanding of what we do, even Though we can all argue people don't really know what we do, like, but what a shift in the cultural consciousness in 10 years. So, of course, people are seeking out our services, of course, they're trying to figure out how to learn more. And then we have the credential inflation that happened, where as you mentioned, we credentialed a whole ton of people in that 2010s time period. Everybody had a teacher training, you know. And so that probably is the one thing that has contributed to what now essentially we're dealing with poverty in our industry. That one thing probably more than anything else is what did it for us. Low cost of entry means competition is high and there's a lot of people. You know, it's a low barrier to start a yoga studio. So somebody who has a 200-hour teacher training, they said, Well, I want to join us or I want to start a yoga studio. There was nothing internally saying, Yeah, maybe, maybe not. And so now we're sort of here in this mess where people who have business skills have learned how to thrive, and people who are dedicated to the practice have decided that their dedication means we're gonna ignore how to thrive. And I just feel like we've got to be able to do something different. It's just not working.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Right. No, and I and um, so I did listen to your one of your episodes with Amara. What's her last name? Sorry. Miller. Amara Miller. And for our listeners that are curious, she is a sociology professor, I believe, at Cal State. Yeah. She studies the yoga industry like for the most part, um, or for for our the purposes of our conversation. And so part of what just like it makes me deeply emotional is this stewardship aspect of our responsibility to carry this tradition forward intact as it was originally meant to be shared in its whole form. And the extraction of our field is another part of that that I know you didn't mention and you were probably gonna get to, and I'm getting ahead of you on. But it's this idea that like we mass-produced yoga teachers who had in many cases inadequate training, inadequate, well-rounded training. And then with that, like really extracted that the like holistic truth of what yoga was is and what is meant to be, and the sacred stewardship responsibility that we carry. So it's like we carry this responsibility as yoga therapists and yoga teachers to steward that body of work forward in an industry that has extracted our skill set and sold it for parts in an environment where the vast majority of people do not make a living wage. Yeah. And it's that's a mind fuck.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I call that it's stripping yoga for parts like a car. Like we've just carjacked something and we're putting it in the back garage, and we're gonna somebody gets the doors and that's the meditation. Somebody else gets the steering wheel and that's the pranayam. You know, like we're taking techniques. And to be fair, part of why we're doing that is to solve the poverty problem. We're we're trying to figure out how to get paid any way we can. And instead of we're not, we're not really good at the system's discussion yet, which I find ironic because yoga is very clearly a system, like a very elaborate system, very elaborate and well-designed system with safety guardrails and an entire practice that supports what happens to you as you evolve as a human being through a yoga practice. And we have all of this, and we're sort of taking a part here and a part there. And part of this is in, I want to say, is in a larger conversation about cultural appropriation and colonialism, of which you should have an expert that is not me and is not white on the podcast to talk about it. But it is, it is a part of this larger colonialism conversation about who financially benefits from a practice from a world that is not ours. But we're doing this in part because we don't have any money. So if somebody is willing to pay us for one portion of the practice, which right now often is the asana or the movement, where people are willing to pay for the movement portion, without the living principles of philosophy that keep you safe in a movement practice, without, you know, the breath work, without the meditation that extends that practice beyond calisthenics. Um but we'll just do it because we're poor, because we need money, like we've got to eat at the end of the day. Or we think it's what people want. Yeah. There's Did you ever have I've had a few teachers over the years, especially in the early 2010s, who said to me, bring them in for the the for the movement, for the asana, and then they'll find their way to the deeper practices. And sometimes that's true, but I think we should probably like as a collective stop trying to trick people into deeper practice and just tell them that if you want to stretch, you could go to like an adult gymnastics class. But if you want life and lifestyle transformation within a system that's gonna take a while, like it doesn't happen overnight, then come see us.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Yes. No, I completely agree. I feel like, you know, just speaking honestly about my own career, I can see myself. Like, for example, I really love restorative yoga. And when you're when you're an expert in certain styles of yoga, you tend to become known for those styles of yoga. But even in the midst of like being an expert at restorative yoga, you are always meant to weave in philosophy and pranayama and meditation and mudra and chanting and all of the aspects of the holistic practice. So it's this, and and this is where like the yoga industry meets the business world and it gets really confusing because the business world tells you to keep your marketing really simple and make it about the clients and what they want and where they are, but we're also selling an ancient wisdom living tradition that frankly doesn't care so much about all of that. Yeah, yeah. It's this wisdom tradition, and wisdom traditions are not, I don't know, a massage menu where you're like, I would like hot stone. It's just not that's not what it is.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

Yeah, there's the the marketing aspect of how we deal with yoga, I think is a very interesting thing to unpack because we are not standardized. Because of what I said earlier, you know, you have one teacher with 190 hours of meditation and another with 190 hours of which bones are which in your foot, you know, like and they have the same credential. So, in order for us to find the people who want to work with us, the stakes of marketing are much higher because it's not like Tai Chi. Everybody knows what Tai Chi is. You watch a video of Tai Chi, and it's kind of the same. There's different nuances, of course, but you know, everybody's in the loose flowy outfits, they're all moving in what feels like underwater slow motion. We kind of get it. Yeah, but that is not the way yoga is. No, it is complex, yes, and it's somewhat the way we're sold, because we're sold as sort of a fitness modality. But then people come in and they're like, What the hell is this? Like, what I didn't expect somebody to life coach me while I was moving, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 32:45

You're gonna talk about feelings in here, right?

SPEAKER_00 32:49

And so our marketing becomes much higher, the stakes are much higher to get the point across of what we're doing because the culture doesn't quite understand, because we're all so different, and the culture doesn't really understand what we're doing.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

As a result, we are oftentimes dishonest and a little bit tricky in how we market ourselves. Um, what you said earlier about people individualizing a systemic problem, our marketing does that too oftentimes. Like you'll come and you'll say, you know, a thing that I've seen in the last five or six years is like, are you feeling stressed because of the chaos of the world? Come do yoga. Well, okay, yes, but like we are again offering an individual solution for a systemic issue. Systemic issues make us feel things, and we're giving people individual off-gas releases for those feelings that really could be leading to systemic change if we taught people how to activate systemically versus saying, well, here I'm gonna teach you how to relax. The relaxation and rest is important, but we can't sell that as the solution as the solution to systemic issues that make us feel uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

Absolutely. I think that that's a really important part of the conversation because yoga was never meant to make us comfortable. It was meant to liberate us. And that liberation means coming up against satya, like it means coming up against the actual truth. And I what something I have seen as yoga has become so much more accessible and popular is the use of yoga just for regulation, which I think is interesting for me to talk about as a nervous system expert in the yoga therapy world, because I do believe that the tools of yoga are best therapeutically applied when they honor the state that your nervous system is in. But the point of the practice is not to make you feel better. The point of the practice is to liberate you and bring you back into a connection to your wholeness and then also allow you to go out and do God's work for you or your divine dharma or whatever it is in this life. And I think that this, I see it a lot actually in yoga teachers who have gone through training programs and because you know, I work like mental health emotions, yoga therapy, trauma recovery. So women are coming to me and they're saying, I'm really great at going to my yoga practice when I'm feeling really intense things. But that's ironically the opposite of what they need. I need them to be a mess. I need you to get in there and feel those feelings and just like cry. Like, we don't want to regulate away our frustration. We don't want to regulate away our anxiety. That's not the fucking point.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

Yeah, there's this, it is interesting that you say that because that is really a huge part of what has happened in the yoga space in the 2010s. And we sort of saw the pushback of good vibes only culture, sort of in the late 2010s.

The Radical Responsibility and Truth We Need

SPEAKER_00 36:08

It's it's, you know, which is sort of an extrapolation of what we're talking about here, this desire for us to always feel regulated. Like I will sometimes joke and say we're all sort of like co-regulation junkies. Like we want to come into a space and regulate with other people who feel really calm. And that feels right, quote unquote right, like the right way to be. Whereas what the point of yoga is is for to give us the tools to be able to sit in the discomfort that would then action change within the larger system that we are a part of. It was never meant to just silo us in this story of sovereignty and individualism. It was meant to be that starting point so that we have ways to deal with the hard things that come up inevitably in life since the beginning of time.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that's actually a much more empowered place. It's the difference between actually changing systems and real healing versus just managing systems and getting by and surviving, right? Like if we really want to grow and heal and evolve and transform our lives, we cannot just manage and regulate and expect things to get better.

SPEAKER_00 38:51

Yeah, I know I actually had an interesting conversation with somebody who owns a yoga studio, and she and I sometimes voice note each other. And um, she would be one of those people that is a big advocate of deep individualism. So I would say, you know, if we were talking the politics terms of it, like deep libertarians, like we build our own future, you know, and everybody else should be building their own future too. And I understand that people who have that particular belief system hear me when I talk about larger systems at play and think that's like weaponized incompetence. I understand that it's always going to read that way for people who believe that the power of the individual supersedes the power of all other things. And even this teacher said, but I see systems that need to change. I see, you know, this system over here that I was a part of when I was a kid needs to change. And I see the system that my children are in that needs to change. And what about the educational system? Like, it is silly to think that we are happy to talk about in an ecosystem when it involves trees and plants and animals and birds. They're all in an ecosystem, but we are not. And I feel like that's just a funny, like, that's a funny thing because we know we know that's untrue.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

Right. We know that we live on this land. We live on it. Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:18

We're in a thousand different systems. The system that I particularly have become sort of, you know, the the mouthpiece for just happens to be the system that is the industry behind us sharing the practice of yoga. It's a system we don't get to opt out of it. Even if you decide you don't like any of the organizations, they still impact your work. They still impact your ability to go to a bank and get money for a loan. And maybe you don't need that loan, but maybe your favorite yoga studio does because things were hard or the roof broke, or you know, any of a thousand things that could happen as a business owner and do happen. Um, I was just thinking the other day when I owned a studio, I think it's three years ago, three or four years ago, the studio caught fire. I mean, that wasn't my that wasn't my fault, but it was a thing that happened because things happen. And sometimes business owners need access to capital. It isn't like a money grabbing thing. It's just a, I'm trying to keep the lights on and a business running.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

Yeah. Absolutely. Life will, I mean, life will throw us complex things. And a lot of people in the yoga industry, uh like consumers, like our students, want access to us and they want access to the best version of us. They want us grounded, they want us well fed, they want us to have retirement accounts. I know all of you that are listening to this podcast and are like, I want good for all the yoga teachers. Like, I know that they want that for us. And then I'm sure some of them listening to this conversation that aren't in the industry are gonna feel a little bit like, well, how do we help? How do we help be people who are actually investing money into causes and people and organizations that will help this industry live on? I posted on social media yesterday that I am increasing my rates and decreasing the amount of offers because truthfully, I've been borderline burnout for a while and I just can't. And I think some of the newer revelations that I've been having about like this is a larger system than me that needs a lot of help, and your work has been a catalyst for that, have made me realize like, one, I'm not going anywhere because this is my life's work and I'm stubborn as fuck, and I'm here for it last. Always have been. And number two, in order to steward that work, in order to help this change, I have to show up differently. And it requires like that raising my rates some, which it was not like a huge leap for my listeners. They're like, I didn't see that email yet. It's in your email. And I did go up some and I did make it very public. Um, but also, what would you say to students of yoga who genuinely care about?

SPEAKER_00 43:16

I find our students incredible. Um, and I have actually an interesting story about raising rates

How Our Students and Clients Can Help Support Us

SPEAKER_00 43:24

because I did that this year too. So I don't teach publicly anymore. I sold my studio to be able to do this sort of media company work to help advocate for us as an industry. But I do still have private yoga therapy clients. And I was telling them earlier this year that how my rates were gonna work was gonna change. You were just gonna pay for a period of time. So, like it was a set rate for three months, and you could see me between this many times and this many times during that three-month period. And we weren't gonna worry about your you know, 10 class pass going down or whatever. It was just gonna be for a period of time, and it would be more consistent for me and for them. And the for that period of time, my rate was gonna be $1,500. And one of my students heard that it was $1,500 a session, and she was like, Hold on, let me get my credit card. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm expensive, but I am not that expensive. And I think we underestimate what that taught me is we underestimate how much our students value us and our work. And I just want to say thank you to all the students and supporters out there who are listening to us because I don't think we tell them enough how much their support means to us. And sometimes it's when I owned a studio, it was always like the day that I was like, I'm gonna quit. I'm a failure, I hate this business, everything is not working. You know, I'm on the verge of tears, and I would go and do a thing and come back, and there would be a card. And I'm not telling anybody that's my experience, but somebody's coming and saying, I'm so grateful for you. Thank God I found this place. I feel at home here. And I just think those little moments of appreciation are so welcome for us in an industry that is such a struggle sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 45:29

Yeah. So just letting the yoga teachers and yoga therapists that they've received or they continue to receive something powerful, something crushing, something healing from, know that they mean something to them, that they're making a difference.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

I think that's the most impactful thing that a student can do because the rest of it, the working out your money and working out your rates and figuring out how you're gonna build this work to be sustainable for you across time, that is our work. That is our internal work. That is part of how we're figuring out our place in this bigger system because we're we're talking both the macro, the big system that's at play, and our own individual experience. And it is uncomfortable. As you said, you went through all the business coaching and I've been through coaching too. And like getting your head around the reconciliation between the work that we do that started out as a spiritual practice and the work that we do that puts food on our table is a really difficult conversation that we have to have with ourselves. Yeah, that's our work. So just let them be messy for a second. And if they double their rates, because that's just pretty much what I tell people is that we should all probably be doubling our rates, especially those of us who've been in the industry for a long time. It is our obligation, I feel, to charge premium rates so that the entry level rate for the new people coming in is enough that they can eat. Like that is, we have to look behind us and say, we are going to build an industry that the people coming in who paid more for their training. And have less opportunities than we have, have at least a shot to put food on their table, afford their liability insurance, and put even 5% of their income into a retirement account so that we all don't have to work till we die.

SPEAKER_01 47:40

Seriously.

SPEAKER_00 47:41

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

And also, word of mouth, I want to just speak to those students. Like another thing that you can do for us in the industry is to tell other women, other people, how our work helped you, what it helped you to know and see. And don't just tell them yoga. Tell them people in the yoga industry. Like I get so many doctors and therapists, and they're like, Yeah, I tell my clients all the time to go to yoga. But Rebecca and I have already made it clear that not all yoga is the same yoga. So let's stop telling people to do yoga and start telling people to do yoga with this specific person that we trust, admire, and respect. And that is another big thing that I think our students can do for us and our clients can do for us because the yoga world is so like you can get yoga at your apartment complex now, like as part of your amenity. And I'm like doing a scrunchy face for people who are listening to the audio, because y'all don't think about the fact that that that like these systems with which we've made yoga available everywhere all the time are oftentimes actually hurting the people who are doing the real stewardship work of carrying a tradition forward. Because when we are selling that like diluted, extracted yoga and calling it the same yoga as somebody who's like in my town, there's a woman who's run a studio for 20 years. And for 20 years, this woman has done the soul level work to keep the doors open. And people think that's easy. And it's not fucking easy, right? No. She's seen studios come and go, she's seen trends come and go, and she has been the steady beat of a drum offering yoga in my community. And I think we sometimes, I think our students sometimes don't see the complexity of it. And I don't want to put the weight of that on them because that's us, that's me, that's you. That's us in the industry saying, I'm gonna charge enough for those people below me to come in the door. And those new people don't charge what we're charging. Please. Like you need to work your way up here. This is, you know, just like other industries,

How Yoga Teachers and Yoga Therapists Can Make Things Better

SPEAKER_01 50:04

because it's just complex. But also they can help us by by telling people the merit of what they're getting, I think, and where to find it.

SPEAKER_00 50:18

Referral, referral is incredible. Referral is how I built my yoga therapy business. Like I never advertised anything. It was always, you know, number one, if you're a practitioner, if you're especially if you're a yoga therapist, I think this is more important even as a yoga therapist than a yoga teacher, but you have to get good at your job on purpose. Like you, it's it's not like a happy accident that those of us who have clients got there because you know, we accidentally got clients and then we were good at the job. That's not how that worked. We got good on purpose, tried to get better, and then the clients tend to open up. And then if you are a person who loves your yoga teacher or yoga therapist, oftentimes I think we as an industry are so shy about sharing our work or doing the networking and connecting. Like, but we have all these amazing, especially like women entrepreneurs that are coming into the yoga space and they're like, I'm so stressed out and I don't know what I would do without my yoga teacher. If you are one of those women, drag your yoga teacher with you to the next like chamber of commerce meeting because she's not gonna go on her own. She's she's gonna feel weird. Remind her to wear real pants and real shoes, but take her with you and help. I think that there is like a point where we need like this jumpstart in like the basic networking and connection that other industries like that's obviously a thing that they're doing. We're not.

SPEAKER_01 51:53

Yeah. So I'm that girl that will go to the networking meeting in the chamber of commerce. Like, I will get in there. And my experience of going there, and this is for the yoga teachers and yoga therapists, is that I people either are so impressed by what I do that they're like, oh my God, I had no idea that that existed or that was possible. And that's so invigorating for me to go in and be like, you know what, people are looking for this, they just don't even know where to look, and they have no idea that someone is connecting these dots for them, and that this yoga that they're seeing everywhere is actually so much more. And then I also get the people that are so dismissive of me that are just like, oh, that's really cute. And you're like, Well, so if you drag your yoga teacher there, don't expect everyone to get it. And also, you know, let's celebrate all those people that are like, Yes, oh my gosh, this is exactly the what we're what we're needing in our community or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 53:00

Yeah, I do think when you get because our I think our default as yoga folks is that our networking is going to the next yoga studios, like full moon sound healing ceremony. And that's amazing. And those are wonderful experiences, and you get to connect with the people who already know, but your job as a yoga professional is to now connect with the people who don't already know. That's not the same, like those networking outside the community and connecting with humans inside the community are not the same.

SPEAKER_01 53:35

Yeah. So, what do you think that us as this is for our listeners who are yoga teachers, yoga therapists, what can they be doing in order to help individual resolve individual growth areas and address them head on? Cause I'm like, I'm like all about like, let's roll up the sleeves and like here's a growth area. Let's go. What is it? I want to know what it is. Yeah. But also some of those systemic things that that we can be doing as people in the field. Where are some of the gaps that you see?

SPEAKER_00 54:07

Okay. Two things. One, I already said I tell people this all the time for your own personal growth. You have to identify what you need to get better at at the job and then go do that. Again, I can't tell you this enough, but go get better at the work. Because then the question of pricing becomes so much less fraught. Because then the question of like, where am I gonna go becomes less like, do I need this next certificate or this next course or this next thing? Like, none of that matters when you get good at the job. When you get good at the job, you're like, well, obviously, somebody should pay me $90 to $150 an hour. Obviously, I'm good enough that I can ask that question, I can ask for that amount of money.

SPEAKER_02 54:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:52

So I think we underestimate it's just such a basic skill. I always use dentists, but I'll use it again. Like dentists just clean a lot of teeth and then they're good at cleaning teeth. Like we've gotta like get that attitude of you've gotta put the reps in. Like, there's there's no cheat code for that. There's no like, you know, large language model AI that's code for that. Like you just have to do it over and over again in like stupid places. Teach everybody, talk to everybody. There is that is part of our development. And then as far as becoming aware of the systemic problems, I think there are two things you can do. And this other one I feel like I say a lot, but you have to go make friends with other people in the yoga industry. And it's weird and awkward. And at first, you're not gonna trust each other because it's sort of like you feel like you're, you know, it's like the CIA meeting the FBI, like you're not sure if you're you're sort of on the same team, but everybody might be lying to each other too. Like we kind of have that experience. You you just have to go connect with other people and be the person in the room who's awkwardly forthright about your experience. Tell people how much you get paid, tell people how hard it is or easy it is to get clients, like be generous with the information at first because somebody's got to be that person. Like somebody has to be the first person to say, I get paid $75 an hour for a private, for example, whatever. Um, so that other people can look at you and say, well, she has more experience than I am than I do. So maybe my number is 65, or I've been teaching 10 years longer than she is, so maybe my number is 95. Like that's so common in other industries. Like, we're not holding all of this information in. It's a benefit to everybody when we talk to each other. So just we gotta make friends. Also, this job is very lonely, and you're never gonna stay in it if you don't have friends. Like, it's a very isolating job, which is also something we weren't prepared for when we trained, because training is the literal opposite of isolating, it's a very communal. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then you come in and you're like, oh, you're the only one in charge of this yoga studio, and there's nobody else here, and it's just you and your students, and that's a different power dynamic and the whole thing. Yeah, um, we're not preparing for people. So you have to find friends, and then asked questions. Like, if something feels weird, like you're paying your yoga alliance dues, or you're paying your International Association of Yoga Therapist dues, or you know, if you're in the UK, the British Wheel of Yoga dues, and you're like, is this worth it for me? Ask your new friends and then do a little bit of research because we're way too siloed in the industry. So say, what are massage therapists getting from their organizations? You know, what are chiropractors getting from their organizations? If you're a yoga therapist, that's a fair comparison, you know. What are must, you know, what are all these other, you know, fitness, you know, certification people getting with their organization does. It's just a Google away. Like really, you can Google this and get a fair idea of what's going on outside of your own experience.

SPEAKER_01 58:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:25

And then go talk about it with other people.

SPEAKER_01 58:29

So it's this idea that we're willing to be honest with ourselves, which is really important here, that as professionals, we're willing to say, because I can't tell you like how many yoga teachers I've been on a walk with or had a coffee date with, and they're sharing like the realities of what they're experiencing. But oftentimes we have a conversation like that and we're like, oh my gosh, me too, girl. And then we get back in our bubble and we're busy and we don't follow the lead. And so, Paula, part of what I am hearing you say, and I want to reflect to our listeners, is that you can't just look at it and then let it go. Like that's kind of how, in a way, we've arrived at this place because the fast evolution is you've been sharing, but also the looking at it and not continuing to follow through with it.

SPEAKER_00 59:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:21

And to share with other women, not just one time, but like on an ongoing basis, what we're navigating and what our growth opportunities are, and the pressures that we're feeling, and the desires that we have,

The Yoga Organizations Role in All of This

SPEAKER_01 59:34

and the pay rates that we're taking. Like, I think having more transparency, but also steadfastness to stay at it seems really important.

SPEAKER_00 59:46

Yes. I think we are at a point where, especially if you're in the United States and you happen to be a yoga professional, we are at the point where we will have to do something, like really something. And I think that's not going to be um, this is another thing that you can do or notice a pattern of behavior in your brain, is that we have to stop looking for heroes and start looking for collaborators. So we often are looking for one person or one organization or one, you know, something to come and save us. Like we're Disney princesses, right? And that's kind of like we've been trained to think that that there's like somebody's got a horse somewhere and a sharp sword, and they're gonna come and rescue us.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:37

And these professional organizations, I mean, I personally have hung a lot of merit on the fact that like yoga, like IAIT, International Association of Yoga Therapy, was going to help build the systemic structures to make the career that I was building as part of that become more recognized, become create more job opportunity. Like that was what I feel like I was sold.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:05

It is what you were sold, very clearly. As a person who's done a lot of research on that particular organization, I will say with confidence that is what you were sold. It is not the reality of what we experienced, but it is what we were sold. So we just there just has to be, I feel like right now we're in the moment where you just have to like have a moment and go, grief. Like that's really sad. I feel a little bit tripped, I feel a little bit betrayed, or I feel like, you know, I'm return to center kind of moment. And now we just have to be who we're waiting for. Like there's no, we don't have other options. There is very likely going to be a huge shift in the industry in the next five to ten years. We're considered mature, which means that it's harder for us to get new clients. So that means right now is the time when you have to find people to be friends with, and you have to do the stuff nobody wants to do. You have to be the person who's gonna build. You're gonna build in your community and you're gonna tell the next town over, hey, build your community, and then we'll have a meeting together. And then you're gonna go to somebody else who's halfway across the state and say, Well, you do the same thing with 10 people in your town, and then all of you are gonna come together. Like we've got to be willing to be the person who does the calendar and sends the emails and does the messy stuff that none of us want to do because we're all busy. I get it. Like I have kids, we're all busy.

unknown 1:02:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:39

If we're together in this, the lift to create something different is smaller. It's a lower lift. We don't, it's it's we need a barn raising with all of us together. And I think right now in the next year, too, that's what we have to set the stage for. So my call to action for those who are listening who are yoga professionals is go make friends because I know that sounds simple, but in two years, when my call to action is, I need you to make a state association so that we can be the people in charge of our own destinies in every aspect of yoga. And we'll just decide if we think that, you know, the yoga alliance or the IIT or whatever other organization is at play is what we want to do. We will be the people who decide. That all comes from you making friends right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:32

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like that's so empowering. And also, you know, in some of your episodes, I've heard you talk about organizing. And it's very hard conceptually to understand where that begins. And so I feel like you did a great job there of helping us see where it begins and also where it's going to eventually lead. And I think of Judith Lassiter, like she's a big influence of mine and my career. I mean, all of ours, truthfully, if we're being honest. Yeah. She was one of the co-founders of the California Yoga Association. So we're not new in the yoga, like we may be new as the people who haven't retired yet in the industry still in it. We may be new to organizing, but this is not new for our industry. We've just lost it.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:21

And it's back.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:23

That 2010s time that sort of in my head is the time of deep individualism culturally, but also in yoga. We were a reflection of that.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:34

Um, we did lose. We lost, you know, at that time Y Talk, the Yoga Teachers of Colorado Association, was also at play until, you know, I think 2019, 2019 or 2020 was when they they stopped organizing. I mean, there's lots of different associations that did happen. And we didn't, I think there was not enough conversation about what the benefits of us collectively organizing together are. So I live in the state of Iowa in the United States. We have an organization that we have started having meetings with the explicit goal not only of us collectively organizing together so that we eventually can influence how yoga works in our state, but also we're building scaffolding that we can just hand to other states and say, do you want to do this in Florida? Here's what we did. Here's what your first meeting looks like, here's how it's messy, here's what our bylaws are, here's what we think you should consider. And we can hand it to Texas, we can hand it to Arizona, wherever, because I think all indicators are are saying that we will become less regulated in 2030, not more regulated. We will have less parameters about what it takes to be a yoga teacher, specifically yoga teacher, by 2030.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:54

That's that's what all the signs are pointing towards. Now, um, I might shame the yoga alliance into something different if I can.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:03

I hope they're listening. I hope yoga alliance and IUIT are tuned in to conversation.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:09

I mean, I I think my goal at this point is enough public accountability that the trajectories that they're on can at least be paused so that they ask their membership and the people who work in the industry what we want. But if they don't, we have to make them irrelevant. They have to not matter anymore because our jobs matter and our work matters. So there's like we have to, in my mind, we would be silly to not plan for that inevitability.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:41

Yeah, absolutely. Rebecca, I want to name something that you have been willing to speak honestly about things that so many yoga teachers probably just haven't had the personal bandwidth or like um catalyst inside them to even want to explore. And you have, and that's badass, first off. Like, get it, girl. What you doing your dharma? I love it. Um, and also that you speaking honestly in an industry that has a lot of shame woven in and that poverty stuff, and the like you know, competitive, it probably has not been

How Great the Yoga Industry Really Is (hint hint, it's got alot do with the people)

SPEAKER_01 1:07:24

the simplest path for you. And I'm curious what it has been like to speak honestly and to follow this thread of what you felt called to do in an industry that probably may or may not have been ready to receive it, but needed it desperately.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:42

This is probably the most yoga answer I'm gonna give you, and it is that I can't not do this work. I feel deeply called to do this work for whatever reason. Um, and you can call it my dharmic path. Many people have said that to me. Um I just number one, yoga is the first collective group of people where I ever felt that I was at home. Like, I love us. I don't know why. I mean, like sometimes I'm like, I don't know why, but sometimes we are silly. Like I had a person, I know, but like it's just like such a wonderful and open and exploratory and loving place to be with a bunch of people that are willing to face themselves enough to see that if they can change. Like, that's fucking awesome. Like, that is so cool about us. That's cool about our students, it's cool about us as the practitioners. Like, I love us. And I have been very fortunate to get to do the work that I saw was so impactful to other people, and so I feel feel very called to remind us that our work matters because too often we don't get people listening to that message. Too often it is we're kind of the butt of the joke, you know, or people don't take us seriously. And I I just want to tell us that we matter and our work matters because I see it. I have seen it happen and our work is important and it's worth fighting for. And so if I have to be the first person to start fighting for us, I will. Because I, for whatever reason, I can't not, I should just go get a different job. I'd be I'm very employable. Instead, I started a media company. Now we're here.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:45

Isn't that funny? Like the transferable skills are so good, but you're you're really like I think so many of us that have stayed are just stubborn and devoted beyond reason like to be true.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:01

It's true. I mean, I have transferable skills. I also wouldn't say that I'm a particularly good employee, and I also think that is something that is inherent amongst us. We like setting our own path, right? We like being the captain of our own ship to use the cliche. I am terrible at listening to other people. I could have 20 witnesses of people who love me in my life who are like, that is factually true. She will just tell you whatever she thinks you need to hear to have her stop listening to you and then she'll go do whatever she wants.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:40

What is your sign?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:41

Are you into are you like a I am a double Virgo, Virgo rising and Virgo sun sign, and then a Pisces uh moonsign.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:51

Do you know your human design also?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:54

I don't know my human design. Yeah. I know my Enneagram and I know my um what's the astrology for business? Um INFJ, the Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. It's just astrology for business, whatever that one's called.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:13

I love that. I think some of that plays into it. And uh what I hear you saying is that this just means so much to you. And that the meaning behind doing the work, it's just simply that there's not an option to not follow the lead of that. Have you come up against people who have been really activated by what you said? Are you being treated nicely as you spread this message out into the world? Is there anything that we can do to support you? Because I believe that what you're doing is important and I want to reflect that to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:46

I mean, I would say I'm actually very lucky for the most part in how I'm treated, how what I am saying is being received. There are certainly people who are pushing back based on their belief system versus what I'm, you know, what I'm saying. And great, fine. Like that actually doesn't bother. Yeah, that's it that doesn't bother me.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:10

Yeah. Um, you know, I mean, it's essentially just figuring out how to support the work of the people who you want to keep doing more work. And I'm very clear, like, you know, listen to my podcast and share it if you want to, or purchase the magazine. Like, I'm not trying to sell you anything else, but the actual literal products that I'm building within a media company.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:31

And for the most part, I've been very kindly received. There have been a few times where I've gotten annoyed because people have taken my work and then used it to sell their courses, and which is how I started recently this series on Instagram that was about marketing and teaching people how to spot marketing techniques, because one of them is taking the systemic problem, stripping out the system and selling you an individual solution. Like, like there's no course that fixes misogyny. Like, you can't take a course about that's like a systemic problem that we have to unpack through conversation, collect connection, and discussion. Um, and the same is true of yoga, the same is true of any other systemic problem. There's no course that fixes capitalism. You know what I mean? Like um, so that's happened a couple times, but it's also fueled to inspire me to help educate other people because I'm I have a communication studies degree. I've taken marketing courses. I see it because I was trained in it to some degree. Now I get to train other people in it. Now you get to see every time somebody says, Oh my, you know, the poverty problem in yoga, here's a business course. Now you can see it. And maybe then you get to decide whether or not you purchase that business course based on that new information. Now you get to say, This is stuff I want to learn, not this is stuff will that will fill the hole in my heart that I don't know what to do with.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:02

Right. I mean, so much of the I actually really love marketing and sales in a way, because to me it's service. Like this is how, like, I know so many incredible yoga professionals who nobody knows about. And it's like it sucks. And it's because they didn't want to step up and tell people about what they do and who they are and what they're here to serve with. And so I personally really like the marketing and the sales part because like this is how we form relationships with people, but so much of the marketing that we receive is anxiety driven. It's like pushing on the pain points and trying to sell at stuff. And so part, you know, I shared like I bought a bunch of different business coaching, and one of the business coaching courses I took was a high ticket, like I did like an intensive with somebody that does high-ticket. Oh, sure. And the woman is lovely. If you're listening to this podcast, this is not a personal critique of you. The high-ticket industry I find disgusting on every level. And I did learn about like how to help build relationships through copy, but that industry, like, I mean, I literally feel sick to my stomach about what I was learning there. And I think that yoga professionals, we can easily fall prey to that because of the some of the vulnerabilities that we're in. And our population of students, like, let's be honest, those of you that are listening, are also a vulnerable population. Pretty much everybody that comes into a studio is in a vulnerable position in some way, whether they have pain, whether you have pain and you want to have less pain, whether you have some trauma imprints and patterns that are causing all these like, you know, mental and physical things to go on, or you're pregnant and you're like, oh my gosh, I want to have a healthy pregnancy, or whatever brings us in the door, like our students are vulnerable, our teachers are vulnerable right now. And that whole like marketing landscape, yes, just there's a lot going on there. And unless you've like done a business training, you don't even know, or like had a communications background, you just don't even know how we're being like manipulated.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:25

One one that's coming out next week for my series is about agitation marketing, and that's one that I see really clearly because it happens so often in the yoga space. There are a few people in particular who've become very popular through agitation marketing. Um, and good matter otherwise, actually, I think a couple of them, you know, I would I I have like five or six names in my mind, and I would say a couple of them are really selling high quality products and services, but their marketing technique is agitation marketing. And, you know, so it's like if that technique is neutral and we make it neutral, but now you can see it, people are just trying to make you mad in order to sell you stuff, like then you get to make a better decision about it. Then you get to choose based on what your brain says, not you know, your insecurities or your heart or your, you know, like you get to make a different kind of decision when you have that information.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:23

Absolutely. I mean, hopefully we're choosing support, whether we're yoga students or yoga teachers or yoga therapists, we're choosing support that makes us feel seen and makes us feel understood, and we can trust whoever it is that we're investing in because there's evidence that we can trust them rather than they agitated me, my nervous system is now dysregulated, I feel an overwhelming sense of urgency and I will buy this program to save these problems that I knew about, but they just made the dial turn up to a hundred on.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:00

Yeah, totally. I mean, I I think that benefits us as a whole too, because when we learn about this, we also learn how we can market differently. Because I do think that's something that is a pushback for yoga teachers. Like you said, you know, amazing yoga teachers nobody knows about me too, all of us. And I think part of that hesitancy those teachers have is they don't want to contribute to a system that makes them feel gross, but they don't have words for why it makes them feel gross. They just know you. And so they just choose to step out of that entire system. And I'm like, we have to choose differently. Like, we can market ourselves, we can communicate with our people in a loving, kind, fun, sometimes funny sort of way, um, whatever feels right for you, without using all the techniques of marketing that make us feel gross.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:59

Yeah. Absolutely. And I think people that are in the mental health space are doing work on themselves that really using our own intuitive sense, like part of what to me, yoga is so good about doing is helping us remember our agency and choice and be able to get quiet enough and in tune enough to listen to our own inner knowing. And I think a wish for all of us as yoga consumers, as yoga professionals, wherever we are, is that we are resourcing back into that literally through the practice on a regular and ongoing way, so that then we have more resiliency, we're better equipped to be bombarded on social media or to make better decisions, as you know, because let's be honest, a lot of yoga teachers, we had to be bad at yoga before we could be good at our jobs, and we had to be bad at running a business until we could become good at running a business, and we had to be bad at marketing our services, and maybe we did some icky yucky stuff and then we learned that that didn't feel good and we wanted to do better. Like we're all just learning and growing, but the core of the practice at the center of it all, like obviously I'm biased, but I really do think it helps us navigate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:17

Yeah, I agree with you. I think that um for too long, the conversation between the industry of yoga and the practice of a yoga has been that the business has informed the practice and how we sell it, how we operate. And really, if we just reverse, if we just switch the road so that the practice informs the business, so much of it gets more straightforward. You just say, you know, is this aligned with my values? Is this aligned with who I am as a person? And then go from there, it all becomes conversations become easier. You're not trying to trick somebody into purchasing your services or feel like you're trying to trick somebody into purchasing your services. Marketing, I joke often, is a lot like trying to get laid. And like the best marketing reflects the best practices of trying to get laid. We want everybody consenting in every possible avenue of the relationship. We want enthusiastic yeses from beginning to end. Like you want that entire narrative of just like you're building a relationship with a person, um, an appropriate relationship. But it's just that's how it works. And you just want everybody to be enthusiastic and fun and not feel icky, and you don't want to like pressure people into doing something they don't want to do.

Making Your Yoga Career Sustainable

SPEAKER_00 1:21:39

Like, none of us want that feeling.

unknown 1:21:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:42

So we we can just choose to not do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:45

We can, and we can still find ways to have food on our table and invest in our retirement and be able to grow the kind of wealth. I mean, and I say wealth, but I mean like for a lot of yoga professionals, it's literally just enough means to make the career sustainable. It's not a conversation of wealth, it's just simply can they sustain this career?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:11

Yeah. I I want us to think about not just what we need, because I I think we for so long have been just writing, and this was me too for a long time. We're just writing out exactly what we need to survive and figuring out how to get that number. So I want you to get that number plus a vacation. That's how we're gonna start. Like that number plus you get to not work for two weeks a year, like everybody else. And then once you get there, it's that plus retirement so that you can stop working and you have the agency to stop working whenever you want to. Um, I think we're seeing too many wisdom holders in our traditions not have that opportunity to stop working as they've gotten older. And I don't want that for us. And I want us to stop telling the story that in order to be a good and dedicated yoga teacher, you have to work until you're 95.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:08

Right. You know, I mean, there's a lot, I think that people don't realize unless they've like critically thought about it, how much, like me, for example, I have struggled with pricing a lot because it's been about being ethical and making yoga accessible. And also that conversation is a very non-boundaried conversation. It's a boundarylessness that's not healthy for our students or for ourselves, and the industry rewards it. Like I was the recipient of a yoga scholarship exactly because I spoke that language, and they were like, oh my gosh, you're exactly the voice that we need. This was back in like 2009. And it was like a very specific program with high-level yoga philosophy that I was literally given the access to because I spoke that language. But now, me, you know, 17 years into the career, me realizes that's not the language of somebody with healthy boundaries or like a sense of self.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:15

Yeah, there's um that's interesting because part of at the end of this month, my conversation online is gonna talk about accessible pricing because there is this. I have this attitude. I I don't think because it's really one answer in the industry, sliding scale pricing is how we make it accessible. It doesn't work and it's a hill I'm gonna die on. Like, I well, actually, it's a hill somebody's gonna die on, but I'll be there fighting.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:40

You're defending, yeah. I'm defend like it doesn't for it on the attack of that.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:47

Like my hope is that our over reliance on that being the financial answer to accessibility um just never like it, it just goes away because we count too.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:03

Yeah. And our students so graciously remind us of that, which is cool. So thank you to my students and clients who remind me of that because it does feel important to hear it. And if you have a yoga teacher or a yoga therapist that you care about or you love, remind them if you're listening to this episode. Rebecca, thank you so much for the work that you are doing. I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate having this conversation with you, getting in on topics that truthfully, some of them, not all, I don't want to give myself too much credit. I've been talking about a lot of these topics for a while, and I feel like I've been talking about them very much in my own silo because other people weren't talking about it in public forums. Um and so it's been just it's been buoying for me to see you talk about it and also taking the conversation way further than I have the passion for the bandwidth for. So thank you so much for doing this work. Let's tell everyone about your podcast if they want to learn more. So it's working in yoga.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:13

And then also about your magazine.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:16

Inside Yoga magazine is designed to be the first official trade publication of yoga teachers. We just had issue one in April, so it's quite new. Issue two, the accountability issue, will come out in October. Each issue is me trying to needle around a concept or idea. So, uh accountability, what that means from us, that what that means from our institutions, what that means in all levels. I have amazing contributors coming to that magazine in the fall. I'm really excited about it. Um, but it is the conversations that I was just so desperate for 10 years ago. I wished that someone was talking in a level of professionalism that wasn't just like lobbing crappy comments that people are saying, you're not doing this or you're doing that, or I'll teach you how to do this by my course. It is the conversation that treats our work as real. And um, yeah, my that's my hope is that we elevate what's happening in the industry through that kind of professional level conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:17

And this magazine, y'all, is very different from Yoga Journal or from IAYT's publication that they send out quarterly. This is not the same thing. Can you talk to our listeners just a little bit so they understand that it is different? And here's how.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:33

Yeah, there is um, yes, so yoga journal is essentially for those of you who are listening who are yoga students, yoga journal is for you, like which is great and wonderful, and that serves a purpose. Um, the IYT is specifically talking to yoga therapists and very much in sort of the medical capacity of things. In my magazine, I'm talking about our heads, I'm talking about our hearts, I'm talking about our experiences in the yoga industry space, how we can get better, but also the things we need to reconcile with in order for us to get better. So it is um a different kind of professional level conversation. Yeah. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:18

I love that. I'm so glad that you're putting that out there. Is it a digital magazine or is it a bad magazine? What can people expect?

SPEAKER_00 1:28:26

It's a digital magazine. So essentially you subscribe and then you'll come to like a portal, and the portal has digital copies of all the magazines. So there, I have a concept issue, which was issue zero. So when you subscribe, there'll be two issues already for you to read. And then it will come out three times a year. Um, like I said, there's an accountability issue coming out in October, and then in December, and I just got a sponsor to sponsor this entire issue, but my December issue is going to be called Postcards from the World. I believe very strongly that the United States, North America, has led the charge in the yoga conversation. And my goal is to highlight what's happening everywhere else. So I have contributors from Africa and from Southeast Asia and from India, of course, but it's better when we get to hear everybody's stories. It's like us making friends that I was talking about earlier on a global level.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:25

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Well, thank you all for listening to us today. If you want to learn more about Rebecca and her work, all of the details of where you can find her are down in the show notes. And Rebecca, thank you again. Thank you. This is a fun conversation.