The “Why” Behind Becoming a Yoga Teacher

If you’re reading this and wondering why I wrote a big, long blog post about my journey as a freelance marketer and am now writing another big, long blog post about becoming a yoga teacher, you may have missed the point of my first blog post. Yet, you might get it by the end of this one. To better explain this part of my career journey, I’ll take you through the seven chakras and seven personal reflections.

Root Chakra (Muladhara): Grounding and Having Strong Roots

Through my career, I learned the hard way that a rigid lifestyle can lead to your breaking point. I just don’t fit into the standard 40-hour workweek, and I don’t think I ever will again.

And how beautiful is that?

I’m not your average marketer. I’m skilled, talented, driven and definitely a bit out there with some of my approaches, but I’m confident in one thing: When I want something to happen, I make a plan and get it done. I also don’t compromise my personal beliefs for professional success. This usually resonates deeply with my prospective clients, and it ends up being why they stick with me.

Yoga became a way to reconnect with myself and find grounding in a world that often encourages us to keep moving, achieving and doing more. Through my own practice, I began to appreciate the importance of having a foundation that comes from within rather than relying entirely on external circumstances. Becoming a yoga teacher is an opportunity to help others find that same sense of grounding, especially during seasons of life when everything feels uncertain or in transition. I want to create spaces where people feel safe enough to arrive exactly as they are, without needing to prove anything or be anyone other than themselves.

I’m not becoming a teacher because I’ve mastered yoga or found all the answers. I’m becoming a teacher because I know what it means to keep searching, learning and returning to the mat. When something becomes meaningful in your own life, you naturally begin to wonder how you might make it meaningful for someone else.

Brand management and digital marketing were those things in my early career.

A healthy mind and physical body became those things as my corporate career deteriorated and I developed my freelance practice. Teaching is now my way of exploring that same meaningful possibility, just as freelancing explored my professional talents in a way that supports my lifestyle and career meaningfully.

I signed up for the Yoga Creatives Teacher Training in August this year, and I’m finishing my certification this November. (I might even start substitute teaching in the next couple of weeks!)

Sacral Chakra (Svadhisthana): Connecting With Personal Creativity

My last corporate role as a director ended with me painfully stuck in middle management, with too many Vice Presidents of Whatever above me. I lost my position due to a company restructuring, even though I thought I’d continue to be part of the company for a long time because I’d helped build it.

I’ve always been drawn to creative expression, whether through brand storytelling, art, writing or exploring new ways of understanding myself. Yoga introduced another form of expression: one that doesn’t require words, a finished product or an audience. Sometimes, it simply asks me to move, breathe and listen.

My interest in different styles of yoga, from vinyasa to Kundalini-inspired movement, has helped me appreciate how many ways there are to connect with the body and experience a practice.

I want to teach classes that encourage people to explore movement with curiosity rather than judgment, making room for individuality, emotion and creativity.

Solar Plexus Chakra (Manipura): Learning to Trust Myself

Becoming a yoga teacher requires me to step beyond the comfort of being a student and trust that I have something meaningful to offer. It’s the same leap of faith I had to take to leave the standard marketing jobs available to me and start my own business. I’ve spent years developing professional skills and helping other people bring their visions to life. Now, I’m also learning to give my own vision that same attention.

Yoga teacher training is teaching me that growth doesn’t always come from being the most experienced person in the room. Sometimes, it comes from being willing to be a beginner, ask questions and keep showing up.

I want to help students build a relationship with themselves that is rooted in confidence, self-trust and respect for what their bodies can do, rather than what they think their bodies should look like.

My yoga practice started to deepen when, while working more than 60 hours a week for a crap salary in the corporate world, I was hit in a car accident that left me with bulging discs in my cervical spine. I’d always been an athlete, playing volleyball and running track, and even adding a year of water polo to my history in high school. My favorite pastimes as an adult were long-distance running, surfing and snowboarding.

But this car accident took me out. I lay in bed for two weeks, afraid that any movement would worsen my condition. My anxiety was building as I worried I was about to lose the job I’d loved, which had recently hired the three VPs of Whatever.

Deep down, I knew it was going to be a long road before I could get active again in any way and I knew that I'd been butting heads with titles instead of brass tacks of business. So, here’s a brief look at how it ended: My role was suddenly restructured “away” because I was doing most of the work the new VPs were pretending to do. In the end, this was a blessing because I didn’t want to be the middle manager who got all the flak and all the responsibility without the equivalent paycheck someone else was getting.

I started my freelance business. But I also started going to classes and physical therapy appointments again, slowly, until I was sure I could move my body again. Practicing yoga and taking care of myself while I built my business helped me in more ways than I can tell you in a blog post. You’ll have to meet me on the mat to get the full picture.

Heart Chakra (Anahata): Turning Personal Healing Into Service

Yoga has become deeply meaningful to me, and I want to share the possibility of that mental and physical connection with people who may need a supportive space of their own. I’m especially interested in making yoga more accessible to underserved students through community partnerships, donated teaching spaces and opportunities to bring classes into shelters or community centers.

I believe care can be expressed through small, tangible acts: offering an hour of movement, creating a welcoming environment or reminding someone that they deserve time for themselves.

For me, teaching yoga is not only about guiding postures. It’s about creating opportunities for people to feel supported, connected and cared for. I created the opportunity I needed to start my own business, and I know there isn’t a limit to the spaces and opportunities I can create for my clients or my students as I keep all of this going.

Is it novel for me to suggest that the opposite of corporate culture is a blossoming yoga practice alongside my freelance business? Absolutely not. I guarantee there are several other young professionals like me in a similar position, finding themselves taking ownership and pride in carving out a career that doesn’t have an existing mold or ladder to climb.

I want to build a life in which my work, creativity, spirituality and community involvement support one another rather than compete for space. I learned that a lot of businesses are really about ego, appearances and handshakes more than they are about data, results, systems and morals.

Today, I’ve been a freelance marketer for almost four years, and I personally base everything I do on the latter. Funnily enough, that’s exactly what yoga is about.

Throat Chakra (Vishuddha): Finding My Voice

My background in communications and brand development has taught me that the way we share a message matters. Teaching yoga gives me an opportunity to apply that understanding in a more personal, embodied way.

Teaching yoga won’t be the end of my marketing business, though. It’s just another piece of the puzzle. I recently worked with a yoga teacher who was building her own business around providing yoga classes that support a sober lifestyle, helping her develop her logo. Last year, I also defined brand guidelines for a global influencer specializing in Kundalini yoga and manifestation coaching.

I plan to offer classes that give my students the practice they need to know themselves, strengthen themselves and go after what they want most in life, whatever that is. I also know that becoming a teacher myself is the road to helping other teachers build their own successful business practices around their teaching practices.

I’m learning that teaching is not about having the perfect words or performing an ideal version of a yoga instructor. It’s about communicating clearly, listening carefully and meeting students where they are. I want to develop a teaching voice that feels authentic to me: warm, thoughtful, encouraging and grounded in the belief that yoga can look different for everyone. I hope to create classes where students feel comfortable honoring their boundaries, asking questions and finding their own relationship with the practice.

Third Eye Chakra (Ajna): Listening to My Intuition

I’m beginning the 12th week of my teacher certification as I write this. My cohort has just finished a handstand workshop and an online learning module about Vishuddha, the Throat Chakra. Next, we’ll be diving into the intuitive nature of Ajna, the Third Eye Chakra.

Part of my journey has been learning to pay attention to what genuinely resonates with me rather than following a path simply because it looks right from the outside. My interest in reflective practices has encouraged me to make more room for curiosity and introspection in more than just my professional career.

A saying that has resonated with me through all of this is, “Don’t take advice from anyone who isn’t where you want to be in life.”

Living a yogic life is an undertaking, but it also reaps its own special rewards. It starts with listening to yourself, gaining information from your physcial and mental practices, and therfore taking your own advice. You know where you ultimately want to be.

Yoga offers another way to practice listening: noticing the breath, observing the mind and becoming more aware of the difference between what I feel pressured to do and what feels meaningful.

I want to continue learning how to guide students through moments of stillness and self-reflection without prescribing what their experiences should mean. I don’t think anyone could have written my story or told me what the journey would be like as a freelancer who is also becoming a yoga teacher. But here I am.

Crown Chakra (Sahasrara): Connecting to Something Bigger Than Myself

Ultimately, becoming a yoga teacher is part of a larger journey toward creating a life that reflects my values, curiosity, creativity and desire to contribute to something meaningful. I don’t see my teacher training as an endpoint or a finished identity. I see it as the beginning of a continued practice of learning, teaching and discovering what yoga can mean in different communities.

My cohort will finish our lessons and training program with a study of Sahasrara, the Crown Chakra. I hope to keep expanding my knowledge, deepen my practice through future training and build opportunities for people to experience yoga beyond the traditional studio setting.

More than anything, I want my work to remind people that connection is possible: with themselves, with one another and with the world around them.

You don’t have to have everything figured out to begin sharing something meaningful with others. You’re still a student, still learning and still discovering what kind of teacher you want to become. That is part of what makes your story worth telling.