The Mentor Sessions

If you are a yoga teacher trying to make anything close to a full time income with your work, then you are an entrepreneur. Many of us resist that truth, or we at least resist some of the work that is associated with being a small business owner.

That is why today I’m so excited to introduce you to Jackie Murphy. She is here to give us all a business strategy pep talk!

Jackie Murphy (she/her) is the host of the Studio CEO podcast and helps yoga teachers become profitable CEOs by offering them the most effective marketing, sales, and business foundation strategy in the industry. Using her 10 years of experience teaching, opening studios, and leading teacher trainings, Jackie is changing the $115B yoga industry by putting more money in the hands of the people who actually teach yoga.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• the differences between thinking like an employee and thinking like a CEO

• how to change the way you are working to make a more sustainable living

• what helps students show up to class consistently 

• integrating the philosophy of yoga into ethical and profitable business and what that looks like in action

• how to understand the tension of teaching a spiritual and healing practice inside of late stage capitalism 

• the best way to think about selling

• the importance of having a clear niche and how to do it effectively 

Learn More From Jackie:

• The Yoga Boss Group

• Follow Jackie on Instagram

• Like Jackie on Facebook

OfferingTree is a proud sponsor of this episode and I am honored to be an affiliate.  Visit OfferingTree at www.offeringtree.com/mentor and you’ll get 50% off your first three months (or 15% off any annual plan).   OfferingTree supports me with each sign-up and I’m proud to be supported by a public benefit company whose mission is to further wellness access and education for everyone.

The learning journey I’ve been on regarding hypermobility is incredibly personal. I was plagued with nearly constant minor and serious injuries most of my life. As a dancer that seemed normal, but it was very difficult and I was often injured more than anyone else I knew. I worked so hard to “build more stability” and “get out of my patterns of gripping” and some things did help quite a bit, most notably Feldenkrais.

But it was really only in the last ten years, as information about hypermobility started to spread first through the movement world, and then through into the mainstream culture, that I began to understand my body and how to work with it effectively.

I’m so happy to report that despite being about 7 years past due for when it was suspected I would need a full hip replacement (get the full backstory here) and having a toddler and very little time for self care, I have less pain now then I ever have in my whole life!

Learning about how to work with hypermobility in myself and my students has been nothing short of life changing for me.

And understanding how to work with hypermobility is particularly important for yoga teachers! That is why I’m so thrilled to finally have Libby Hinsley on the show today. 

Libby Hinsley (she/her)  is a Doctor of Physical Therapy, personal trainer, and Yoga Therapist specializing in the treatment of people with hypermobility syndromes and chronic pain As a person living with Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, she is passionate about raising awareness about hypermobility syndromes in the yoga community and beyond.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• a deep dive into different kinds of connective tissue and how they respond to load

• what is different about the connective tissue of someone with HEDS symptoms

• all about the EDS diagnosis

• some common co-occurring conditions that are good to know about

• the science behind the heightened interoception and decreased proprioception of someone with HEDS symptoms and how to work with that in a yoga class

Learn More From Libby:

• Libby’s website

• Libby on Instagram

• Anatomy Bites: use coupon code MENTOR at checkout for 10% off

• Anatomy Bites On Demand Courses: use coupon code MENTOR at checkout for 10% off

• Hypermobility Hub

This episode is brought to you by OfferingTree, an easy-to-use, all-in-one online platform for yoga teachers that provides a personal website, booking, payment, blogging, and many other great features. If you sign up at www.offeringtree.com/mentor, you’ll get 50% off your first three months (or 15% off any annual plan)!  OfferingTree supports me with each sign-up. I’m proud to be supported by a public benefit company whose mission is to further wellness access and education for everyone.

Holding grounded space as a teacher is one of the most important and most hard to teach skills for new yoga teachers. How can you be confident doing something you are new at? Do you need to actually be confident? What do we do when challenging situations knock us off our center?

To answer these questions and more, I’m so honored to have my teacher and friend Ethan Nichtern with us today. Ethan Nichtern (he/him) is a renowned contemporary Buddhist teacher and the author of Confidence: Holding Your Seat through Life’s Eight Worldly Winds and several other titles, including the widely acclaimed The Road Home.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• how we define confidence, and why as a teacher of buddhism, Ethan wanted to write a book about it

• how a conversation about privilege and social location is necessary when talking about confidence

• the myth that Buddhist teachings advocate for overcoming a sense of self and how fits into a Buddhist book about confidence

• a overview of the 8 worldly winds and how they show up in our lives

• US election thoughts and predictions! 😬

Learn More From Ethan via his socials below:

• Instagram

• Threads

• YouTube

I had a profound conversation with yoga teacher and writer Karin Lynn Carlson (she/her) and I can’t wait for you to listen.  Karin is a thoughtful teacher and a beautiful writer and has so much to share on the intersection of ethics and yoga teaching. This episode is packed with both valuable insights and practical advice.

We talked about implementing a code of ethics akin to those in social work and discussed problematic behavior and abuse within the yoga world. Karin offered insights about how to support survivors, foster a healthier yoga community and move forward together. These are crucial topics as we envision a future where yoga communities are more accountable, supportive, and ethical. 

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• the importance of implementing a code of ethics in the yoga community

• boundaries, teacher-student relationships and who is responsible for holding the container

• the essential role of believing and supporting abuse survivors in the yoga community 

• advice for teachers who are struggling to move forward after their teachers have let them down

Learn More From Karin:

• Return Yoga

• Karin on Substack

• Yoga Club community

How to teach yoga in a trauma sensitive way is a conversation that floods mainstream yoga spaces these days. And with good reason; almost everyperson in the world has had some experience of trauma, so our yoga classes are filled with people who have had exposure to trauma.

It is very easy for yoga and asana to be taught in ways that are not trauma sensitive. Being aware of teacher-student power dynamics and how they impact students with trauma is paramount to skillful teaching. 

That is why I am so happy to introduce you to Jenn Turner (she/her). She is a trauma-informed therapist and yoga teacher, and has been at the forefront of combining those two modalities since the early 2000s. 

She has also been involved in two different spiritual and healing communities that experienced abuse of power by the leader, as so many of us have. She has advice and a way forward for communities that have experienced this kind of harm.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• what  has changed the most in the landscape of trauma sensitive yoga since 2008

• what is most important for yoga teachers to know about when it comes to trauma informed practice

• how power, self reflection and holding containers are all things we need to be thinking about as yoga teachers

• what communities and individuals can do when they recover from abuse inside places that are supposed to be healing spaces

Learn More From Jenn:

• Center for Trauma and Embodiment

• Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga

• Jenn on Instagram

This episode is one of the most important interviews I’ve ever recorded. Our guest, Katie Blecker (she/her) is here to talk about two of my favorite things, accessible yoga and teaching yoga. And even better, we are going to talk about the intersection of those two things in a conversation that is LONG overdue on this podcast: Making the vocation of teaching yoga accessible to all yoga teachers.

Katie Blecker (she/her) is a yoga teacher, disability advocate, and visual artist. Her work as a trauma-informed, adaptive yoga facilitator centers supporting folks of all ages who live with chronic illness and pain, disability, and chronic stress using tools such as therapeutic asana, pranayama, and meditation. She believes deeply in the power of restorative yoga practices to support our self- and community-care. Katie is also a member of the LGBTQIA2S+ community. Her lived experience with multiple complex chronic illnesses informs her worldview and inspires her passion for disability advocacy and accessibility in yoga. 

In this episode you’ll hear:

• what it is like for Katie to live and teach yoga with chronic fatigue syndrome

• a message for new yoga teachers, especially ones that may not fit the dominant culture yoga teacher mold

• some of the accommodations Katie has to make personally to make the practice of yoga teaching accessible for her

• what yoga studios can do to make teaching more accessible

• a deep dive into healthism and how it shows up in western yoga culture

Learn More From Katie:

• Katie’s Website

• Connect with Katie on Instagram

The yoga world has changed so much in the last 5 years, and more and more yoga teachers are finding they need to build and create their own opportunities to teach. Even before the pandemic it was nearly impossible to build a full time career teaching group classes at studios. The pay is too low, the opportunities too rare and the workload is way too high to exclusively teach at a yoga studio. 

But paving your own path can be challenging, especially if you don’t see anyone like you doing it. That is why I’m so excited to introduce you to Emily Anderson. No one is paving their own path better than she is. 

Emily Anderson (she/her)  is a self employed yoga therapist in training. She shares yoga as a way to reconnect with the body and mind, process trauma or pain, and to build resiliency in a fatphobic, ableist world. Her virtual studio All Bodies Welcome Yoga centers folks who are fat, chronically ill, disabled, and/or looking for an accessible yoga class outside of diet culture and fitness spaces. Emily invites students to explore with gentleness, empathy, fun, and patience, and to shed body shame and comparisons.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• what led Emily to want to be a teacher and her journey from student to teacher 

• what it is like to train to be a yoga therapist and Emily’s teaching schedule

• how Emily got established in her local community and created her own teaching opportunities

• the kind of business education that is missing from foundational teacher training

• how Emily supplemented the missing business education with her own research

Learn More From Emily + Resources Mentioned:

• Emily’s website

• Emily on Instagram

• Small Business Development Centers

• SCORE Mentors

• Emily’s Marketing Coach

• Inner Peace Yoga Therapy

• A video of Emily’s first yoga teacher, Arthur, and his journey to regain mobility (tw: some weight loss talk)

• Joseph Le’s Yoga Toolbox

Today on the podcast I am introducing you to someone very special to me: one of my most important teachers, Sara Avant Stover. I started studying with Sara privately in the fall of 2012 and what I learned from her radically altered my life path. I went on several deep, immersive retreats with her, the last one in 2016. 

Since the last time we saw each other Sara has suffered several very intense heartbreaks and gone deeper into her practice than ever before. Surviving these challenging times and coming out more whole and happy than ever before has expanded her teaching immensely and I’m so honored to share her deep wisdom with you today. 

Sara Avant Stover (she/her) is a Certified Internal Family Systems (IFS) Practitioner and teacher and mentor of women's spirituality, empowerment,  and entrepreneurship. She's also the author of The Way of the Happy Woman , The Book of SHE , and Handbook for the Heartbroken. 

In this episode you’ll hear:

• about the heartbreak journeys that led Sara to write this book

• the the aspects of Sara’s heartbreak journey that she struggled with the most

• a deep dive into Internal Family Systems and how it helped both Sara and I heal from trauma

• what Sara has seen change in the landscape of online yoga and meditation and teacher trainings since she started offering them in the early 2000s

• advice from Sara about building a career as a yoga teacher right now

Learn More From Sara:

• her Self podcast

• Handbook for the Heartbroken

• Sara’s LinkedIn

• Sara’s Instagram

• Sara’s YouTube

I believe the invitation of life is to become ourselves, live fully and freely, and then, if you are a student of yoga, to extend that full, free, safe living out to all beings everywhere. But how often do we get to see someone really do that?

Today I have a treat for you: a person who is doing just that. Becoming. My friend Miles Borrero (he/him) has survived fronting a Latin rock band, riding horses competitively, acting on various stages across the US, and nannying a six-year-old. He has been Catholic, Jewish, and a frequent guest at Krishna’s house, and has lived life as a boy, a girl, a woman, a man, and something in between. Now a senior yoga teacher who leads retreats and trainings all over the world, Miles is passionate about dismantling the systems within ourselves that keep us small. And he has written a beautiful book called Beautiful Monster: A Becoming. The book reads like one long dharma talk, full of creative writing and yogic wisdom.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• how Miles was Rodney Yee’s best student even though they never met

• why was it yoga teaching that really stuck for Miles, despite having so many jobs and creative endeavors 

• what it was like for Miles to teach in his native language after learning to teach yoga in English first

• all about Miles’ teacher Raghunath and what Miles learned from him

• what changed in Miles’  asana practice after his top surgery and taking testosterone

Learn More From Miles:

• Website

• Chant Your Way to Freedom (Course)

• 100 YTT with Miles

• Miles Book, “Beautiful Monster:  A Becoming”

In case you don’t know, Jivana is the founder and director of Accessible Yoga, an organization dedicated to increasing access to the yoga teachings and supporting yoga teachers. He’s the author of the books: Accessible Yoga: Poses and Practices for Every Body; Yoga Revolution: Building a Practice of Courage & Compassion; and a new book, The Teacher's Guide to Accessible Yoga: Best Practices for Sharing Yoga with Every Body. His books, classes, and trainings offer support to yoga teachers and yoga therapists in finding ways to bring creativity and collaboration into their teaching while still respecting the ancient yoga tradition.

Check out the other two episodes with Jivana:

• 70: Yoga, Human Rights, and Accessibility with Jivana Heyman

• 105: Yoga And Social Justice with Jivana Heyman

In this episode you’ll hear:

• how Jivana recommends we balance  tradition and innovation in asana

• how teachers can innovate in a way that honors the roots of yoga

• some thoughts on the abuse present in so many lineages and why ethics creates accessibility

• the specific skills that yoga teachers can learn to make their offerings accessible to everyone

• the inherent power imbalance between student and teacher

• how we can use language to make the practice invitational AND clear

• the kinds of support Jivana recommend yoga teachers find

• the recurring teaching nightmare that both Jivana and I have!!

Learn More From Jivana:

• Instagram

• Facebook

• Accessible Yoga School

• The Teacher's Guide to Accessible Yoga Book