Working in Yoga

By Rebecca SebastianSociety & Culture Business Alternative Health Health & Fitness Personal Journals Careers

Working in Yoga episodes

March 20, 2023 Professionals Working Together. Collaboration as a superpower with John Cotrell, Allison Rissel, and Sheri Fisher.
I've said often that teaching yoga is a lonely job.
We come into work often by ourselves, we lead people in classes where the power dynamic is inharently unequal, and then we close up shop, sweep the floors, and shut the lights all by ourselves.
But what if it didn't have to be that way? What if we saw other yoga professionals as potential collaboration partners? Accountability partners? Inspiration?
Welcome to the relationship that John Cottrell, Allison Rissel, and Sheri Fisher have created together. They found a collaborative partnership, and a kinship, among sharing their joys and struggles, and have truly created a collective we should all strive for.
There are so many gems in this episode, but here are our key takeaways.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Collaboration is a lot like dating. Sometimes you get your heart broken, and sometimes you fall in love.
Collaboration isn't just an extroverted skill. Even introverts can learn skills of connecting with people and find it very rewarding.
Agendas help meetings be purposeful. Collaboration within your business can take longer without focus and organization.
Find an accountability group that keep you motivated. In-person is great, but if you start to interact with people online
Have you ever been burned in a yoga business collaboration? Remember professionalism and communication, and ask yourself how you want to be with other people.
RESOURCES
Connected Yoga Teacher Group
Yoga Teacher Conf free resources
Allison’s Website
Sheri's Website
John's Website
Getting Real book.
Crucial Conversations book
Working In Yoga Website
Working In Yoga Newsletter
Rebecca's IG
49 min
March 12, 2023 Teaching The Whole Family Ecosystem: w/ Camelia Felton
Unsurprisingly, in the West, we focus a lot on the individual within a yoga practice.
We also think about yoga practitioners as primarily a particular age, physical ability, and gender.
We break people down by demographic, by 'type', even by the pants they wear.
But what if we offered a yoga practice that supported the entire ecosystem of a person? Could we support people in youth, in our vibrant middle life, and as they age?
Our guest this week, Camelia "Mimi" Felton thinks so. Mimi talks to us about serving older adults and kids with a yoga practice and also talks about why it is important to share yoga with everyone.
Camelia is one of the International Association of Yoga Therapists’ 2022 SEVA award winners, and I know you are going to love hearing her story.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
That it is important for us to teach and share yoga with everyone in a family ecosystem. Kids and older adults need yoga too.
We all can feel like we are "good" without our yoga practice in times of thriving, but when things get tough we roll our yoga mats back out again to find the support that yoga can provide us.
"how does your heart feel?" makes more of a difference in our lives than "how do my pants look"
people in the non-profit yoga space have had a hard time fundraising over the last three years.
RESOURCES
Camelia's website: https://mimisyogakids.com/
Donate to Mimi's Yoga Kids: https://mimisyogakids.com/donate
Camelia's IG: @mimisyogakids
Working In Yoga Website: https://www.workinginyoga.com/
Rebecca's Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/hDF6dz
IAYT SEVA Award application for 2023: https://www.iayt.org/page/2023SevaAward
36 min
February 26, 2023 Yoga Therapists Making Impact: An Interview with Osiris Booque
Yoga professionals like to talk a lot about how we can be "of service" in our communities.
But often we get overwhelmed or feel lost in our daily lives and practices. But there are those out there who I want to introduce you to, so you can get inspired.
Osiris Booque is one of those individuals. Like previous guest, Gina Barrett, Osiris was honored by the International Association of Yoga Therapists last year with a SEVA award. This award is for those yoga therapists who are working on creating change in their communities through yoga.
I just love talking to folks who are out in the world doing work like this. I find it inspiring to know there are people committed to creating change, and using yoga as a vehicle to do it.
Our Key Takeaways:
That yoga isn't prescriptive, and we must fight the Western, colonial model of trying to make yoga be a prescription for what ails you
Yoga professionals can make impacts in their own communities.
The IAYT (International Association of Yoga Therapists) is working to support people who are making both a local and global impact.
Leadership is a challenge when you start, but if we want to make changes we need to learn how to be a leader so we can support others.
LINKS
Follow Flow for Black Lives
Osiris's Website
Osiris's Summer Program
Osiris on Instagram
IAYT’s SEVA Application for 2023
Working In Yoga's Website
Working In Yoga Newsletter
26 min
February 20, 2023 The Journey to Break the Yoga Instructor Mold w/ Haley Niichel
Have you ever felt like a broke-ass yoga teacher?
Yeah, me too.
Today in the podcast is Haley Niichel, talking about how she is working in break the mold of the broke-ass yoga instructor mold -- and we can learn a few lessons from her.
One of the reasons it is important to talk about this is because job-reporting sites like Indeed say often that yoga professionals are making upwards of $50,000 per year, when most independant yoga professionals make well less than that. While we see why Indeed and others got thier data from simple multiplication, the fact is it is not physically healthy to be teaching 40 hours of yoga classes per week. Almost nobody does that, and there isn't generally speaking enough work for people to be doing that.
So enter Haley Niichel. A disruptor and pranayama teacher from Des Moines, Iowa, who is actively working on breaking this mold. She works creating and facilitating event for people in-person, and also has a digital studio and online pranayama-focused yoga course to connect with students from all over the world.
And she is honest, talking about her struggles, her journey, and how we are all still a work-in-progress -- even in our businesses.
Here are our key takeaways:
-we don't need to accept the broke-ass yoga teacher model as our only business option.
-honoring Yoga in the fullness of the tradition is often seen as unpopular, and in today's current industry many haven't been taught to teach this way.
-our businesses are all a work in progress, and it is okay to learn along the way.
-we all have friends & family members who have said "what do you really do?" to us. It is okay, and you aren't alone.
-Our personal evolution is tied to how we run our businesses as yoga professionals.
Show Notes:
Haley's Website
Haley's IG
Working In Yoga
Rebecca's IG
A link to Haley's workshop at Sunlight Yoga + Apothecary on March 31, 2023.
39 min
February 03, 2023 Rethinking the Yoga Industry Ecosystem. An Interview w/ Tawnia Converse
For so many years I considered two factions of the yoga industry at war with one another. There were the fitness people, the people teaching what felt like acrobatics on the beach in tiny outfits…and then there were those of us who were in it for the “real” yoga.
Turns out I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
My guest Tawnia Converse has also spent years in the yoga industry figuring out her place among the spiritual teachers, fitness seekers, and everyone else in between. Tawnia and I talk about how we as yoga professionals can find ourselves feeling lost among the career paths that are typically available to us, and how that can cause us to throw stones at the other side instead of looking to collaborate in the greater ecosystem of the yoga teaching space.
I, for one, was really influenced by this talk with Tawnia–she made me rethink my attitude about all of us. I think she will for you too.
Key Takeaways:
*grieving the yoga experience that we had in the 90s and 00s
*we should consider how the folks who teach asana-focused yoga are planting seeds that folks who teach the full spectrum of yoga get to harvest.
*is it possible for us as an industry to shift our binary thinking to ecosystem thinking.
*the intersection of spiritual practice and making money is a hard place to be.
*liberation practice could involve scrolling TikTok and eating chips.
Show Notes:
Tawnia’s Website
Tawnia’s IG
We need to talk about our grief podcast.
Hey Marvelous’s business coaching program.
Working In Yoga Website
Rebecca’s IG
42 min
December 26, 2022 The One About How We Didn’t Quit in 2022 w/ Shannon Crow
Sometimes podcasts really do get to talk to the coolest people.

That sentence feels significant since so much of our industry is full of feelings of isolation and loneliness. One of the things I have learned in the last 20 years of being a yoga professional is that the more I find friends in the yoga community, the happier I am. In making connections I have been able to extracate myself from cult-like situations as a professional, I have been able to feel more buoyed by my yoga practice, and I have been able to share space with the best of humans.

One of the friends I have made this year is fellow podcast host, Shannon Crow. She hosts the podcast The Connected Yoga Teacher, and I asked her to come on Working In Yoga and talk about our past year.

For me this year has held a lot of grief within the professional yoga space. My friends have left for different industries, my colleagues both near and far have closed their doors, and as we continue to look at the wreckage of the industry at large since 2020 and a potential recession starting out 2023…well sometimes the future feels not-so-bright.

But then I talked to Shannon.

She reminded me about how much I love the practice of yoga, how it has sustained me through some of my hardest times, and how together–through hard conversations and intentional actions, we can built the industry that nourishes us all.

This is a long episode, but worth every minute. There is a surprise guest around the 26-minute mark, so don’t miss it!

RESOURCES:

RESOURCES

Our Sites:
Working In Yoga Podcast Website: www.workingingyoga.com
Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast Website: https://www.theconnectedyogateacher.com/podcast/
Rebecca’s Virtual Retreat: https://sunlight-streams.heymarvelous.com/product/54909

Teachers We Talked About:
Kristine Webber: https://subtleyoga.com
Sadie Nardini: https://sadienardini.com
Connected Yoga Teacher Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/connectedyogateacher

Connected Yoga Teacher Episodes We Talk About:
Diane Liska’s Episode with Shannon: https://www.theconnectedyogateacher.com/114-compassion-fatigue-diane-liska/?fbclid=IwAR0U1_Nr9z4HNv2wfUlRsHtt1zFGU-FlYO-nSeILYezPijtzBS4145C0viY
Nicole Lewis-Keeber’s Episode w/ Shannon: https://www.theconnectedyogateacher.com/301-trauma-business-ownership-with-nicole-lewis-keeber/?fbclid=IwAR0Hb3pI5hAZStEYviO-m5NxA-8zJPQbtwxQOpnoVzOLqFeILl4VLkthVY0

Working In Yoga Episodes We Talk About:

Quitting Yoga: https://www.workinginyoga.com/podcast/quitting-yoga
Selling Yoga: https://www.workinginyoga.com/podcast/working-in-yoga-episode-5-selling-yoga
1 hr 26 min
December 21, 2022 Tales of Yoga at the Border. An Interview with Casa de Paz SLV’s Gina Barrett
One of my ultimate goals for this podcast has always been to highlight the really cool work that yoga professionals are doing in their local communities to make a difference. There seems to be a big public perception that yoga folks are fairly shallow, with all of our concerns being about how we look in beachwear while doing crazy moves during sunset.

But anyone who has taken 10 seconds to go deeper knows that yoga professionals are good, loving, caring people who are committed to making a positive impact in the world.

With that let me introduce you to my friend Gina Barrett, the winner of the International Associal of Yoga Therapist’s SEVA award for 2022. She is working with a group of yoga teachers on the border between Mexico and the United States, sharing yoga with families and children who are living in camps awaiting permission to enter the US as refugees and asylum seekers.

This work involves a lot of dedication, skill, and training in trauma-informed practices to be able to facilitate yoga classes safely in that environment. Listen to all of Gina’s offerings, and make sure you donate to her NGO if you can.

RESOURCES:

Casa del Paz SLV’s website: https://www.casadepazslv.org/
Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy: https://pryt.com/
Our website: https://www.workinginyoga.com/
33 min
December 16, 2022 From Corporate Stress to Corporate Wellness. A journey with Stephanie Singleton
Have you ever said, “I’m just a yoga teacher”? I sure have. The idea that somehow yoga, as a profession either is of lesser importance or even for some folks doesn’t exist is something we have always fought against. I am pretty sure I have fought my mother, mother-in-law(s), partners, friends, and strangers at the store.
And in those conversations, I have not always been our biggest champion. That old “I just teach yoga” phrase has come out of my mouth more than once, my to my current-day chagrin. Because what we do as yoga professionals is valuable. Special. And worthy of our own admiration, respect, and a sustainable living wage.
Enter the incredible Stephanie Singleton, a yoga therapist and corporate wellness specialist who came to the yoga profession from a career at a major news network. Stephanie’s story is like so many of ours. We came stressed out, sick, and in desperate need of a change.
Stephanie shares her strategies for mindset around valuing her work, and talks about how corporations need us and our wellness skills now more than ever.
RESOURCES
Stephanie’s website: www.pranawellnessworks.com
Stephanie’s IG: @ pranawellnessworks
Sephanie’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanieerazo/

Working In Yoga’s site: www.workinginyoga.com
Support Working In Yoga: https://sunlight-streams.heymarvelous.com/product/46341
Virtual Yoga Retreat: https://sunlight-streams.heymarvelous.com/dashboard
Our fave money mindset ladies:
Claire Wasserman https://ladiesgetpaid.com/
Rachel Rogers: https://helloseven.co/
And She Co: https://www.andshe.co/
Kelly Deils: https://kellydiels.com/

International Association of Yoga Therapists: www.iayt.org
31 min
December 12, 2022 Community and Therapeutics in the Yoga Space w/ John Cottrell.
There has long been a controversy within yoga spaces. What makes us qualified to do what we do? What makes us able to guide people through movement practices, breathing techniques, meditation sessions, and talk about the underlying living principles of yoga when much of what we do could qualify as “therapeutic” in modality.
Well many years ago an organization called the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT) sought to discuss this. They credentialed skilled yoga teachers and created a new profession called yoga therapy. We not have 1,000s of certified yoga therapists worldwide and our “emerging profession” seems to have started to bloom.
But does this solve the challenge of deciding who is qualified to be a “therapist”?
Enter my friend John Cottrell, a licensed counselor, a yoga therapist, and a passionate teacher of vinyasa-style yoga. John has written books, contributed to many journals, and if I am being honest, possibly has more irons in the yoga fire than I do.
John and I discuss two things on this episode I want to highlight. First, is how comfortable yoga therapists can be talking about the therapeutic side of their jobs. We often couch ourselves as skilled yoga teachers and nothing more, even though we have spent a lot of time and money training to attain the C-IAYT title (that means we are certified by the IAYT)
John and I also talk about community, and creating and holding sacred the connections we have with each other. Be in in creating a teaching collective like John and friend have in Salt Lake City, or in creating professional connections within our yoga teaching landscape.
I know you are going to love my conversation with John as much as I did.
RESOURCES.
John Cottrell’s Website: http://www.johncottrell.com/
John’s Clothing Line: https://mbody.com/
John’s Baking Adventures: http://www.onecakewonder.com/
Mosaic Yoga Collective in Salt Lake City, UT: https://mosaicyoga.squarespace.com/
Working In Yoga’s Website: www.workingingyoga.com
The International Association of Yoga Therapists: www.iayt.org
40 min
October 06, 2022 We Need To Talk About Our Grief.
I have noticed this odd pattern while talking to folks in our industry over the last several months.
I have had the privilege of traveling to teach for some wonderful yoga conferences that have taken place since March of this year and I am going to say this: many of us need to do some serious work with our own grief.
From the nostalgia about how much we made and what famous people we used to practice with, to fantasizing about the days when yoga training programs had integrity and were more “authentic”, we have this weird connection to things that once were.
I think this is pretty normal, a very human thing that happens among groups of people. But on the whole, I think our nostalgia is really just unprocessed, complicated grief.
And I think it is killing us.
On this solo episode of Working In Yoga I dive deep into this idea of grief, and what we can do to change our attitudes about the industry.
We need to forge a path forward.
We need to co-create the future we want to be a part of.
And the first step is to acknowledge what we have lost.
Join me on this episode, and I absolutely cannot wait to hear what you’ve got to say.
RESOURCES
Mayo Clinic Guide to complicated grief: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/complicated-grief/symptoms-causes/syc-20360374
Podcast website: www.workinginyoga.com
Support: https://sunlight-streams.heymarvelous.com/product/46341
17 min

About Working in Yoga

From the publisher's feed

Join yoga studio owner, yoga teacher, yoga therapist, and yoga non-profit founder Rebecca Sebastian for a water cooler discussion of what it is to work in the yoga world.