Working in Yoga

In this episode of Working In Yoga, Rebecca Sebastian is joined by Gloria Hester, whose work may challenge everything you think you know about how yoga is used professionally.

Gloria shares her path into somatic education for vertebrate animals, offering a compelling example of how yoga principles can be applied far beyond traditional classroom settings. Together, they explore intuition as a professional skill, the nuance between following opportunity and honoring boundaries, and what it means to work therapeutically with non-human beings.

This conversation invites yoga and wellness professionals to question the idea that the field is a monoculture — and instead consider how varied, creative, and bespoke our careers can truly be. It’s a thoughtful look at intuition, ethics, and the many unexpected directions yoga work can take.

RESOURCES

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The Back Room

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Gloria Hester

In this episode of Working In Yoga, host Rebecca Sebastian is joined by Suzie Carmack for a wide-ranging conversation on burnout, wellbeing, and the future of yoga and wellness professions.

Together, we unpack why yoga work can be uniquely isolating, how that isolation fuels burnout, and why traditional “self-care” often misses the mark. Suzie shares insights from her book The Wellbeing Ultimatum, and talks about how wellbeing lacks a shared definition, why social support is essential for burnout recovery, and how identifying joy can be a powerful professional practice.

This episode also explores professional identity, creative autonomy, fairytale thinking, and why yoga professionals exist at the intersection of healing and artistry. It’s an invitation to rethink burnout not as personal failure, but as a systemic issue — and to imagine careers that are bespoke, sustainable, and rooted in real belonging.

RESOURCES

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Suzie Carmack

Yoga has no career ladder.

And for many mid-career yoga professionals, that realization arrives quietly—through burnout, confusion, or the feeling that the work should make more sense by now.

In this solo episode, Rebecca explores why yoga careers are structurally non-linear, how training and personal branding have been positioned as substitutes for real professional pathways, and why so many skilled teachers and therapists end up blaming themselves for systemic gaps.

This is not an episode about hustling harder, pivoting faster, or waiting for the industry to be rescued.

It’s a conversation about clarity:

Why yoga offers inspiration without infrastructure

How burnout is often grief, not failure

What happens when careers are built without shared support or advocacy

And how to redefine progress in care-based work without chasing legitimacy

This episode also introduces The Back Room, a private professional space for yoga workers who want reflection, strategy, and sustainability—without high-ticket coaching or industry drama.

A guided reflection sheet accompanies this episode inside The Back Room for listeners who want to sit with these questions more deeply.

RESOURCES

2026 Industry Forecast

Working In Yoga Website

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The Back Room

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In this episode of Working In Yoga, we take the conversation global with Rebel Tucker, Vice President of Yoga Australia. Rebel shares how Yoga Australia actively incorporates member feedback, supports both teachers and students, and maintains “common sense standards” that protect practitioners and the public alike.

We explore what it looks like when a professional organization truly represents its community, why connection among yoga professionals is essential, and what the U.S. yoga industry can learn from international models. We also dive into big-picture questions about yoga’s place in wellness vs. healthcare systems, training standards around the world, and whether the future of the industry lies in one major organization or many niche ones.

This episode is an invitation to think beyond borders — and imagine what’s possible when yoga professionals are heard, supported, and connected.

RESOURCES

2026 Industry Forecast

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The Back Room

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Rebel Tucker

In this final conversation with Becky Aten and Theo Wildcroft, we dive into the concept of neuroqueering—the practice of disrupting what’s considered “normal” in both neurotypical and heteronormative culture. Through laughter, curiosity, and deep reflection, we explore how yoga spaces can move away from rigid, productivity-driven ideals and instead celebrate unusual bodies, brains, and ways of being.

We talk about queerness as a refusal of capitalist productivity, the deep intersections between neurodiversity and trauma, and why morality has quietly shaped how yoga is supposed to look and feel. This episode invites yoga professionals to embrace experimentation, question the “why” behind their teaching choices, and allow a little more weirdness—because that’s often where freedom, healing, and creativity live.

RESOURCES

2026 Industry Forecast

Working In Yoga Website

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The Back Room

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Theo Wildcroft

Becky Aten

In this follow-up conversation, we go deeper into what inclusive design actually looks like in yoga spaces. From sound engineering and sensory considerations to universal design principles and the social model of disability, this episode explores how centering neurodivergent people from the beginning—not as an afterthought—can radically change how yoga is taught, experienced, and shared. We also reflect on how trauma-informed practices translate, why lived experience must guide decision-making, and how training future teachers needs to evolve.

RESOURCES

2026 Industry Forecast

Working In Yoga Website

Working In Yoga Newsletter

The Back Room

Sponsorship Opportunities

GUEST LINKS

Theo Wildcroft

Jess Glenny

Becky Aten

What does it actually mean to create inclusive yoga spaces for neurodivergent people? In this episode, we explore the intersection of trauma-informed yoga and neurodivergent safety—while also modeling what it looks like to learn in real time. You’ll hear moments of curiosity, missteps, and grace as language evolves in the conversation, offering a powerful reminder that inclusion isn’t about perfection. It’s about willingness, reflection, and designing spaces that welcome everyone from the very beginning.

RESOURCES

2026 Industry Forecast

Working In Yoga Website

Working In Yoga Newsletter

The Back Room

Sponsorship Opportunities

GUEST LINKS

Theo Wildcroft

Jess Glenny

Becky Aten

What happens when an industry grows faster than its infrastructure? In this solo episode, Rebecca explores how yoga professionals ended up navigating public discourse, expensive coaching, and deeply personal career decisions all at once—and why we desperately need quieter, more intentional spaces to think, reflect, and build what comes next.

🧠 KEY TAKEAWAYS

We recreated the student model for professionals—without questioning it.
Yoga pros now have public “group class” spaces for discourse and expensive, often misaligned “containers” for depth. What’s missing is the middle ground.

Business coaching in yoga often lacks lived experience.
Much of the business advice in yoga is taught by people who haven’t actually built sustainable careers as yoga teachers or yoga therapists—creating a gap between theory and reality.

Burnout isn’t just financial—it’s existential.
Many yoga professionals feel untethered, unclear, and small within a massive industry that expanded without building infrastructure to support careers.

Careers in yoga are bespoke, not linear.
Our paths aren’t ladders or portfolios—they’re custom-built lives. But the expectation to figure this out alone creates isolation and pressure.

Public spaces are good for discourse, not discernment.
Social media excels at connection and organizing, but it cannot support slow thinking, reflection, or personal strategy.

Clarity comes from space, not hustle.
What yoga professionals need most right now isn’t more information—it’s time, reflection, translation, and collective thinking.

Not every conversation should be public.
Industry conversations and personal career decisions serve different purposes—and they require different rooms.

RESOURCES

2026 Industry Forecast

Working In Yoga Website

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The Back Room

As 2025 comes to a close, this solo episode of Working In Yoga offers a pause rather than a prediction.

Instead of recapping highlights or forecasting the future, Rebecca reflects on what this year quietly revealed about working in yoga—shifts in stability, authority, sustainability, and how the work itself is changing shape.

Drawing from conversations across nearly 100 podcast episodes and countless off-mic discussions, this episode explores why so many yoga professionals feel unsettled right now—and why that feeling may be a rational response to changing structures, not a personal failure.

This episode is an invitation to orient, not to optimize. To notice what’s holding, what’s straining, and what’s emerging—without rushing to name or fix it.

RESOURCES

2026 Industry Forecast

Working In Yoga Website

Working In Yoga Newsletter

What if creativity in yoga isn’t about novelty—but about depth, structure, and purpose? In this episode, we unpack the difference between engagement and entertainment, why foundations matter, and how knowing your “why” shapes sustainable, skillful teaching.

Key Takeaways

• Creativity needs structure.
Creative work thrives when supported by systems. Whether you create within set hours or follow inspiration when it strikes, structure doesn’t limit creativity—it sustains it.

• Creativity is not the same as variety.
Variety leans toward entertainment. Teaching yoga is about clarity, transmission, and guidance—not constant novelty.

• Engagement ≠ entertainment.
Our role as yoga teachers is to engage students intellectually, physically, and emotionally—not to perform or entertain for retention’s sake. The yoga itself is enough.

• Foundation before innovation.
Creative expression works best when built on strong fundamentals. A solid understanding of yoga principles allows for skillful adaptation without losing integrity.

• Know your “why.”
Understanding why you show up to teach—calling, service, curiosity, devotion—grounds your creativity and keeps your work aligned and sustainable.

RESOURCES

2026 Industry Forecast

Working In Yoga Website

Working In Yoga Newsletter

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