The Mentor Sessions

My understanding of the spiritual teachings is that my liberation doesn't mean anything unless everyone else is free too. The teachings of Buddhism say over and over again that a huge part of our practice is about creating a world where the safety and freedom and happiness of all sentient beings is possible. So from that I take that being engaged in working for a better world is a necessary part o...

In episode 148 I collected all my best advice for new teachers. The episode centered around the idea that the most important thing new teachers can do is start teaching and figure out what kind of teacher they want to be. But once you've started that process, there are some important business foundations you want to have in place so you have solid ground upon which to build. This episode (152)  is...

How do we pour into ourselves so we have enough energy, time and focus for all the people who need us? How do we stay connected to our practice, since it should be the foundation our whole teaching life is built on? How do we stay inspired in our teaching without investing thousands of dollars in continuing education each year? It is not easy! But creating time for our own practice and study is es...

Being a yoga teacher, heck being a PERSON, is TOUGH right now. But having a job that requires presence and vulnerability and groundedness all the time requires we pour into ourselves so we have something to give.  I LOVE hearing the behind the scenes details of people's lives and routines. And I'm so happy to say that after a pretty stressful few years, I have my self care routines DIALED IN right...

Teaching yoga, and maybe especially teaching private clients is, to be candid, an unstable way to make a living. But I have done it successfully for twenty years, so it can be done!  I'm in a season in my life where I have limited spots available to teach, but financially I need every single one of those spots filled every week. I have about ten standing private clients and then I have at least fi...

Anytime I connect with a new-ish yoga teacher I end up giving a lot of the same advice, so I collected all of it in one place, right here in today's podcast episode! Whether you are a new teacher or an experienced one in a phase of rebuilding (haven't we all been rebuilding lately??) this episode has all my best pearls of wisdom, hard won over the last twenty years of full-time yoga teaching! In t...

You all know that I am only minimally interested in business-- I'd much rather talk about the actual craft of teaching yoga. But we do need to make money, and if we have chosen yoga teaching as our job, we need to be SMART about business because it is not the easiest way to make a living! Having some smart foundational systems in place can make a huge difference in your yoga teaching career path,...

More than ever our work as yoga teachers is challenging and important. We don't want to be like this lady, right? Trying to sell people something they don't need while their house burns down? People need yoga, but they need the kind of yoga that supports awareness, connection and care (which could mean lots of different things for different students and teachers!). People do not need the kind of y...

You don't me to tell you that the world as we know it is burning to the ground. This makes teaching yoga hard, important and strange. A few episodes back I answered the question, " Should we talk about current events in our yoga classes ?" By essentially saying, "maybe… but most likely YES." In that episode I talked about how important it was to have an understanding and point of view about what t...

Solo or with guests,  I explore the craft of teaching yoga, as its own practice. I'm seeking answers to the questions about why we teach something the way we do, how we could be more expansive and inclusive in our teaching, and how we can continue to grow and evolve in our teaching practice. I would like to release episodes more frequently and your feedback will determine the kinds of episodes I r...

Even if you first learned yoga from your parents and your grandparents, the path to truly embodying the philosophical yogic teachings can be long and winding. Today we have a beautiful conversation with Reema Datta to share with you that explores: the path from a physical focus in teaching to a philosophical practice how kleshas impact on our spiritual growth and physical well-being how to work wi...

You don't need me to tell you what a wild and scary time we are living through. We know that the tools of yoga can be incredibly supportive in difficult times and also have things to say about the difficult times we are living in. So are you talking about this in your classes? Should you? I am, and I've been getting a lot of questions about it! So today's episode is going to dive deep into this qu...

As I sit down to write these show notes, RFK Jr is currently in his senate confirmation hearing. By the time you read these words it is my assumption that he will be the new head of Health and Human Services for the United States, a job with incredible power. Anything is possible, so there could be a different outcome, but it seems unlikely.  You might ask, "what does that have to do with teaching...

Building a career as a yoga teacher is challenging because unlike many other kinds of jobs, you have to build out a career in one hour blocks, working to get and then manage each gig separately. While the explosion of online offerings and social media as a marketing tool has changed much about the landscape, there is one thing it hasn't changed. In my view, the best way to build a career as a yoga...

Octavia Raheem first wrote a book called Gather where she talked about gathering ancestors, gathering courage and gathering rest. Then she wrote a book, Pause Rest Be, about how rest has served as a tool for courage and resilience for her and the people she's worked with.    And lucky for us, Octavia has written a new book called Rest Is Sacred, that takes these ideas and weaves them together, tak...

I have been an active participant in the yoga industry since the early 2000s, and I have never really understood how brick and mortar yoga studios, especially locally owned ones without corporate backing, made it work.  I've been curious about it, and I have seen a few studios run incredibly well and last a long time, but we all know those are the outliers. These spaces are so important for us as...

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 t...

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...

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 Nic...

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...

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 dy...

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. K...

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...

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 h...

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...