Peaks And Valleys

February 2023

“Honey, you’re peaking!” Alix said to me, as we walked along the perimeter of our property in Nicaragua at sunset. 

I stopped dead in my tracks. My eyes widened with fear as my stomach sank into my toes. 

“What?” she asked, laughing as she watched my face transform into sheer horror. 

For once, I was speechless. I didn’t have the words to articulate the horrible feeling that suddenly coursed through my veins. All I knew is that it wasn’t good. 

“I don’t want to be peaking,” I croaked. 

“No, I didn’t mean it like a bad thing,” she tried to back peddle. “I just meant that you’re doing it! You’re doing everything you’ve ever wanted. It’s amazing, you should be proud.”

But I wasn’t proud. 

I was terrified. 

Because she was right. 

I was standing on the peak of the mountain I’d been climbing my whole adult life. 

And you know what they say:

What comes up, must come down.

Damn, that descent has been brutal. 

Peaks and Valleys

From the outside you probably wouldn’t know that I’ve been feeling like I’m on a downward spiral. Because from the outside it looks like….

We’re traveling the world!

I’m crazily in love!

I’ve launched a new course! 

My app is thriving! 

My Instagram is booming!

The blog is popping off!

So on, and so on. 

And look, all of those things are true. But that doesn’t mean that they necessarily feel as good as they look. 

The truth is, ever since Alix jokingly told me I was peaking, I couldn’t shake that heavy feeling of dread. Because I knew she was right. 

A Yoga Teacher’s Career Trajectory

Let’s just talk about it practically first, from the perspective of a yoga teacher’s career trajectory. This will probably make the most sense before I try to explain the intricacies of my feelings.

My trajectory looked a little (okay, maybe a lot) different from the standard flow I’ll share below. But we all meet at the same ending point, so let’s not fixate on the exact order of things too much, okay?

Teach Friends And Family

We all gotta start somewhere after we graduate from our first YTT, right? And the best place to start is teaching friends and family for free. Maybe a donation park class here or there. 

I like to tell my students to just keep teaching, to get the muscle memory stronger in your mouth. Sounds weird, but I swear the practice of just getting that big jumble of yoga speak out of your mouth helps a ton when it comes to confidence. 

Teach Studio Classes

Hopefully all of your free teaching pays off so you can crush an audition at your dream studio, even if it means you get on the schedule as a sub, or in the dreaded 5 am time slot. 

Either way, your foot is in the door, and you’re officially a studio teacher! 

Typically you’ll then get more and more classes, and maybe even more studio gigs. It really depends on how much time you have to teach in relation to whatever other job you have that’s actually paying you enough to eat and live. 

Teach Private Classes

The more established you are at your studio, the closer you’ll get to your students. This is when you start getting regulars, and even diehard fans. 

These same people are likely to be the ones to either book private sessions with you, or refer you to friends and family for private sessions.

You’re stoked, because private classes come with a much higher hourly rate that suddenly makes it seem possible to actually survive as a yoga teacher. 

Teach Workshops

Once you have a few years of teaching under your belt, then you’re probably ready to go deeper into specific skills or concepts that there simply isn’t time for in a single drop-in class. 

Your students want that depth too, and start begging you for more information on handstands or chakras, or whatever it is that lights you up. 

So, you put together your first workshop to fill your teaching cup as much as your student’s thirst for more. Again, you’re making a lot more than you would for a single class, so you’re feeling hopeful about taking this full time.

Start An Online Platform

Now that you have those few years of teaching in your back pocket, you’re ready to teach classes online. Because, contrary to popular opinion that you should teach online classes right away….you took this really good 100 hour training that advised against it. 

Sure, you’ve been utilizing social media since you started teaching, but you wait a few years to actually refine your craft of teaching in person, to real bodies first…..then you slowly dip your toes into the online world. 

Teach Retreats

Remember those diehard students? Well, they want more than just a workshop now. They want a whole ass week with you. Somewhere beautiful and relaxing with great food and a stunning yoga space. 

So, you decide to plan your first retreat. You’re also stoked to find out there’s the perfect course out there that can help you with the retreat planning process, because you’re a total newbie. 

When it’s all said and done, you realize: holy shit. I just made more in one week than I did in a few months of teaching. And I got paid to travel the world!

Teach YTTs

At this point you’ve been teaching for years, and you’re not only established with your students, but also within your studios and local community. 

Your home studio asks you to teach a few classes on their next YTT. From this experience you gain the confidence to apply for other YTT teaching gigs both locally and internationally. 

Don’t worry, you’re still teaching retreats and engaged with your students through studio classes, privates, and workshops, as well. 

Teach Yoga Festivals

Look, the whole yoga festival thing isn’t for everyone. And maybe this is a step that you skip. That’s what I did….just not my cup of tea (maybe it’s the introvert in me). 

But for the extroverts out there who thrive in crowds buzzing with energy, you’re stoked to apply to small, local festivals. And also to shoot your shot at applying for the larger international ones. 

Create Your Own YTT

Now that you’ve been teaching for at least 7+ years, planned and lead quite a few of your retreats, and taught on a handful of other YTTs….you’re ready. 

You’re ready to take the plunge in writing hundreds of curricula, and dealing with the beastly nightmare that is Yoga Alliance when it comes to creating your own YTT. 

Maybe you have your own studio at this point, and you run the training through your studio. Or, maybe you rent out other venues around the world, instead. 

Either way, you’ve realized the bread and butter of most yoga businesses: YTTs. And you dedicate most of your time and energy into your own YTTs as well as your own retreats. 

Heck, you might not be in a studio at all anymore!

Open Your Own Yoga Studio

Like I said, maybe you open your own studio before you create your YTT. Or maybe you wait to do anything with a physical space until you have the finances to be able to do so. 

Either way, you’ve found the cutest place in your town with a killer location. You pour everything into it, and get a modest business generated with a team of great teachers. 

While memberships are consistent, you know that the best way to sustain your high monthly costs are to crank out YTTs and retreats ... .so that’s just what you do. 

Open Your Own Retreat Center

For the nomadic teachers out there who dread the thought of being nailed down to one studio forever, perhaps you’re dreaming more of a jungle yoga retreat sanctuary somewhere more remote. 

After all, you love retreats and YTTs the most, so why not build your own center to host them, rather than always spending a chunk of change on venue hire fees?

You find the perfect piece of land, and build from the ground up. Your yoga retreat center is born. 

Become Celebrity Trainer

You’ve done it all! You checked the boxes! Where else is there to go other than to establish your own “method” or specific style, and step into the shoes (uhhh, I guess yoga teachers don’t wear shoes ... .but you know what I mean) of a celebrity trainer. 

You know the type. This Melissa Wood Health, or the creator of The Class. 

Even Buti Yoga is an example. 

In this instance, you are your brand and your brand is you. You make an undeniable mark on the yoga world, and generate millions of dollars running an empire that extends well beyond a cute local studio and few YTTs a year. 

You’re cranking out products, merch, and high quality produced content on your own app. So, you’re at networking events and influencer trips. 

You’re living “the dream.”

(sub 3) Or are you?

See, this is where I got stuck. 

Like I said, my teaching career didn’t necessarily progress in the exact same way as the standard path of a yoga teacher. But it still landed me at the end….

I’d opened my own retreat center, written and run my own YTTs, planned and taught nearly 100 retreats…..I was at the top. 

The last step was (gulp, shudder, gasp) becoming a celebrity trainer. 

This was it. I could look for investors to really take my existing platform to the next level, trademark some of my flows or my teaching, and pimp myself out to the best influencer agencies in the world. 

But guess what?

This sounded more like a nightmare than a dream. 

You know about the ick, don’t you? 

Well, this is my idea of the ultimate career ick. 

Not because there’s anything wrong with this for the people listed above. They (seem) to be living for their purpose….great!

But for an introverted girl who’d rather write books and live a quiet life in nature, I guess you could say it’s just not really…..

me. 

Going Down, Down, Down

So here’s the thing, my career didn’t suddenly tank. The numbers actually stayed the same, even went up in some areas. 

But for me, success is about a lot more than just numbers and dollar signs. 

Think about it like this, I’d been chasing a dream for most of my adult life that looked a little something like this:

Create a job where I can travel the world without needing to go back to the States to earn money. A job that allows remote working and flexibility. 

Once you have that job, save as much money as possible by living as minimally as possible in off-the-grid areas. See as much as the world as you can, so you can decide where you want to buy land one day with some of the savings you’ve earned. 

Find your dream piece of land, and build yourself a home on the same property as a yoga retreat center for your own retreats, as well as other teachers. Live off of the land as much as possible, and give back to the local community through your revenue. 

Help animals and people where you can along the way. 

Oh yeah, and hopefully do this with a loving partner (and maybe even little barefoot jungle babies), too. That would be nice. 

This was the dream I came up with when I was just 22-years-old after my first trip abroad. That first travel experience that “ruined” me, by changing my whole life’s plan and biting me with the worst travel bug anyone’s ever known. 

Suddenly, I was 34 (almost 35), and…..I did it. 

Like, all of it. 

Okay, maybe not the baby part, but honestly that was never in my dream anyways. It was always about finding the partner first, and maybe babies second. 

But that’s a whole other story. 

The point is that I thought this was going to take me decades to build. I thought I’d be a lot older by the time my dreams become reality. 

And I guess, that older dream version of me was moving a little slower and ready to just settle into the dream life they’d created. 

But that wasn’t the case for my 34-year-old self. I wasn’t ready to just kick back and enjoy the fruits of my labor. I had too much energy for that. 

Also, I was (am) in my prime for god’ sake!

That’s not to say that I haven’t taken time to look at what I’ve created, and allow myself to feel really proud. Or even coast with contentment for months at a time when I need to take breaks in the midst of the hell that is this fertility journey. 

I’m not exaggerating when I say I’m so fucking grateful to be in a position in my career where I can rest when I need. Where I can be totally hands off, and still be okay financially. 

What a blessing. 

I’m not complaining about that. 

In fact, I hope I’m not complaining at all. 

Because that moment where my stomach sank into my toes didn’t feel like a complaint, or a pity party. It felt more like….

(sub 3) an identity crisis of sorts. 

Not because I didn’t know who I was, but because I felt like I no longer had a why. 

I was purposeless. 

I’d been putting one foot in front of the other, walking toward my dream for over a decade. And yes, sometimes I took scenic routes, or went totally off path…but for the most part, I was moving towards what I wanted. 

Now that I had all that I’d ever wanted, it kind of felt like….

Now what?

That’s the way you’re supposed to feel when you retire! Not when you’re 34. 

I guess you can retire at any age, but you know what I mean. 

 Where To Go From Here?

I never imagined it would feel so horrible to achieve my dreams. Isn’t it supposed to feel the opposite? 

All of it was pretty shocking, to be honest. 

Grappling with the feeling of achieving my life’s purpose while still having so much life to live, that is. 

I still can’t say that I have it all figured out. Because I don’t. 

But I do have a few ideas in the works I’ll share more about when I’m ready. 

Until then, my focus in the last year and half has really been connecting back to purpose. Because when I don’t have purpose, I feel like my heart’s unplugged, and just beating on autopilot, or something. 

I can have all of the financial freedom in the world, but without purpose…..

Who cares?

The funny thing is that I teach about purpose a lot in my mentorship sessions, and one my 100 hour training. So, I should know exactly what to do, right?

Right?

I’m getting there. I’m following the same formula that I teach to others, and remembering how difficult it can be to apply it to yourself. 

So, if you’re like me and feeling a little lost, a little directionless, or downright empty….

Try to find your why again. 

Chances are it either changed somewhere along the way, and you didn’t notice, or you lost it altogether. 

Don’t worry, it will come back to you if you stay open. 

If you listen more than you ideate and brainstorm. 

It will peak through like the sun breaking through rain clouds on a stormy day if you’re patient enough. 

Trust me. 

I’ve waited a year and a half, and it’s finally happening. 

Hope is real. 

xx, 

K