Corporately Yogi

Have you ever tried to make something work for so long all the while yearning for for something else?

That’s how I felt during my six years as a yoga teacher. Let me backtrack a bit to explain how I happened upon yoga teaching in the first place.

At one time in my life I had lived in a small town in the north island of New Zealand called Nelson. It was a charming town with wholesome Kiwi charm, a vibrant local community, and a quaint township. I lived there for 3 years. During this time I was studying rock climbing instruction at the local Politech, working at a hip cafe, and teaching Capoeira (a Brazilian martial art). I was mostly happy except for occasionally crippling homesickness for my family in California and a committed romantic relationship that was unraveling daily before my eyes.

A new business had come to town and the locals were excited and overjoyed. It was to be a modern yoga studio designed and managed by an American couple full of hopes, dreams, and incredibly white teeth. I shared the town’s excitement for this new business because rock climbing 4 days per week and teaching capoeira when I wasn’t away climbing left me sore and tired. I looked forward to giving back to myself in the solace of a yoga mat, a heated studio, and a good yoga flow playlist.

I quickly became a regular especially once my relationship officially ended and I needed something to keep myself busy in order to heal my wounds. By this time the yoga studio had gained some clout, started hosting workshops with international teachers, and was about to launch their first teacher training program. Since I was already known in town as the local Capoeira teacher and had a committed group of students, along with a disciplined track record of yoga class attendance, they offered me the teacher training program for free I think hoping my Capoeira students would follow me there. (Who knows). However, I took the offer and eventually became certified. As I said earlier, I happened upon yoga teaching. It was nothing I ever sought after as a goal or a dream job. It sort of found me at the right time in my life and I was perfectly suited to give it a shot.

So I taught and taught and taught some more over the next 6 years. I eventually moved back to California and built my teaching practice there until I started to yearn for something else career-wise. I didn’t know what I was yearning for exactly but I knew that I did not want to wear yoga clothes all day, I wanted to be part of a team, and I wanted to make a lot more money.

Teaching yoga had become stale and I was becoming cynical of the whole yoga scene. It was time for me to move on. So I did what anyone in search of a job in the years before LinkedIn and Indeed would do- I poked around on Craigslist just to “see what was out there”.

Before I go into what employment I found next, I’d like to mention that I did enjoy many of the years teaching yoga. I truly love teaching and made incredibly beautiful connections with students and other teachers during my time as a yoga teacher. Naturally, as yoga and meditation go hand in hand, I also spent a good amount of time teaching meditation. Many good years were had indeed. Yet still, I was ready to move on.

Back to Craiglist- my search led me to land a role at a really cool yoga and rock climbing apparel company known as prAna. As coincidence would have it, what helped me get the job was that I was a climber and a yogi. Those were sort of unspoken prerequisites for aligning with the company culture. It was a perfect match and I could not even have planned this sort of next step for myself in my wildest dreams. Although the company was considered a corporate job, at least it was for a really cool company with two of my favorite activities at that time woven into the daily workday. I had a steady schedule, health insurance, a salary and opportunities to learn and grow. What I didn’t know at the time was how much my time at prAna would impact the trajectory of my career path for many years to come.

Usually, you hear the opposite story- of someone who left their corporate job to teach yoga. Well, in my case, it was the opposite and thank goodness for that. (and this may change!) Some corporate companies are actually pretty cool. And to work in such a high-performing group of co-workers helped me realize how much I can also highly perform. Not to mention the reduction of stress having so much steadiness in my schedule and salary. As I write this it has been over 10 years since I left yoga teaching. I am grateful for those times and yet have never once felt nostalgic for those times nor do I ever feel a surge of energy to teach another yoga class. My life improved substantially since making the switch. Following my intuition and that inner voice telling me to move on was the best thing I could have done for myself and it gives me the courage to move on again when I hear that voice inside encourage me to do so.

Thanks for reading,

Diane