leaving the studio-wellness industry

I left the wellness industry in pursuit of my mental health.

I know what you’re thinking - I had to read that sentence a few times myself after writing it. Then I had to sit on it for months, wondering if I’d ever find the appropriate words to describe my decade-long experience eating, sleeping, and breathing the modern American wellness industry.

I knew the time had come to formally address my exit from contemporary yoga spaces when I was standing in a bookshop in Tanzania. I was thumbing through pages of local authors; playwrights from a nearby college, specifically, when I looked up, and I saw it. I saw there, amongst long, beautiful names I couldn’t pronounce, amongst professionally bound books and books that looks as though they'd been strung together by very tired hands, I saw a face that looked so close to mine, smiling and looking upwards towards the sky, arms outstretched and feet propped into Vrksasana(tree pose). The cover, a shiny, clean plastic, read “Maasai Tribe Yoga.” I knew right then, that it was time to take my leave of teaching studio yoga for profit. I couldn’t even bring myself to look at the price tag. 

Long before my trip to East Africa, I’d become disenchanted with the wellness industry, I just didn’t have the guts to leave it. I kept leaning on the notion that I was helping people find their practice, and I was. My dharma, if I really think about it, was challenged from the outset. There are many debates about our current western yoga culture, atop the list is accessibility. I can no longer, in good conscience, support studios that charge $20-40 for a sixty-minute class. When you do this, you’re eliminating the opportunity for so many communities that need yoga, and each of the limbs in the practice. These are the same studios that refuse to pay their teachers a livable wage and expect time before and after class to be donated, and other duties that reach far and beyond vinyasa and sequencing. 

Choosing to share your yogic path, if you are sincere about the practice, can be a truly wonderful thing. For a long time, I felt like it was genuinely a viable career option, especially since I love the practice so much, and love to share. I never gave much thought to what that would do to my personal practice - I was just trying to make ends meet in a mindful way that would bring me joy. Perhaps I was naive enough to think it might even strengthen my practice. Fast forward through years of teaching at multiple studios in high volume, volunteer teaching for many classes in many spaces, supporting many communities and learning a lot, becoming a prenatal teacher, and eventually…enduring the pandemic away from any shred of “normal” yoga and wellness practices that I knew. To say I clung to my physical practice would be an understatement; the first few months of Coronavirus were enough to challenge anyone’s threshold for meditation.

Then I landed my “dream job” in the wellness industry, serving others on and off the mat. I helped launch a yoga program at a beautiful yoga and wellness space, and I genuinely thought I’d be able to create something that not only felt different to others but was different. A studio that actually practiced all eight limbs of yoga. A studio that was happy to accept feedback on what’s culturally appropriate and what isn’t; a studio that represented diversity, inclusion, and most importantly, a studio rooted in dharma. I was finally going to create a space where everyone felt welcome; where nobody said “Namaslay” and where nobody was “only here for the savasana.” It did not go down like that. 

I ended up tying the worth of my personal practice and how I was able to monetize and harness it professionally (as if we could ever put a price on something so precious) to my dharma. Pulled the spreads to see if my mantras were converting to memberships and if my knowledge and delivery of Surya Namaskar A and B were enough to make students come back.  I cried when I realized that I was selling out my practice. I’d dreamed of this job for years and here I was, more stressed than I had been with all the good tools in my belt and unable to pick any of them up. My brain couldn’t handle life outside of making the studio flourish and run. Every day was an all-day sprint to the end. My body reflected the stress of never practicing, only demo-ing, and I felt like I could never actually fill my cup up, though I poured constantly into the cups of others.

The lack of actual support for wellness professionals like massage therapists, yoga teachers, estheticians, acupuncturists, and chiropractors, is shocking. I personally know a handful of each of these people, and some of the stories they have told me about practices in different wellness spaces shocked me, and sincerely surprised me. My own personal disappointments over the years at studios small and large would fill more pages than you care to read in this format. Suffice it to say: you enter the industry feeling certain you have chosen the correct path because you feel…enlightened, empowered, or whatever the case may be. But in reality, what’s likely happening is the gentle dousing of your inner fire, even if only one large drop at a time.

Merely existing is a constant exchange of energy. When you intentionally choose where to put your energy, and it becomes a vacuum and sucks you dry, you begin to question whether you’re the vacuum or the supplier.

I endured the job but reflected as much as I could on whether or not it was the right place for me. If I was right for it. The whole thing just felt…wrong, unsafe for my mental health. I left that studio, for a multitude of reasons, and returned back to my pattern of occasional heated studio practice here and there, and more frequently at home. Nothing feels better than getting back on the mat, in the head, in the soul. Moving the body to still the mind - I felt at home again. Excited to teach and share again, maybe. Maybe think about picking up classes at a new studio? 

And then…I saw what I saw on that shelf in Africa and was beyond irked. I looked at that woman on the cover in her red romper and carefree face and wanted to scream. I was ashamed. I’ve always known that white bodies in yoga spaces can be harmful, but I’ve always protected my practice and internally defended it.  Unwilling to see that regardless of how much I might know or understand, I’m a firm physical representation of what’s harmful in America’s version of yoga. It’s true that no one can see my heart or read my thoughts, but my body, just by its presence, can represent all kinds of things, good and bad, to many different people. The very last thing I’m trying to represent is privilege in the yoga space. I am by no means calling out any western yoga teachers or practitioners, and I’ve got mad love for so many studios - I’m here to call out myself. I don’t feel right teaching in those spaces anymore. I don’t feel right making money off of students, just to turn right around to feel angry that the studio owner can’t pay more for my time. A vicious cycle. My dharma was challenged because I allowed it - lost the idea of how to be well without the title, salary, and glossy DVDs.

I suppose I penned this so other wellness teachers/ professionals might be wary when reaching to make your passion a side hustle, and inevitably, your side hustle your main gig. These American dreams aren’t what you think. YOUR MENTAL HEALTH IS NOT WORTH SELLING AND YOUR DHARMA IS PRICELESS. 

xoxx,

tj