The practice isn’t impure.

You are not impure.

Your actions speak louder than any yoga pose ever will. And you, my yoga teaching friend, are why I still have hope for yoga.

You’re the reason over five plus million people find joy on their mat. Not because you have “the answers,” but because you know you don’t.

You’re the one who everyone looks to for what is right.

You’re the one who everyone confides in when things are wrong.

It’s you…not the others.

Not the ones who overcharge for their services.

Not the ones who pretend to have it all together on stage—but fall apart behind the scenes.

Not the ones who exploit the practice.

Not the ones pointing their fingers at you making you wrong—when the whole f*cking world knows you’re right.

You quitting doesn’t make you less of a yoga teacher.

You hear me?

Let me say it again a little louder…

You quitting doesn’t make you less of a yoga teacher.

In fact, it makes you more than one.

It makes you real.

It makes you relatable.

And it sure as hell makes you human.

You, darling, stand for something.

You stand for people.

For change.

For honesty.

For community.

For realness.

For boundaries.

For even energy exchange.

For accountability.

Everything you believe is good in yoga—is good in you.

I know at times it can feel like the practice will never be what it used to—and you’re right.

But the yoga world needs you right now.

To show up in your own damn way.

To flip the script of this multi-level marketing scheme where only the top one percent slot holders get the good life.

Take that MLM pyramid and flip it on its head.

Teach the world what yoga is.

It’s inclusion.

It’s change.

It’s empathy.

It’s dedication.

It’s vulnerability.

It’s being real.

It’s doing no harm…but taking no sh*t.

My hope for you is that you’ll spend every ounce of time and energy (yes, as long as it f*cking takes) healing, growing, unlearning, and rebuilding.

So that one day—when it’s your time to get back in the yoga game—you’ll have every tool you could possibly need to change this asana backward fantasy land of what yoga seems to stand for.

You are why I still unroll my blue Manduka mat in my 10 by 10 bedroom.

It’s you.

And when the time comes when you’re ready to stand up in front of a room full of yoga bodies from every corner of the Earth and speak truth (not yours, but the truth—because we only get one—the truth), I’ll be front row. Maybe not in person, maybe in the virtual yoga space—but I’ll be there.

Cheering you on.

Because you did something so many people can’t and won’t do—you taught.

You taught by quitting.

And that is what yoga is. That is community.

Love,

A Yoga Teacher who also quit in 2020.

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