I recently got asked a few times by different people to teach yoga again. While I am very grateful that I had the privilege of teaching yoga for eight years, I am clear that that part of my life is over.

In April of this year, I decided to stop teaching yoga. Although I still practice almost everyday, I had to make the decision for myself and for my well-being. In my last days, I had taught for five studios, each for at least a year and some for a few years. However, all of them embodied some form of abusive, harassment and lack of owner accountability.

This is not to say that all studios are this way but, there is a trend in the yoga community for teachers to spend tons of money becoming a teacher in hopes for their dreams to be fulfilled and only to enter an industry that wants to use and abuse them.

Now before you say, where is your accountability, check out my past articles where I speak about what I could’ve done and how I contributed to this.

But, for this article, I would like to be transparent and open about what I wish I’d known before I left the yoga industry:

1. You’re not the only one.

When I published one of my former articles about how I felt used and abused by almost all of the yoga studios that I had worked for, I received a ton of support. Even some people writing to tell me that they had experienced the same thing.

Although it broke my heart to hear that other people had gone through this, I was even more upset that they had to suffer in silence. At all the studios I had taught at, there was a sense of fear. You would be afraid to speak up for fear of not being put on the schedule or being treated a certain way by management.

While I previously had spoken up throughout my career, many others didn’t and I understand why. This industry has become a lot like others that have been poisoned by greed and toxic work environments, where the employees are shunned and thought of as last.

I believe there will be a wreckoning of which I am happy to be a part of and with the support of others, I believe that we can bring real change.

2. Time for a change.

At the last yoga studio that I had taught at, I had been subject to a few students’ stalking me and following me outside of work. All of which I reported but was met with various forms of gaslighting: ‘Are you sure?’, ‘There’s nothing we can do’ or, ‘Are you sure he meant it like that?’

In fact, there was a patron that I would see a block away from my house who would tell me that one day he would marry me. Although this behavior scared me, I was never taken seriously by the management where I taught.

I got to the point with them that it became difficult to even say anything because I would be told that I was crazy or gaslit in another way. I realized that it had taken three years for this company that I worked for to push their psychological abuse on me. It started with love-bombing, then isolation and then being told that I was the issue.

While I learned a lot working there, I most certainly learned that sometimes being professional is way more substantial than a cake atmosphere of people who claim to believe in you that don’t.

3. Go where you are wanted.

At the end of my teaching days, I felt unwanted. It was like being in a relationship with someone who is never truly happy with you and makes it seem like they could leave or cheat if they could.

During the lockdowns, I was forced to be honest with myself and I reached out to other teachers about how much they were paid and how they were treated because I felt alone. I discovered that I wasn’t alone and that I had been working a lot for studios and people who take yoga teachers for granted.

So, I made a plan to leave. While I build my own business and another career, I appreciate all the lessons. The biggest one is that I will never go somewhere ever again where I am unwanted or made to feel like the crazy one.