Janet’s (very long) Yoga Story
There is no elevator pitch for someone’s yoga story. So here it is, all the details of my pretty average, but very personal journey. I say that because I think it’s quite relatable. Yoga often doesn’t change a lot from the outside, but our internal transformation can sometimes be indescribable. Since I started yoga 10 years ago, I’m pretty much the same person from the looks of it. I’m still Janet. Fiercely independent, pretty chill, very self-deprecating, and quite goofy. I’ve always been pretty happy and lucky enough to not suffer any significant anxiety, depression or trauma. Just your average gal from the middle America. But I’m still a human experiencing the ups and downs and pressures of life, and yoga has made that rollercoaster a little bit cruisier and unexpectedly given my life a lot more meaning.
Like many people, yoga popped up in my life a handful of times before it ever clicked. In my teens, once in a while I would do one of my mom’s yoga DVD’s but found it too slow and boring. During High School, I preferred weight lifting over yoga in PE class. In college, I had a very brief love affair with the practice, but ultimately I found it so hard and lacked the discipline to keep at it. I moved to San Francisco out of college and yoga was always on offer at the tech companies and start ups I worked at. I only dabbled in it. Never a “practice” or a regular part of my life.
Three years after moving to SF, a friend brought me to a Donation Based Yoga Studio. I think It was a combination of things that seemed to all collide at the same time that made yoga finally click. A recent break up, lack of meaning in my job, extra time (because said job was very boring and it took me about 1hr a day to do my work), a hip injury that meant I couldn’t run anymore, a desire to be healthy, and “free” yoga sounded perfect. All of those things I think led me to being open to something new, but it was the actual practice that captured my heart. There was really nothing like breathing, moving and sweating with 100 other bodies, paired with amazing music and being led by charismatic teachers. Yes, the classes were HUGE and the flows were HARD. This was the community vibe, physical challenge, and connection that I was craving.
So it became part of my ritual. Something I looked forward to each day. I LIVED TO PRACTICE. It was only a few months in that I decided to sign up for the studio’s 200hr Yoga Teacher Training. I had no desire to teach, but just wanted to live and breathe yoga 24/7. I had realised two things. First of all, yoga made my life easier. Everything was just more regulated. In terms of my body, my period came back and my injuries were healed. And on the emotional side, I somehow didn’t hate everything as much and reacted way less. Secondly, for the first time ever, I had found an actual subject matter I wanted to learn everything about. So I listened to that little voice in my head and took the plunge. Little did I know that one day I would live on the other side of the world with my Tinder husband and baby, running a yoga company.
As often happens when you go through a Teacher Training experience, you end up wanting to teach. For me, teaching and practicing all became one. Teaching was a practice in itself and I learned just as much about myself from teaching as I did from doing the physical practice. One informed the other. So I put my hand up to teach any and every class and always said yes when offered. I taught a lot for free which is not standard practice anymore, but it used to be. It was my journey and I was just happy to be in the yoga space whenever I could.
For a long while I had been after a change of scenery and was looking to move cities (or countries!) My best friend was living in Melbourne and after visiting her and finding out about the working holiday visa, I knew this was my ticket to a new life! I had been applying to so many corporate jobs abroad and nothing ever came through, so it was time to just make it happen on my own.
I had only been teaching for 6 months when I arrived in Melbourne. One of the best pieces of advice I got when I started teaching was Stay Hungry. That was me, fresh and hungry. I lacked confidence in my teaching, but I loved yoga, people and just wanted to be in the yoga space, so was happy to do just about anything and everything. I scored the perfect gig as the Studio Manager for a yoga studio. I did everything and it was the perfect combination of all my skills. Taking care of people, both teachers and students, managing schedules, covers, memberships, cleaning mats, restocking toilet paper, you name it, I did it. I was previously an office manager, so I was doing what I was good at, but in a yoga environment. I pretty much said yes to everything, including doing last minute covers. This allowed me to gain valuable teaching experience. This whole time I continued to practice daily. Being able to practice in another country with so many different teachers was such a gift. My small little yoga world was expanding. The more I learned, the less I realised I knew.
The studio offered to sponsor my visa and moved me to Sydney to open a studio there. This is where I truly met my yoga community. I loved seeing students everyday. I loved the chats before and after class with both students and teachers and witnessing their personal growth along side my own.
More and more, my focus began shifting from managing to teaching. I knew I needed to be in the yoga room to grow personally and professionally. During this transition, I also began studying again since my first 200hr training. It was refreshing to learn from different teachers and explore different aspects of the practice that really intrigued me: philosophy and mantra. It gave me a whole new inspiration and direction to dive headfirst into more teaching.
After some time, I was given an opportunity to teach on a yoga retreat in Thailand and it was a turning point. Travel, yoga and people, my three loves all wrapped up in one. You just never know what experiences are going to change your life and I loved connecting with students more deeply in these special environments. There was a snowball effect after the retreat. I started teaching more yoga in a 1:1 setting, planning more retreats, and then created a Teacher Training for the studio. For me, it was soon necessary to find my own way, without working exclusively for one studio. My world was still small and I wanted to expand it.
I’m going to stop here and say I know this story has switched to focus on my yoga career, but I think that’s the whole point. Once you start practicing yoga, it begins to ooze into every aspect of your life. It’s hard to ignore. So I had to listen to that same call to follow my own path and explore working for myself.
After my partner and I got our Permanent Residency, we both left our long term jobs and went on the trip of a lifetime. We had planned to take a year off and travel Central and South America, but Covid quickly turned that into a road trip around Australia, something I probably would have never done. It was just the two of us and our trusty roof top tent cruising around the outback, drinking red wine, and making up our own rules to cribbage while listening to the same playlist on repeat. No real agenda. I did very little yoga and a whole lot of reflection and it was probably what I needed. Over the last few years of intense practice in a hot room, I had accumulated a few repetitive stress injuries and rest was the best medicine.
I think I had also been mentally warn down from giving everything to my work for the last 5 years. Travel can be so healing and space is what I needed to gain understanding, clarity and more importantly inspiration. It was during this time that Nectar was born. Amy and I always knew that our paths would come together again and we had been talking for some time about running a retreat together. It was a natural evolution from one retreat into planning the next into teacher training and beyond. We both brought different strengths to the table, but we were both aligned in wanting to create a fun and inclusive community around yoga and travel. I admired (and still do!) Amy’s work ethic and grounded nature. It just worked!
When I returned to Bondi, it was freeing to have a clean slate. I practiced with different teachers and taught in so many different settings, all the while growing our business baby. Simultaneously, I was trying to get pregnant. After miscarriage number one and going into Sydney’s longest lockdown, I signed up for a 300hr Bhakti training which in a nutshell was learning to play the harmonium and sing mantra. The perfect thing to do with way too much time on my hands and being locked inside all day with my thoughts. I craved a practice that was nourishing and supportive. I already loved mantra and just knew it was the right path for where my practice was evolving. My 10 year old self (and parents) were definitely laughing at the idea of me taking singing lessons and learning to play an instrument!
Bhakti Yoga is a heart focused practice and it continued to support me through another miscarriage and then my pregnancy with Gigi. I didn’t do much physical yoga during this time. I bled my entire first semester and then with a high risk pregnancy, I really kept things low key. Teaching was enough and singing helped me feel connected to my baby after my miscarriage experience. There are so many different yoga paths and being persistently flexible with your practice and adapting it to what you need at different times of your life is so valuable. As you change, so will your practice.
The only thing that has taught me more than yoga and owning a business is being a mom. It’s like a rocket ship for growth. Never have I had to surrender more in my life and my yoga practice has given me the ability to navigate these uncharted territories. I used to live to practice and now I practice to live. I practice so that I am a better mom and partner. I practice to remind myself I am capable. I practice to remember who I am. I practice so I don’t lose my shit. It’s a work in progress, but I’m reminded of the the two realisations I made about yoga when I first started 10 years ago. Firstly, yoga makes my life easier. And now, as I fall in love with my own practice again, I am also re-falling in love with it as an endless subject matter. In this transitional territory of figuring out who I am after having a baby, yoga and Nectar have given me new meaning, purpose and direction.
Over the last decade, yoga continues to be the longest and most consistent relationship I’ve ever had and being able to share this very personal, yet universal practice with our community brings me so much joy. Yoga has supported me in my individual journey, but sharing it with those around me has too. I love the Ram Dass quote, “We’re all just walking each other home.” I hope through sharing my story, you are reminded that we are all just students of life, figuring it out as we go and it’s even more special when shared.