You complete your yoga teacher training (YTT), and jump in as a full-time yoga teacher, teaching multiple classes a week. Maybe you teach 3-5 classes, 10-15 classes, or even upwards of 20 classes. Regardless of how many yoga classes you are teaching in a week, you are probably experiencing some of the following:

Exhaustion unparalleled with anything you ever felt in any job you worked in. It’s definitely worse than that office job you were working before you did your YTT, and surprisingly more exhausting than your brief stint as a waitress years ago.

You have become BFF’s with your car. The two of you travel around the city that you live and teach in each and every day. You travel to places in the city that you had never been before just so that you can make enough money to get by. You become grateful that you are zen enough not to yell as you spend hours crawling along in traffic, often way too hungry for your own good.

The more of your own classes you get, the less of a social life you have. You used to receive texts on Sunday evenings asking you to sub, and you could casually say no if you were busy hanging out with your friends. Now that you have your own classes, you can’t just say no. You can’t get a sub to cover you just because you want to be social. Your students are counting on you to be there for them.

You spend so much time in yoga studios, that you no longer have the desire to spend extra time in a yoga studio. You stop taking other teachers classes, promising yourself that you will start up a strong home practice. When you get home after 3 different classes at 3 different studios, you topple onto the couch with exhaustion, close your eyes, and think to yourself, “I probably demoed enough today to justify not practicing”. The longer you teacher, the more this becomes your justification, and soon your personal practice becomes a thing of the past.

So why is it all worth it?

The feeling like you are actually making a difference. After so many years of working for someone else and playing by their rules, you get to hold space in the room and guide people in whatever direction you are feeling in that moment. You get to take them where they need or want to go. When people come up to you after class, saying things like “thank you”, “that’s exactly what I needed this morning”, “that was great, when else do you teach?”, you leave with a big smile on your face, because you impacted someone’s day in the best way.

Yoga is your way of giving back, so you give your students everything you have in hopes that your yoga class is the best hour of their day. Weirdly enough, you care about these strangers, and you want to help them lead a more peaceful, relaxed life.

When your students come week after week and you begin to see the change in their demeanour, you know that what you’re doing is working. Suddenly, the exhaustion, the hours spent in a car, and the personal time you are giving up to be there seem so trivial compared to what you’re providing for your students.

If this is in line with your personal struggles as a yoga teacher, check out the new episodes on the M.B.Om podcast on iTunes.