Soul Check

Probably a lot like you, I took my first yoga class a long time ago and had a bunch of expansive, hard to explain, overwhelmingly positive feelings. My first thought was something like: “This is amazing, why isn’t it an everyday part of life?” I feel like I’m in my own spaceship navigating toward the vastness inside. My second thought was: “Why don’t my friends practice yoga?” Why doesn’t everyone practice yoga? How is this not as commonplace as drinking water?

Probably like a lot of you, I continued my yoga exploration and found a whole lot of everything. I found great teachers and inspiring books. I also found abusive teachers and harmful techniques. Even good intentions can get mixed up in systems of controlling and pushing people around, making us feel less capable than we are, separating us from our own intuition and power. I saw friends getting injured physically and emotionally, while seeking the healing and enabling they wanted. There can be some good, but the pile-up of negative side-effects felt like there must be a better way. It taught me why yoga has had such a complicated reputation for so long.

If we want yoga to be available to everyone, we can be part of a solution. We can evolve yoga into a practice that doesn’t hurt, only helps. We can remove the rigidity and dogma that turns so many people away, and open the doors wide here for everyone. So I went further along in my practice. Eventually I started sharing yoga casually with my friends, then getting more organised with classes. I wanted to lead from a place of empowerment, positivity and ease. I started to believe in a better way. I didn’t expect this hobby to become a career, but when you’re sharing something useful for others, something you are so passionate about, things have a way of taking over your schedule.

The details of our yoga stories are unique but have so much in common. We believe in a better way. We love our practice and love sharing it. We feel fulfilled when we see that we’ve helped someone. It’s an irreplaceable reward. So how do we create a peaceful life while we build a career out of it all? And, how can we feel good in the process?

Business and money are topics that cause discomfort for many yoga and wellness professionals. We love what we do, so it’s easy to complicate getting paid for our services. We can get overloaded with fears and insecurities about what we should be doing. It’s easy to become frozen. Something major that’s helped me along the way is creating Soul Checks, to guide both my personal practice and how I share in the world. If you’ve practiced a wellbeing approach like yoga for a long while, you might become very comfortable with knowledge and applications of energy and meridians, posture and position, sensitivity, connection and harmony, all the ways your body shares what it needs, so you can respond in a way that helps. You’ve spent time learning and practicing for this. So it makes sense that the body of your work requires learning and practice too. To grow your life and nourish your soul, your work needs the same care and reflection, the same structure for understanding and application.

A Soul Check is a spiritual pillar that grounds and directs your actions, so you can grow a peaceful life and expansive business while helping others.