Working in Yoga

The Mock Turtle cries through the whole story. The tears are real — the Tortoise taught them that. Nothing changes.This episode closes out the series with the hardest piece: organizations that perform concern about misconduct and student safety, without the accountability mechanisms that would make that concern mean anything. It's not an angry episode — it's closer to an autopsy. And it's the hinge into where this work goes next.The One Thing: this episode doesn't end with a task. It ends with where the series is headed next — and an invitation to be part of building what the organizations won't.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine

Rebecca doesn't say this lightly: this is one of those conversations where she found herself thinking she was talking to someone who is genuinely a better teacher than her. Nyk Danu has developed such a nuanced, intentional approach to teaching yoga online that this episode is practically a masterclass. She and Rebecca kick off a five-episode series on online yoga teaching by getting into what most people get wrong — the assumption that the relational depth of in-person teaching can't be replicated online. Nyk has built a warm, community-driven online teaching practice that works precisely because none of it is accidental. They cover how she creates a sense of home on Zoom, the cameras-on vs. cameras-off debate, why semesters make sense as a teaching model, hybrid class structures, niching as a differentiator in a crowded online space, and some genuinely practical advice for anyone who has ever recorded for another studio's platform. If you teach online or want to, start here.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga MagazineNyk's Website

The Mock Turtle's school taught Reeling and Writhing, and Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision — taught by the Tortoise, because he taught them. It's absurd. It's also, this episode argues, an almost exact map of how yoga credentialing works.This episode looks honestly at what credentials actually prepare working teachers for, who's selling them, and what it means that the organizations selling the credentials have signaled — in their own language — that building jobs isn't their job.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine

This is the conversation Rebecca wishes she could have had when she owned her studio. In Part 2 of this conversation with Jessica Patterson, they move from theory into the deeply personal territory of what it actually costs to own a yoga studio — and why the industry has made studio owners into villains when many of them started this work trying to build a sanctuary. Jessica and Rebecca talk about the shift in power dynamics that comes with ownership and the isolation it creates, the heartbreak of telling a community you've evolved when they've frozen you in a particular moment in time, and the difference between self-agency and self-determination in an economic climate that nobody chose. They also get into the latent shame that comes with business difficulty, why blaming individual owners for systemic problems is both unfair and counterproductive, and the simple but radical truth that you don't have to keep doing the things you're good at. One of Rebecca's favorite conversations on the podcast. It earns that.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga MagazineThe Network ChecklistJessica's Website

Tweedledum and Tweedledee look identical from a distance — but they're not the same, and the real stakes are happening just out of frame while everyone argues about the rattle.Menopause and perimenopause content is a real, legitimate growth area for yoga professionals — the demand is genuine and the science backs it up. But this episode is about the difference between a teacher arriving at this work because it's where their career has been heading, versus a teacher pivoting because the topic is trending. From the outside, the content can look the same. From the inside — for the women being served — it's everything.The One Thing: a self-check for anyone considering menopause-focused content, regardless of which side of that line you're on.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine

Jessica Patterson is doing something rare — she's working through a PhD in religious studies focused on yoga and yoga bodies while remaining fully embedded in the yoga professional world as a teacher, studio owner, and trainer. In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, she and Rebecca get into the ideas that don't get enough airtime in the industry: which bodies come to matter in yoga spaces, how proximity to authenticity functions as a marketing strategy, and the purity culture that quietly shapes how yoga professionals judge each other and themselves. They talk about Orientalism — the idea that the East is pure and the West corrupt — and why that framing isn't just intellectually lazy, it's actively harmful to the profession. They get into the difference between training yoga teachers and training yoga performers, the franchising of bodies and teaching styles, and the mob mentality that can emerge when cultural appropriation anxiety meets social media. This one is dense, honest, and worth every minute.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga MagazineThe Network ChecklistJessica's Website

If Part 1 was about the stale tea party, Part 2 is about what's actually on the other side of it: not another niche, not another container — depth. Philosophy, breathwork, meditation, movement, put back together rather than stripped for parts.This episode is about the small but real number of teachers building something rooted, and what that looks like in practice — including the uncomfortable homework of treating your career like it just started, because in the market that now exists, in a lot of ways, it did.The One Thing: an honest audit question — was your career built for expansion, or for depth? And what would depth look like on a specific Tuesday?RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine

There's a real and underexplored difference between the people who walk into a general yoga class and the people who seek out a certified yoga therapist — and if you're trying to fill your yoga therapy practice, that distinction matters enormously. Maile Wicklander, longtime yoga studio owner and recent yoga therapy graduate, joins Rebecca to work through what that difference actually looks like in practice. They get into referral strategy, including Maile's straightforward approach to getting the right clients through the door, the particular challenge of psychotherapist referrals, and why handouts and connections to adjacent fields are still some of the most underrated tools in a yoga therapist's toolkit. They also talk about what's missing in the yoga professional community space, why boundaries inside collective networking groups make them more useful rather than less, and what studio owners need that nobody's really providing. A practical, grounded conversation for yoga therapists building or expanding a practice.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine Maile Wicklander's Website

The Mad Hatter quarreled with Time, and now it's always six o'clock — a permanent tea party, moving from seat to seat around the same stale table. That's the soloist career model: niche something, workshop it, build a following, move to the next container. Repeat.This episode names how that model came to dominate yoga careers in the 2010s — not by accident, but by design, modeled and reinforced by the most visible voices of that era. And it names, gently but clearly, that the market that made that model work doesn't exist anymore — even for the teachers who are still running it.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine

Most yoga teachers can name two or three colleagues they'd actually call if something went sideways. Not people they follow, not someone from a training years ago — people they could actually call. In a profession that runs on referral and reputation, that's not a personality problem. It's a structural one. In this solo episode, Rebecca walks through five stages of building a real local yoga professional network — getting honest about what you're actually building, finding your first five people, planning a low-stakes first gathering, setting ground rules that will hold when it gets real, and keeping the thing alive past the fourth meeting, which is where these groups almost always fall apart. This episode comes with a free companion checklist in the show notes. No email wall. Just the thing you need to actually start.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga MagazineThe Network Checklist

“If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there.” For yoga professionals who left online teaching without a plan, that's exactly what happened — they ended up somewhere, just not somewhere they chose.Meanwhile, a small number of platforms kept building online and now dominate the space. This episode reframes the question most teachers get stuck on — “how do I compete with a channel that has a million subscribers?” — into the one that actually matters: what can a working teacher offer in an online space that a content platform structurally cannot?The One Thing: a single reframing question to sit with this week about your own relationship to online teaching.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine

This is the kind of conversation Rebecca wants to do more of — two people parsing out the nuance of how we actually do this work, in real time. Deb Flashenberg is back, and this time she and Rebecca get nerdy about scripts, responsive teaching, and what it really means to be present with the people in the room. They talk about why giving teachers a framework serves them better than handing them a script, what gets lost when AI writes your sequences, and the particular challenge of self-paced courses that have no relational feedback loop built in. They also get into the reps — the honest reality that there is no shortcut to learning to teach, and that teacher training exists precisely to give people a safe place to mess up and figure it out. If you've ever wondered whether scripts are a crutch or a tool, or how to develop the skill of actually seeing your students, this one is for you.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine Deb Flashenberg's Website

For one strange year, online was the whole game. Then studios reopened, and most yoga professionals quietly walked back — leaving behind a channel that still exists, a profile that's still live, content that's technically still there.This episode is about presence without substance — what happens to the online version of a teaching relationship when the relationship part leaves but the page doesn't get taken down. It's not about deleting anything. It's about noticing what's actually still working, and what's just… still there.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga MagazineLeave me a message on Speakpipe.

Kellie Adkins did her homework — including a close look at the IAYT's 990s — and she brings the receipts. In this conversation with Rebecca, they get into the financial reality behind the C-IAYT credential: what yoga therapists are actually earning (around $10K a year, against the cost of a yoga therapy degree), why significant numbers of credentialed yoga therapists are choosing not to renew, and what the IAYT's own financial losses over recent years say about the organization's trajectory. They also talk about the structural problem at the root of all of it — an industry that trained far more people than it ever built jobs for, and the obligation legacy professionals have to charge enough that entry-level yoga therapy can actually be a livable wage. Kellie also brings something genuinely useful to the conversation: a working accountability model built around DEIA, lineage, and codes of conduct with real removal processes — and hire.yoga, her platform designed to connect yoga therapists with actual employment opportunities. Plus a conversation about AI tools and how yoga professionals can use them well.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga MagazineLeave me a message on Speakpipe.Kellie Adkins' Website

A therapist tells a client in crisis to “notice the present moment.” The client destabilizes — and the therapist has no idea why, because they read about mindfulness. They never built a practice, and nobody who has is in the room to say: that's not how this works.This episode is about the difference between fields that hire yoga professionals (integration) and fields that borrow yoga's tools without yoga professionals (extraction) — and why that distinction isn't territorial, it's a safety standard.The One Thing: a simple way to start the referral conversation with allied health professionals in your own network.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga MagazineLeave me a message on Speakpipe.

A lot of you have had questions about the American Yoga Council — what it is, what it does, and whether it's worth your attention. So Rebecca went straight to the source. AYC founder and CEO Andrew Tanner joins the podcast for a straightforward conversation about what the organization is building and why: certification vs. registry, accountability reporting, access to data, retirement funds, and what it means to advocate for yoga professionals at an institutional level. Rebecca isn't doing gotcha journalism here — the goal is to give you the information you need to make your own call. She also gets into something she's been developing for the magazine: a theory about why yoga professionals are so cynical about organizations in the first place, rooted in counter-culture identity, 2010s individualism, and the specific kind of betrayal that comes from entering an industry you believed would be different. This is a conversation about whether institutions can actually serve us — and what it would take to find out.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga MagazineLeave me a message on Speakpipe.American Yoga Council Website

Rebecca has a name for this kind of content: boring. And she means it as a compliment. The boring stuff — insurance, disability coverage, retirement planning, banking relationships — is exactly what protects you when something very non-boring happens. Financial planner Felicia Laab joins the podcast to talk about what yoga professionals are consistently leaving on the table when it comes to protecting themselves and their futures. They get into disability insurance specifically, which most yoga teachers never think about until their body has a bad year and suddenly it's all they're thinking about. They talk retirement — how to stop working before you die, as Rebecca puts it — and what it looks like to start building real financial infrastructure when your income has never been predictable. This is also the conversation that connects directly to what major trade organizations like Yoga Alliance could be doing for their members and aren't. Worth every minute.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga MagazineConnect with Felicia on LinkedIn

This episode opens a new series — one that's a little different from the others. Less “here's a number nobody told you” and more “here's the shape of the thing we're all standing inside.”The premise: the yoga industry isn't approaching a turning point. It already turned. Most of what this series will describe over the coming weeks has already happened — it's just not been named out loud, in order, in one place.This episode sets the frame and names the urgency without pretending to have all the answers yet. If you've had the feeling that something shifted and nobody sent the memo, this is that memo.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga MagazineTick, Tock The Trend Report

Amara Miller is back, and this updated conversation goes to some places the original didn't. The yoga industry is contracting — fewer participants, a flooded market, and more companies chasing a shrinking pool of practitioners. Amara and Rebecca talk honestly about what that means for the profession, including the regulatory conversation the industry has been reluctant to have and why the libertarian anti-regulation instincts of the 2010s may be genuinely outdated in the current landscape. They also get into something Rebecca hadn't fully considered before this conversation: the yoga teachers and lineage holders who carry the deepest knowledge of this tradition are aging, and the professional associations haven't built any meaningful infrastructure to preserve that wisdom before it walks out the door. It's a conversation about what the industry is at risk of losing — and whether we're organized enough to do anything about it before it's too late.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga MagazineAmara's Website

Most yoga professionals have no employer contributing to their retirement. No pension. No automatic savings. Whatever gets built for the future is built entirely through individual planning, out of an already stretched income, in a profession that culturally treats financial planning as spiritually suspect. In this episode we do the retirement math — what you actually need to save monthly at different ages to retire at sixty-five, what that number looks like against average yoga professional income, and why starting now matters more than starting right. RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine

Leslie Pearlman is back, and this update to their 2024 conversation covers even more ground than the original. Rebecca and Leslie dig into online and hybrid teaching not as a lesser alternative to in-person but as a genuinely distinct skillset that requires its own curriculum — one most YTTs still aren't providing. They get into the internal regulation work required to teach well in any format, and the largely unexamined tendency to moralize the absence of in-room co-regulation as an automatic loss. They also tackle one of Rebecca's long-running preoccupations: the difference between professional training and personal development, and why the yoga industry needs to get honest about which one it's actually offering. And they go somewhere most conversations don't — into the urgent need for yoga teacher trainer training and studio owner training, including the relational dimension of what it means to be for a community without being of it. Rich, honest, and covers a lot of ground in fifty minutes.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga MagazineGood Ground Yoga

The online yoga business is sold as the answer to everything — unlimited reach, passive income, freedom from the studio model. The reality has a specific math that most of the people selling online business courses are not showing you. In this episode we build the honest financial picture of what it costs to build an online yoga offering — in time, money, and the long runway before it generates meaningful income — so you can make decisions about digital offerings based on what is actually true.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine

Part 2 of this conversation with Nana Amoako-Anin goes somewhere a little more personal — and just as essential. Rebecca and Nana talk about the confidence it takes to charge what your work is actually worth, and why pricing remains such a persistent struggle for yoga professionals. They get into consumer choice — the fact that the industry has never given students a real way to evaluate or choose a good teacher — and the visual culture problem baked into yoga marketing, where the internet still defaults to one narrow, unrepresentative image of who practices. They also touch on AI's growing role in marketing and what it means to stay genuinely uncomfortable while your teaching and business evolve. This one feels like listening in on two people becoming real friends, which, honestly, it is.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga MagazineTick Tock, The Trend Report and State of the ProfessionNana's Website

Running a retreat looks like a financial opportunity. Fill twelve spots at $1,500 each and you have $18,000 in revenue for a long weekend. The math seems obvious. Until you look at the actual costs. In this episode we build the real financial picture of a yoga retreat — venue deposits, per-person minimums, marketing costs, payment processing, and the thin margins that result. This episode is for every yoga professional who has run a retreat and wondered where the money went, or who is considering their first retreat and wants to go in with accurate expectations. RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine

Nana Amoako-Anin has lived a genuinely international life — including a stint as a prosecuting attorney in Manhattan — before finding her way into yoga and opening her own studio in Ghana. In Part 1 of this conversation, she and Rebecca get into something the yoga industry rarely names directly: access to capital, and what it means for the future of this work. They also unpack the term "trauma-informed," questioning whether academic language is actually serving the people it's meant to help, and look honestly at how the US wellness industry burned hot and fast in the 2010s, organized itself around deep individualism, and ultimately failed to build infrastructure for its own workers. It's a candid look at what other parts of the world might do differently — and why.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga MagazineTick Tock, The Trend Report and State of the ProfessionNana's Website

The per-class rate sounds reasonable until you do the actual math. In this episode we calculate what a studio teaching job really pays when you factor in unpaid prep time, travel, cancelled classes, and the absence of benefits. What looks like a professional income often works out to less than minimum wage when the full picture is on the table. This episode is for every yoga professional who has felt that something wasn't adding up — because something wasn't.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine

Some conversations leave you with a line you keep quoting for years. For Rebecca, this is one of them. Dr. Shyam Ranganathan, founder of YogaPhilosophy.com, joined the podcast during the 2024 perfectionism series, and the conversation has held up in every way that matters. They get into the difference between Western virtue ethics — which starts with finding the right person and doing what they say — and yoga's invitation to spend a lifetime practicing right doing as you understand it. They talk about why "the customer is always right" is a genuinely complicated idea when you're teaching something transformative, why yoga is inherently subversive and dissatisfaction is actually the doorway in, and what that means for how you market your work without compromising your ethics. And they get into leadership — the real kind, that requires vulnerability, healthy boundaries, and the willingness to be a serious student yourself. This is the final episode in the revisited conversations series, and it's a worthy close.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga MagazineDr. Ranganathan's website

Yoga professionals are required to complete continuing education to maintain their credentials. Nobody has ever done the math on what that requirement actually costs over a career, or what it actually returns in earning potential. In this episode we put both numbers on the table — the real cumulative cost of continuing education across a yoga career, and the honest answer to whether those requirements serve the professional or the organizations that set them.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine

This is one of those conversations Rebecca keeps sending people back to — and for good reason. First recorded in March 2024, this discussion with Colice Sanders on perfectionism and activism in the yoga space holds up in every way that matters, and has only gotten more relevant since. Colice brings serious precision to the conversation — defining terms, naming the ways white supremacy culture shows up in yoga and social justice spaces, and making a clear-eyed case for why awareness without focused action is where we keep missing the mark. They also get into how perfectionism gets weaponized to police each other in yoga and activist communities, the difference between critique worth sitting with and shame designed to silence, and how moral superiority quietly infiltrates even the most well-intentioned spaces. An updated conversation with Colice is coming in July — things have shifted enough since 2024 that it was time. Start here first.RESOURCES:Working In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga MagazineColice's WebsiteWhite Supremacy Culture website

The C-IAYT credential represents a significant investment — in time, money, and professional identity. In this episode we put the full cost of becoming a certified yoga therapist on the table alongside the realistic income outcomes, and calculate what the credential actually needs to return to justify the investment. The math is not designed to discourage you from yoga therapy. It is designed to give you the complete financial picture so you can build a career strategy that works in the real landscape. RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine

If you've ever wondered how we ended up with the yoga organizations we have, this is the conversation. First recorded in 2024, Rebecca's discussion with Amara Miller remains the clearest, most honest account she knows of how the yoga industry organized itself — and why it looks the way it does today. They trace Yoga Alliance back to its 1999 origins as a genuine attempt at student safety and teacher standards, through the flood of money that hit the industry in the late 2000s and early 2010s that nobody was prepared to navigate, to the cultural counterculture identity that shaped how yoga professionals thought about structure and institutions. They also get into the hours-vs-curriculum debate that defined early standards-setting, the approval of fully virtual YTTs, and what it might mean to start thinking seriously about unions and community-led professional organizing. An updated conversation with Amara is coming in July — but start here. This one is foundational.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga MagazineAmara's Website

Going independent sounds like the answer to everything — no studio politics, set your own rates, build your own thing. And it can be. But the math of going independent has a specific shape that most people don't see clearly before they make the leap. In this episode we build the real financial picture of independent yoga work — what you need in place before it makes sense, how long the runway actually is, and what it costs to make the transition sustainably rather than desperately. RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine

Six months ago, Rebecca published the first Yoga Professionals Trend Forecast — a snapshot of what was actually happening in the yoga industry, without the soft focus. In this episode, she comes back to it. Not to congratulate herself, but to update it: what held, what sharpened, and where things have moved.She also previews the Summer 2026 forecast. A few trends get named. One — the end of the portable career model — gets the full treatment. If you've been building your career on the solopreneur model and something has started to feel off, this episode is probably for you.Topics covered: the professional promise that didn't deliver, skill migration and what it costs to do it right, yoga therapy's quiet attrition, integration as survival, the limits of niching — and the deeper argument that the yoga boom is over and the middle of the market is disappearing.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine

What would it mean if yoga professionals actually had access to employment data, debt-to-income numbers, and honest information about whether this career is financially viable? In Part 2 of this conversation, Dr. Stevie Inghram and Rebecca get into why yoga's governing bodies keep that data close — and what it costs the profession when they do. They also talk about the difference between people who train for personal knowledge versus those building a career, why waiting for existing organizations to fix things is a losing strategy, and what a genuinely community-led approach to yoga professional advocacy could look like. And they share details on a free summer gathering for practitioners ready to stop waiting and start organizing. This is a conversation about building the industry we all need and deserve — and it starts here.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga MagazineReflection GuideRegister for our community organizing event!Stevie's Instagram

The organizations governing the yoga profession care deeply about the practice. What they have never demonstrated a meaningful commitment to is the professional welfare of the people teaching it. In this episode we make a distinction nobody in this industry is making out loud — and explain why it changes everything about what you should expect from these institutions, what you're actually paying for, and what needs to be built.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine

Nobody talks about debt-to-income ratios in the yoga world. Stevie Inghram does. In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, Rebecca sits down with naturopathic doctor and yoga therapist Dr. Stevie Inghram to dig into some of the most under-discussed structural problems in the yoga and holistic health professions — including whether it's even ethical to keep training people at current income levels, how poor working conditions quietly erode professional standards, and what it would take to build an organization that actually advocates for the people doing this work, not just the practice itself. If you've ever felt like the system wasn't built for you, this conversation will help you understand why — and start you thinking about what comes next.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga MagazineReflection GuideRegister for our community organizing event!Stevie's Instagram

You finished your training. You passed your boards. You have the credential. And now you're discovering that the jobs you were promised aren't there. In this episode we name what the yoga therapy credentialing world has never said clearly: the job market doesn't exist the way you were told it did. That is not your failure. That is a promise that was never backed up with infrastructure — and it's time someone said it out loud.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine

If Part 1 made you believe a clinical yoga therapy job was possible, Part 2 is going to show you how to start going after one. Jenna Csont and Whitney Pasch get into the practical side — networking in spaces where yoga professionals are still a new concept, the education that makes these opportunities available, reaching out to therapy centers, and why knowing how to clearly explain what yoga therapy is may be the most underrated professional skill you can develop. Rebecca also reflects on what Jenna's path represents: solo, ground-up, door-building work that most of us weren't warned we'd need to do. If you're a yoga therapist who wants to work in clinical or medical settings, this episode is required listening.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine

Everyone told you to find your voice, build your brand, and develop your unique methodology. Nobody told you the order. In this episode, we talk about the sequence that the yoga industry never handed you — why you have to get better before you can get original, and why the pressure to skip that step is quietly crushing an entire generation of yoga professionals.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine

A lot of yoga therapists were told — or assumed — that salaried, benefits-included jobs simply didn't exist in this field. Jenna Csont and Whitney Pasch are here to complicate that story. In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, Rebecca talks with Jenna and Whitney about their work at a trauma-therapy clinic in the Chicagoland area, where they bring yoga — in all its forms, not just movement — to clients who might never have found their way to a studio class. They get into what clinical yoga therapy actually looks like day to day, what level of training is required, the relationship-building it takes to earn real respect inside a western medical setting, and the bigger conversation about accessibility and yoga's roots. This one will have you thinking about what's possible.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine

Everyone told you to find your voice, build your brand, and develop your unique methodology. Nobody told you the order. In this episode, we talk about the sequence that the yoga industry never handed you — why you have to get better before you can get original, and why the pressure to skip that step is quietly crushing an entire generation of yoga professionals.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga Magazine

What good are higher yoga standards if teachers can't pay their bills? That's the question that sparked this conversation with researcher and yoga therapist Steffany Moonaz. Together we dig into what the data actually says about yoga training, student safety, and whether the industry's push for updated standards from Yoga Alliance and IAYT can coexist with building real economic viability for yoga professionals. We also get into the anatomy curriculum problem, the difference between a licensed healthcare provider who "knows a few poses" and an actual yoga professional, and whether higher education is the direction we're all heading—or just some of us.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga MagazineGUEST LINKSSteffany's Website

Nobody handed you a pamphlet about this when you got certified. There's no union, no standardized pay scale, no HR department, and no institution coming to protect you if things go sideways. In the first episode of the What Nobody Told You series, Rebecca names the structural failure at the heart of the yoga industry — and then goes a step further. Because once you stop waiting for a safety net that was never being built, something clarifies. You stop organizing your career around a promise that was never real, and you start building something that actually belongs to you. This one is honest, a little hard, and worth the listen.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomMake Money In Yoga BoringBoring Money Stater Kit

In yoga and wellness spaces, we talk a lot about community, connection, and belonging. But what happens when those relationships start to feel conditional—or quietly transactional?In this episode, Rebecca explores the subtle shift from being in relationship to being useful in the industry. She unpacks the language of “collaboration” and “alignment,” the pressures of visibility and scarcity, and how businesses built on belonging can blur the lines between care and obligation.This is a conversation about relational burnout, consent in professional relationships, and what it might look like to rebuild community without extraction.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomSponsorship Opportunities

Yoga's missing career ladder doesn't just cost you professionally — it costs you financially. In this episode, Rebecca Sebastian names the specific, predictable ways the broken structure of the yoga industry transfers its costs onto individual workers: the training trap, the visibility myth, the body math nobody does, and the hidden overhead of patchwork income.This is not a hustle episode. It's a clarity episode — for mid-career yoga professionals who are tired of blaming themselves for navigating terrain that was never mapped.Includes a mention of the free Boring Money Starter Kit and the Make Money in Yoga Boring working seminar on March 31st.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomMake Money In Yoga BoringBoring Money Stater Kit

Have you ever felt like your yoga studio was a little... intense about getting you to recruit friends? Or wondered where the line is between genuine community and transactional belonging?In this episode, we're going somewhere a lot of people in the yoga world aren't ready to go — and we're bringing a commercial cult expert with us.Brandie Hadfield joins the podcast to unpack the uncomfortable overlap between MLM culture and how many yoga studios, teacher training programs, and even large chains like CorePower operate. We talk about the ethics of selling belonging, the reality of dual relationships (when your teacher is also your boss), and why yoga professionals need explicit training in recognizing power dynamics.This episode grew out of the host's deep dive into cult documentaries, podcasts, and her article The Business of Belonging for Inside Yoga Magazine — and it might just change how you see your studio community.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomInside Yoga MagazineThe Business of Belonging Artlce–FreeGUEST LINKSBrandie's Support GroupBrandie's Substack

In this solo episode, Rebecca revisits three of last year's most popular series with fresh 2026 updates that every yoga professional needs to hear.First up: making money boring. We're talking about the systems, grief, and pricing drama that keep yoga teachers stuck—and how to finally break free. Then, a reality check on AI in yoga: spoiler alert, the robots aren't coming for your jobs, but they are making your admin life easier. Finally, a controversial take on creativity: is our obsession with niching down actually killing our creative spark?This episode includes real data on the yoga market (hint: it's growing 80% by 2032), honest talk about pricing and self-worth, and permission to follow your creative impulses even when they don't fit your brand.Plus, details on Rebecca's upcoming seminar: Make Money in Yoga Boring (March 31st, $45 early bird through March 1st).If you're a yoga teacher navigating the business side of this work, this one's for you.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomMake Money In Yoga Boring

What does it look like to take your yoga training beyond the studio and into real community care work?In this episode, Rebecca talks with returning guest Shelly Auld, a wellness coordinator working in a North Minneapolis school district. Shelly shares how she built a program that supports educators and staff through nervous system regulation, co-regulation, and accessible movement—and how that work is already impacting staff retention and wellbeing.This conversation is a powerful reminder that yoga professionals are needed in schools, healthcare, corporate environments, and beyond. It's not about the perfect certification—it's about applying your skills where people actually need them.RESOURCESWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomSponsorship OpportunitiesShelly's Website

In this episode of Working In Yoga, Rebecca Sebastian is joined by Gloria Hester, whose work may challenge everything you think you know about how yoga is used professionally.Gloria shares her path into somatic education for vertebrate animals, offering a compelling example of how yoga principles can be applied far beyond traditional classroom settings. Together, they explore intuition as a professional skill, the nuance between following opportunity and honoring boundaries, and what it means to work therapeutically with non-human beings.This conversation invites yoga and wellness professionals to question the idea that the field is a monoculture — and instead consider how varied, creative, and bespoke our careers can truly be. It's a thoughtful look at intuition, ethics, and the many unexpected directions yoga work can take.RESOURCES2026 Industry ForecastWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomSponsorship OpportunitiesGUEST LINKSGloria Hester

In this episode of Working In Yoga, host Rebecca Sebastian is joined by Suzie Carmack for a wide-ranging conversation on burnout, wellbeing, and the future of yoga and wellness professions.Together, we unpack why yoga work can be uniquely isolating, how that isolation fuels burnout, and why traditional “self-care” often misses the mark. Suzie shares insights from her book The Wellbeing Ultimatum, and talks about how wellbeing lacks a shared definition, why social support is essential for burnout recovery, and how identifying joy can be a powerful professional practice.This episode also explores professional identity, creative autonomy, fairytale thinking, and why yoga professionals exist at the intersection of healing and artistry. It's an invitation to rethink burnout not as personal failure, but as a systemic issue — and to imagine careers that are bespoke, sustainable, and rooted in real belonging.RESOURCES2026 Industry ForecastWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomSponsorship OpportunitiesGUEST LINKSSuzie Carmack

Yoga has no career ladder.And for many mid-career yoga professionals, that realization arrives quietly—through burnout, confusion, or the feeling that the work should make more sense by now.In this solo episode, Rebecca explores why yoga careers are structurally non-linear, how training and personal branding have been positioned as substitutes for real professional pathways, and why so many skilled teachers and therapists end up blaming themselves for systemic gaps.This is not an episode about hustling harder, pivoting faster, or waiting for the industry to be rescued.It's a conversation about clarity:Why yoga offers inspiration without infrastructureHow burnout is often grief, not failureWhat happens when careers are built without shared support or advocacyAnd how to redefine progress in care-based work without chasing legitimacyThis episode also introduces The Back Room, a private professional space for yoga workers who want reflection, strategy, and sustainability—without high-ticket coaching or industry drama.A guided reflection sheet accompanies this episode inside The Back Room for listeners who want to sit with these questions more deeply.RESOURCES2026 Industry ForecastWorking In Yoga WebsiteWorking In Yoga NewsletterThe Back RoomSponsorship Opportunities