The Mentor Sessions

In this solo episode, I'm zooming out from the quick, in-the-moment burnout strategies I shared in Episode 171 and looking at the bigger picture. I want to talk about why so many yoga teachers are burning out—and what I've seen actually work instead. My core premise is simple: the career model most of us were trained into doesn't work for most people anymore. If you're exhausted, underpaid, and questioning how sustainable this path really is, I want you to hear this clearly—it's not you. It's the model. I'll walk you through the structural issues I see over and over again, help you look honestly at the math of your teaching schedule, and introduce a shift that has made a huge difference for me and for so many teachers I've worked with: integrating private clients into your practice. In this episode, you'll hear: Why the traditional yoga career path isn't working The real reason so many teachers feel exhausted and why it's not your fault The importance of doing the math: I'll invite you to look at your actual hourly rate How private clients can change everything and what makes private teaching different The most common concerns I hear about teaching private clients The different skills you need, and why they are learnable skills! 🎉 You're Invited! If you want to build a thriving private yoga practice, you need a slightly different skill set than most teacher trainings cover. Teaching one-on-one requires you to think on your feet, build deep trust with students, hold strong professional boundaries, and manage the business side of your work with confidence. That's exactly what we focus on inside The Science of the Private Lesson™. 👉🏻 You missed the sale... You missed the sale but no worries! Email [email protected] for the coupon code. This episode is sponsored by OfferingTree! Sign up at www.offeringtree.com/mentor to get 50% off your first three months (or 15% off any annual plan). With OfferingTree, yoga teachers put their schedule on a personally branded website where students can book classes and even pay or donate online. All of this can be set up in 10 minutes or less. OfferingTree supports me with each sign-up.

If you are feeling stretched thin by endless group classes, long hours, and low pay you are not alone. In this episode, I share six simple, actionable things you can do this week to start shifting out of overwhelm. These are not big, life-changing plans—just small, powerful adjustments that can immediately help you feel calmer, clearer, and more grounded in your teaching life. Burnout doesn't always mean you need a total career overhaul. Sometimes, a few well-chosen shifts—better boundaries, a balanced schedule, and new ways of connecting with students—can bring back clarity, confidence, and joy in your teaching. If you try some of these steps, I would love to hear how it goes. Reach out with your reflections, questions, or feedback—I'm walking this path right beside you. In this episode, you'll hear: why burnout is so common among yoga teachers right now how to refresh your energy and focus using simple daily habits practical ways to plan smarter, promote your classes, and boost income—without hustling harder six realistic steps to feel better fast without overhauling your career including things like: why downloading a social media blocking app has to be your first step why you should set aside one hour to plan all your classes for the week how to start start planting seeds to connect with new private clients Also, a heads up!!! One of the best things you can do for your career is to learn the art of teaching private lessons. Private teaching can transform your income and impact—but it's a different skill set than teaching group classes. My online training, The Science of the Private Lesson, teaches you those skills and STAY TUNED for a 50% discount code releasing April 6 for one week only! Resources Mentioned: Screen Zen App Opal App Group Class Planning Method Episode Free Private Client Email Templates The Science of the Private Lesson Online Training OfferingTree is a proud sponsor of this episode and I am honored to be an affiliate. Visit OfferingTree at www.offeringtree.com/mentor and you'll get 50% off your first three months (or 15% off any annual plan). OfferingTree supports me with each sign-up and I'm proud to be supported by a public benefit company whose mission is to further wellness access and education for everyone.

In this expansive conversation, I got a chance to talk to yoga and Ayurveda teacher, mentor, and author Indu Aurora to explore what yoga truly is — and what it is not. We started by unpacking one of Indu's powerful statements: "The goal of yoga is yoga. Everything else is a side benefit." This conversation invites teachers to look beyond flexibility, strength, and stress relief — and into yoga as a state of realization. Indu draws from classical teachings and the commentary on the Yoga Sutras to clarify that yoga is not simply a practice — it is a state of samadhi, a realization of the unchanging self beneath the ever-changing body, mind, and emotions. We take a deep dive into one of Indu's main areas of wisdom, Yoga Nidra and then finish the conversation with some salient pieces of wisdom for all yoga teachers. In this episode you'll hear: why modern practitioners and teachers get stuck focusing on the "fix" why Yoga Nidra is both powerful and accessible how to keep Yoga Nidra from becoming robotic why you should make nature your guru the power of unlearning how to choose a teacher why we both love confusion and doubt Learn More From Indu www.yogsadhna.com https://www.instagram.com/induaroraofficial/ This episode is brought to you by OfferingTree, an easy-to-use, all-in-one online platform for yoga teachers that provides a personal website, booking, payment, blogging, and many other great features. If you sign up at www.offeringtree.com/mentor, you'll get 50% off your first three months (or 15% off any annual plan)! OfferingTree supports me with each sign-up. I'm proud to be supported by a public benefit company whose mission is to further wellness access and education for everyone.

In today's podcast epsiode, I sat down with a yoga therapist, teacher, spiritual caregiver and a good friend of mine, Sarah Capua. We explored what it means to practice—and teach—yoga in a time of political upheaval, climate crisis, and cultural fragmentation. In this conversation, we reflect on power, misperception, collective responsibility, spiritual bypassing, and the role of yoga teachers in supporting students who feel overwhelmed or powerless. As she always does, my friend Sarah brings deep wisdom on the topics of agency, ethics, community, and the radical nourishment of staying awake. Sarah Capua (she/her) is a dedicated student, teacher, Yoga Therapist, and spiritual caregiver. Her work is rooted in the tradition of T.Krishnamacharya and TKV Desikachar, Zen Buddhist contemplative practice and caregiving, and her experience as a chaplain for people in trauma and end of life. Her hope is to be a compassionate and curious support for others on the path, to bear witness and make meaning, and to hold a mirror up to our embodied wisdom which can be a companion no matter where life takes us. In this episode, you'll hear: why studying the ethical foundations of yoga deeply is the most important thing you can do why you shouldn't assume your students want avoidance how to create space for conversation and integration why you should take care of your own energy and support system first how to practice expanding your heart rather than narrowing it Sarah hosted a Yoga Sūtra-s workshop inside The Mentor Sessions Sangha on Friday, March 6, 2026. To listen and watch the recording of the workshop, join the Sangha for one month right here. Introduction to the Yoga Sūtra-s: What is Yoga? To understand yoga as more than just a set of tools, we must go to the heart of its teachings. The Yoga Sūtra-s of Patanjali, teachings compiled in Sanskrit nearly 1,700 years ago, is a manual for understanding the mind and its role in our lives, and is as relevant today as ever. In this workshop we will explore the first four sūtra-s, essential teachings for understanding what yoga is, what it involves, and why we practice. Learn More From Sarah Visit Sarah's online home Follow Sarah on Instagram This episode is brought to you by OfferingTree, an easy-to-use, all-in-one online platform for yoga teachers that provides a personal website, booking, payment, blogging, and many other great features. The best thing about OfferingTree is you can get up and running in 10 minutes with no tech skills needed. As an added bonus, If you sign up at www.offeringtree.com/mentor, you'll get 50% off your first three months (or 15% off any annual plan)! OfferingTree supports me with each sign-up. I'm proud to be supported by a public benefit company whose mission is to further wellness access and education for everyone.

American yoga teachers have a unique role in fighting fascism. We are deeply practiced in the tools that help us (and our students) feel clear, steady, focused, calm and resilient. And if you read the teachings the way I do, we have a powerful directive to engage in direct social action. Lovingkindness meditation says, "May All Beings Be Safe And Free" and that is not just a nice idea, but a mandate to work for change. As you can plainly see with your eyes, all beings are not safe. But there is so much we can do! There is incredible work being done and all we have to do is plug into it. In this episode, you'll hear: the dharma teachings I am depending on and teaching how I recommend you address current events in your yoga classes all the organizations I am following and working with how I balance activism work with full time working parenting Lots of Resources! Episode 143: Should You Talk About Current Events In Yoga Classes?? Episode 163: The Four Reminders (It's A Pep Talk!) A sharable google doc with my list of orgs to follow The 5Calls App Website (with links to app store) Instagram Follow for: an extremely user friendly app to help you choose topics, get phone numbers for your reps and suggested call scripts Indivisible Website Instagram There are lots of local chapters in cities and small towns across the country. Follow for: clear directions on small but impactful actions (cancel Dsiney and Spotify) Information on big, peaceful protests Electoral directions (what member of congress to call when about what) Sunrise Movement Website Instagram Follow for: A more radical approach as it is run by young people Less electoral focus, more direct action 50501 National Website National Instagram There are local chapters in most states! Follow for: Large scale protests (they work closely with Indivisable) Local actions (this one is important this week!!) https://www.standwithminnesota.com/ Follow For: Tons of on the ground, grassroots orgs to support in MN Refuse Fascism Website Instagram Follow For: Daily protests to attend in DC This episode is sponsored by OfferingTree! Sign up at www.offeringtree.com/mentor to get 50% off your first three months (or 15% off any annual plan). With OfferingTree, yoga teachers put their schedule on a personally branded website where students can book classes and even pay or donate online. All of this can be set up in 10 minutes or less. OfferingTree supports me with each sign-up.

I am so honored to be joined on the podcast by my teacher Cyndi Lee. As a senior yoga teacher, author, and Buddhist chaplain—Cyndi talks to us about what's being gained, lost, and misunderstood as artificial intelligence enters yoga, writing, and teaching spaces. Cyndi reflects on her five decades of practice and teaching. As the founder of Om Yoga Center in New York City, a global hub for yogis from 1998 to 2012, she has witnessed firsthand how yoga has shifted under the pressures of capitalism, scalability, and speed. In this episode, you'll hear: a discussion of two growing trends: students using AI as a "yoga teacher" and yoga teachers using AI for emails, sequencing, and social media why Cyndi chooses not to use AI in her writing or teaching why lineage is vital—not as rigidity or hierarchy, but as continuity, care, and accountability a hopeful message for yoga teachers about the fast changes in our word Learn More From Cyndi: Follow Cyndi on Instagram Visit Cyndi's online home Follow Cyndi on Substack: Drip, Drip, Drip OfferingTree is a proud sponsor of this episode, and I am honored to be an affiliate. Visit OfferingTree at www.offeringtree.com/mentor and you'll get 50% off your first three months (or 15% off any annual plan). OfferingTree supports me with each sign-up and I'm proud to be supported by a public benefit company whose mission is to further wellness access and education for everyone.

In this episode of The Mentor Sessions, I'm joined by Lizzie Lasseter for a wide-ranging conversation about teaching yoga in a rapidly evolving world. Lizzie is a designer, educator, and second-generation yoga teacher with over 20 years of experience. As the daughter of Judith Hanson Lasseter, Lizzie grew up immersed in the Iyengar lineage, while also carving out her own path as a teacher, business owner, and working parent of six-year-old twins. Together, we explore lineage, embodiment, and the increasingly complex role AI is playing in the yoga world. In this episode, you'll hear: how Lizzie's work is intentionally structured around the rhythms of family life and nervous system regulation the realities of parenting young children while teaching yoga our discussion of hypermobility, joint stability, and the ways dogmatic alignment language can contribute to pain rather than healing all about Lizzie's use of AI in her business including how AI supports her writing process and assists with course notes and student learning a discussion of what gets lost when editing is outsourced, the difference between processing ideas and producing content and the risk of generic, "flattened" language some concerns about the future of AI and yoga Learn More From Lizzie Visit Lizzie's website Follow Lizzie on Instagram Enjoy Lizzie's YouTube Channel This episode is brought to you by OfferingTree, an easy-to-use, all-in-one online platform for yoga teachers that provides a personal website, booking, payment, blogging, and many other great features. If you sign up at www.offeringtree.com/mentor, you'll get 50% off your first three months (or 15% off any annual plan)! OfferingTree supports me with each sign-up.

In this episode, we dive into a concept that is absolutely transformative for yoga teachers: the idea that yoga cannot be both healing and performative at the same time. If we're still teaching from a linear, hierarchical, aesthetic-based model of asana, we're unintentionally blocking the very healing we hope to support. This conversation focuses on how teachers can shift toward a non-linear, person-centered approach grounded in the intended benefit of each pose. Francesca offers a co-creative teaching model where the teacher brings clarity, knowledge, and intention — without assuming universal "right" shapes. In this episode, you'll hear: the foundational framework that helps teachers move away from aesthetic evaluation and toward meaningful, individualized movement experiences pose case studies including child's pose, downward facing dog, plank and warrior two a deep dive into the idea that each pose is a container of possible movement nutrients how to incorporate all these ideas into your teaching right away an invitation to get some feedback from Francesca Resources Mentioned: 15 Downward Dog Prep Sequences: 15sequences.com The Science Of The Private Lesson The Mentor Sessions Sangha Episode 164: Taking Movement Patterns Down To The Studs with Geneva Jimreivat This episode is brought to you by OfferingTree, an easy-to-use, all-in-one online platform for yoga teachers that provides a personal website, booking, payment, blogging, and many other great features. The best thing about OfferingTree is you can get up and running in 10 minutes with no tech skills needed. As an added bonus, If you sign up at www.offeringtree.com/mentor, you'll get 50% off your first three months (or 15% off any annual plan)!

Today's conversation is a deeply layered one. I'm joined by my friend, colleague, mentee, and private student Geneva Jimreivat for a nuanced exploration of how I work with private clients who experience persistent, subclinical pain and hard-to-pinpoint movement challenges. Geneva is truly a multi-hyphenate in the movement world—she's been practicing yoga since childhood, completed her 200-hour training in 2019, taught in my studio, mentored with me, coached CrossFit and private strength clients, and is currently completing her Doctor of Physical Therapy degree. Her background in yoga, strength training, biomechanics, and manual therapy gives her a uniquely rich perspective on the kind of work we dive into together. We also get into the big question Geneva brought from her PT clinic experiences: How do you know when someone needs very specific, movement-pattern reconstruction versus when general strength and conditioning is enough? This conversation is such a real look at the messy, subtle, deeply personal work of helping people move and feel better in their bodies—especially when the answers aren't straightforward. In this episode, you'll hear: how years of yoga, strength training, CrossFit, and manual therapy shaped Geneva's movement identity the chronic discomfort that led her to reach out to me—especially neck, pec, elbow, and wrist pain that didn't resolve with typical PT approaches why highly trained movers sometimes perform their way around dysfunctional patterns for years—until the body finally says "no more." the emotional experience of being a movement professional who is also navigating pain that won't go away why pathoanatomy can be empowering for some students—and anxiety-producing for others—and how to share information responsibly without fear-mongering what Geneva and I are actually doing in her sessions now: slowing everything down, locating deep core support, identifying compensations, and rebuilding foundational patterns Learn More From Geneva: Visit Geneva's website Follow Geneva on Instagram OfferingTree is a proud sponsor of this episode and I am honored to be an affiliate. Visit OfferingTree at www.offeringtree.com/mentor and you'll get 50% off your first three months (or 15% off any annual plan). OfferingTree supports me with each sign-up and I'm proud to be supported by a public benefit company whose mission is to further wellness access and education for everyone. Click here for the Studio Success Checklist.

In this episode of The Mentor Sessions, I share something a little different: a Dharma talk I recently offered in my monthly class for yoga teachers. These monthly gatherings are one of my favorite places to teach—intimate, thoughtful, and deeply rooted in practice—and this particular talk felt important to bring to the podcast. Over the last several months, as the political situation in the United States has become more extreme and more frightening, I've been turning again and again to a Buddhist teaching known as The Four Reminders. These contemplations come from the Tibetan Buddhist lineage, and while they are simple, they cut right to the heart of what matters most. They have become the anchor of my own personal practice during this time of rising fascism, fear, and widespread suffering. In this episode, I share how I came back to these teachings—interestingly, prompted not by the worst harm being done in this country, but by the moment Jimmy Fallon was taken off the air for criticizing the administration. Watching someone with so much privilege get silenced instantly made me realize that we weren't sliding toward fascism. We were already living inside it. And from that moment, I knew I didn't want to get stuck in despair. I wanted to stay awake, engaged, loving, and grounded. The Four Reminders helped me do that. In this episode, you'll hear: Why these four contemplations feel so powerful and clarifying How reflecting on the preciousness of human life expands our compassion for ourselves, each other, and the planet The truth of impermanence — and how it can become a liberatory force rather than a source of fear The reality of karma and interdependence, and why even the smallest actions matter The universality of suffering, and why it is not inevitable How these teachings help me hold a vision of a world where every being is safe, free, and fed Why joy is not a luxury but an essential part of practice—especially in oppressive times The role of protest, collective action, and tiny daily choices in shaping the world we believe is possible After the Dharma talk, I share some of the reflections and questions that came up in conversation with the teachers in class. One theme that surfaced again and again was how grounding it feels to hold a positive vision—not in a naïve or spiritually bypassing way, but as a guiding truth that helps us stay resourced, energized, and committed. I talk about the small actions I take to stay connected to this vision, like calling my representatives or supporting my local food bank, and why these seemingly insignificant acts matter. We may not see the fruits of our labor in our lifetime, but as the Gita reminds us, that doesn't mean the work isn't ours to do. If you're feeling overwhelmed right now… I hope this episode reminds you that your life is precious, your presence matters, and your choices—however small—ripple outward. I hope it gives you permission to feel your grief and to feel joy. And I hope it encourages you to stay rooted in your own vision of what is possible for humanity. Thank you for being on this path with me. Resources Mentioned: Studio Success Checklist OfferingTree is a proud sponsor of this episode and I am honored to be an affiliate. Visit OfferingTree at www.offeringtree.com/mentor and you'll get 50% off your first three months (or 15% off any annual plan). OfferingTree supports me with each sign-up and I'm proud to be supported by a public benefit company whose mission is to further wellness access and education for everyone.

Before this recent solo episode, The Purpose of Asana Ep 159, was even released my friend Cecily Milne reached out to say she was so excited to listen to it and chat about it! We decided to record our conversation for all of you, so today we have Part Two! In this episode Cecily and I dive into what makes asana unique compared to other movement practices, we discuss the nuances of teaching with specificity, and tackle the evolving role of the yoga teacher in today's landscape. We also unpack how our approaches to asana practice and teaching have transformed over time, the importance of intentionality versus invitation in cueing, and how to empower both educators and students to understand their why for every cue and pose. In this episode you'll hear: how Cecily defines specificity not as rigid alignment but as purposeful decision-making how safety and empowerment come not from removing structure, but from offering clear, intentional containers within which students have agency and choice the importance of movement education — understanding anatomy, joint actions, and functional progression the dangers of both overly dogmatic cueing and "anything goes" teaching styles practical tips for teachers on knowing the "why" behind each pose and cue Cecily Milne (she/her) has been teaching yoga and movement since 2009. When teaching became her full-time job, the lack of variety in her practice resulted in repetitive strain injuries. These injuries led Cecily to seek guidance from outside the yoga community. She dove headfirst into education, becoming a FRCms and Functional Range Assessment provider. Cecily spent a year studying with Dr. Guy Voyer DO to complete his Somatraining program and become certified in ELDOA levels 1-3. She has also trained with Ido Portal and Gymnastic Bodies, and credits her strength training approach to the years spent learning from coach Lovedeep Dhunna, whose primary influences included Paul Chek and Charles Poliquin. In 2015, Cecily created Yoga Detour—a bridge between yoga and the other movement modalities our bodies need. She shares Yoga Detour with a global audience through online courses, a virtual studio, and in-person events that have taken place all over the world. Learn More From Cecily: Cecily's website, Yoga Detour Follow Cecily on Instagram This episode is brought to you by OfferingTree, an easy-to-use, all-in-one online platform for yoga teachers that provides a personal website, booking, payment, blogging, and many other great features. If you sign up at www.offeringtree.com/mentor, you'll get 50% off your first three months (or 15% off any annual plan)!