I quit my stressful job in the city… only to discover that life as a yoga teacher was even more toxic

Who doesn’t dream of leaving the stressful day job behind? We’ve all been there – the nagging desire to create a reality that feeds both our soul and bank balance.

But before you take that leap, you might want to think about the hidden realities that could come with such a big change.

My attempt to do it came as a huge shock to the system. Call me naive, but I was hopelessly unprepared for the pitfalls and challenges ahead.

I was 29 and had an eight-year career at City, in a job that was the definition of ‘work hard, play hard’.

On the outside I had everything: a flat in London, a nice car and regular luxury holidays, but the stress of working in an industry with a male-dominated culture and obscenely long hours started to have a serious impact on my mental and physical health .

There was excruciating pressure to perform – some days I would come home, log back in and work until 2am. I saw very few women progress to higher positions.

I have suffered from chronic migraines since I was 12 years old and in times of high stress like this, they tended to retaliate alongside terrifying panic attacks and an inability to sleep.

Finally I had to take a break and decompress. During a trip to Cambodia, where I meditated with Buddhist monks, I decided to make a real career switch and train as a yoga teacher.

I had no idea what finding a reputable course was all about, so I picked one that suited my travel plans and paid £2,500 for 200 hours of intensive training in Costa Rica.

Intensive was right – we got up at 5am and practiced for four or five hours a day, with extra classes on anatomy and philosophy. My body was in pieces and my muscles ached for the entire month I was there.

For the most part, the course was good. But one thing struck me as odd: I was told by the head coach that Hindu gods were just cartoon characters and fabrications.

I was shocked and upset, but it would be the first of many times when the spiritual tenets of the Hindu faith I had grown up with—of which yoga is an intrinsic part—seemed to conflict with superficial Western interpretation.

Back in London I was ready to teach yoga full time and assumed starting classes would be easy. The reality was different.

Getting your foot in the door with studios can be incredibly difficult. Some require two or even five years of teaching experience, others will only let you teach there if you’ve trained with them.

When I managed to audition, there were 40 people in the room, all wanting the chance to teach.

We would be assigned a three minute time slot. I assumed you were supposed to demonstrate your teaching skills within that time, but it was more of a “see what I can do.”

We had to show off the most seductive Instagram-worthy pose we could do. It was like fighting for a spot on America’s Next Top Model. The atmosphere was icy, competitive and far from inclusive.

I became increasingly aware that I was often the only Indian in the room. Comments from leading London studios after auditions included ‘great teacher, not the right aesthetic’ and ‘great teacher but too few social media followers’.

My personal favorite was when a high-profile yoga studio, without having met me and based solely on my name, said I couldn’t audition for them because my use of Sanskrit terminology would “scare modern city workers.”

I ended up getting an unpaid job shadowing a senior teacher in a studio in East London. I was grateful for the opportunity to learn more and help myself find my teaching voice.

It was two days before I got a call that I wouldn’t make it as a yoga teacher because my thighs were too fat to be an “advanced” yogi.

Bearing in mind that I wear a size 8 and that yoga is meant to be accepting of all body shapes, the comment surprised me.

It affected my confidence and I felt so insecure about my body that I stopped teaching in studios for three months.

My experience in finance means I’m used to a tough attitude at work, but I didn’t expect this from an industry that is supposed to prioritize people’s well-being.

I was attacked for how I looked and had to face judgments based solely on my name. The irony of experiencing racism from those who had appropriated yogic principles from Hindu culture did not escape me.

When I finally secured some classes as a cover teacher the pay was £30 per class.

When you factor in not only the teaching itself, but also the scheduling of the lesson, travel expenses, and all the administration involved in running your own business, that’s hardly minimum wage.

Not to mention how antisocial the hours are as you teach while everyone else is socializing or attending yoga classes yourself.

I have often thought that I had made the wrong decision. I had gone from the incredibly privileged position of not having to worry about money to wondering if I would cover my living expenses for the month – the easiest choice would have been to return to finance and go back to the not-so-happy-round.

When the pandemic hit, like many other small businesses, I had to change course. Overnight I discovered that Zoom was my new best friend and discovered which place in my living room gave the best light for live streaming classes.

Thanks to social media, where you can connect directly with the individual rather than being behind the wall of a studio, I started doing some live streamed classes, allowing people to see me and my teaching style.

As a result, my social media base grew from 2,000 to 13,000 and I gradually developed my own community of yogis, teaching hundreds of people each week.

That emphasized, both to me and my yoga teacher friends, that people value you and how you teach more than anything else.

Dreaming of escaping your desk job is just that, a dream – it doesn’t come easy. You must be prepared for difficult obstacles.

While I found an unexpectedly ugly side to the London yoga industry, I’ve grown thicker skin with each experience – and with it comes strength.

And it has made me even more determined to help make the yoga industry what it should be: inclusive and supportive, while respecting where yoga really comes from.