I’ve Not Always Been a Yoga Teacher

It feels like yoga is my life now, however it wasn’t always this way – I had a whole bunch of different jobs before my journey with teaching yoga began, which almost feels like a lifetime ago now! At university I worked at Leicester City football club ?, spent evenings at a local homeless shelter, took high school kids around campus and had summer jobs with Reachout mentoring and Abercrombie and Fitch ? I paid my way through university expenses ? I then went on to work in a number of different roles in schools – both primary (loved) & secondary (didn’t love this) and also worked as a teaching assistant in an autistic provision  – a job I absolutely loved.

BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE  AND HAPPINESS RESEARCH WORK

I went on to do a masters in Environment and Development at the London School of Economics where I was advised to do a course by professor Paul Dolan on wellbeing happiness and behavioural science – I loved it! It seemed like a completely natural fit for me. Paul became a mentor and I eventually went on to work for his team at the LSE.

Here I learnt a lot about the latest research in the wellbeing and happiness world. This really sparked an interest in exploring these tools for myself.  I decided to do my yoga teacher training (at this point I had been practising yoga for about 8 years) I really loved deepening my practice. 

WORKING FOR THE INTERNATIONAL POSITIVE EDUCATION NETWORK

Whilst on the training I received an email from the Director of Action for Happiness saying I should apply for a job with the International Positive Education Network (I used to bombard Mark with a lot of emails as I wanted to work for him) I applied and got the job at IPEN. Here I got to work with people at the forefront of wellbeing / educational research people really pushing for wellbeing practices such as meditation and resilience building, to be added to curriculums such as Richard Layard, Martin Seligman, Angela Duckworth, Anthony Seldon, Carol Dweck, etc the list goes on (all people with interesting Ted talks) This role taught me a lot about the importance of mental health and wellbeing. This was the springboard for me to leap into teaching yoga full time.

HOW  THESE EXPERIENCES BENEFIT MY STUDENTS

I have really enjoyed bringing in my knowledge of wellbeing into my yoga practice and seeing so many people love and enjoy this spiritual practice. I will continue to keep designing sessions which really aim at providing you with the tools to maximise your wellbeing and life experience. I continue to read about the latest research, learn from many yoga and meditation teachers, take regular courses so that I can keep sharing with you what I learn; from the meditation practices in Nepal to the academic. I really believe these sessions and practices can provide you with tools to transform your inner world to help you reveal your true peaceful nature and develop unconditional love for yourself and others.

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