Burnout with yoga teachers

 

photo by Vivek Solanki at Pixels.com

  Ganesha for protection

Why would yoga teachers, get burnout?

It's for several reasons, amongst the following: 

#crazy hours

#maybe you also have another job, and/or a lot of family responsibilities, and even all of this

#you're always, and I do mean always, giving out 

With always giving out, in this respect it's no different from any "caring for others" type of role. Teachers, pre school teachers, health care, nurses, doctors, mothers, etc. And what happens is, our prana/ mauri gets depleted, and correspondingly, our emotional energy (prana and emotions are linked). Our nervous systems gets frayed. We just get exhausted. 

# a yoga teacher often has to balance needs of many people in each class. This requires a lot of mental energy. This too can get very depleted.

#some teachers need to demonstrate as they teach. And truly - this can be very wearying. So if you're also having to meet several needs in a class, talking, demonstrating = exhaustion. I am not judging anyone, just trying to be factual. 

I had many years of being a solo parent, working, teaching (a lot!), taking seminars all weekend, most weekends, retreats, and healing. It was not easy. 

I moved more into healing and classes after this, and privates. 

1st tip: 

Regarding burnout, once I looked at where I was making my money, and trust me, there wasn't much to spare (!), I discovered that most of my income was from privates, plus healing, and taking people through regression. I gave some of my classes and a private, to a yoga teacher friend who badly needed more money. She was also a hypnotherapist, so I taught her how to incorporate past lives into her sessions so that she could get more income. And I put a bit more time into what did make a few dollars more, for me. 

So, if you need money, have a good look at income and expenditure, and look at where you are working for pennies, and where you do get a bit more. 

2nd tip:

If you do need to work so hard for financial reasons, privates whether they are corporate, one-on-one, or to a group, are where you will get some relief. I would recommend to not go for top dollar, as I didn't, I asked for $20 per person for a group, initially, and they also paid if they couldn't come. Of course the price went up over the years, but only by a small amount. Two of these classes went on for more than ten years. 

For one-on-one, these of course, charge more. Find out the going charge where you live, but again, unless they're very wealthy, go just under if you suspect that it could turn into a long term arrangement.

Corporate: if you are asked, follow the above rule for how much to charge as usually the business pays, and you might not want to go slightly lower - it's hard to work this area out. I did find that the health and education systems were more likely have people attending regularly. 

3rd tip: 

Find out your tax system, and what you can and can't claim for, and the percentages of things that you can claim for. Will save you a lot of money. Keep all receipts together, a small cheap notebook for car mileage if you can claim back travel etc. Enter everything into a kid's exercise book, clip each months receipts together. 

4th tip:

And it's a boring one, and it might overwhelm you. Plan. 

Have several classes worked out for each class: eg flow, hatha, backs, rest and relax - whatever. Have a blank notebook and draw stick figures of routines whether they be flexibilities, warmups, reclining, all fours, standing, backs, forwards, inversions if any, closing. You will be able to mix and match. Be consistent with each type of class. Know variations of poses to change things up. Eg I might do a triangle sequence ending with a wide legged forwards bend, or a warrior one. 

The other planning is also essential: get everything ready the night before. Including food. Honestly, a simple sandwich of cheese and tinned mashed pinto beans, with lettuce, small pot of yoghurt, muesli bar if that's what you eat, a piece of fruit like a banana. And a bottle of water. Keep it all simple and stress free. Put it all into an insulated bag overnight, and in the morning pop in a small freezer thingey to keep it cold.

Have a book diary, put it in your everything bag, carry it, use it. For everything: shopping lists, reminders for students, what you're having for dinner, etc. Be anal about it as this too will reduce stress.

5th and very important tip:

Before each class, and I used to do this in my car, parked near the class, but not where the clients could see, sit, lean back, close your eyes and look down towards the tip of your nose (calms and reduces mental and emotional stuff). Have your hands in your lap, right palm up, put the left hand, palm up, on top of the right. (induces peace). Just stay like this for about three minutes, at least, if you've got longer, go for it. If it doesn't do the trick, add So-o-o inhaling, Hum-m-m exhaling, relaxing on the exhales. 

You can also do this to start a relax and restore type of class, or as a short meditation to end a class. People will love it.

6th tip:

Slow down!! I know, from experience, how hard this can be. Talk slightly slower. Smile but gently, this will relax you too. Centre yourself around the navel area for more energy, and it will help your voice to be louder. Talk to the back of the room, and do not allow your voice to go higher as we do this when we are emotional. If you can, move a little bit slower. All just tricks of the trade. 

I sincerely hope that this will be of some help. Any comments, tips, appreciated

link here to my lifestyle blog

Link to my meditations and talks, on Earth Elders: here.  Click "join" if you haven't already, then click the search icon, and enter "Ratnamurti Saraswati". 

Link to Global Unity Festivals on youtube, here. I'm in the Wave 1, Asia/Pacific episodes.

Link to a post explaining Global Unity Festivals here