Hunger Games in Lululemon — On Opting Out of the Yoga Hustle
Real talk. When I got pregnant, something strange happened. I couldn’t stop eating tomatoes but completely lost all appetite for my yoga practice. A bewildering absence, like forgetting the name of someone you used to love. My body and soul were asking for something else. At the time, I lived in a lush corner of Queensland, Australia. Ocean walks, belly growth, a slow kind of grace. It was the first time in years that yoga didn’t call—and I didn’t chase. Eventually, the desire returned: softer, stranger. But by then, I’d seen something people rarely admit—sometimes, yoga just... leaves you.
The breaks. The boredom. The “I’d rather lie on the floor and stare at dust particles than do another sun salutation” phase. No one puts that on Instagram.
Recently, when I stopped teaching yoga altogether, that same emptiness returned—only now, it felt like a relief. A room finally aired out. I saw clearly: yoga had stopped being a practice. It had become a performance.
Yoga has a funny way of turning from tool to identity. One day, you're a curious seeker. Ten years later, you're wearing your spirituality like a lifestyle brand. You don’t just do yoga. You are yoga. You practice the practice, talk the talks, read the reads—and eventually get caught in the hamster wheel of performing it. And more importantly, what you learned becomes the yoga. And behind the curated calm, the role calcifies. We build rituals, strength, and flexibility, but also stunningly inflexible beliefs about what it means to be a “true” yoga teacher. So when I stepped away, it wasn’t just from a job. It was from the identity I'd fused with. And I have to tell you, my friend: spiritual ego is still ego.
There’s a certain freedom that only comes when the thing that once liberated you... no longer does. And you realize it without sorrow.
I didn’t become a yoga teacher for the lifestyle porn. I was in it for human consciousness. Psycho-spiritual maps. Shadow work. Deep intergenerational trauma healing. Ancient teachings. All the juicy existential weirdness. But somewhere along the way, the calling morphed into... content creation.
Teaching became hyper-performance. Practicing became posting. Trauma or pain became teachable moments (ideally with an inspiring life message to share).
I wasn’t just a teacher. I became a feed, and a brand, and a spiritual content creator. Offerings were expected. Insights required. The wellspring had to keep flowing. The yoga “industry” had quietly (not so quietly) installed turbo-capitalism next to the prayer flags. And nobody seemed to mind.
Here’s the math no one likes to do:
Teach five classes a day in person. Or offer online teachings and become your own advertising agency. Inspire endlessly. Earn barely enough for a turmeric latte and overpriced rent. You’re a lifestyle brand without a team, sick pay, or a pension. Just endless giving. With good vibes and sacred smiles, of course. Burnout happens. Definitely. Sometimes with ocean views, sure. But burnout all the same.
Students, lovely as they often are, want a bargain on spiritual experiences. They want healing, but only if it's convenient. They want depth, but not real discomfort. And while you’re doing night shift crafting a 90-minute class for $10, they’re watching free yoga on YouTube where Mandy smiles through crow pose with 1.2 million subscribers. “Thank you for all you do, your work is so important” becomes almost triggering when you see how many of them, the very next day, opt for Mandy’s free content instead of supporting teachers in their own marginalized communities.
Here’s what no one says out loud: the yoga world is a fuckery.
Only a few can sustain. These are typically the celebrity yoga teachers. The majority is left broke. And it is competitive as hell. Behind the soft tones and community circles, it's Hunger Games in Lululemon.
In Yogaland, teachers are often chasing the same retreats, the same brand deals, the same “abundant” followers. In hotspots like Bali, the vibes are high. And so is the quiet desperation. I once heard a yoga celeb (let’s call him Michael, which is not his name) at a popular yoga spot (let’s call it Yoga Barn, which is exactly the name) say about another teacher, “I’m so happy he finally got a spot here,” in a tone so smug I needed an aggressively strong ginger tea with extra lemon just to recover…
Success in Yogaland looks less like wisdom and more like pop culture.
You’re not just a teacher. You’re a performing monk, ideally with sex appeal. A brand ambassador for inner peace. A rock star with a handpan. A cacao-pouring, spiritually-branded influencer with just enough privilege to circle the globe. And the more capitalist—and privileged—it all becomes, the more spiritual it pretends to be. It takes a special kind of inner fog not to smell the BS in Yogaland.
I didn’t walk away from yoga because I stopped believing in its power. I walked away because I couldn’t keep selling my spirituality as a product—in a world that demands you sell it as a product. A world built on unrealistic standards, and sustained by capitalism, neocolonialism, and white supremacy.
I selfishly wanted my spiritual life to belong to me again. To only be mine. Not to the algorithm. Not to my students. Not to other teachers. Not to curious strangers scrolling through my vulnerability to satisfy their voyeuristic appetites.
Leaving Yogaland was both: hard and hot. Hard, because it’s just hard to realize that a world you—even in rebellion—once cherished had also claimed you. A world that felt familiar, even if you disliked it many times. (Maybe that’s Stockholm Syndrome. Who knows.) And hot, because truth has a heat to it. And truth clears space.
Now, without “yoga teacher” glowing above my head, I can be whoever I am today. Or not. Who cares? That, to me, is pure freedom.
Because once you leave the stage, you finally see the theatre. How whiteness is mistaken for wisdom. How calmness is mistaken for truth. How shallow people are mistaken for gods and goddesses. And how “spiritual community” often just means privileged people escaping real-world problems.
Capitalism didn’t make yoga accessible. It tried to kill it. Not saying it’s dead—but it’s not thriving in most of Yogaland.
We say yoga is about breaking patterns. But modern yoga clings to them tighter than Lululemon on butt. The identities built on yoga and the belief systems shaped around spirituality are screaming. Not just on social media, but in every overproduced spectacle surrounding it.
When I stopped teaching, I got my voice back. Not because I lacked insight before, but because Yogaland had an unspoken rule: always be calm. Never be messy. Always be marketable. And when your income depends on appearing serene, you start airbrushing your soul.
Even with the best intentions, your spirituality gets filtered. I thought I was rebelling. But even rebellion, I learned, can be branded.
So I left. Not as a protest. Not for applause. Not for a better job. Just... because I was done.
Now, I live a spiritual life that’s unmarketed, unseen, unoptimized. Not blooming for views. Not designed to inspire or seduce. Just rooted. Just mine.
Sometimes, the most sacred thing you can do is stop performing. And then go on living.
If this resonated with you, moved you, or made you pause and reflect – consider this your cue. I’ve set up a virtual tip jar via Buy Me a Coffee. No monthly commitments, no strings, no memberships required.
Your sweet kindness helps keep the thoughts flowing, the energy exchange intact, and the glow of my inner goddess alive. It won’t fix capitalism, but it might buy me five minutes of joy (or at least a cortado).
Gracias. Thank you. Jërëjëf. Merci. Obrigada. Danke. Arigatō. Medaase. Grazie. Hvala. Tack. Asante. Shukran. Teşekkürler. Dziękuję.
