My Yoga Journey: From Student to International Teacher

If you had told me ten years ago that I’d be teaching yoga and Pilates full-time, leading international retreats, and working with a yoga school I once dreamed of being a part of, I would have been very sceptical.

My teaching journey started in 2018 on an island in Indonesia called Nusa Lembongan.
Teaching yoga and embodied movement around the world was a wild dream at the time but something deep inside me just knew.

I have a clear memory of me sitting on my mat in our yoga shala on the island, watching our teacher guide the practice with the ocean behind her and the sun lighting up the white sand.
I looked at her and thought, “That’s going to be me one day. I’ll be the one on that mat, guiding someone else on their journey.”

I danced all through school and stopped after I graduated high school.
Dancing was my way to express emotion, to feel empowered within myself and feel love and appreciation for my body.
I really missed the connection to graceful and expressive movement so that’s what initially drew me to yoga.

But to be honest, I didn’t fall in love with it right away.

I actually found yoga really boring at first.
There was no upbeat music, no sweat, no core burn and no competition.
Just breath, a lot of stillness, and way too much time to be alone with my thoughts.

I attended classes sporadically and overtime something began to shift.

I wanted to learn more about yoga and I also loved to travel so ended up signing up for my first yoga teacher training with Sunny Richards at Santosha Yoga Institute.

I had no idea what to expect.

It changed everything. I fell in love with the practice, and I fell in love with helping other people fall in love with it, not as a workout, but as a way to return to themselves with kindness, understanding, love and compassion.

I started teaching as soon as I got home. I was running classes in personal training gyms before and after work, and without even realising it, yoga went from a side passion to my full-time work.

I also did my Pilates teacher training, which felt like the perfect complement to yoga – it was the yang to the yin – the strength to the softness, and the structure to the surrender.

In 2019, I felt this deep pull to understand yoga beyond the Western lens. I wanted to learn from the people who lived and breathed this practice and who had it flowing through their lineage.
So I went to India.

I studied at Govardhan Eco Village, and that experience completely cracked me open.

There were no asana classes, just lectures, chanting, meditation, and deep spiritual immersion.
It taught me that yoga isn’t just something you do, it’s a way of being.

Only a tiny fraction of yoga is practiced on the mat.
The rest spills out from your inner state. It takes shape in the world around you through your words, your actions, your frame of mind, how you perceive the world around you and your interactions with the people that surround you.

Yoga wove its way into every part of my life.

Since then, I’ve been guiding retreats, helping others peel back the layers of responsibility, expectation, and fear to reconnect with what’s real and important underneath.
It’s the most meaningful work I’ve ever done.

Then in 2024, I came home from a big overseas trip feeling a little directionless. I knew I still wanted to guide people, but I wasn’t sure what that would look like next.

I kept thinking about Sunny, and how I told her I wanted to work for her one day.

Feeling a bit stuck, I decided to sit down and meditate on it.

20 or 30 minutes later, I checked my phone, and I had a voice note from Sunny.

She told me she was creating a Pilates Teacher Training and wanted to know if I’d like to be part of it.

The answer was yes.

Fast forward to now: I’ve helped put together the training manual, and next week I’m flying to Sri Lanka to lead teach Santosha’s very first Pilates Teacher Training.

It still blows my mind a little.

None of this was part of a grand plan. I didn’t map it all out. I just followed what lit me up, even when it was slow, uncertain, or didn’t make sense yet.

Even when people told me yoga wasn’t a “real job,” or that I should still go to Uni and have a backup plan, I trusted that this path was right for me.
I didn’t know how or what it was going to look like but my heart and my gut just knew.

That’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned through this practice: trust your heart and your gut, nothing needs to be forced.
Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks or what might be the ‘smart’ and ‘responsible’ thing to do.

Trust the timing and trust the unfolding.

You don’t have to know where the road is going. Just start taking small, intentional steps.