om actions
Geni Ebbetts describes her journey from further education teacher to yoga teacher.
Now the proud owner of her own yoga studio, she says it’s important to follow your
intuition and to trust the process
“M
y teacher training
was a truly
amazing journey of
self-discovery” has
become a bit of a
cliché; something that everyone who ever
learns to teach yoga feels compelled to say.
The only thing is, it’s not until you actually
start the process that you realise it’s true
and now I find myself saying the exact same
thing to anyone who will listen. It was soTRUST THE PROCESS
great to be taught by an incredible teacher
(Claire Murphy), and be surrounded by a
truly awesome group of fellow students.
Even so, right up to the day before I
taught my first class I was adamant that I
would never teach a yoga class. I just didn’t
have the confidence to do it, which is bizarre
as whilst most who feel this way hate the
thought of standing up in front of a group
of people I had spent the last 20 years
doing precisely that most days teaching in
further education.Moving forward
Long story short, just after qualifying I found
myself in front of a class at the local leisure
centre, smashed it and loved it. That was the
start of this particular part of my journey. I
realised when I was with my yoga students
I was just able to be myself, that was where
I was meant to be, my Dharma if you like.
On the downside of this, I struggled with
how diminished I was in my day job. So,something had to give and after nearly a
year of teaching yoga in the evenings and at
weekends I realised I just couldn’t do my day
job anymore, it was too much at odds with
me. I stopped talking about why I couldn’t
do what I wanted and from Christmas 2015
I started telling everyone that I was going to
open a yoga studio. I knew it was radical, I
could tell by some of the reactions I got, but
it was out there in the universe, I had put it
out there. I designed a logo and showed it to
anyone who came close enough.My Sankalpa
With my intention out there I started to feel
that I was being guided. My inspiration led
me to read The Four Desires by Rod Stryker,
which became the workbook for what I
wanted for my future. I was challenged to
face up to what I really wanted as well as
the things I allowed to get in my way. I set a
Sankalpa, which I’m still working with today:
The Heart Yoga Space thrives; I am inspired
and love every second of every day. I wrote
it on a post-it and put it on my PC at work
after I’d handed in my resignation and every
time I doubted what I was doing I repeated
it to myself; I used it in my self practice and
during Yoga Nidra. I held a clear picture in
my mind of exactly what my future studio,
The Heart Yoga Space, looked like and called“Right up to the day
before I taught my first
class I was adamant that
I would never teach a
yoga class.”