Do Higher Standards Actually Help Us? A Conversation with Steffany Moonaz

What good are higher yoga standards if teachers can't pay their bills? That's the question that sparked this conversation with researcher and yoga therapist Steffany Moonaz. Together we dig into what the data actually says about yoga training, student safety, and whether the industry's push for updated standards from Yoga Alliance and IAYT can coexist with building real economic viability for yoga professionals. We also get into the anatomy curriculum problem, the difference between a licensed healthcare provider who "knows a few poses" and an actual yoga professional, and whether higher education is the direction we're all heading—or just some of us.

Nobody Told You There's No Safety Net — And That's Both The Problem And The Freedom

Nobody handed you a pamphlet about this when you got certified. There's no union, no standardized pay scale, no HR department, and no institution coming to protect you if things go sideways.

In the first episode of the What Nobody Told You series, Rebecca names the structural failure at the heart of the yoga industry — and then goes a step further. Because once you stop waiting for a safety net that was never being built, something clarifies. You stop organizing your career around a promise that was never real, and you start building something that actually belongs to you.

This one is honest, a little hard, and worth the listen.

The Quiet Transactional Culture of Yoga and Wellness

In yoga and wellness spaces, we talk a lot about community, connection, and belonging. But what happens when those relationships start to feel conditional—or quietly transactional?

In this episode, Rebecca explores the subtle shift from being in relationship to being useful in the industry. She unpacks the language of “collaboration” and “alignment,” the pressures of visibility and scarcity, and how businesses built on belonging can blur the lines between care and obligation.

This is a conversation about relational burnout, consent in professional relationships, and what it might look like to rebuild community without extraction.

BONUS EPISODE: The Financial Cost of a Broken System

Yoga's missing career ladder doesn't just cost you professionally — it costs you financially. In this episode, Rebecca Sebastian names the specific, predictable ways the broken structure of the yoga industry transfers its costs onto individual workers: the training trap, the visibility myth, the body math nobody does, and the hidden overhead of patchwork income.

This is not a hustle episode. It's a clarity episode — for mid-career yoga professionals who are tired of blaming themselves for navigating terrain that was never mapped.

Includes a mention of the free Boring Money Starter Kit and the Make Money in Yoga Boring working seminar on March 31st.

When Yoga Studios Sell Belonging: Community, Power, and MLM Culture in the Yoga World

Have you ever felt like your yoga studio was a little... intense about getting you to recruit friends? Or wondered where the line is between genuine community and transactional belonging?

In this episode, we're going somewhere a lot of people in the yoga world aren't ready to go — and we're bringing a commercial cult expert with us.

Brandie Hadfield joins the podcast to unpack the uncomfortable overlap between MLM culture and how many yoga studios, teacher training programs, and even large chains like CorePower operate. We talk about the ethics of selling belonging, the reality of dual relationships (when your teacher is also your boss), and why yoga professionals need explicit training in recognizing power dynamics.

This episode grew out of the host's deep dive into cult documentaries, podcasts, and her article The Business of Belonging for Inside Yoga Magazine — and it might just change how you see your studio community.

Money, Creativity, & AI Updates: What Yoga Teachers Need to Know in 2026

In this solo episode, Rebecca revisits three of last year's most popular series with fresh 2026 updates that every yoga professional needs to hear.

First up: making money boring. We're talking about the systems, grief, and pricing drama that keep yoga teachers stuck—and how to finally break free. Then, a reality check on AI in yoga: spoiler alert, the robots aren't coming for your jobs, but they are making your admin life easier. Finally, a controversial take on creativity: is our obsession with niching down actually killing our creative spark?

This episode includes real data on the yoga market (hint: it's growing 80% by 2032), honest talk about pricing and self-worth, and permission to follow your creative impulses even when they don't fit your brand.

Plus, details on Rebecca's upcoming seminar: Make Money in Yoga Boring (March 31st, $45 early bird through March 1st).

If you're a yoga teacher navigating the business side of this work, this one's for you.

Taking Yoga Beyond the Studio: Building Community Care in Schools with Shelly Auld

What does it look like to take your yoga training beyond the studio and into real community care work?

In this episode, Rebecca talks with returning guest Shelly Auld, a wellness coordinator working in a North Minneapolis school district. Shelly shares how she built a program that supports educators and staff through nervous system regulation, co-regulation, and accessible movement—and how that work is already impacting staff retention and wellbeing.

This conversation is a powerful reminder that yoga professionals are needed in schools, healthcare, corporate environments, and beyond. It’s not about the perfect certification—it’s about applying your skills where people actually need them.

When Yoga Leaves the Room. Intuition, Somatic Education, and Working with Animals with Gloria Hester

In this episode of Working In Yoga, Rebecca Sebastian is joined by Gloria Hester, whose work may challenge everything you think you know about how yoga is used professionally.

Gloria shares her path into somatic education for vertebrate animals, offering a compelling example of how yoga principles can be applied far beyond traditional classroom settings. Together, they explore intuition as a professional skill, the nuance between following opportunity and honoring boundaries, and what it means to work therapeutically with non-human beings.

This conversation invites yoga and wellness professionals to question the idea that the field is a monoculture — and instead consider how varied, creative, and bespoke our careers can truly be. It’s a thoughtful look at intuition, ethics, and the many unexpected directions yoga work can take.

Rebecca SebastianFebruary 26, 2026Comment

Burnout, Belonging, and the Future of Yoga Work with Suzie Carmack

In this episode of Working In Yoga, host Rebecca Sebastian is joined by Suzie Carmack for a wide-ranging conversation on burnout, wellbeing, and the future of yoga and wellness professions.

Together, we unpack why yoga work can be uniquely isolating, how that isolation fuels burnout, and why traditional “self-care” often misses the mark. Suzie shares insights from her book The Wellbeing Ultimatum, and talks about how wellbeing lacks a shared definition, why social support is essential for burnout recovery, and how identifying joy can be a powerful professional practice.

This episode also explores professional identity, creative autonomy, fairytale thinking, and why yoga professionals exist at the intersection of healing and artistry. It’s an invitation to rethink burnout not as personal failure, but as a systemic issue — and to imagine careers that are bespoke, sustainable, and rooted in real belonging.

Why Yoga Has No Career Ladder (and Why That’s Not Your Fault)

Yoga has no career ladder.

And for many mid-career yoga professionals, that realization arrives quietly—through burnout, confusion, or the feeling that the work should make more sense by now.

In this solo episode, Rebecca explores why yoga careers are structurally non-linear, how training and personal branding have been positioned as substitutes for real professional pathways, and why so many skilled teachers and therapists end up blaming themselves for systemic gaps.

This is not an episode about hustling harder, pivoting faster, or waiting for the industry to be rescued.

It’s a conversation about clarity:

Why yoga offers inspiration without infrastructure
How burnout is often grief, not failure
What happens when careers are built without shared support or advocacy
And how to redefine progress in care-based work without chasing legitimacy

This episode also introduces The Back Room, a private professional space for yoga workers who want reflection, strategy, and sustainability—without high-ticket coaching or industry drama.

A guided reflection sheet accompanies this episode inside The Back Room for listeners who want to sit with these questions more deeply.

Community, Standards, and the Future of Yoga with Rebel Tucker

In this episode of Working In Yoga, we take the conversation global with Rebel Tucker, Vice President of Yoga Australia. Rebel shares how Yoga Australia actively incorporates member feedback, supports both teachers and students, and maintains “common sense standards” that protect practitioners and the public alike.

We explore what it looks like when a professional organization truly represents its community, why connection among yoga professionals is essential, and what the U.S. yoga industry can learn from international models. We also dive into big-picture questions about yoga’s place in wellness vs. healthcare systems, training standards around the world, and whether the future of the industry lies in one major organization or many niche ones.

This episode is an invitation to think beyond borders — and imagine what’s possible when yoga professionals are heard, supported, and connected.

Let’s Get Weird: Neuroqueering Yoga, Teaching, and the Art of Doing Things Differently

In this final conversation with Becky Aten and Theo Wildcroft, we dive into the concept of neuroqueering—the practice of disrupting what’s considered “normal” in both neurotypical and heteronormative culture. Through laughter, curiosity, and deep reflection, we explore how yoga spaces can move away from rigid, productivity-driven ideals and instead celebrate unusual bodies, brains, and ways of being.

We talk about queerness as a refusal of capitalist productivity, the deep intersections between neurodiversity and trauma, and why morality has quietly shaped how yoga is supposed to look and feel. This episode invites yoga professionals to embrace experimentation, question the “why” behind their teaching choices, and allow a little more weirdness—because that’s often where freedom, healing, and creativity live.

Designing for Everyone: Neurodivergence, Experience, and How We Build Yoga Spaces (Part Two)

In this follow-up conversation, we go deeper into what inclusive design actually looks like in yoga spaces. From sound engineering and sensory considerations to universal design principles and the social model of disability, this episode explores how centering neurodivergent people from the beginning—not as an afterthought—can radically change how yoga is taught, experienced, and shared. We also reflect on how trauma-informed practices translate, why lived experience must guide decision-making, and how training future teachers needs to evolve.

Making Room for Everyone: Neurodivergence, Grace, and Inclusion in Yoga

What does it actually mean to create inclusive yoga spaces for neurodivergent people? In this episode, we explore the intersection of trauma-informed yoga and neurodivergent safety—while also modeling what it looks like to learn in real time. You’ll hear moments of curiosity, missteps, and grace as language evolves in the conversation, offering a powerful reminder that inclusion isn’t about perfection. It’s about willingness, reflection, and designing spaces that welcome everyone from the very beginning.

Some Conversations Don’t Belong in the Same Room.

What happens when an industry grows faster than its infrastructure? In this solo episode, Rebecca explores how yoga professionals ended up navigating public discourse, expensive coaching, and deeply personal career decisions all at once—and why we desperately need quieter, more intentional spaces to think, reflect, and build what comes next.

The Shape of Yoga Work Right Now

As 2025 comes to a close, this solo episode of Working In Yoga offers a pause rather than a prediction.

Instead of recapping highlights or forecasting the future, Rebecca reflects on what this year quietly revealed about working in yoga—shifts in stability, authority, sustainability, and how the work itself is changing shape.

Drawing from conversations across nearly 100 podcast episodes and countless off-mic discussions, this episode explores why so many yoga professionals feel unsettled right now—and why that feeling may be a rational response to changing structures, not a personal failure.

This episode is an invitation to orient, not to optimize. To notice what’s holding, what’s straining, and what’s emerging—without rushing to name or fix it.

Structure, Skill, and Soul: Rethinking Creativity in Yoga Teaching with Arundhati Baitmangalkar

What if creativity in yoga isn’t about novelty—but about depth, structure, and purpose? In this episode, we unpack the difference between engagement and entertainment, why foundations matter, and how knowing your “why” shapes sustainable, skillful teaching.

The Creative Work of Yoga Therapy: Skills, Boundaries & Burnout Care with Mandy Henderly

Yoga therapy is creative work. In this episode, we explore how yoga pros adapt tools to clients, transfer their skills into new industries, navigate evolving client relationships, and build burnout-proof self-care habits for 2026.

The Creative Metrics of a Yoga Pro: Planning, People & Paying Attention. A Chat with Carol Rossi

This episode explores practical and compassionate business strategy for yoga professionals. From setting bold 2026 goals to understanding systemic challenges, making meaningful connections, gathering simple data, identifying your ideal students, and trying new ideas without pressure—we break down what it really takes to grow your yoga business with intention and curiosity.

Yoga Marketing Tips: Ethical, Creative Strategies for Yoga Professionals with Kiki Burke

In this episode, we explore the creative side of yoga marketing—from ethical strategies to avoiding predatory coaching “containers,” to understanding why generalists thrive. You’ll learn how to build your business with intention, creativity, and clarity while putting in the reps that lead to confidence and long-term success.