Are you a yoga teacher interested in teaching meditation? Teaching meditation is not only a great way to expand your business, but it’s also a great way to expand your personal practice. If you are a yoga teacher and are looking to expand your practice, meditation may be an aligned segue for you.
In 2007, I started out teaching yoga for a number of years. Even though I deeply enjoyed it, I knew it wasn’t my true calling. It wasn’t going to be my life’s work, but it was very close to what I wanted to do, which was to create healing spaces for people to know themselves.
During the time I started teaching, I lived in Los Angeles. At first, it was fun to teach yoga, but after one year, I started to notice how depleted I felt, especially with a heavier teaching load. By the time I started teaching a class, including set up and commute, it would have taken me about 3 hours. Afterward, I didn’t have much energy left.
Yoga teaching became energetically taxing. Not only did I feel burned out from teaching too many classes in many different places, but I also wanted to take people deeper than the physical asana practice. Since there was little financial incentive for teaching yoga, I resorted to teaching a few classes a week for enjoyment.
It wasn’t until I started learning and deepening my own meditation practice, that I started to discover my next true steps. It wasn’t long after then, I was asked to teach meditation in a restorative yoga class. It was the perfect next step and felt like a much lighter and deeper offering. I also noticed that I felt rejuvenated afterward. With sharing meditation, I always felt more joyful, clear and energized.
Teaching meditation during a yoga class set a completely different tone to the class. People were much calmer, more grounded and relaxed. Myself included. It was vibrationally lighter. It also felt right. I wanted to share the true purpose of yoga, which was to teach people how to meditate.
With meditation teaching, I knew I had found my calling. Also, I discovered there are many ways to be creative with sharing meditation. Oftentimes, I integrate it with yoga, coaching, and energy healing. Today I still occasionally teach softer forms yoga, but for the purpose of helping people deepen their personal meditation practice.
If you are looking to expand your practice, you don’t have to give up teaching yoga, especially if it’s something you love to do. You can combine a meditation practice with your current yoga practice, and it’s easier than you might think.
When you practice every day, center yourself in your own energy, and connect to your higher self, you are learning how to be present and show up for yourself. All of that transmits into your yoga class and your students can feel the benefit of your personal practice.
How to Get Started
A great way to get started is to begin your yoga class with a few minutes of deep breathing or a few minutes of mindfulness. This helps to not only raise the energy in the room but also on an individual level.
There are, of course, many benefits to combining yoga with meditation.
Benefits of Combining Meditation and Yoga
- Helps raise the energy individually.
- Helps people calm down from the chaos of their day.
- Helps them connect with their energy and with their body.
- Puts everyone on the same energetic wavelength.
- Raises the vibration of the class.
- Teaches relaxation on a deeper level.
- Calms down anxiety and stress.
- Acts as a natural mood booster.
As you start to incorporate the practice of meditation into your classes, you will notice that there’s an easier flow and a more natural rhythm.
Many people don’t even know that the purpose of yoga is to prepare the body for meditation. As a yoga teacher, you can offer your students a comprehensive package, which will be invaluable to them. You are offering them a skill that they can use for the rest of their lives. That is really the true gift of combining meditation with a yoga practice.
As you incorporate the practice of meditation, your students will learn invaluable skills, like how to self-regulate their emotions. They will be able to relax more and calm their stress response as well.
Incorporating in the practice of meditation is also a wonderful way to expand your skill set as a yoga teacher. As you learn how to go deeper inside yourself, you offer the depth of your true path and that same practice to your students.
Having said all of that, it’s also a wonderful way to supplement your income.
Creative Ways to Share Meditation
There are many creative ways you can share meditation. A few of these are through:
- Courses
- Online classes
- Retreats
- Workshops
Did you know that 22% of organizations now offer some kind of mindfulness program? Insurance companies are also jumping on this trend by paying for meditation and mindfulness classes.
Corporation’s pay anywhere from $500 to $10,000 per meditation session, for trainings, so there are a lot of opportunities that can be gained by sharing your expertise.
Today we are essentially at the same place we were 20 to 30 years ago with yoga when it comes to meditation. It’s an emerging, expanding market that is growing 11% year after year.
While we know that no one really goes into meditation to make money, learning to teach meditation offers you a great opportunity to boost your income and expand your practice. There is nothing wrong with earning money because we all deserve abundance.
Adding meditation to your yoga practice also allows you to better sustain yourself, and your students, both energetically and financially.
3 Reasons Why You Should Offer Meditation in Your Yoga Classes
I love how healing meditation is, not only for myself but also for others. There is also much less heavy lifting. You can incorporate a simple meditation practice at the beginning of your yoga practice or at the end after savasana, or final resting pose.
1. Meditation helps one learn how to be present, how to breathe, and how to get in touch with themselves and their inner guidance. It also helps broaden your skills as a yoga teacher. Meditation can help your students get connected and comfortable in their own skin, which will benefit their yoga practice.
2. As a yoga teacher, the practice of meditation also helps you get centered and enter a deeper rhythm in the class flow.
3. Meditation helps people on both a spiritual level and in terms of personal liberation. If you’d like to learn how to teach meditation, I invite you to check out our LIBERATE meditation coach training, where you can become a certified meditation coach.
If you would like to start offering meditation in your yoga practice, we offer a six-month certification training and a 12-week intensive training where you learn energy healing, meditation, and leadership coaching.
Thanks so much for your interest and learning how to teach meditation. I think it’s one of the most fulfilling and rewarding experiences that you can have as a teacher, a healer, as a human being.
Until next time, I bid you peace.
Love, Sura
