Everything went black…

 

As the room began to swallow me whole.

 

My heart was pounding like a drum.

 

My body stiffened like I had Riga Mortis while my consciousness swirled around in my head like a kaleidoscope on steroids.

 

The constant chatter of negativity raced through my mind like meditation gone seriously wrong.

 

I felt like a volcano desperate to erupt.

 

Then NOTHING!

 

Nothing but the eerie silence of dizziness…

 

The smoke before the explosion.

 

Then BOOM.

 

Like a phoenix from the flames emerged a cry for help from deep inside me…

 

As floods of tears deluged down my face like a river of lava, stinging my eyes as I rubbed my face in despair.

 

The panic attack lasted several minutes before my soul finally CRASHED back down to earth…

 

Leaving me drunk with anxiety and depression, feeling like I’d flirted with death.

 

At the age of 43, after a big break-up with my ex, my entire life crumbled around me.

 

I was in my darkest place.

 

I couldn’t sleep.

 

My mind was completely fogged over.

 

I was depressed and on the verge of a breakdown from the extreme stress of running my dance company.

 

The pressure was something else!

 

It was like listening to a pneumatic drill through headphones all day long…

 

It was UNBEARABLE.

 

It had taken over my life, pushed me away from dance and left me feeling empty.

 

I couldn’t take it any longer……….

 

It gave me no choice but to run like cheap mascara.

 

I did the whole Julia Roberts thing in EAT PRAY LOVE.

 

I followed my intuition, saved as much money as I could and booked a flight to India.

 

I fled to find myself.

 

Yet I ended up finding my dharma.

 

It was in India where I trained to be a yoga teacher.

 

Instantly, I felt so aligned and free in this new world of spirituality and yoga – it was almost as if the air was breathing me.

 

Finally, I felt nourished again after all the stress I was facing back home.

 

And so, when I returned to the UK…

 

My passion for dance had all but drifted away as a new passion ushered in…

 

I had been given a new purpose in life teaching yoga.

 

I had a new identity.

 

Yet, I was back to square one in establishing myself and building my new yoga business from scratch.

 

I began teaching with the odd class here and there in a small dusty church hall and a gloomy old empty office space above a chiropodist.

 

However.

 

I’m not going to lie…

 

It was so hard at first!

 

I struggled after struggle after struggle.

 

And soon discovered that my yoga classes were not for everyone.

 

Ashtanga wasn’t everyone’s cup of Chai.

 

Making anything like the money I had made before with my dance school was virtually impossible.

 

Torn between sharing what I love and struggling financially.

 

My limiting self-beliefs hit me like a freight train!

 

‘Have I made the right decision leaving my old job?’

 

‘Am I really a yoga teacher?’

 

‘Is it my teaching abilities?’

 

‘Will I be able to sustain my newfound passion for yoga as a career?’

 

‘Will I have to get a quote, ‘real job’ as my mum used to say?’

 

‘Or will I have to go back to my old ways?

 

Which left me feeling deeply unhappy…’

 

Nevertheless.

 

I stepped into my power, tried my best to stay positive and went with the flow.

 

I made a few changes to my classes and started to understand what my students wanted.

 

And slowly but surely…

 

My classes got a bit busier, but even still, the income wasn’t great.

 

Barely enough to sustain my life, let alone make my dreams come true.

 

Teaching all the time travelling around from class to class from dawn till dusk with mats, bolsters and blocks only left me feeling exhausted like a sloth on valium…

 

And didn’t give me the financial freedom I so desired.

 

This was when a new chapter opened up in my life!

 

In 2017 whilst volunteering at Spirit Festival in Bali, I met my soul mate on TINDER of all places. Lol.

 

After scouring the earth for him, dating frog after frog, frustrated and nearly giving up on love altogether…

 

Little did I know my prince WASN’T in Bali!

 

He was just around the corner from my home town in Blackpool, England.

 

Some of the best things in life are right there before our eyes, but we are so busy searching – WE MISS THEM.

 

Rico had been doing some soul searching himself.

 

Going down his own yoga and spiritual path (he’s a philosopher of sorts).

 

Whilst being in and out of dead-end marketing and sales jobs that he hated and felt trapped in…

 

Selling all sorts of different products (physical and digital), none of which he believed in, just trying to make ends meet.

 

Ironically (or not), Rico also suffered from anxiety…

 

Like for like, vibrations attract, eh?

 

It was an instant energetic connection with Rico, one I had never felt before.

 

The more time we spent with each other, the more we realised how similar we were…

 

And it wasn’t just anxiety that matched us.

 

We were both driven to live abroad and to do so, we needed a plan to work online somehow.

 

So we decided to join forces, combine our skills and see what we could come up with.

 

My skills in teaching yoga and Rico’s skills in marketing and sales…

 

And so we decided to start a joint YOGA BUSINESS together.

 

Our minds ran wild with ideas for our new yoga business…

 

Until we finally came up with the idea to set up a yoga website that housed the whole shebang:

 

A yoga shop.

 

A yoga magazine.

 

And a members zone for yoga tutorials.

 

*Admittedly, we went wild… Lol.

 

What on earth were we thinking?!

 

It was sooo much work!

 

We overwhelmed ourselves…

 

Honestly.

 

We didn’t know what we were doing.

 

But it didn’t matter to us at the time – we were chasing the dream.

 

However, sillily we had no business plan, structure or strategy…

 

And spent all our savings and all of our time building our yoga website, hoping that it would be the best thing since sliced bread.

 

Convinced it was going to make us our million$.

 

Nevertheless.

 

When it came to the launch day, we were mortified…

 

Shocked and horrified to the depths of our eternal being!

 

Nothing.

 

Nada.

 

NOT A SOY SAUSAGE?!

 

All we could hear were crickets as the tumbleweed rolled on by…

 

It was soul-destroying on a cellular level.

 

It broke us.

 

And nearly broke us apart…

 

We felt like complete failures!

 

Lost.

 

Not knowing what to do next after spending all our savings with no return.

 

We didn’t understand at the time that a website isn’t the path to riches.

 

Nevertheless, little did we know that something EXCITING was yet to come…

 

P.S. Keep your eye peeled for Part #2 coming soon! 😉