What We Lost When We Stopped Breathing

There’s a quiet grief I carry.

Not loud. Not bitter. Just… present.

A grief that rises in my chest every time I walk into a studio and hear the music louder than the breath.

We’ve learned that saying the truth out loud, especially in a curated spiritual world, can make you feel like the heretic in the temple.

So what I’m about to share comes from a powerful place of truth and courage, and an unwillingness to be silent. 

We are losing something sacred.

The Yoga Room Isn’t What It Used to Be

I’ve been teaching for over 15 years. I’ve owned a studio. Lead trainings. Certify teachers. 

If you too have watched the evolution of yoga in the West move from reverence to relevance to… revenue then perhaps you might be softly nodding and humming in agreement. 

And somewhere along the way, we stopped breathing.

We started cueing the pose instead of the presence. We swapped lineage for playlists. We chased sensation instead of integration. We taught people how to perform, but not how to feel.

Studios became brands. Teachers became influencers. And the practice, the one meant to bring us into deep intimacy with breath, self and spirit, became a workout.

This Isn’t About the Music

I love music. I love movement. I love the sweat and the sway and the ways the body can speak.

This isn’t about being traditional or rigid. This is about remembering why these practices exist.

Yoga was never meant to be escapism.

It was never meant to be used as a dopamine hit or a means of avoidance. 

My understanding of yoga is that it was meant and intended to return us to the divine truth that lives inside of us – to yoke, to bring together, back home to our center, our breath, our sacred aliveness.

But now, I watch and witness students take consecutive classes, pushing past the edges of their body, skipping savasana, posting about the burn and I wonder…

Why isn’t one practice enough?

Why isn’t one deep breath, one embodied experience, one intentional session enough to shift something?

Because it’s not about depth anymore.

It’s about chasing a feeling. Or avoiding the obvious (life and all it’s challenges).

It’s about doing more, not being more.

Yoga is not meant to be an obsessive, overused product of performance and postures. It was never intended to be that. 

It leads me to ask… What have we actually created here?

When Spirituality Becomes a Product

I sold my studio years ago.

Because I couldn’t stomach the compromise anymore.

When capitalism meets spirituality, someone always pays the price.

And it’s usually the sacred.

The silence. The slowness. The breath.

We’re told to make it more marketable. More accessible. More fun. Less weird. More mainstream - “accessible” is a term used to mask the covering of ancient spiritual teachings. 

Less confronting. Less deep.

…But depth is the point.

Integration is the goal.

If all we’re offering is enough relief to keep people addicted to the container, but not enough transformation to free them… are we really teaching yoga?

A Culture of Shiny Imposters

It’s everywhere now.

20 something “mentors” who’ve barely met themselves. 

Trauma-informed teachers with no trauma training. 

Spiritual coaches repeating scripts they’ve memorized, not truths they’ve lived. 

Certifications sold as identity. 

Poses sold as power. 

Healing sold as a quick fix.

And I don’t say this from judgment. I say this from personal responsibility. 

Because when you hold space for someone’s breath, their trauma, their body, their unraveling… You are touching the holy.

You are a steward, not a brand.

And this work is not to be taken lightly.

We Can Do Better… But First, We Must Tell the Truth

I’m not here to tear anything down. I’m here to remember what it was built for.

To name what’s been lost. To feel the grief. To honor the teachers who kept the fire alive. To say the uncomfortable thing so that something true can rise in its place.

I believe we can have beautiful spaces and deep spaces. I believe we can have success and sacredness. But not if we keep selling out what was meant to be soul.

I believe if we are truly stewards of this practice, we must be willing to breathe the truth out loud.

We must be willing to sit in the very uncomfortable seat (hello, asana) to reflect on spiritual integrity, lineage and the responsibility we hold as teachers.

If this stirred something in you… stay close. The Cost of Selling the Sacred is far too great to ignore.

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Let’s remember together.

In devotion,
Emily