How Yoga Helps Sustain Me as an Educator.
My brain never shuts off.
Life as a middle school special education teacher, mother of two, yoga teacher, and recovering people-pleaser means I typically have about 2,194 tabs open at any given time. Most of them are playing music, but I can't figure out which ones or how to shut them down.
For years, I thought this meant I was doing something wrong. After all, isn't yoga supposed to quiet the mind? Aren't yoga teachers supposed to be calm, centered people who glide through life with perfect posture and deep, measured breaths?
Recently after teaching a class, someone asked me the question I hear the most: "How do I quiet my mind during class?" After talking through the important of time, practice, and giving yourself lots of grace, I hearkened back to a passage from writer Natalie Goldberg's musings on the concept of the "monkey mind:"
I never gained control of my mind—how do you dominate an ocean?—but I began to form a real relationship with it. Through writing and meditation I identified monkey mind, that constant critic, commentator, editor, general slug and pain-in-the-ass, the voice that says, "I can't do this, I'm bored, I hate myself, I'm no good, I can't sit still, who do I think I am?" I saw that most of my life had been spent following that voice as though it were God, telling me the real meaning of life…when, in fact, it was a mechanical contraption that all human minds contain. — Natalie Goldberg, Thunder and Lightning: Cracking Open the Writer's Craft
I first encountered Goldberg's work at a professional development institute for writing teachers. Years later, I found myself returning to her words through a different lens. Reflecting on them at the intersection of education and yoga, I realized that the greatest gift yoga has given me isn't a silent mind; rather, it's a different relationship with the noise.
As a teacher, my mind is constantly scanning. I'm thinking about lesson plans, upcoming meetings, student needs, unfinished emails, field trip forms, and whether I remembered to call a parent back. At the same time, I'm carrying concerns about students whose lives don't neatly stay at school when the final bell rings.
I spend my days supporting students whose nervous systems are struggling, while managing my own chronic pain, PTSD, and overstimulated nervous system. Teaching asks us to hold a lot.
I think sometimes there is a perception that practicing things like non-attachment means caring less. However, yoga hasn't taught me how to stop caring. If anything, it has helped me care more sustainably: to remain deeply invested in my students while loosening my grip on the belief that I can—or should—solve every problem they face. It hasn't eliminated stress or reduced the number of tabs open in my brain. What it has done is help me notice when I'm getting swept away by all of it.
Through practices like yin yoga, meditation, and breathwork, I've become better at recognizing the stories my mind tells me. I notice when I'm catastrophizing, replaying a difficult conversation, or taking responsibility for outcomes that aren't entirely within my control. I notice when my shoulders have crept up toward my ears, when my jaw is clenched, or when I've been holding my breath without realizing it.
Just as importantly, yoga gives me space to notice without immediately judging. In yoga philosophy, this practice is tied to ahimsa (non-harming), which includes how we treat ourselves in thought. In a profession where expectations, initiatives, and evaluation systems are constantly shifting, it can be easy to fall into self-criticism as a default setting.
Yoga reminds me that awareness and judgment are not the same thing. I can notice my racing mind, a lesson that didn't land, or a day that feels like too much, without turning those observations into evidence that I'm failing. Over time, meeting myself with curiosity instead of criticism has become an incredibly valuable lesson I carry from the mat into the classroom (and one I have to practice every day).
Perhaps most importantly, yoga has helped me recognize that I have a nervous system, too. As educators, we spend much of our day helping others regulate. We support students through anxiety, frustration, disappointment, conflict, and uncertainty. We create calm when things feel chaotic. We offer reassurance when someone is overwhelmed. We help young people navigate their inner worlds. Yoga reminds me that I have an inner world, too.
Learning to live with that awareness has meant developing a quieter, more honest kind of attention. The practices that support me most aren't necessarily the ones that make me feel peaceful. Sometimes they are simply the ones that help me notice what is true in the moment. In yoga philosophy, this is svadhyaya (self-study), the practice of turning inward with enough steadiness to witness what is happening without immediately trying to fix or judge it. From this place of awareness, I can recognize when I need rest, when I need movement, when I need to take a breath before responding, or when I need to extend myself the same compassion I would readily offer a student.
So if you find yourself wondering the same thing—how to get your mind to turn off, whether you are on or off your mat—take a moment to pause.
Because I'm not sure that's the question anymore. I think the real question might be how we learn to stay in a relationship with a mind that is constantly working, especially in a profession that asks so much of it.
Maybe, for all of us moving through classrooms, caregiving, and constant decision-making, the real practice isn't learning how to get quiet, but rather learning how to stay with what is already happening inside us long enough to understand it.
For teachers, that shift matters. It's what makes it possible to keep showing up without constantly abandoning ourselves in the process.