Other Yoga Teachers Made Fun of Me Ep 130

Hello everybody, welcome to this like short little— I don't know how short it's gonna be, whatever— version of the Yoga Liberty podcast. I'm not even using my microphone. I'm like, I'm so right now, I'm so about like just— I had this comment this morning and it really sent me to the next level. Like, I haven't even dried my hair. Like, it's just— this is— you're getting the full unfiltered Angelica this morning. Listen, if you have ever struggled with people making fun of you, or you have ever felt like you didn't fit into the yoga community, or you felt like there were people who were mean to you, this episode is for you. I dedicate this to you and to all of us that have had to rise above the skinny bitches. Some of the skinny people are nice, I'm not saying that, but there are a lot of bitchy ones, and the people who are just like rude and judgy. And I think there's just like this whole group in the yoga community, and I don't know if you feel this or like drop in the comments if you've ever felt this before so that I don't— so that I know I'm not alone. I don't think I am, but I don't mean to offend anybody. I love everybody. I really do. But sometimes people are just mean, like they're literally just cruel. I remember when I— and it doesn't matter if you're in the yoga community or not, right? You know what I'm saying? I remember when I joined teacher training and it took a lot for me to get into teacher training back in 2005 when I first became a yoga teacher. I had to overcome a lot of personal fears. I was really afraid that I wasn't, um, good enough at yoga, even though I'd been practicing since I was 11 years old. Um, I felt like I wasn't— I didn't have the body type to be a yoga teacher, that it was all about fitness. Little did I know it's actually much more about spirituality, and you're better off having a yoga heart than a yoga body, and that the yoga body doesn't even matter. I didn't even know at the time about Niels Buch and the whole, like, primary gymnastics and how the poses that we do are really only, like, about 120 years old because they really come from this guy Niels Buch, um, who was born, like, at the turn of the century, and he started teaching yoga at the YMCA. And I have a whole other episode on that, but you can also Google it. Um, there's a great book by Mark Singleton called The Origin of Yoga Poses or something like that. And, uh, if I remember, I'll put the links to all that in the chat or in the description below. But anyhow, that's a whole nother topic that I'm not going to get on today. But basically, a yoga heart is more important than a yoga body because yoga body actually isn't even really yoga. It's just modern yoga, which is a whole— I'm going to talk about that all day, but I'm not going to. I'm going to talk about today about how people are cruel, they're mean, they're unkind, and in the yoga community you're expecting them to be kind, and how I deal with that. Because I think that what I have overcome that. I mean, I don't know that I've overcome it emotionally. Like, honestly, like, I wouldn't be making this podcast right now if I had. But I have overcome it in terms of my success. Like, I'm wildly successful as a yoga teacher. And I, you know, like, the thing that's kind of crazy is that I've been much more successful as a yoga teacher than these people that have made fun of me and been cruel to me my whole life. And, you know, it is what it is. Anyhow, what tipped me off this morning is that I had an ad— it was first an Instagram Reel, and then I made it into an ad— and it was about teaching yoga online. That's what it was about. And I used what's called like a B-roll with text on screen. So A-roll is when you're talking to the screen, like this right now is A-roll, right? When you're like actively a part of the video and you're communicating with the viewers, that's an A-roll. B-roll is when it's like something that you're— it's in the background of what the main intention of the video is. So it was a 6-second video. It was a 6-second video. And in that video, I was touching one of my students that I know really well. I really love her and I are very close. Um, I have a pretty tight-knit community of people and I'm pretty much like, I don't teach public classes anymore. Um, I just teach at workshops and events and at my private retreats and things like that. It's just, we live in a small town, so, and I'm, I'm really wildly busy helping all of you build your online yoga businesses in addition to my own business. So I have no time to drive somewhere and teach. It's like, if that's like a 3.5-hour round trip, like I don't have time for that. So Anyway, um, so someone commented on there. It's a 6-second B-roll video that's grainy. It's like black and white. You can barely see what's happening on there, and it's literally 6 seconds. And someone commented on there about how terrible my adjustment was. And the thing is, is that that really hurt my feelings, was that it was obvious that she didn't remember who I was. And this is a person that I knew from South Florida. She was trained by the same teachers as me. I'm pretty sure she took the same teacher training that I did from the same teacher that I got my teacher training from, my 200-hour. And we have a lot of the same friends, and I went to classes with her, and we studied with all the same people. And she wanted to comment on my post about how bad my assist was and how I didn't know what I was doing. And first of all, like, whether that's true or not actually doesn't matter. It's a 6-second video. It's a 6-second video that wasn't about assisting, and there's no context to it. You have no idea what happened before that. You don't even know if I was like showing what was incorrect. You don't know anything about what was happening in that video. You don't know how long I had been working with that person. You don't know what the conversation was before. You don't know anything about how much I know them. You don't, you don't know what she, that person had asked for. You don't know the context of that video. Why? Because it was a 6 second video that was meant as B-roll. But the thing that really got me was that she didn't remember me. So when I walked into teacher training the first day, people— I feel like crying right now, like I'm feeling very emotional. It really hurt my feelings that she did this. But, um, I just— I'm just being really honest with you because people don't share the things on the internet that bother them. People share their wins on the internet. And so I want to share with you what had happened to me when I signed up for teacher training and why this comment of this person bothered me so much so that you know you're not alone. Okay? So if you're feeling that and if you've ever felt that before, please do comment below so that I know I'm not alone. But I walked into teacher training and, um, I was excited. I was happy. I was joyous. Like I was so filled with joy about becoming a yoga teacher. I was so excited about it. And I had gone through like so many demons and I had like walked through so much fear to step into that room to become a yoga teacher. And I remember my teacher asked me, she asked everybody, why do you want to become a yoga teacher? And I was like, I want to, I want to open a yoga studio in Las Vegas, Nevada, and I'm going to call it Sin City Yoga. And I was so excited, and I was like naive and pure and happy, and my soul was so filled with joy, and I really didn't know what was ahead of me. I just thought that the yoga community was going to be really nice. I thought that the people were going to be really accepting. Like, that was my idea of what yoga was about. And little did I know, like, it wasn't going to be like that at all. My teacher training, there were good points and there were bad points. There were things that I still remember to this day that hurt my feelings and made me feel inadequate. Owning the studio, there were definitely good times, but I would say overall it was not the best experience. I'm glad that I did it. It made me really good at what I do today. It gave me a lot of confidence. But what I mostly learned from owning the studio was that you're alone. You're alone. You have to build up yourself. You have to have yourself. You have to have your back, which is why I've created this online community for the Empowered Yoga Teachers course where other yoga teachers can come and be around people who are like them, who want to build something. Because you know what? It's scary. It's fucking scary to do this. It's frightening to put yourself out in front of people and know that they're going to come at you. Even at this level, even where I have all these followers, I've been doing this for years. I've been like in the online space for a long time. It still bothers me. So I'm in this teacher training and it's in Miami and it's hot and it's sweaty. Like, as we're going through this 10 weeks and I'm like opening up and, and incredible things are happening inside of me and I'm having this like transformative experience, you know, and I'm working in corporate at the time, which wasn't very like transformative or fun, but it served its purpose in my life. Anyhow, it's hot in Miami and all the other girls in my teacher training had just their bra tops on and they were exercising and doing the yoga asana and we're all just sweating. And I just decided, you know what, I'm just gonna be like everybody else. I'm gonna take my shirt off. This is so traumatic to me to this day. Like, I still cry when I think about it. And I was like, I'm gonna take my shirt off. I'm just gonna wear my bra top. You know, have you ever wanted to be like one of those girls that just like was able to wear your bra top and look cute? You know, like we spend all this money on these cute little yoga outfits, but we don't feel good enough to wear them, right? And so I put on this yoga outfit and I take off my top to just be like everybody else, whatever. And do you know what those girls said to me? They said, 'Wow, if I looked like you, I don't think I could take my top off like that. I'm so like, that's so amazing. Like, it takes so much guts to just bare yourself like that and just wear your top and wear your sports bra top and not have a shirt on when all of them were doing it. It's just that they were really thin and I wasn't.' That's like a core memory for me from the yoga community. So when this woman who owns a yoga studio, I'm pretty sure it's in Boca Raton, who grew up in the yoga world with me, when she commented on my 6-second B-roll that she has no idea, no idea what was going on in that, that class, no idea what happened before, no idea what happened after, no idea who I was working with, just— she thinks that she doesn't even know me, but she does know me. She just didn't remember me because I'm not important in the yoga community because I'm not thin and beautiful like all of them. I mean, I am beautiful, but I don't fit their mold of what they think a yoga teacher should be, or even a yoga practitioner. South Florida is brutal, but so is Las Vegas. Um, and it's just in Las Vegas I was like queen of the community, so I didn't really care. Although now I've been out of it so long, which is great, honestly. I'm happy to be in my online community where I found like the tribe of women who really fit with me. So anyhow, when she made this comment about how I had done this assist wrong, and she was happy to talk to me offline and have a conversation because it's really about the student. And I had replied to her, and I was like really kind at first. I was like, listen, everybody comes from a different place, you know, everybody learns from different teachers, everybody has different things going on. This video is not about assisting, it's about something entirely different. It was 6 seconds, you can't possibly know what's going on, but thank you for sharing your opinion. At the end of the day, that's what it was, an opinion. Because everything in yoga is an opinion. No one is right about anything. No one has the truth about anything. Like, that's just the reality. If you think you have the truth cornered on yoga, you are doing it wrong, you know? Like, it even says that in the Yoga Sutras, that anyone who says they're the guru is not the guru, right? So I'm always sus of everybody. Anyhow, she comments back about how no, she's right, and I'm wrong. And I was just like, I wrote this back, this long thing about like, how rude of you to assume. How rude of you to assume. But you know, the other thing is, I went back, I went to her page and was like, she doesn't even post. She doesn't know what it's like. A creator of, of my caliber online, or someone who wants to be of my caliber online as a creator, would never make comments like that. You know why? Because we know how hard it is to put yourself out there in front of people. We know how much work you have to do to be an online content creator, especially in the yoga space, especially, especially if you do not look like the stereotypical yogi. We know how hard that is, so we're never going to make a mean comment on someone's page. So I go to her page, and of course she doesn't have very many followers and she doesn't post very often, and when she does post, it's just promotion for her business, nothing that's of value to other people, nothing to help other people. Right? So I thought it through and I just decided, you know, it's not worth it. I'm just going to block her. Um, and then it kept bothering me while I was in the shower this morning and I just decided, you know what, I'm going to make this podcast episode. I have a lot to do this week. I have an incredible event happening this week called the Yoga Teachers Go Online event. I'm going to give you massive value over 2 days. I have 6 guest speakers coming on. It's 2 full days. I've never done anything like this before. It's actually incredible. No matter what happens, it's incredible. Incredible for me as a, as an online teacher to do this, but it's incredible for you because I am going to give you so much value to help you learn what you need to go online and boost your confidence. And that's what I should be spending my time on, but instead I'm here venting to you on the podcast. So thank you for listening. I wanted you to know that if you feel like you are not represented in the yoga community, you are not. And it's okay if you feel like the voice of people who are angry and mean is louder than your voice. It is, it is. They're loud. But if you feel like there's no space for you to be successful online, that's not true. There is space for you to be successful online. There are people who want to work with you because there are people who look at you and they are going through the same things that we're going through. They are having these same experiences. And no good was ever made. No greatness was ever had from shrinking. So do not shrink. Do not shrink. Go loud, go proud, be out there, be next level. Share with the world. Share with the world your gifts. And if you want to go online, you can work with me and my team one-on-one. Tiffany and Francesca and I, we work with people one-on-one to help them build their online yoga business. The link for that is below. It's called the Empowered Yoga Teachers Program. If you would like to come this week and learn how to go online, I'm going to deliver to all of us, the people just like you and I who haven't fit into the conventional yoga community and know we have a higher purpose to serve. Come to the Go Online event. Come to the Go Online event. It is very budget-friendly. The link will be below. It's angelicagilbert.com/online. You can also get the link in my profile and in the description. Okay, but this is Thursday and Friday this week, so if you're listening to this, that's October 2nd and 3rd, 2025. Okay, so I don't know what's going to happen after that, but I know that this is a one-time event, so please do enroll in that and come and be— come, come be a misfit with me. Like, come, come and share your love of yoga with the world, because the world deserves to hear what you have to say. And I'm going to tell you right now, all of those cunty bitches that were super mean to me they're not half as successful as I am. Why? Why? Because when you are serving the people who you are destined to serve, your dharma, when you use what's inside of you and you break through all of your fears and you go to the next level, you are way more successful than those who shrink. And do you know that being mean to people is a form of shrinking? That's just a form of insecurity, thinking that you're better and more right than others. Just means that you're not. You know what I'm saying? So when they do that to us, when they tell us that we're small, when they tell us that we're, we're not, we don't fit the mold, we're not right, what we're doing is wrong, that's our cue to act and elevate. All right, so elevate. Join the Yoga Teacher School online event this week if you can. Join my Facebook group. If you can work with us one-on-one, please do. We would love to help you. We would love to help you go to the next level. There's so many resources in my whole sphere of online influence influence from people. If you don't have any budget to get started, do you want to work with me one-on-one for $30,000? If you want to work with my team, it's less than that, considerably. If you want to just work with me, it's expensive because my time is valuable. But if you want to work with me and my team, it's actually pretty affordable. It's much more affordable than working with, um, any of the other online bro marketers. And, um, honestly, I'm going to always be honest with you because honesty is the way to happiness. Um, and I want you to succeed. I want you to be super successful, and whatever I can do to help you get there, I will do. So hit the subscribe button, give me 5 stars, come to the online event, and, um, if you can, book a time to meet with us to talk about joining the Empowered Yoga Teacher and I'll see you. I gotta go. I gotta do— I gotta get ready for you this week. I love you. Thank you so much for listening, and I hope that— hope that sharing my raw experience helps you to be able to share online. Okay, see you later.