This past week I took down the last of the decor from my yoga teacher pity party.

I spent my summer feeling anxious, angry, and negative and quite frankly it was exhausting. However, for whatever reason, changing always seems so much more daunting.

This spring before I moved to Boulder to continue my teacher training, I planted a seed. Not a seed of intention and hope, but of inadequacy.

I believed that I didn’t deserve to teach yoga in this city. Who am I to just come in and put myself out there in an already saturated market?

I felt like I lacked the knowledge, experience, and worth to be able to stand out. I’m a student first and foremost, so why am I so afraid of admitting that and honoring the fact that there is always more to learn?

Yoga Teacher Fear

To tell you the truth, I’m afraid of a lot of things. I’m afraid I’m too young for people to take me seriously as a yoga teacher and too old to be chasing my dreams.

I’m afraid of not knowing enough. I’m afraid I’ve gone so long not expressing my creativity that I’ve lost it. I’m afraid that what I have to say isn’t significant or inspiring and I won’t have an impact. These are fears I’ve found that a lot of people share.

Despite these fears, I attended two yoga teacher training’s with Amy Ippoliti at 90 Monkeys this past summer. After the long weekend I had so much information to process and was eager to put what I’d learned to practice, despite the fact that I did not have a teaching job.

My second yoga teacher training at 90 Monkeys was a completely different experience. I was excited to be in that space again, to learn more, but almost immediately I felt like I didn’t belong in the same room as these brilliant teachers.

Perspective Shift

They say the Law of Attraction is the belief that focusing on positive or negative thoughts a person brings positive or negative experiences into their life. What changed in the span of only a month from that first training to the second? Well, I can tell you from experience, you really do attract what you put out into the Universe.

In my case, I was focused so fiercely on lack and negativity about my practice, my ability to teach, my personal life, this city, and it’s community that I wasn’t actively a part of, that I was never going to attract anything but lack.

I came face to face with the root cause of these problems after this last training. For the first time in months I acknowledged that the problem wasn’t with the world around me, it was with my perception and consequent reaction to it. It was all in my head and that was not a pleasant place to be.

In that moment, I realized power, happiness, and freedom comes from altering our outlook and it’s something we must actively pursue each and every moment. We can choose to see the worst or best in people, to love ourselves, or drown in insecurity.

Every day since then I’ve chosen to see the world a little differently. I’ve focused on and invited abundance in the areas I felt lack, and abundance has arrived. Am I positive every second of every day? Definitely not –  I’m only human after-all. I still acknowledge my darkness, however, I no longer let it consume and control me. This is the power of perspective.

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Rebekah Boatrite is a yoga teacher, plant based foodie, and amateur writer based in Boulder, CO. She completed her 200-Hour YTT in 2016 and is working towards her 500 Hour Certificate with 90 Monkeys. Known for her authentic & insightful themes, compassion-centered philosophy, and intelligent alignment cues, she is passionate about giving her students a space to feel supported, inspired, and empowered in their practice and lives. Her intention through teaching is to cultivate a more conscious, positive, and sustainable community by bringing the yoga lifestyle off the mat.