Yoga Teachers: Why Don't You Have a Mentor Yet?
By Pamela Stokes Eggleston
"Mentorship and leadership can coalesce. If we want to see our yoga and wellness businesses thrive, we must nurture relationships and reach out to those who have been where we want to go."
-Pamela Stokes Eggleston
You may be thinking: I don’t need a mentor! I am the master of my own success and I do not have the time for a mentorship.
Is THIS why you don’t have a mentor?
Or, you may be thinking: I don’t know what I would ask someone or how I would start a mentor relationship.
Is THIS why you don’t have a mentor?
Whatever the reason, we all have experienced times where we need to lean on someone, ask someone for advice, or be assisted with a decision. This guidance may have come from a coach, a professor, a family member or friend. They helped to shift your current situation as it related to your future endeavors. Guess what? That person was a mentor - an important part of your personal and professional life.
Simply put, a mentor is someone who has competency, expertise, and experience in a desired field. Specifically in the spaces of yoga and wellness, a mentorship can help grow and expand your current yoga services and offerings, through self-discovery and focus on your desired niche and community.
In addition and of equal importance – mentorship is good for leadership. As we rise out of the COVID ashes toward new ways of doing business, I’ve leaned into the ideal of compassionate leadership, a style of leading that can encompass the tenets of yoga, mindfulness, and presence. The term compassion is often used in yoga and wellness spaces, often being attached to non-judgment through love in action. What compassionate leadership strives for is “the ability to take yourself, individuals, teams and organizations. to a higher level of performance and well-being. in a safe and stimulating way. when tensions occur.”
Conversely, indigenous leadership strives to amplify the voices of the people in the community by being a key component of the community and by ensuring that community members are involved in upliftment. What this means is that this new paradigm of leadership is a bottom up approach, not top down. In fact, it breaks the barrier of hierarchy and asks more of the people being led.
Mentorship and leadership can coalesce. If we want to see our yoga and wellness businesses thrive, we must nurture relationships and reach out to those who have been where we want to go. To be sure, we know that no one person holds all the cards to our success. What a mentorship program can offer is the creation of a space of empowerment, while providing tangible tools and education to prosper and flourish in our business and personal lives. Mentors provide the illumination for examining our challenges and opportunities from the inside out.
Amina Naru and Pamela Stokes Eggleston are the co-founders of Retreat to Spirit, and deeply passionate about their work in assisting the paradigm shift that is taking place on our beloved mother earth. As internationally recognized leaders in the field of service and yoga with over 30 years of combined experience, their unique leadership style provides people who are seeking more joy, peace, and happiness with tools, mentorship, education and compassionate spaces for growth. Their collaborative work with Retreat to Spirit is based in yoga teachings, social justice and helping others find the right balance of self-care, business strategy, and service in these spaces.
Interested in mentorship? Our first Retreat to Spirit Mentorship cohort is forming now. Join our interest list to be the first to know when enrollment opens on March 23, 2021!
Program runs from April 1 - June 22, 2021.
Tiered pricing, payment plans, and partial scholarships are available.
