I quit yoga because I was the colonizer in the room—and I knew it.
It didn’t matter how many Sanskrit terms I could pronounce or how often I said I "respected the roots." I was still a white woman making money off something we stripped, watered down, and repackaged for other white women at $22 a class. That’s the story. Period.
I hated us.
White women in yoga. The whole fucking bullshit performance.
I hated the pastel matching sets. I hated that they would say shit like “yoga can save you,” when I knew full well they didn’t even know what that meant. Like actually for real for real had zero fucking clue what yoga “was” in any kind of factual historical context.
I hated watching someone hang a Ganesh tapestry they bought off Amazon and call it spirituality when they sat near it for 7 minutes and then posted themselves meditating. I hated the random-ass Buddha statue shoved into the corner of a studio that had nothing to do with yoga, India, or Buddhism, but looked “zen” or some shit, Cool decor. Zero contextual understanding.
One time I watched a straight up yoga celebrity have a literal temper tantrum because an Indian woman called her out for some blatant appropriation, and instead of taking any kind of adult-like accountability, she white girl cried her way out of the situation and got the commenter’s account banned. Like a fucking bratty baby.
(She blocked me after I talked shit about that.)
I hated that the more “advanced” someone looked online, the more fucking horrific they were in real life. Some of the most globally known yoga people I met? Absolutely the most garbage humans I’ve ever encountered. Narcissists with crystals and press-ups. But hey, great engagement.
I thought yoga made people good.
I really did.
I thought this would be my version of religion. A place where people were working on themselves and giving a shit about others.
Then I met every one of my yoga icons and watched their personality and ethics go up in flames from a fucking dumpster fire. Most of them weren’t even good teachers. Some of them were straight-up bad teachers but were hot, so like—whatever. They were just good at branding and being fucking annoying.
Meanwhile? My mom taught me more real-life morals than this entire industry combined. And this shit wasn’t it. Like, I will not drink this Kool-Aid because y’all don’t even look healed. It’s actually giving self-absorbed & “unhinged from reality.”
I came to yoga, looking for something that might save me.
Because my soul was starving.
What I found? White women making mood boards out of someone else’s culture while wearing some kind of turban and chanting shit they clearly did not understand.
We turned a rich, ancient spiritual practice into a backdrop for reverse warrior and turmeric lattes.
We didn’t want to understand it. We wanted to wear it. So maybe we would be a little less fucking boring.
Yes, I look like them.
I benefit from the same systems. I know that.
But I’ve also lived through shit that would break some of these bitches in five seconds. I couldn’t relate to a lot of their entitlement. I couldn’t sit peacefully in a space built to make them feel safe while everything else rotted underneath.
So I left. I burned down the business I built because I wasn’t going to keep pretending.
Not because yoga isn’t real. But because what we did to it is.
Mysore was Crazy
I traveled with annoying girls who acted like they were on some wack-ass superior “spiritual journey” but were just collecting content and some weird exotic clout. Again, clearly, we are too fucking boring to have a whole-ass personality without making it entirely about this culture we overtly misunderstand.
These bitches were, in all reality, starting shit with tuk-tuk drivers over 53 cents while wearing yoga leggings that cost half a year’s salary in the country they were “retreating” to. Let’s never stop to take a second to ask ourselves why so many fucking people here live in poverty while we bounce around the country like we’re on the white girl spiritual awakening tour. Like, are we seriously this removed from reality and self-awareness? Apparently. The yoga is clearly working for you.
It’s almost impressive—how out of touch you have to be to feel spiritually superior while actively being the problem.
And honestly, I was the problem.
Yoga didn’t fail me. White women did. And I didn’t want to be one of them anymore.