Over time, I needed that positive affirmation more and more. I needed a teacher, a spiritual guide, someone to tell me that I was worth loving, that my body was fine just the way it was, and that, somehow, the universe knew what it was doing. I decided that the most efficient way to do this was to become a yoga teacher myself.

Yoga teacher training isn’t cheap. A class consisting of six months of weekend-long training classes cost nearly $3,000 over five years ago; now it’s more. My first yoga teacher training class had about 20 people in it: several actors and dancers, a special-education teacher, a nutritionist, and a woman whose husband had celiac disease. We met all day Saturday and Sunday, as well as Wednesday nights. My tuition allowed me to go to unlimited yoga classes and to learn the difference between internal and external rotation. I learned how to avoid rotator cuff injuries and finally achieved a handstand. I hoped that by becoming a yoga teacher, I would have better hair, better abs, and better self-esteem. Now, I was the one telling people that they were worthwhile, so I had to believe it for myself. In the midst of all this bliss, I got fired from my job. It was 2008.

Following the Path to Bliss

But, I’d gotten paid three months severance, which felt like a lot, so I decided to take the plunge and continue my yoga teacher training. The next level was called the 300-hour teacher training, which, added to the 200 hours I’d already completed, would total 500 hours of teacher training. I would then be able to register with the Yoga Alliance — a national organization that costs $55 a month — as a 500-hour certified teacher. (Yoga Alliance standards are non-binding and have been criticized in the past.) I paid an additional $3,000 for more training (in installments this time) and continued to attend yoga classes. I was so blissed out, I could ignore my expiring bank account. I figured the universe would send me a sign.

As part of the advanced teacher training, I assisted a teacher during one class a week: picking up props, doling out blankets, and learning how to pull on people’s hips in down dog without making them cringe. I helped light candles; I was basically a glorified personal assistant. I also got to teach a real yoga class once a week — without getting paid, of course. Up to this point, I’d made zero dollars teaching yoga. The teachers encouraged us to teach for free, to teach anyone, in fact, who would take their shoes off and stumble through a few poses listening to you ramble on how the hips hold feelings of guilt and resentment. Only by giving my skills away would I get something in return.

I did get something out of teaching the free class. I was no longer embarrassed to bellow “OM” into a quiet room. I could chant in semi-melodious tones while my students closed their eyes in corpse pose. I blasted Rasa while my students filed into class and placed their expensive-looking handbags along the side of the wall. One time, I opened a window in the perennially stuffy studio and a woman’s white athletic sock fell out onto the street below. The sock’s owner was focused on tree pose and didn’t see. (I told her, of course, but am ashamed to admit I thought about pretending like it didn’t happen.)

Luckily, the money I wasn’t making was money I saved by becoming a vegan. I eliminated all dairy and meat from my diet. When I engaged in deep meditation practice (also part of being a yoga teacher), I saw a hamburger on the inside of my eyelids, and my eyes watered. My meditation teacher walked by and told me, “This path is not easy.”

After the completion of my 500 hours of yoga teacher training, I was entitled to sub at the yoga studio for $25 a class, minus taxes. Most of the classes were early in the morning and late at night, so I sprinted across town from dawn to dark. I stalked pregnant yoga teachers, waiting for them to go on maternity leave.

Teaching Private Lessons

The real money, I heard, was in private clients, who allegedly paid up to $200 per class. One experienced teacher gave me a private client, a dentist, whom I taught weekly for credits for teeth cleanings. I hoped my polished enamel would compensate for the lack of heath insurance. I got a coveted private client — a middle-aged executive with a tennis injury — whom I met at 5:30 a.m. twice a week. On my way to see him, more than once I encountered people having sex behind a bar, still intoxicated from the night before. I rode the subway with whole classes of people who inhabit the city before the white-collar workers roll into their offices carrying cups of Starbucks: people who serve food and clean floors and take care of children. I went to a family member’s elaborate and costly bar mitzvah — complete with acrobats and someone swallowing fire — and wished that I was working the party, rather than attending it.

Chasing after yoga classes was demeaning and brutal on the body. There was no sick pay, so I worked through the flu and food poisoning from a particularly nasty “health” salad. I picked up a class at 6 a.m. when a teacher left for graduate school and hoped it would turn into a regular gig. Sadly, after a few months, I was replaced with another young yoga teacher, no more experienced than I, but possibly less desperate.

I decided that some professional pictures of me wearing black spandex, contorting my limbs into impressive poses, were necessary for a website to attract private clients, so I shelled out $300 for a photography student to come and take pictures of me. There’s a great photo of me aligned with some mahogany walls, toes pointed in the air. I was able to balance long enough for the photo. But I never got the promised private clients. I stopped paying for the Web host. I put the photo on Facebook and received many likes, so it wasn’t a total waste.

Read the full Article at TIME