Settling In: The Week Before My 300-Hour Yoga Teacher Training

A gentle heads-up: this post touches on burnout and leaving a relationship that wasn’t safe. Please read with care, and skip ahead if you need to.

My course officially begins today. If you’ve been following along, you’ll know I started this series with Where It All Began and Walking In With Open Eyes. Before the training itself starts, I want to tell you about the week in between: the bit nobody puts on Instagram (well, mostly). The arriving, the adjusting, the sweating, and the small lessons that turned up before I’d even unrolled my mat for the course.

The bathroom moment

I arrived and found my cute little room above. My bed sat at a strange height above the rock the rooms are built around, and I quite liked it. (I made a mental note to see if I could store things underneath it.)

But moments in, the lady showing me around mentioned that the bathroom was shared, up a flight of stairs and then a walk away. My first thought? OMG. My bladder is not going to cope with that. Plus two menstrual cycles while I’m here. Yikes.

And I had what I can only describe as an ego response. Oh no. I don’t like that. I wanted my own bathroom. Within minutes I was asking whether I could move to another room, even though this was exactly where the students would be staying for the course. Bear in mind I was jet-lagged and sweaty, and all I wanted was to shower and wash away the journey, which always leaves me feeling a little gross.

Then I had a word with myself. Jade, you’ve come here to fully immerse yourself. Get over the idea that you can’t function without your own toilet. I recognised that reaction for what it was: a privileged, egoic attachment to a home comfort I’d quietly turned into an expectation.

So I checked myself. I walked the little path to the communal showers, got washed, used the loo, and thought: no, okay, this is okay. Because it was, and I was genuinely at peace with it. I unpacked, absolutely knackered, popped my mosquito head net on to avoid bites on the face (yes, really, photo evidence below), and off to sleep I went.

And then, a plot twist

The next morning I spoke to my partner, who is very much not a yogi, but he’s the yin when I’m yang, and the yang when I’m yin. His reaction to my shared-bathroom news wasn’t so different from my own first reaction, just with a little more “oh hell no”. Then I learned there would be around 30 of us on the course and only a few showers. He reminded me that six weeks is a long time to share a bathroom with that many people, and then he offered to pay for a different room.

My first instinct was to say no: I don’t want to be a diva, I’m fine. His answer stuck with me: you’re not being a diva. And he was right. I hadn’t asked for anything. It was offered freely, I wasn’t inconveniencing anyone, and I didn’t need to make myself uncomfortable just to prove a point to the ego.

So I viewed two rooms. One sat at the bottom of about seventy steps. The other was at the bottom of well over a hundred, and it had a sea view and a beautiful walk-in shower. What’s another thirty steps each way? (I’ll come back to that.)

Little diva yogi? Maybe. But I’ve surrendered to a lot of discomfort over the last few years, and I’m learning it’s okay to accept comfort when it’s genuinely offered.

The pattern I keep noticing

What struck me most wasn’t the room. It was the timing. Once again, I had let go of something completely, and almost immediately something better was offered. This has become a theme over the past four years, and I want to share a few examples, because I think this lesson is bigger than a bathroom.

Burnout

Years ago I went through burnout, and I fought it for about eighteen months. I resisted the fact that I wasn’t feeling well. I was frustrated, and I kept going back to the doctors looking for a fix. Then one day I simply accepted it. My body wasn’t doing what I thought it should, but it was doing what it needed to. I told myself: I’m going to feel like this for as long as I feel like this.

That’s when things started to shift. For the first time, I truly looked after myself. I rested without the pressure of getting better and without feeling guilty for resting. I did my 200-hour yoga teacher training, and the recovery began. It was a very slow process, but something shifted that I hadn’t experienced before, and I think my fighting it had been part of the problem all along. Hence the affirmations in my classes, like “I surrender to, or radically accept, what is.”

Starting again

When I left the relationship that wasn’t safe, I had nowhere permanent to live, no money, and, as far as I could see, no future prospects (the ego was at its finest there). A friend gently suggested I might need to go back into the corporate world. In fact, I remember getting angry at the suggestion. Not at her, just outraged. I couldn’t go back to the version of me I’d need to be to survive in that environment. It felt like a huge step backwards. But eventually I made peace with it: maybe I do need to, and that’s okay.

That was exactly when the estate agents told me that the people the owners had originally chosen to rent the studio space to had dropped out, and it was mine if I wanted it. What a day. That space is the home of Inner Lifetime as it is today.

A roof over my head

Around the same time, I was staying with a beautiful friend and her partner, and I was nearly three months into it. I knew I was putting a lot on them, and now the studio plan was in place, housing was next.

A former student very generously offered me her house without any of the usual hoops. My hesitations were nothing to do with the house itself: it had less outdoor space than I’d hoped for Dexter, and it was very, very close to the person I had just fled from, the one I’d lost everything to leave. I was still receiving emails from him trying to convince me I was unstable. Essay after essay. I swear he didn’t sleep, and spent each night writing a new dissertation about everything that was wrong with me. I can laugh about it now. But let’s just say being that close to him did not feel safe. Then again, what were my other options?

So I got my head around it. Jade, this is a roof over your head. There are people worse off, much worse off, in much worse situations. Be grateful for it. I genuinely accepted it mentally, proximity and all.

The next day, I was told about the home I live in now: private, safe, with a much bigger garden, and nowhere near my ex. They went out on a limb for me after hearing my story. They really did. They were amazing, and helped me cross every t and dot every i. I’ll never forget that. I cried with joy.

The important part

It would be easy to read the above and think, so if I pretend to accept something, the universe will reward me? That isn’t what I mean, and in my experience it isn’t how it works.

Every one of those shifts came shortly after I truly accepted my situation. I mean finding real peace with it, being fine if nothing changed at all. Not saying “fine” through gritted teeth while secretly hoping for a better outcome. That’s just bargaining dressed up as surrender.

And surrender doesn’t mean giving up. In each of those moments I still did something: I rested, I was willing to go back to work, I said yes to the roof over my head. I just stopped fighting reality. That’s also why taking the nicer room doesn’t feel like a cop-out. I’d already made my peace with the shared showers and the midnight treks to relieve my bladder.

What’s another thirty steps?

Well. On moving day I carried everything down the hundred-plus steps, started happily unpacking… and realised I’d left my valuables in the safe in my old room. (Textbook Jade.) I was already sweating profusely by this point, but I knew I had to go and get them. Passport and money are kind of important when you’re overseas.

So back up I went, at midday, in the full heat. I took a wrong turn, which cost me an extra eighty steps, and I felt every bloody one. At this point I couldn’t breathe, and the air was so thick that I was drowning in humidity and my own sweat pouring down my face. I found my way again, climbed the next set of stairs, collected my things, and walked (practically crawled, lol) all the way back down. These steps are steep. By the time I went to meet a friend for lunch, I’d changed my clothes three times. I’m convinced I’d sweated off three stone and was dangerously dehydrated.

The new room is gorgeous, though. Every time I walk down the meandering stairs and paths and hear a leaf drop, I think it’s a snake, a bat or some kind of animal out to get me in the night. But I’m sure that will ease. I’m here for six weeks, after all.

Letting my body arrive

Travelling from the UK had left my whole body seized up, and the first few days were about letting it catch up with me. On day two I went out for lunch: a “British” bacon, egg and chicken toastie that tasted nothing like home (when away, we adjust). Then came a nap, followed by a ninety-minute massage (Thai, then deep tissue) that eased out everything the journey had locked in.

My first classes as a student were humbling in the best way. I eased in gently with an active class, then took on a two-hour “challenging” class the next day while still very much adjusting to the heat, and with what may have been a cheeky hangover. I’d forgotten my water bottle, so I spent the class repeatedly refilling one of those tiny paper cones that holds about three swigs. There is not enough water in the world, I thought.

You know when you’re in bed at night and you need a wee, but you put it off because you think you’ll be fine? That’s how I felt, fighting for my life in this two-hour class. I wanted to give it a good go, but the red wine and prosecco from the night before had other plans. I had to walk over to the water fountain in front of everyone to drink. The pep talk was real: JADE, JUST GO AND DRINK. I did eventually. I finished the class, forced down some food, and then went to lie in my cool room for a few hours to recover.

It was a good reminder of what it feels like to be new in a room, worrying about what people think. Hold onto that thought, because I’ll come back to it.

On Sunday evening I went to my first Yin class of the trip, at dusk. When I closed my eyes it was still light. When I opened them from Savasana, my new friend tapped me and pointed to the beautiful full moon hanging above us. It took my breath away.

I took a photo, but I don’t really need it. That moment is one I’ll carry with me: a gift to cherish, and a reminder of just how grateful I am to be here. I stared at it for some time. The only thing missing was a few mermaids flipping up out of the water; that’s how stunning and magical it looked.

Rain, mascara and a hairdresser recommendation

Lesson of the week: on a tropical island, never, ever leave without waterproofs.

Ten minutes into a twenty-minute journey to meet someone I’d met earlier in the year, the heavens opened. The bike taxi driver kindly handed me a rubber-duck-style poncho and a helmet with no visor (sadly no video evidence, but it was funny). The mascara I’d put on because I was going out for lunch ended up all down my face, and, for reasons I still can’t explain, the only place the rain got through was right around my crotch. So I sat in a lovely beach club looking like a drowned rat with panda eyes, who looked like she’d had an accident.

When I met some people for lunch, one of the first things they said, completely seriously, was that they could direct me to a hairdresser: “You need some colour, girl.” I laughed. A few years ago that might have stung. Now I genuinely don’t take comments about my appearance personally, because what someone says about you often has nothing to do with you. Whether it was meant to knock me down a peg or was just an awkward way of making conversation, it didn’t land. Here’s to surrendering the ego, mascara and all. And in their defence, I genuinely did look like I’d just been pulled out of a swamp, haha.

Strangers who don’t stay strangers

This island is a beautifully transient place. People come and go constantly, and you end up sharing wonderful experiences with people you’d never otherwise meet. I was cooked dinner in a beautiful home by a lovely couple who’d made their own move to Thailand a few years back. Their two dogs came over to greet me, and I dropped to my knees and got kisses from both of them. I miss Dexter and Nama very much. But it’s okay. I let myself feel it.

Another night I ended up dancing until three in the morning with a wonderfully random group: two Brits, a Swiss, a Texan and a Frenchman. What could possibly go wrong? It was a brilliant night. I treated myself to some henna on the beach and literally did not stop dancing all night.

A quick word on travelling safely

It wasn’t all carefree, and I want to be honest about that. One man spent the evening paying a little too much attention to us. He opened with “I’ve been watching you for hours,” followed us when we left, piled on the over-the-top compliments, and later messaged one of my new friends, who’d made the mistake of giving him her number, asking for her location so he could come and pick her up. A few years ago I might have mistaken that for charm. This time I saw it for exactly what it was.

He asked me how many partners I had, and tried to talk down to me when I said one. Then he pointed at my friend and asked if I’d “done” her. I said no. “Why not? You only like men?” It was a manipulative attempt to make me feel boring and uninteresting, with the aim of getting me to sleep with him. So backwards, and gross. When he realised he wasn’t getting anywhere with me, he turned to my new friend: “I could write a PhD on your tattoos.” She has lovely tattoos, but again, I was just like, ew. He was trying to sound charming, intellectual almost. It really didn’t land. His entire energy was screaming DODGY.

If you’re travelling, especially solo or as a woman, please trust your gut. Stay with your group, keep a lid on your drink (mine never left my hand), and remember that flattery from someone who has given you a dodgy vibe and been watching you isn’t a compliment. It’s a red flag.

My people

I met the Swiss lady almost as soon as I arrived at the resort. I saw her and just knew I’d end up speaking to her. The first night, she was sitting at a table with a few others. The next day we spoke briefly after yoga and shared a buggy back, and she invited me to sit with them. No mean-girl energy over here. And that was it: we’ve seen each other every day since. She’s a beautiful soul, also on a solo journey in Thailand, having just travelled around Japan with her fella. After this, she’s off to Sri Lanka for a 25-day Ayurvedic cleanse. How awesome.

After the lunch I mentioned above (hairdresser recommendation and all), I was sitting alone in an almost empty bar, rain hammering down, and I just felt like I needed to chill. Honestly, I was delaying getting another ride, although I was absolutely getting a car this time and NOT a bike. So I messaged a girl I’d met a couple of days earlier, along with a photo of me and the pool behind me. Her reply: “That’s my hotel.” Seconds later she walked out. Of all the places! We spent the afternoon getting to know each other over a few beers, bonding over our experiences. It was nice. That wouldn’t have happened if the rain hadn’t ruined my outfit and my plans. It felt serendipitous.

Then the course-mates started arriving. I met a lady by the pool who turned out to be on the training too, and we hit it off immediately: similar energy, similar sense of humour, very down to earth. We swapped Instagram, and then, completely unexpectedly, a little later she told me she’d read my blogs. “We basically had the same life.” She shared that her life story had been a lot like mine, and it felt so validating. I don’t believe in mistakes, and I think this lovely human and I were meant to meet. Perhaps if I hadn’t had the courage to write about the things I wrote before I came, I’d never have known. She’s a vibe. Real.

So, before the course has even begun, I’ve had a few lovely, honest conversations with people about some of what we’ve been through. Nobody’s probing. It just happens, naturally and easily. That’s what I love about trainings like this: they attract people who are willing to connect, even when connecting isn’t the most comfortable thing.

Rainstorms and red tape

The last few mornings, it has absolutely poured down. Water has been coming from every direction, proper storm weather. It took serious motivation to get up for the 7am class, and I was soaked through even after getting a buggy. But I went. Or rather, I “landed” in the studio with a wet, sploshy splat, trying to escape the storm. Not my most graceful entrance.

Then three of the girls and I headed into town to sort out our visa extensions. We were so pleased with ourselves for being productive, only to find out we can’t apply until closer to the date. A totally pointless trip. But we laughed, we connected (that’s four people I’ve properly got to know before the course has even started), and at least we know where to go in a few weeks.

Last night was the informal welcome meet, but I was low on energy (menstrual cycle). Today, the course begins. And for the first time this week, I can honestly say I feel settled.

Back home in Lincoln

Walking into a room full of strangers is scary, even for a yoga teacher on her sixth teacher training. This week I’ve been the new one: the sweaty one gulping water from a paper cone, the one who doesn’t know where anything is. And every time, the nerves have turned into connection.

If you’ve been thinking about trying yoga but feel nervous about walking in for the first time, I promise that feeling is completely normal, and you’ll be so welcome. Inner Lifetime is a beginner-friendly studio. Our wonderful teachers are holding the space while I’m away, and your first class is free with the code 1STCLASSFREE_IL.

Inner Lifetime · Unit 3, 421 Newark Rd, Lincoln LN6 8RS · www.innerlifetime.com

Want the next instalment of the 300-Hour Diaries straight to your inbox? Sign up for diary updates on the website, and I’ll share each part as the training unfolds.

With love from Koh Samui,

Jade x