I've spent years earning and maintaining Yoga Alliance credentials. But who decided a voluntary registry gets to determine what makes someone a qualified yoga teacher? As an E-RYT 500 and studio owner, I'm questioning the authority we've given Yoga Alliance, what teachers are actually paying for, and why registration has become confused with legitimacy.

Lead with love sounds simple until love asks something difficult of us. A reflection on accountability, boundaries, grace, and what it means to keep choosing love—not as a catchphrase, but as a practice.

What began as an assignment in yoga teacher training became a practice that followed me through gratitude, grief, change, motherhood, leadership, and eventually into the creation of Santosha Soul Collective. A reflection on contentment…not as a perfect life, but as learning to meet this one exactly as it is.