The risk it takes to blossom – how I went from law to creating my yoga business

Nature is stunning at the moment - showing off its beauty, fertility and colour. The focus is outward and nature is revealing the hidden work of winter and spring.

Remember how quiet and underground nature was just a short time ago – it was cleverly recharging its soil, planting and rooting. As the months got brighter and we moved into summer, these seeds and roots grew and are now bursting out to show us their beautiful leaves, petals and blossoms.

These shifts happen in our lives too and we can work with the energies of each season to help us. Summer is teaching us that if we want to bring our dreams into form, like the petals on a rose, it is necessary to take some outward action and step out of our comfort zone.

Seven years ago, I had just left my job as a lawyer and I didn’t know what I wanted to do or be. I had a great sense, however, of how I wanted my life to feel. I had done my underground work, just like nature in winter, by looking within and getting to know my soul.

I knew I wanted to feel free, passionate about what I do, independent and of service to people and this earth. It was a chance meeting, after my yoga teacher training and month long walk on the Camino de Santiago, with a friend in Dublin that offered me a space to set up a weekly yoga class in his café. I didn’t fully appreciate at the time that by taking this opportunity and risk, I was opening up to a whole new life.

I learnt how to design posters, handed out leaflets, set up a website and bought yoga equipment. I started a weekly class teaching mainly friends and family and, after leaving a big salary as a lawyer, I was earning just enough money to live on with some savings I had.

I felt the shift straight away -  a feeling of deep fulfilment and happiness in the work that I was doing. At age 34, I felt like a rebel living a life of my choosing and even though I wasn’t earning much, I couldn’t believe that I got to do this work. I felt like I was finally living my dreams with no one to answer to.  And I still feel like that every single day.

I have grown my business in the last 7 years from a weekly café class, to an online business during the pandemic teaching hundreds of people yoga and meditation, women’s retreat business where I have hosted 21 retreats in Portugal since moving here four years ago and a thriving beach yoga community.

I created a soul-led business that gives me autonomy and allows me to use my creativity that had been stifled and nearly killed in law firms. I feel of service on this earth and deeply fulfilled and rewarded by what I do. My women’s retreats are called wild & free and they teach women ways to find their soul’s path.

Summer in the Celtic calendar marks the start of the bright half of the year (the Samos time) which began at Bealtaine on 1 May. The Summer Solstice festival marks the longest day of the year on 21 June and the high point of summer.

This bright Samos time of year is asking us:

What risk am I willing to take?

What action could I take that is aligned with my soul’s dream?

And if you feel an ‘inner summer’ rising within you, it is a good time – in the words of James Mackillop of Celtic mythology - to ‘begin new projects’.