Malu Likes Yoga

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Malu Likes Yoga Yoga helped me on and off the mat, it taught me to love myself more. Teacher & forever Student. Sharing all yoga & healthy things. Stay Tuned!

I can tell within one sentence if a message is going to ask me to work for free.For a long time, I said yes to unpaid wo...
18/09/2026

I can tell within one sentence if a message is going to ask me to work for free.

For a long time, I said yes to unpaid work I didn’t think was fair. I was scared of turning down opportunities, scared no other jobs would come my way.

Later, my reply got three paragraphs long. Thank you for thinking of me. I’m so sorry. This has been such a full season already. I hope you understand... and then I’d spend days thinking about it.

All of that, to avoid one word.

What changed wasn’t the offers, they still come in exactly the same way. What changed is I stopped needing the other person to feel okay about my no before I let myself send it.

Now it’s one line. Thank you for thinking of me, this isn’t something I take on for free, happy to send my rates if you’d like to move forward.

No guilt. No justification. No paragraph defending my worth.

Being professional and being available for free were never the same thing. I just used to explain myself like they were.

Which one do you reach for most when you’re the one saying no, guilt, habit, or fear? Tell me below.

🤍

17/09/2026

BHUTAN 🇧🇹 RETREAT

28 Nov - 4 Dec

Discover the magic of Bhutan, its culture, its people, its nature.

Msg me for the details or click on the link in bio 🤍

Every opportunity gets its own reflection. Sometimes I say yes to something unpaid on purpose, because I believe in it. ...
11/09/2026

Every opportunity gets its own reflection. Sometimes I say yes to something unpaid on purpose, because I believe in it. Community classes. Causes I care about. Moments where the value isn’t the check.

That festival wasn’t that.

Before saying yes, I asked about pay “ thank you for thinking of me, I think I might have missed the remuneration part.”

They hadn’t missed it. There simply wasn’t a budget for teachers. But there’d be exposure, and I was welcome to stay for the day and enjoy the festival.

This was a fully built production. Staging, marketing, screens, design, all accounted for in someone’s budget. Everyone got paid except the people the entire weekend was actually built around 🙄.

That was a dealbreaker for me. I politely declined. I won’t pretend I wasn’t fuming a little.

I’ve paid for every training and I keep paying to keep learning. I pay my own health insurance. I don’t get paid holidays. My bills don’t take a break because I love this work.

I can be a yoga teacher. My landlord still wants the rent check, not a tagged post about how great this apartment is.

Would anyone ask a sound engineer, a caterer, or a designer to work that festival for “exposure”? So why us?

Has this happened to you?

🤍

07/09/2026

kinda chic that no week feels the same.

one week I’ve got the energy to hit the gym, flip upside down, and hold it there. some weeks it’s just wobbles, and more wobbles, and I stay anyway. another week, showing up to teach is all I have left to give, and that’s enough too.

same me. different hormones. I used to think something was wrong with that. now I just try to honor whichever week I’m in.

anyone else feel this?

04/09/2026

28 November – 4 December 2026

Six days held in the mountains of Bhutan.

Morning yoga and breathwork. Daily wellness treatments. A hike to Tiger’s Nest, Bhutan’s most sacred monastery. A full-day excursion through Punakha Valley. Evenings in the indoor heated pool. A traditional cooking class with local hosts.

This retreat isn’t just rest, it’s an immersion into a culture that still moves slowly, on purpose.

DM me for the full program and pricing.

🤍

Part two of something I didn’t plan on turning into a series.Nobody becomes a yoga teacher for the spreadsheets. I built...
02/09/2026

Part two of something I didn’t plan on turning into a series.

Nobody becomes a yoga teacher for the spreadsheets. I built one anyway.

Not because I love spreadsheets. Because “I’ll figure out the money part later” isn’t a plan. It’s a hope, dressed up as one.

Fifteen years in corporate taught me a lot of things I’ve happily let go of. This one stayed: track it, or it doesn’t exist.

So three years ago, I started. Class sizes. Income. Attendance. Every number, every month.

Now I know my quiet months from my packed ones before they even arrive. I know when it’s actually safe to take a holiday, and when I need to be all in.

It’s not glamorous. It’s also the only reason this job still exists, three years in.

You can be soft in the room and exact about your numbers. Those aren’t opposites. I just used to think they were.

🙌 if you’ve gone more than three weeks without a single day off.

🤍

31/08/2026

Three years ago today, I left a very comfortable, very secure job.

Not overnight, though. I’d already been teaching yoga on the side for three years before that — full-time work, then every free hour poured into classes, workshops, more training.

I didn’t have an exit plan. I genuinely didn’t think I could make a living from this. I just kept following the pull, without an agenda, without knowing where it would land.

There were so many nights I wondered if I was crazy. Leaving something secure for something that fluctuates, that has no guarantees, no team, no one to hand a hard day to. Just me, learning as I went how to build a schedule, a business, a life, on my own terms.

But I kept going anyway. Training after training, whatever called to me next, not because I had a plan, but because I couldn’t stop. Somewhere in there: an ebook, a website, a newsletter I still write myself every month, twelve retreats. None of it planned. All of it real.
None of it happened overnight. All of it happened because I couldn’t stop.

Somewhere in there, without deciding to, I started changing too. Less luxury. More simplicity. The freedom of doing something you believe actually helps people, that filled a place all the achieving in my old life never quite reached.

And the students. The friendships that came out of a mat, a room, and showing up, again and again. That part I didn’t see coming at all.

Staying got heavier every year, until it was heavier than the fear of leaving.

So I left. Three years of choosing this, on purpose, every single day since.

Where were you, three years ago?

With love, Estefa

28/08/2026

RETREAT IN BHUTAN 🇧🇹 WITH ME

28 Nov - 4 Dec

Comment “Bhutan” and I’ll send you all the info 🤍

Nobody teaches this in a 200-hour training.For years I charged whatever felt comfortable, not what actually covered my r...
26/08/2026

Nobody teaches this in a 200-hour training.

For years I charged whatever felt comfortable, not what actually covered my rent, my prep time, or years I’d spent training.

So I did the thing I actually know how to do: I built a system. Since 2023 I’ve tracked every class, every student, every dollar — the same way I used to build pricing strategy for global beauty brands. Just for an audience of one, this time.

Turns out fully booked and profitable aren’t the same thing.

This is the first of a few posts I want to share on the business side of teaching : pricing, saying no, knowing your numbers. The parts nobody talks about, and the parts I actually know something about.

Comment “ME” 🙇🏻‍♀️ if you’ve ever taught a class for less than it actually cost you to show up.

🤍

There’s a whole person behind the yoga mat and before the yoga life. Here are a few random truths, which one didn’t you ...
24/08/2026

There’s a whole person behind the yoga mat and before the yoga life.
Here are a few random truths, which one didn’t you see coming ?
🤍

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