#150 When One Chapter Closes, Another Awakens
Closing 2025 with Yoga Teacher Trainings, Meditation Training and my First New Year's in Bali
Tonight, the 2025 300-Hour Yoga Teacher Training completed the in-person part of their journey here in Bali.
This group arrived at such a special, transitional moment. They are the very last YTT group I will host at Kampung Uma Dawa, the beautiful retreat center I’ve partnered with for many years. They are the last group joining my Yoga Sutra Study live before it shifts to pre-recorded format, and the last group experiencing my live online Yoga Entrepreneurship course before it also shifts to pre-recorded content (sign up details coming soon!)
And yet, they are also the very first group to step into Mindful Bali, my new rooftop yoga shala here in Ubud - even while it was still under construction.
It feels like a fitting bridge between endings and beginnings.
The Power of Parinamas
Someone asked me at dinner tonight why I’m shifting away from live Sutra Study. The truth is, the course has become part of me. After teaching it more than 15 times, I am coming very close to knowing the text by heart. But even the sutras say that the mind is always moving through parinamas - transformations.
In the Yoga Sutras (3.9–3.15), Patanjali describes three main parinamas, or shifts of the mind:
Nirodha Parinama – the transformation toward stillness. The restless mind gradually quiets, moving away from distraction toward inner silence. This is like, if you imagine there is a rock in a jar, and the rock gets removed to fill up with water. The moment of pause between the rock and the water in the jar - that moment of pause is called Nirodha Parinama.
Samadhi Parinama – the transformation of focus. The mind learns to rest on one object, deepening concentration into absorption. This is like when you’re watching a dolphin jump in and out of the ocean - it’s the same dolphin over and over again. You’re thinking the same thought over and over again.
Ekagrata Parinama – the transformation into one-pointedness. The mind holds steady, no longer scattered, but unified in clarity and direction. So this is when scattered attention moves from, for example, looking out and seeing several animals on the farm, to just zero-ing in your focus onto one animal.
In meditation, we can actually feel these transformations. The mind shifts from distraction to focus, from agitation to stillness, from outward projection to inward clarity. Each shift is a parinama - like rewiring the brain through spiritual practice, a marriage of neuroplasticity and yogic wisdom.
That is exactly what I feel in my life right now. My energy has moved from being spread across many ventures - sobriety programs, so many international retreats and trips in different countries, scattered online offerings - into a single-pointed focus on Bali, my little yoga shala, and the drop-in classes, retreats, and teacher trainings rooted here.
Just as the practice of meditation brings us into deeper layers of awareness, my work is undergoing its own parinama - a transformation of direction, attention, and purpose.
Why New Year’s in Bali Matters
New Year’s Eve is already a symbolic threshold, but to cross it in Bali is unlike anywhere else.
Here, ceremonies and rituals are woven into daily life. The island itself carries the vibration of renewal, devotion, and offering. Starting a new year in Bali means beginning not with fireworks and hangovers, but with sunrise practice, temple offerings, ocean cleansing, and the grounding energy of nature.
It’s not just “another training” - it’s a way of choosing how you want your year, and your life, to unfold.
That’s why I’m so excited that our New Year’s Eve 200-Hour Yoga Teacher Training already has sign-ups! The early bird rate is open until September 28, and it feels like the perfect place to begin 2026: not escaping life, but transforming it.
250 Days of Meditation and What’s Next
This new chapter is also paired with my meditation practice deepening. I’ve just crossed 250 consecutive days of twice-daily meditation. The shifts are tangible: I’m calmer, clearer, more resilient.
Meditation has become the anchor of my entire practice, and soon I’ll be training students in these techniques. It’s an expansion I couldn’t have imagined even a year ago, and yet it feels like the natural unfolding of everything that’s come before. I will be offering “How to Meditate” trainings online starting very soon so just watch this space!
Closing and Opening
Looking back on The Mindful Life’s journey, each year has had its own focus:
2020 – asana and the online community of the Mindful Life Practice.
2021 – Sober Yoga Girl (the podcast), Sober Girls Yoga (the community), my first Online Yoga Teacher Trainings and the move at the end of the year to Bali.
2022 – Continuing deepening of online sobriety programs, online YTTs, and the beginnings of big international retreats.
2023 – teaching in-person YTTs in Bali, both for my own community and also Inner Yoga.
2024 – deepening Sutra work, retreats and trainings, Sober Yoga Girl (the book).
2025 – Travelling all around the world only to come back home. Opening my own small Bali shala, stepping into meditation teaching.
And now, as we move into 2026, I feel it’s all coming together - anchored here in my home in Bali, rooted in yoga philosophy, and offered as teacher trainings for those ready to transform their lives.
✨ The early bird discount for the New Year’s Eve YTT ends September 28.
If you are feeling called toward yoga, toward sobriety, toward meditation, or toward deep change, I would love for you to begin the year with us here in Bali.
Bali YTT Schedule:
New Years Eve! 2026: Dec 28, 2025 – Jan 17, 2026
Spring 2026: March 15 - April 5, 2026
Summer 2026: June 14 - July 5, 2026
Fall 2026: September 20 - October 11, 2026
Advanced YTT: July 5 - 25, 2026 (Online Module before)