The day I understood that I had to take care of myself first

For many years, I attended workshops on yoga in education.

I would leave inspired, return to my classroom full of enthusiasm, and for a few days I would incorporate breathing exercises, movements or relaxation practices with my students.

But little by little, daily routines would take over again.

Those practices, which had felt so valuable, slowly disappeared.

At that time, I thought the problem was lack of time.

Today I know that was not the real issue.

The real change began when yoga stopped being something I did with my students and became something I needed for myself.

Due to personal circumstances, for a long period of time I slept very little. My daughter had health issues and, like many mothers and many teachers, I kept moving forward even when I was exhausted.

That was when I began practicing yoga consistently.

I discovered that a five- or ten-minute relaxation practice could give me enough energy to continue with my day.

I discovered that some breathing exercises could deeply calm me, while others helped me regain clarity and vitality when I felt I could not go on.

But the most important discovery was another one.

I understood that I could not offer my students an experience that I had not experienced myself.

Learning a technique in a workshop was not enough.

I needed to experience it in my own life.

Over time, I began to notice something that changed the way I taught.

When I arrived in the classroom more present, more balanced and emotionally available, the atmosphere in the classroom changed as well.

The problems were still there.

The challenges were still there.

But I was able to hold them in a different way.

I understood that, many times, children and teenagers did not need me to react immediately to what was happening.

They needed an adult who could remain present, who would not take every behavior personally, and who could offer a safe space where they could learn to regulate themselves.

And then something unexpected happened.

The practices stopped being “my activities”.

They became part of the life of the group.

I still remember something that happened many years ago and that still moves me.

In my early years classroom, before lunch, we always spent a few minutes preparing our bodies to eat.

We breathed, practiced a correct posture, awakened our taste buds, and expressed gratitude for that moment.

One day, I had a meeting with a family and someone else was in charge of lunchtime.

When I came back to the classroom, I greeted the children and asked them how everything had gone.

One of them answered:

—Bad.

I asked what had happened.

And he said:

—Because nobody prepared our bodies to eat.

I had never explained why we did that little ritual.

And yet, they already felt it was something that belonged to them.

Years later, I experienced something similar with teenagers.

Every morning, we started class with a few minutes of stretching and breathing.

At first, they complained.

They said it was a waste of time.

But we kept doing it.

Not once.

Not as a one-time workshop.

Every week.

One day I walked into the classroom and, before I had said a single word, everyone was already standing, waiting for me in the posture we always began with.

One student raised his hand and said:

—Teacher, today I have the greeting we can do.

That day, I confirmed something that has guided my work ever since.

The biggest changes in education do not always come from extraordinary activities.

Many times, they come from small rituals that are sustained over time.

That is why, when I work with teachers today, my starting point is not the students.

It is the teacher.

Because I truly believe that what an educator deeply experiences can later be shared with authenticity.

And I believe that when a teacher finds their own balance, the classroom also begins, little by little, to find its own.

Have you ever experienced how a small practice, sustained over time, ended up transforming much more than a single extraordinary activity?

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