Finding My Dharma: How Yoga Became My Purpose

I remember being about eight or nine, complaining to my mom that I didn’t have any skills or talents. “You’re really good at hula hooping,” she told me. I didn’t take it as a compliment. Even at that young age, I was already familiar with people commenting on my body, my “birthing hips,” they called them. It never felt like something to be proud of.

A few years later, my parents let me take private violin lessons. Eventually, my teacher convinced me to try out for the Civic Youth Orchestra (CYO). I got in... barely. And for years, I scraped my way from the beginner level to the top. Always by the skin of my teeth. I practiced longer and harder than anyone I knew, and yet, I was always in the last row. Some people said it was political... that my teacher and the conductor didn’t get along. But deep down, I knew the truth: I wasn’t a naturally gifted musician. I was just a dedicated one.

Still, I poured everything into it. Music was the only thing I felt even close to being good at, so I planned to pursue it professionally. That plan was crushed when my conductor bluntly told me I didn’t have the skill to get into a school worth attending. My private teacher was just as direct: “Music school is a waste of time for anyone who isn’t extremely rich or extremely talented. Go to business school.”

At 17, that became the least of my worries. My family was on and off the streets for the next four years; living in hotels, camping by the beach, staying with friends when we could. My only goal was survival. I worked 70+ hours a week at an entry-level job just to keep us afloat.

When we finally found some stability, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. So, I traveled. I saved, I worked, I traveled, and I repeated the cycle. Until 2018, when my husband and I moved to the Treasure Valley just a month after our wedding. It was here that everything shifted. My healing journey began. And with it, the first glimmers of my dharma (my purpose) began to reveal themselves.

A Path I Never Expected

It was an easy decision to become a certified yoga teacher. And yet, the first time I stood in front of a class, I felt something I had never experienced before: capability. For the first time in my life, I thought, "I can do this. This feels right. This is what I’m meant to do."

And when my first piece of constructive criticism came, I didn’t do what I usually do, which is spiral into a dark hole of "I’m not good enough" thinking. Instead, I went to the whiteboard, figured out where I was lacking, and made a plan to fix it.

I never thought I’d be a teacher. At 14, my first job was as a preschool TA, and while I loved the kids, I knew teaching wasn’t my path. Later, when people suggested I teach violin instead of playing in an orchestra, I dismissed it without a second thought. Teaching was never in my plans. Yet, here I am.

At first, I struggled with the title “teacher.” I leaned into the word “guide” instead. I didn’t want to position myself as someone who had all the answers... I just wanted to help people uncover what they already knew deep down. Teaching is full of moments of doubt. Sometimes, I’m guiding my students into Child’s Pose while simultaneously racking my brain for what comes next, wondering if my students need something else from me that day, or how to phrase my next cue so it lands the way I intend.

But despite those challenges, nothing fills my soul like yoga does.

I love helping people discover new ways to love their bodies and be present. I love when students come up to me excited about a breath work technique they’ve incorporated into their daily life or a stretch that’s finally clicking for them. It ignites something inside me—burning away all those childhood doubts about what my purpose was.

More Than a Certification

I don’t have the highest-level yoga certification. I’m not a somatic movement specialist or a Pilates instructor. I don’t have the extra credentials that some teachers do. What I do have is lived experience.

Yoga wasn’t just something I studied, it was something that saved me. After enduring childhood sexual assault, I spent years disconnected from my body. I lived in survival mode. Yoga was the first thing that gave me a way back in... a way to feel safe in my own skin again. And that’s what I bring to my students. I know what it’s like to feel out of control, to feel lost in your own body. And I know what it’s like to come home to yourself again.

That’s what makes me qualified. Not just the training, or the certifications, or hours spent refining my sequences, but the fact that I’ve lived through it. That I’ve walked this path, stumbled, and found my way forward.

Living Your Dharma

In yoga philosophy, dharma is often described as duty, truth, or life’s purpose. It’s not always something you choose, it’s something that chooses you. It’s the path that feels most aligned with your soul, even if it’s unexpected. Even if it takes years to recognize.

For me, yoga was always leading me home, even when I didn’t know it. And I believe that’s true for all of us. Our dharma is waiting to be uncovered. It’s in the things that light us up, the moments where we feel deeply connected to something bigger than ourselves.

So if you’re still searching, keep looking. Keep listening. Trust that every step, even the messy ones, are guiding you toward the place you’re meant to be.

Because when you find your dharma, you don’t just find purpose, you find peace.

With love and Peace,

Niah Blue