For the full interview, go to https://www.abbiemerritt.co.uk/olive-walton
So becoming a yoga teacher wasn’t your initial plan?
No not at all. After I completed my degree, I began to find it very challenging to find work. Everyone wanted experience, which I obviously didn’t have. The only place I found work vaguely related to what I wanted to do was in a care home for adults with severe physical and mental disabilities. I planned to be there for a year to gain some experience, then to reapply for these jobs.
Then, literally two or three months into this job, I went away to India for a month to do my yoga teacher training. When I got back I quit within a month and went into teaching yoga full time, I think I realised how much it just wasn’t for me. I kept telling myself that I would be fine and that it would just be another nine months, but it just wasn’t worth it. I got no joy from being in such a draining environment, not from the people that I looked after but from the staff. It felt like a very toxic group I guess, which I was comparing to all of the insight and growth that yoga had offered me. I simply wanted to share that with people and allow them to experience the empowerment for themselves.