Showing up to my mat every day is the most important thing I do. Sometimes I have the luxury of taking a class in person with an extraordinary teacher who blows my mind with wisdom. Sometimes, I have to practice on my own where I only have my own voice to contend with telling me I should be doing other things. Patanjali describes yoga as cittavrttinirodhah, or restraint of the mind stuff. When we show up on our mats each day, we are practicing mind control, over ourselves.

My name is Bylle and I have been practicing yoga for 26 years; more than half my life and longer than I’ve done anything else.

My yoga journey began in 1998 with a few classes at At One Yoga® in Phoenix with Ian Lopatin. Shortly after I began those classes, I had a near death experience that changed the course of my life in a dramatic way. For several years, I was prone to intense visions and then anxiety that came with trying to understand them. As a child in Kansas, I had always been drawn to spiritual ideas, churches, temples and scripture, even against the advise of the adults around me. In my late teens, i developed a successful fitness education business and was traveling the world, teaching full time, which is how I landed in Phoenix (accessible airport). My NDE changed my perception on the world around me very suddenly. The only place I found solace was in a yoga studio or in church, with the leadership of both directly opposing one another. Lopatin directed me to his wonderfully curated collection of books in the studio, where I found Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi, a book I have now read a dozen times.

That same year, on a trip to LA, a friend took me to Bryan Kest’s Power Yoga studio in Santa Monica and then ditched me for a date before class started, after we stood in a line that seemed to wrap around the building. New to yoga and completely intimidated by all of the experienced Angelenos, who crowded into the tiny, donation only, second floor space, my anxiety almost got the best of me as I strategized my exit plan. Then Kest put his hand on my shoulder and asked me if i had ever done yoga before, which I answered with a meek nod of my head. He became more stern and said, “Are you sure?’ When I shrugged my shoulders, he laughed and then i knew I couldn’t leave. Over the next 15 years, Kest’s voice would be the dominate one for me when it came to yoga. I moved to LA in 2000 after being offered a job as the educational coordinator for Billy Blanks, Tae-Bo® and then, a couple of years later, I had the opportunity to open a yoga studio near Ashville, North Carolina. There, away from the noise of the city, I learned to sequence, teach, and study yoga to my heart’s desire. Moving back to LA in 2004, I enrolled in an Associate’s Degree program at King’s University specializing in Theology, where I was able to take a deep dive into Biblical studies and get a bit more insight to some of the experiences I was having after the NDE. In 2012, I began practicing at YogaWorks on Larchmont on a regular basis and eventually did my 200 Hr. teacher training with Jeanne Heileman there. Jeanne gently guided me back to the esoteric aspects I love about yoga and I finally made peace with the fact that I will always believe in both God and Yoga and that for me, there is no separation. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras speak about the differences in Parusha and Prakrati and because of my faith, it’s quite possible that I read those sutras differently; less dualistic. The same could be said with the Bhagavad Gita. I began teaching again in 2017 and in 2020 developed a more in depth course on the above mentioned materials for my private clients with a more non-dualistic approach.

My years on the mat practicing yoga and wrestling with my mind and spirit are far greater than my years teaching, and I hope to always keep it that way, taking necessary breaks from time to time. I feel deep gratitude for anyone who voyages through my class because through that journey, they also become my teacher. I feel so fortunate to live in a city with such great voices, authors, seekers and the spirit of Yogananda.

My journey continues this year as I move towards my 300 Hr. training with Joan Hyman.

-Bylle Breaux

200 E-RYT and YACEP