How They Did It | Vanessa Rezende From Law to Yoga Instructor

This is a summary that accompanies the original interview published on Work In Progress Podcast. Here we highlight the main takeaway and useful resources. Transcript can be found at the bottom of this post.

You mentioned that you’ve always wanted to be a judge or and you’ve always been interested in working in the law. Um, can you tell us why you’re so drawn to law when you’re younger?

I’m very keen about justice and seeking justice. So that’s why I was drawn to law. In my head I thought that was the way I was going to make the most impact. And that’s why I wanted to be a judge because I thought that was the best way to do justice. However, when I did work for the court for a while, I realized how very conservative it is, and in some ways it is corrupt. So you kind of like shatter my, you know, my views. And I guess I was naive, in that sense. So I realized that if I wanted to hold those values, I could still hold those values, but not necessarily inside the system. I could still do advocacy outside, which is what I’ve been doing.

What was your family’s reaction when you let them know that you didn’t want to be in law anymore?

I made the decision to quit law and I made the decision to move to the United States [at the same time]. And then I just had to tell my mom what I was doing. I was so nervous to tell her because I first thought [she] was going to try to convince me otherwise. She was going to say “no, you’re crazy”. I practiced so much to have this conversation. I was nervous. But surprisingly, when I told my mom, her immediate reaction [was], she took a breath. And she said, “you know what will make you happy... I want you to be happy and I support you”.

What was it like coming to America? Like, what was there any? Was there any shock? Well, there must have been some funny stories.

In Brazil, you’re friendly immediately with everyone. It’s a very casual culture. You kiss and hug everyone, even people that you’ve never met before. So when I moved here I realized nobody touches each other. And in a work environment, it’s very professional in the sense that overall what I felt in my experiences, is [the culture is] more “cold” in that sense. In Brazil you call even your boss by their nicknames. [After I started working in America], it was one of our managers’ birthday so we sang Happy Birthday to him. And then after that, I gave him a hug, and I realized that he froze because [he was not expecting that].

I’m Brazilian, but I also live in a Japanese household. But still, I get like my mom is very warm, for [being] Japanese. She adapted. Five years, I think five or six years ago. I took my mom to Japan and we stayed with family there and it was so funny because we wanted to hug our family and they don’t hug!

In 2015, Vanessa moved to the US and studied Design at UCLA. She went on and worked for a Design firm for a few years but then realized again that while she was great at what she did, she felt that the corporate environment just wasn’t fulfilling her desire to help others. We asked:

I’m hearing that you place a lot of emphasis on, like, being able to help others or help the community. Why do you think that is? Why is that important to you?

When I first started in Law I really liked it because I was really involved with making a difference. It wasn’t easy because at a very young age, I was exposed to things that kind of shaped me. I was exposed to things that I wasn’t even aware were happening around us, like slavery…we have human trafficking going on…we have political asylum and all that. So I got to work with [all of ] that directly. And that’s very rewarding. Everything I did was always to aid. So I guess that’s how I love yoga so much! In a sense, I could see right away the impact of what I was doing [by teaching yoga].

Did you have a hard time letting your friends and family know about your new interest when you were still practicing law?

Yeah! When I was in Brazil, I always thought yoga was fascinating, but with my limited mindset, I thought you can’t really have a career with yoga. When I was still in the corporate career, I was feeling kind of lost [so] I hired a life coach. My life coach worked to help me understand my underlying values. Every every single one of us has underlying values that even if you if your career changes, if your purpose changes your interests change, as long as you’re aligned with those values, you will feel fulfilled. When I spoke to my life coach I said I would love to have a career in something related to healing and yoga, and she asked, why can’t you? I said, because you can’t make money with that, and she said that’s the limiting mindset, who says it can’t? Then we really worked on changing my limiting beliefs.

Tell us about your experience working with life coaches, we hear from so many people that they have life coaches or business coaches.

I really recommend working with a coach because for some things we all need some external guidance. No coach can tell you what you have to do, your coach can only help bring to what you want to do to light if that makes sense. After identifying my core values we did a guided meditation where I was guided to see my future self five years from now, and my present self would interview my future self about her dream life. So I saw my future self in her house. And my coach asked me to pay attention to every detail down to the color of the clothes and the environment. I saw my future self, it was a Wednesday and my future self wasn’t in a corporate job. My future self was at home, in yoga clothes, cooking healthy recipes and planning her next work trip. When I saw that at first I didn’t understand but my coach worked with me overtime to gradually see more and more details until everything was so convincing that I felt that there really is no limit. People asked how I was able to get private students within just one year of being a yoga instructor and I really believe that the whole coaching experience was a breakthrough. It was a breakthrough because in the beginning of my journey I thought I would do the yoga training but still keep my day job. I wanted to do that because I felt that I had to keep my corporate job and in the end I realized my biggest fear of not wanting to “live under a bridge” was my limiting belief. That came from my mom’s comments about what I should study when I was growing up and that got engrained in my mindset.

Yoga is the best life hack! It will give you the tools you need to overcome any challenge. The sooner you can have exposure to it the better!

On unpacking her biggest limiting belief

Vanessa credits her life coach for helping her unpack the fear of not being able to financially support herself. Realizing that pursuing yoga as a career does not mean that she will be living under a bridge, Vanessa has never looked back. After completing yoga instructor certificate, she started teaching immediately and got private students shortly after. She’s working on getting certified to teach yoga to kids because she believes that yoga can help kids be less reactive and be more present and focused.

On her confidence after switching to a brand new career

I have friend who ask me how I’m able to start teaching right away and I tell them —

This [yoga class] right here, is not about us. It’s about them [students].

On going from teaching and providing services for free in the beginning to asking to be compensated

One of the takeaways from the yoga instructor training is money is an energy exchange. Never charge less than what you believe you are worth.

On resources for those who also want to become yoga instructors

Vanessa used Yoga Alliance which is essentially a Yelp for yoga training programs. She recommends doing a lot of research before deciding on what is right for you. For yoga studios, she recommends Yoga Salt in Culver City, Los Angeles.

Follow Vanessa on her journey on her Instagram.