Before you leave your corporate career, try The Breathe Method
In one week Breathe Studio – the Pilates studio I founded after a bad day/decade at work – turns three.
Given that half of all businesses in the UK have stopped trading by their third birthday, this feels like a milestone. After all, the odds were against me. I had next to no start-up capital, no investors, no business knowledge and no clue. All I had was a deep love of movement and neuroscience and an even deeper hatred of the way that my corporate career made me feel. One morning, aged 31, I woke up in my London flat and knew it was time to quit.
The metamorphosis from lawyer to Pilates studio owner is a cliché one. But here’s the thing, I didn’t hate legal work, I despised how it made me feel. There is a big difference.
During my time as a lawyer my anxiety was crippling. I spent all my time worried about this or that, real or imagined, big or small. With each year that passed, I became less resilient and less confident. While in my early legal career I could handle criticism and conflict, by the end of it even the slightest issue sent me into a deep downward spiral. Most devastatingly, I found it hard to have any kind of life outside of work. I withdrew socially, made questionable dating choices and spent most days feeling like I could cry at any minute.
Interestingly, the real revelation didn’t come when I quit the law AND started the studio. There was no epiphany when I taught my first class. In fact, I quickly realised that running a business is ten times harder than being a lawyer, particularly if you are fatally allergic to spreadsheets and admin like I Am.
No, after much contemplation I realised that the problem had never been the corporate career. When I said goodbye to the law, I didn’t also say goodbye to stress and anxiety. In fact, I had unwittingly received custody of them in the divorce.
It wasn’t that i realised the law had been an incredible career after all, I’d had some pretty uninspiring bosses and been put in some pretty grim situations. But external challenges are omnipresent in business too. In fact, they’re a recurring theme of life. Clients must be found, bills must be paid and classes must go ahead even though you’re in the depths of first trimester nausea. The heating fails in the middle of winter. The landlord is difficult. A new studio opens around the corner.
The real problem was that I was training my body in the wrong way (for my disposition) and, more critically, I wasn’t training my mind at all. While I exercised regularly, it was usually a high intensity workout with a heart rate monitor strapped to my chest. 600-700 calories in 45 minutes was the goal. This was my ‘stress relief’, except that the relief I felt afterwards (as I rapidly blow dried my hair in the Third Space changing room) was short lived. By the time I got to my office my cortisol was higher than the skyscraper I was sitting in.
What I needed was to build and maintain strength of mind and muscle. I needed a base level of resilience and confidence to get me through all of life’s inevitable challenges and curve balls. I needed the Breathe Method.
I often wonder how differently my day/career/life would have been if instead I had started or ended my day at Breathe Studio. If instead of punishing my body I had moved slowly, intentionally and methodically. If instead of gasping for air for 45 minutes, I had spent that time taking deep, nourishing breaths that calmed my nervous system down. If instead of spending all day sore and ravenous, I felt light and in control. Maybe I would still be lawyering away.
Perhaps you don’t need to quit your career like I did to find peace. I thought I needed to change my life, but I now realise that I needed to change my capacity to meet it. Until we learn to regulate our own nervous systems and build confidence and resilience, we will be trading one set of problems for another. Running a business, as in my case, is no easier than being a lawyer (it’s harder, trust me).
Am I saying you should tolerate nasty bosses and a job that you couldn’t care less about? Not at all. I am a big advocate of risk taking and welcoming change. But we need to set ourselves up to thrive, no matter what job we do or where we do it. We need to nourish our nervous system so that we are best placed to handle what is thrown our way. Only then can we know if what we have chosen is the right fit for us is: career, relationships, location, the list goes on.
Emma Henderson, founder of The Breathe Method
The world needs lawyers, doctors, mothers, builders and baristas (the latter is particularly important). And it needs for these people to be able to do their work without suffering from anxiety and chronic stress. We all deserve to thrive in whatever we choose to do. For that reason, I’m so glad that I didn’t thrive in the law, because if I had, I would never have created the Breathe Method. And if I hadn’t created the Breathe Method, there wouldn’t be an easily accessible way for so many to find calm in this chaotic world.
I know now that being a lawyer wasn’t the right fit for me. Not because I couldn’t handle it - with the Breathe Method I am sure I could have - but because I am meant to take the proverbial path less travelled. My purpose lies outside the law. I’m here to help as many women find the Breathe Method and integrate it into their lives. I truly believe that it can help them to find the balance and confidence they deserve to feel in whatever path they chose.
Emma x
