How Author & Yoga Teacher Kathryn Budig Spends Her Days Off

Kathryn Budig is a renowned yoga teacher, author, podcast co-host, and fashion designer. Her message "aim true" has resonated with numerous people throughout her career—whether it be in her yoga classes, on her social media, or through her personal relationships. Talking to Kathryn is like chatting with your best friend. Here's a look at what she gets up to on her days off, as told by Kathryn. 

It totally varies with my schedule, just because I haven't had a typical schedule in forever. So it's very much dependent on if I'm home or I'm traveling and then what's going on within the parameters of being home. A quote-unquote "day off" for me is basically if I have one of those days when I wake up and, like now, I don't feel good so I'm not going to be doing any workout today just because I can tell my body needs to consume a ton of water, sleep, and rest. But I also don't put pressure on myself to perform a certain way every day. I do like the idea of sweating every day whenever it's possible, but I also don't dock myself if I can't make that happen. So it's not an "oh, this is my cheat day or this is my rest day"; it's more like every single day I check in with my body and see what it needs. 

My wife Kate and I have a ritual at home: We wake up and we have a Nespresso machine in our house, so we make oat milk lattes every morning. We have two dogs, so we try to take them on a nice long walk in the morning, so that's very much our morning ritual—wake up, make oat milk lattes, walk the puppies. We just renovated our backyard, so we've been spending a ton of time out there reading, we have a little stock tank pool, so just soaking and reading. I also have an herb garden, and I've been spending a lot of time with my plants and herbs. It's all incredibly rejuvenating for me. 

That's the time when I know it's OK to turn off my phone and brain and just be. 

I love being around people and students and working out in a community (that feeling is unbeatable), but I think there are different seasons of your life when your little bubble feels really good too. 

I'm not the first person to think of it this way, but at the end of a big meal, when it's so easy to be like, "Oh my god, I'm so full, I'm so full," I'm trying to think of it as I'm legitimately full with amazing food and full of amazing experiences and I'm living a full life. I try to take anything that would normally have some sort of negative connotation and flip it so that I don't fall into that negative habitual ticker tape of punishment or this is wrong and this is right. That's all been very helpful for me as well. 

I just think it's very important for people—you don't want to become that person who has a cupcake and then they count exactly how many calories are in that cupcake and how many steps or activities it is going to take to burn that off. That's not an experience. That's not being present. That's being completely stuck in the prison of your mind. That in itself is not balanced and not healthy. So step one is getting out of the prison of your mind of restrictions. Once you can get out of that mental place, then you're not going to punish yourself for something that isn't under the umbrella of wellness. I do think there's something to be said for someone who practices 100% wellness and health all the time—I honestly don't think that's healthy. I think you need to allow yourself to be.