I didn’t know I was running until yoga found me.

Spanish | English

Hi, I’m Dani — or Nuza — and if you’re here, maybe it’s not a coincidence.

Maybe, like me, you’re searching for something more.
A place where you can breathe.
Release the weight no one sees.
And finally feel at home within yourself again.

It was 2011.
I was 14, in middle school — and I hated working out.

Three times a week we had physical conditioning,
and I’d do everything I could to avoid it.
Fake cramps, injuries, migraines…
any excuse would do.

One afternoon, after school, my mom took me to a yoga class.

I still remember my first teacher, María Gracia —
her voice was calm, soft, steady,
and somehow filled the whole room.

I could barely keep up.
I felt stiff, clumsy, frustrated, completely out of place.
So I just stopped going.

As the years went by, without realizing it,
I slowly disconnected from myself —
from my body, my energy, my confidence.

In high school, that feeling grew stronger.

I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror.
I compared myself constantly, pushed too hard,
punished myself, tried to fill the emptiness in a thousand ways.

I tried everything — boxing, running, spinning, the gym…
but nothing ever made me feel better about myself.

Until something inside me asked to return to yoga —
this time, from a more conscious place.

I started with YouTube videos.
Then Zoom classes.
Then, finally, in person.

During one of those classes, a teacher came up to me and said:
“You’re not breathing.”

She stayed by my side the whole practice,
until I could actually hear the sound of my own breath.

I remember the discomfort, the pressure…
but also, the gratitude.

That moment changed everything.
For the first time, I felt present in my body.

From then on, everything started to shift.

I wasn’t tired all the time anymore.
I argued less.
My anxiety softened.
My relationship with my body began to heal.

Yoga started to feel like a homecoming —
a return to myself.

During my Art degree, my mentor, Isaac Olvera,
invited me to spend a summer in Playa del Carmen —
to work on my thesis and live “as if I were already an artist.”

He asked me to write everything:
what I did, what I felt, the people I met, the conversations, the emotions.

“Fill yourself with experiences,” he said.
“We’ll work with that later.”

That summer was a mix of freedom, introspection, and growth.
I never stopped going to my classes with Mariel Chapoy and José Troche at Kopo Yoga —
they kept me grounded, centered.

But even though things looked good on the outside,
inside I’d been feeling lost — confused, disconnected.

So, on my last weekend there,
I asked the universe to show me my purpose —
to help me connect with something bigger.

And the universe answered…
just not how I expected.

That same afternoon, my Airbnb was robbed.

I lost my laptop, my iPad, and the progress on my thesis.

And yet — that moment led me to meet the person
who would later become one of my greatest teachers — my partner.

With him, I learned about love, spirituality, and vulnerability.

Later, life brought us through very hard times —
and one, in particular, led me into a deep depression.

I spent months without wanting to leave my room.
No energy. No light. No voice.

My body and soul felt unbearably heavy.

But for the first time, I didn’t run away.
I didn’t hide it.
I didn’t try to distract myself.

I stayed with the pain.
I felt it.

And there, in that emptiness,
yoga found me again.

At first, I could barely move.
Barely breathe.

I felt broken, drained, disconnected —
with no energy and no direction.

But every day, I tried to show up on my mat —
even if it was just to sit in silence and breathe.

Sometimes I cried without knowing why.

It wasn’t a perfect practice —
it was an honest one.

Each breath became a small act of faith,
a promise not to give up on myself.

With time, I started to feel grateful —
grateful to still be here,
to have another chance to begin again.

I’d ask for strength to face the day,
awareness to listen to myself,
and peace to accept what I couldn’t control.

That intention — simple as it was — held me together.

There were days I didn’t want to get out of bed.
Days when nothing made sense.
When my body hurt, or my mind resisted.

But every time I managed to get up and practice —
even for just ten minutes —
something inside me would light up again.

A small part of me remembered:
everything changes when you choose not to give up.

Yoga gave my life meaning again.

It reminded me that resilience
isn’t about being strong all the time —
it’s about learning to rise
with more love and awareness every time you fall.

Looking back now,
I see that time as my rebirth.

Yoga didn’t “save” me magically —
it taught me how to save myself.

To breathe through chaos.
To be patient with my process.
To trust that even the darkest moments are part of the path.

Healing is hard.
Looking within is hard.
Starting over is hard.

But when you stop running and choose to feel,
when you choose to keep showing up for your life —
you realize that the strength was always there,
inside you, waiting for your trust.

That’s when I decided to become a yoga teacher.

My first certification was in Hatha Vinyasa
with Martín Zárate, Omar Cruz, and Cynthia Landa —
three teachers who opened a new chapter for me
and helped me see yoga with more presence, respect, and depth.

But the process wasn’t linear.

Even with progress, I still had ups and downs —
days when I felt like I was going backward,
when my mind was full of doubt.

Then came Dani Salazar —
my Ashtanga Mysore teacher —
and with her, a practice that changed me forever.

In Mysore, there’s no voice guiding you —
just you, your breath, and your mind.

You can’t move on to the next posture
until you’ve mastered the one before it —
and that can take weeks, even months.

Sometimes it hurts.
Sometimes it’s frustrating.

But you learn to stay.
To observe.
Not to run from discomfort.

And in that repetition, that silence, that confrontation with yourself,
you realize that everything arrives when you’re ready —
not when you force it.

Yoga has saved me, time and time again.

It’s been my therapy, my refuge, my anchor — and my home.

Because every time I think I can’t keep going,
the mat reminds me that I can.

That strength doesn’t come from outside —
it comes from within.

Later came more trainings —
Rocket Yoga with Brendan Smullen, Paloma Marín, Daniel Ferraez,
and practices with incredible teachers like Juliana Vielma,
Amado Cavazos, Marius & Chris Nasr, Mariana Cisneros, and Adriana Cabrera.

Every course, every teacher, every practice taught me something new about myself.

Everything I earned, I invested in learning more.

It was my way of giving back —
of thanking yoga for everything it had given me:
a second chance, a new version of myself.

That’s when I understood —
yoga wasn’t just a practice,
it was my purpose.

I wanted to help others remember their own inner strength.

Because we all have it.

That spark inside that can transform everything —
that can heal, that can begin again.

All we need to do is pause, breathe… and choose.

That’s how Niyat was born — my dream made real.

A space to reconnect with yourself and your power.
To breathe, heal, and find community.

A place where you can feel supported, seen, and free to be who you are.

What if, instead of running from pain, you stayed and listened to it?
What if you trusted that what hurts today is also teaching you something?

Yoga taught me that everything has a purpose —
even the darkest parts of the path.

That sometimes, what hurts the most
is what wakes us up the deepest.

And if there’s one thing I want you to take from my story, it’s this:

Inside you lives the same strength that lifted me up —
the same power to rebuild yourself, step by step, breath by breath.

I’m here to walk with you through that process —
whether on the mat or through this blog.

Because healing isn’t about going back to who you were —
it’s about returning to yourself, with more love.