Lex Koettig of Newport Beach on Life, Lessons & Legacy

Lex Koettig shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.

Lex, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?
Full transparency here might reveal my borderline neurotic nature. LOL. Okay…here goes!

I wake up naturally, without an alarm, around 4am. Maybe 5am if I’m really sleeping in. I know, I know…I’m a bizarre creature.
First things first: coffee! It’s more than a beverage; it’s a ritual.

Next comes my sadhana – my spiritual practice – beginning with mantra japa. I silently chant 1,108 mantras every morning. Yes, it’s a weirdly specific number, but easy explanation/math. I chant 108 mantras connected to my Guru, and then the 1,000 Names of the Divine Mother, known as the Lalita Sahasranama. This practice supports everything including mental clarity, emotional steadiness, spiritual growth, and even physical well-being.

After that, I used to journal every morning – Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages – for the past twenty years. But since January 1st, 2024, I’ve been writing a very lengthy book. (We’re talking 1,000 pages…palm to forehead!) So recently, I’ve been utilizing the quiet and stillness found in those early morning hours to work on the manuscript. I’m almost finished with the second draft. (Phew!)

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
For the past two decades, I’ve been walking the path of the yogi – teaching movement, meditation, mindfulness and the deep inner work of healing your heart and coming home to who you really are.

My “brand” is less of a marketing strategy and more of an energetic invitation into connection. Connection between breath and body, between ancient philosophy and the everyday messiness of modern life, between the small self and the True Self, and ultimately, how to bring spirituality from the “mountaintop” into the “marketplace.”

I blend storytelling, spirituality/philosophy and somatics to help people return to themselves, little by little, again and again. Whether I’m teaching a class, writing a book, leading retreats, or filming for YouTube, everything I create is rooted in one simple truth: the ultimate goal of Yoga is to genuinely love the life that you live. Yes, love your life, not just when everything is perfect or you’re getting everything you want, but love the life you live, every damn day, because it’s truly a precious and irreplaceable gift that is not to be taken for granted.

Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
As a child, I believed that if something hurt, it was my fault. If I was unloved, it was because I was undeserving. If someone left, it was because I did something wrong. If life went sideways, I believed I surely could have prevented it if only I had been better, quieter, easier, more “good.”

A belief system like this is common in children when they’re desperate to make sense of chaos and/or trauma. They reach for control in the only place they can find it – themselves. Even if that control manifests as blaming oneself, as it did in me, it still feels better than acknowledging they are completely out of control, and therefore vulnerable to greater hurt.

What I couldn’t see then was how heavy of a burden that responsibility was of believing that I was always to blame. A child shouldn’t be carrying the weight of everyone’s pain or the effect of other’s actions. But I did. And it turned into years of striving, perfectionism, and a quiet desperation to prove I was worthy of love. I became the girl who overachieved, who tried harder, who never let herself miss a beat, because it felt like if I stopped trying…I might be hurt all over again.

My healing came in pieces, over many years, through yoga, different therapeutic modalities, teachers/mentors, and a thousand little breakdowns and breakthroughs. One day, the truth finally landed – not in my mind, but in my cells: how people treat me is a reflection of them, not me. Their choices, their pain, their limitations. I never had control over their actions, not even when I thought I did.

Accepting that truth brought a wave of grief because it came with accepting that the people who were supposed to love and protect me simply didn’t have the capacity to. Not because I wasn’t good enough or undeserving, but because they had their own pain and wounding quietly distorting their lives.

A realization like this can be heartbreaking, as it was for me. But only initially! Because radical acceptance such as this is also the doorway to freedom. Once I let go of the illusion that I was to blame for the hurt I experienced as I child, I stopped trying to earn love and started learning how to love myself – with compassion, with patience, and with a tenderness I had never received before.

And that, right there, has changed everything for me.

What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
I clearly see three defining wounds. Betrayal. Abandonment. Mistrust.

I cannot sufficiently put into words how deep these wounds rooted themselves within me. For many years it felt like I would never stop their ripple effect into my life. Moments would surface – what people refer to as being triggered – when I couldn’t see through the web of their delusion. Zero visibility. There was no higher or more enlightened perspective available. I was caught in their sticky threads of their pain.

These wounds created a profound sense of insecurity. I’m not talking about insecurity in the way I look or act, but 1st chakra, survival type of insecurity. The type of insecurity that leaves you terrified and questioning if you will ever truly be “ok” in all sense of the word.

I once heard a speech from Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma) at an event of many religious world leaders coming together to talk about protecting children from abuse. She said that childhood trauma is like taking a flower bud that is tightly closed and ripping it open by force. You destroy the flower completely, and it is robbed of its process, its becoming and its gift to the world, which includes offering its inherent beauty. I cried silent tears when I heard this as I had never felt an explanation resonate so deeply with the wounds I encountered as a child.

Amma went on to say that the effects of these wounds stretch so far into a person’s life it is unquantifiable.

I couldn’t agree more. (Deep breath.)

How I healed these defining wounds? One word. Yoga. And no, I don’t mean standing on my hands or putting a foot behind my head, but Yoga as a philosophy for living and being. Yoga heals our wounds by reconnecting us to our deepest hearts, the part inside of us that was untouched and perfectly preserved in spite of the trauma and wounding we encountered. It’s not sexy or Instagram worthy like psychedelic trips or meditating in picturesque vortexes soaking up the healing vibes, but the daily practice of yoga – little by little, again and again (which is the name of my new book btw) – will undoubtedly heal the wounds of your heart.

The path of yoga has healed my wounds and given me back what was robbed from me. My innocence, the ability to have my own process, to witness the unfolding of my becoming and to give my deepest gift to the world around me.

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. What do you believe is true but cannot prove?
This is the first thing that came to mind, so I’ll go with it.

“I am not a part of the Universe…the Universe is a part of me.”

It’s deep and geeky, I know, but wow! (Mind-blown.) Contemplate that for a month or two and watch how your delusions start to fall away one-by-one.

This isn’t something I can prove but when you sit with it long enough, you start to feel the miraculous nature of the True Self – the part of you that isn’t separate, broken, or lacking. You begin to sense your profound interconnectedness with all beings, and you tap into an undeniable current of radical acceptance/affirmation that runs through all things.

The integration of this spiritual “koan” (for lack of a better term) changes the way you breathe, the way you love, the way you move through the world. It shifts you from feeling like a tiny speck in a giant Universe to realizing the Universe is expressing itself as you.

Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
Wow…I’m instantly a little teary-eyed as I answer this question. It’s actually quite simple. I hope the story people tell is that I cared. That I cared about their hearts, their happiness, and their personal journeys of refinement and becoming. That I cared enough to carry the teachings forward.

Lineage is a powerful thing. The teachings of yoga were first passed down orally, from teacher to student, long before they were ever written. At its core, lineage survives because people care enough to transmit the message. They care enough to bring the light in dark times. Because of this, we have all been held in the hearts of teachers who came long before us – teachers who never knew our names but knew that future generations would face dark times and would need a pathway back to hope, belonging, and healing.

Those of us who have felt the profound impact of the yogic path do whatever we must to keep that torch burning.

So when I’m gone, I hope people know how deeply I cared for my students. Truly, deeply. Not just as individuals I loved, but as reflections of myself. Through a true yogic lens, there is only one of us here. My students’ grief and struggle are not separate from mine; their journey mirrors the journey I’ve taken, and continue to walk, from darkness into light. That is why I keep showing up. Not for the pretty poses or the perfect handstand, but because we are healing. We are unfolding our potential, the very potential the world desperately needs from each of us.

And if people remember anything else about me, I hope they remember that everything I ever taught came straight from the depths of my heart and from my own experience. It was never about popularity, money or just sharing something I read in a book, but I can genuinely say it is because I know firsthand the journey from darkness to light and it is both my duty and honor to stand beside others as their walk this miraculous path of Yoga.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lexkoettig.com
• Instagram: @lex.koettig
• Youtube: @lex.koettig