When Corporate Cracked, the Goddess Walked In

A personal story of unraveling the hustle, answering the call of yoga, and birthing YOKE from the ashes of burnout.

by Cynthia Sciberras

There was a time I wore corporate life like armour—in heels and tailored ambition—moving through the hallways of fluorescent-lit logic, KPIs, and the false promise of control. My cubicle was my safe container, softened by a dream board that pointed elsewhere: to the ochres and golds of India, the goddess Durga, and the spine of the Himalayas. A paper portal to another way of being.

From the outside, I had it made. The title, the salary, the scheduled certainty. But inside, I was quietly coming undone.

The language of metrics and margins was not the language of my soul. The smoke and mirrors of so-called success left me dulled, displaced, and drifting inside a fog that had no name. My body knew before I did—it whispered “enough” in sleepless nights and breath held too long.

When Life Whispers Before It Roars

There was nothing inherently wrong with corporate life—except that it demanded I shrink what was most alive. The emptiness of accomplishment without meaning, the choreography of disconnection… it began to corrode something essential. The part of me that remembered that life is not a race—it is a rhythm—and as life tends to do, it whispered before it roared. The breakdown didn’t arrive all at once, but as a slow unraveling. Like a spool of thread, I began to come loose. And somewhere in the tangle, yoga found me.

The Practice of Re–membering

Yoga wasn’t a lifestyle upgrade—it was a return.

A re-connect to the body, not as something to manage or push, but as a sacred site of memory, mystery, and meaning. I learned that truth doesn’t scream—it hums. It waits in stillness. It breathes in the belly. And for the first time, I began to truly listen.

That listening led me to India—not as a vacation, but as a pilgrimage.

I traded in my power suit for colourful scarves and early morning downward dogs. Dodged monkeys and auto–rickshaws, sipped chai on roadside stalls, followed sounds of chanting into hidden temples. I wasn’t chasing enlightenment. I was circling back to myself.

I didn’t return with a five-year plan. But I did come home with a prayer.

That prayer became YOKE.

YOKE was never just a magazine. It became a living altar—for creative inquiry, for conscious living, for sacred connection. It became a place to ask not just how we live, but why. A rebellion against the sterile and the superficial. A place to speak what hadn’t been said.

And most of all, YOKE gave me community. The true nectar of gathering. The quiet miracle of healing that happens when we’re witnessed. In holding space for others, I somehow made space for myself.

Yoga saved my life by bringing me home to myself.

YOKE saved my life by giving that self a place to serve.

Now, my work is not about climbing. It's about weaving. Weaving women together.

Weaving stories into culture.

Weaving the sacred back into the everyday.

Th art of grace / Out of India featured interviews / An Experiment with Destiny / OUT NOW

Cynthia Sciberras is a creative force and spirited catalyst for connection, whose work lives at the intersection of art, intuition, and collective empowerment. As the founding editor of YOKE, she has cultivated a platform that honours conscious living, artistic inquiry, and the deep, often sacred act of gathering—especially among women. A curator, storyteller, and visionary, she is devoted to creating spaces—both real and imagined—where women come together to create, remember, and rise. Her practice is rooted in deep listening and brave expression, championing the feminine in all its forms. With warmth, wisdom, and unwavering purpose, Cynthia continues to shape culture through creativity and community. cynthiasciberras.com.au