author and yoga practitioner Jessamyn Stanley writes about “the yoga of the everyday,” which she describes as being located not in corporate-feminist classes but in the practice of moving the body through a series of poses to make room for the mind to stretch.
Reading Stanley’s book over a year into the pandemic encouraged me to think of yoga not as a wellness-culture-flavoured punishment for food behaviour I’d deemed “bad,” but as one in a series of activities I move through when I want to check in with my feelings — as well as how those feelings might be affecting my body without me realising it. In it, she writes: “I like to blend all my practices and rituals together.
The “practices” Stanley refers to include tarot, meditation, and journaling as well as yoga, and while I don’t think of mine quite so formally , I’m trying to move toward an understanding of yoga as one in a series of rituals I can deploy to care for myself when I’m struggling — particularly with food. Maybe that’s why the outdoor yoga class in L.A. felt so weird; not through any fault of the class itself but because I’d gotten used to viewing yoga through such a different, personal lens.
Once I breathed through my chaturanga-induced collapse at the outdoor yoga class, I did something I’m not sure I would have been able to do three years ago: I gave myself permission to give up.
By the time we all agreed on this after the class, though, I didn’t need the validation. Even if it had been beginner-level, the fact I didn’t nail every pose was no longer a failure, because my yoga is — finally — for me.
Well said 👏👏
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