Yoga, Body Image,
and Self-Worth
You are about to embark on the many essays that have come together in a united voice and message for hope and change. In this first section, you will see that this book starts by picking up the dominant thread presented in Yoga and Body Image. Yoga can serve as an instrumental tool in developing care and compassion for ourselves while bolstering self-esteem. And who can’t use a bit of that kind of healing remedy?
Both professionally and personally, Lisa Diers (author of the first essay you will soon read) reminds us that learning to love ourselves is possible, even if it may not be realistic at all times. Rather, she encourages readers to come to a place of acceptance with a focus on feeling and function rather than form.
Pia Guerrero shares the intimate intersection of her mother’s own leaning toward lifelong dieting with her personal focus on being “perfect” in every sense of the word. Guerrero’s diagnosis with Lupus culminated in deep disdain for her body as well as bouts of disordered eating. Upon discovering yoga and recognizing it as a spiritual practice, she created space to allow compassion and forgiveness into her life, attributes and qualities she not only extended to others but to herself.
The pursuit of perfection is an all too common theme when discussing negative body image, disordered eating, and eating disorders. In fact, for Robyn Baker the roots of perfection and her desire for her parents’ praise and recognition manifested in her becoming “a ghost of a girl,” disappearing pound by pound until she nearly died. Baker eventually discovered how to breathe into “imperfection.”
Accompanying notions of perfection is the inner critic, nagging and unforgiving. Through her professional expertise and her own lived experience, Dr. Melissa Mercedes focuses on how we can respond to the inner critic and, eventually, bid it farewell.
Jivana Heyman shares the depths of his own despair, the self-hatred stemming from the recognition that he was attracted to men at a time when being gay was not even remotely acceptable. Yoga signaled a single moment of profound transformation in his relationship with self, one that led to self-acceptance and deep service to his community.
Dr. Jenny Copeland rounds out the first section with a vulnerable and beautiful essay on the dangers of living small. Yoga offered her the ability to come to her body, be still and listen. And with patience and practice, allow her to take her power back and see herself as a whole being, one worthy and valuable.
Yoga is an opportunity for us all to come home to our full and complete selves. Welcome!