Igniting Your Inner
Yoga Renegade
On the road to healing and creating change, we must find and cultivate our authentic voice and then vehemently proclaim our truth. It also means we must often re-imagine, re-think, and re-create. Doing so usually results in working against the grain and rebelling against the norm. The stories in this section offer insight, encouragement, and examples of the courage to resist or discard what is harmful or does not serve our highest selves. And we aim to be our best selves so that we may contribute to our collective well-being.
Inspired to share the benefits of yoga, Western yoga pioneer, Dr. Judith Hanson Lasater, aimed to make yoga accessible to larger audiences by cofounding Yoga Journal. She shares the ways in which Yoga Journal has contributed to the “yoga body” ideal and how, in realizing she had become part of the “problem,” she re-examined her own expectations and judgments.
Cyndi Lee shares her insights on growing older in an ageist society and how this impacted her career teaching yoga as well as her perception of self. After grappling with her conflicted feelings and sense of disappointment, Lee sets out to change the image of what a yoga looks like.
Photographer and activist Sarit Z Rogers chronicles the way in which she was able to overcome her own trauma, shame, and distorted body image to become an agent of change. In a male-dominated industry with an affinity for digital alteration, Rogers represents a challenge to the norm. Rather than accepting the status quo, she utilizes her camera as a mechanism for change.
Rachel Brathen talks candidly on her unexpected and unlikely journey to becoming the “yogalebrity” known as Yoga Girl. In doing so, she serves as an example of how to live authentically and freely despite the heavily filtered social media landscape as well as other’s expectations and projections.
Next, Pranidhi Varshney shares how yoga allowed her to move beyond her incessant need to control her body into a state of connection, offering freedom and purpose. As her relationship with her body healed, Varshney was inspired to take action. Not only did she teach yoga as service, she chose to model ways to move beyond conventional definitions of success and create an authentic and empowering space for others in the process.
Similarly, based on an extensive practice of yoga in which any body practiced yoga, Zubin Shroff was compelled to create spaces in which everyone felt included and welcomed. In doing so, he completely re-imagined the concept of the yoga studio and studio culture then put that vision into action.
Finally, Dr. Gail Parker demonstrates the ways in which yoga not only creates awareness but also empowers and emboldens us to unapologetically and courageously walk into the truth. She reminds us that when we love ourselves, we can change the world.