Making Choices
and Creating Change
We chose to start the book with this section because of how the authors frame the question, problem, and opportunity inherent in yoga as a tool for working with body image. As it’s practiced in the West today, yoga has the possibility of becoming a way into a deeper, more positive relationship with one’s body—and it also has the possibility of reinscribing limiting beauty and body norms.
Linda Sparrowe starts us off with just that question: How can yoga help—or hinder—one’s relationship with their body? Through insight and conversation with others, she guides us through an exploration of how yoga is showing up currently in the context of yoga and body image.
Next, Dr. Sara Gottfried takes us into the practical realm of yoga and how it’s much more than a workout, as it’s often portrayed. From her perspective as a Harvard-educated physician, she leads us through the many ways that yoga can support people, both in their body and in their relationship with it.
From there, Marianne Elliott shares her story of how shame showed up on her yoga mat and what she did to shift it. Through the lens of this story, she leaves us with a call to action for how yoga can be a practice of kindness, first and foremost to ourselves.
Next, Dr. Melody Moore talks about the feeling she had growing up of not being or doing enough—and how that ever-raised bar of expectations showed up in her relationship with her body. She shares how yoga was a way out and a door into her current work, supporting people around disordered eating and body image.
Finally, Anna Guest-Jelley shares one of her major life aha moments: when it dawned on her that maybe the reason she didn’t feel comfortable practicing yoga in a bigger body wasn’t because of her body, but rather because of how yoga was often taught to one particular body type—and how yoga has the potential to welcome people of all shapes and sizes.