Anna Guest-Jelley
Wow, right?
If you’re like us, your head is spinning with insights, connections, and ways to move forward from here. We’re grateful to each of our amazing writers for sharing their stories with such courage, vulnerability, and wisdom.
We know that now is the time to expand this conversation. Our hope is that this book will be a springboard into conversations in local communities about how yoga can be a tool for supporting body image, and how current yoga students and teachers can challenge each other in helpful ways to make their yoga spaces places where everyone is welcomed as they are.
This does not mean, as we saw in the essays, asking people who are currently on the margins on yoga, or not even currently practicing, to “fit in” with yoga-culture-as-usual. Rather, it’s a call to change yoga-culture-as-usual.
Fortunately, we have a model for this: the practice of yoga, which draws us into deeper connection with our own body and wisdom, as well as into sangha, or community. The ethical precepts of yoga, the yamas and niyamas, have much to teach us about how to pave a way forward. From the compassion of ahimsa to the self-study of svadhyaya, the practice challenges us to work toward more union—with mind, body, and each other.
How to Work with Your Body Image through Yoga
As these essays have shown, although yoga’s relationship with body image is complex, it is possible to work with your own through yoga.
We believe this is best done with the support of a wise and thoughtful yoga teacher, as well as whatever other support is helpful for you, possibly including a doctor, therapist, and/or nutritionist. It’s important to know that while yoga can be an incredible tool for healing your body image, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum and should be considered one tool in a toolbox of various types of support.
We believe, our essays have shown, and research supports the idea that the way yoga helps people with their body image is because of how it connects people with their body. After all, it’s hard to improve how you feel about your body when you don’t actually know how you feel in your body.
When yoga teachers ask you to do something like “Feel your back leg in Warrior I,” that may feel a bit esoteric to people who have a history of disconnection with their body. But given time, that instruction becomes less metaphorical and more concrete.
This is especially true when it’s specifically guided, whether in a group class or your home practice. For example, here’s one way you might experiment with this on your own:
1. Come into Down Dog (in the traditional version on the floor, or in a modified version with your hands on a stable chair seat).
2. Take five deep breaths here and notice how you’re feeling in this moment—particularly check in with your hips and shoulders, making a mental note of where they feel less open than you might like. File this info away because you’ll be coming back to it.
3. Do three of your favorite, gentle hip-opening poses. Some you might consider include a lunge pose (standing or kneeling), Pigeon pose (with or without the support of a blanket), and a standing wide-legged forward bend.
4. Come back to Down Dog, doing it the same way you did the first time. Again, take five deep breaths and notice how you’re feeling. Check in with your hips and shoulders, noting any differences from the first time you did the pose.
5. Do three of your favorite, gentle shoulder-opening poses. Some you might consider include Cow-Faced pose (with a strap), slow shoulder rolls, and a Wall Clock.
6. Come back to Down Dog, doing it the same way as you did the first two times. For the last time in this position, take five deep breaths. While you’re here, check in with how you feel, and note any differences in your hips and shoulders.
7. Come back to standing and continue with your day.
You can always add on to the practice above or try it with a different pose. Whatever you do, the intention remains the same: to return to the same pose multiple times throughout a practice in order to notice whatever shifts might arise in your body as you go along.
Practices such as these can be key for helping rebuild a clear connection between mind and body and build the ability to know and notice what is going on in your body.
Recommendations for Teachers
While yoga practitioners can use yoga as a tool to improve their body image on their own, they also need the support of thoughtful and skillful teachers, particularly when practicing in group classes. When teachers create a body-positive environment in their classes, it makes space for people to practice what we think yoga is all about—connecting with your own mind and body, exactly as they are in this moment.
Some people argue that creating a body-positive environment allows people to opt out of caring for themselves. But we think the opposite is true: it’s only when you accept yourself as you are that you’re able to take loving action to feel your best.
Here are some ways that yoga teachers can bring more body positivity into their classes:
Room setup
When possible, consider asking students to set up with the short end of their mat to the wall. Not only does this give people easy access to the wall for poses (hello, balancing poses and getting up/down off the floor with a little more grace!), it also allows everyone to see and hear a little better because they don’t have their neighbor’s foot (on a good day) in their face.
Ask open-ended questions
Want to support each student in a way that works for them? First, you have to know them. Rather than asking a yes/no question (“Do you have any injuries?”), consider an open-ended question (“Tell me about what’s going on with your body”). This approach both gives you more information and gives you a moment to build connection and rapport with the student.
Work from most supported to least supported
Many yoga classes start by teaching the least supported version of the pose (e.g., trikonasana, Triangle pose with hand to the floor) and then offer options “if you can’t do it” (e.g., a block under the bottom hand). To make your classes more empowering for everyone, consider doing the reverse. Start everyone with a block under the hand and build confidence and strength. Then, if/when students are feeling stable, offer suggestions for lowering or removing the block—making lots of space, of course, for people to not do that.
Talk about It
Have regular conversations with your students, both during and before/after class, about your class being a space to greet their body exactly as it is. You can also weave body-positive themes into your classes to deepen the experience.
The other thing teachers can do is consider how their own body image is affecting their teaching. For example, if a teacher doesn’t feel good about their body, that will often get projected onto the class with comments about “working off a muffin top” or other comments along those lines.
As a teacher, you don’t have to have a perfect body image to create a supportive environment for your students. Not even close (because we’re pretty sure such a thing doesn’t even exist anyway). What you can do instead, though, is do your own work on your body image, just like you are inviting your students to do. When you raise your consciousness about the language you use about your own body, it raises your awareness about what you might be sharing with your students.
Improving body image is an ongoing process for all of us, and the best way teachers can show up for their students is by being honest about that and being willing to be on the path with them.
Resources
Want support around navigating yoga, body image, or how they intersect? We have you covered with some of these great organizations:
National Eating Disorders Association
Resources and local eating disorder support (US only).
www.nationaleatingdisorders.org
The Art of Yoga Project
Yoga and art for incarcerated teen girls.
www.theartofyogaproject.org
Adios Barbie
Body image and body-positive resources.
www.adiosbarbie.com
Proud2BMe
Body image for teens.
www.proud2bme.org
And, of course, check out the author bios following each essay to visit the websites of our contributors. Each of them is doing work around this issue in their own way, and they have many helpful resources to offer!
Keep in Touch
We’re excited to see where this conversation goes—for individuals, yoga teachers, yoga communities, and beyond.
We’d love to stay in touch and hear about how the book has affected you. Connect with us online at www.yogaandbodyimage.com, like us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/YogaAndBodyImage), and follow us on Twitter (@YogaBodyImage).