The Body You Want

by Nina

Janet, from the "Yoga for the Larger Woman" Calendar

“Around the same time, the thought hit me that I had been dragging this body around for all these past 50 years instead of really living in it. It came to me that I had not claimed this body, not moved into this body. I was renting it, but I didn’t live there. I didn’t want to live there—in the “undesirable” section of town.

“That began to change though when I realized no amount of wishing, bargaining or promising will change the fact that this is my body and that it benefits me greatly to “step up” and partner with my abilities, instead of wishing that things were different.” —Janet Wieneke

Have you noticed lately that some yoga magazines and advertisements have begun to co-opt the positive messages of the body image community in their efforts to promote the same old body-negative stories and products? It seems there’s a very profound disconnect going on. Here’s an example (not telling where I saw this):

So, um, let’s see. What they are saying here is that you CAN have the body you want (which is not the body you have) but ONLY if you love the body you already have (while at the same time working on trying to get the one you want).

Not only is this a completely illogical and confusing statement, but the message is really non-yogic. I’ve been writing a lot about attachment lately (see Attachment (Raga) to Our Ideas About Ourselves and Attachment (Raga), Depression, and Plan Z) and it seems to me that practicing asana to “get” the body you “want” is yet another form of attachment. In this case, you’re attached to an illusion that it is even possible to get another body. Yeah, that’s right. I don’t actually think you can get another body. (If I could really get the body I wanted instead of one that I have, that body would younger, taller, and that arthritis in my right hip would be gone overnight.)

Oh, wait, maybe what they are trying to say is that you can practice to make your own body look different, whether that means thinner, younger, or able to do showy yoga poses. But practicing asana to make your body look different means you’ve bought into an illusion that looking different—if that is even possible—will make you happier. (Yes, I know that this illusion is what sells magazines and products, which is why co-opting body positive messages to promote this illusion is so insidious.)

And the attachment to this illusion actually causes a lot of suffering. For one thing, always working on changing the way your body looks makes you feel shame over the your current appearance because you are, as Janet wrote, living in the “undesirable” section of town (see Yoga for Every Body for interview with her), and dissatisfaction with your current life, which you believe will be happier only after you change. And I even think it is possible that practicing to get a different body may interfere with your ability to be safe in your asana practice. Rather than tuning in to your body as it is now, always thinking about the body you want to have may cause you to go overboard and take physical risks that aren’t appropriate for you (boy, have I ever seen that in certain classes).

All of this is the complete opposite of cultivating santosha (the ability to be content with what we have or don’t have), which Patanjali tells us is what leads to true happiness (see The Second Branch of Yoga: The Niyamas).

Although I personally have never struggled with weight issues as did Janet W, whose wisdom I am quoting in this post, now that I’m older, I have put on some extra pounds and my body, of course, has become flabbier, wrinkled and spotted. I also have to face each day the fact that I no longer can do several of the poses I used to do (see Goodbye, Lotus Pose). Trying to change that with my asana practice is not only fruitless but is counterproductive. I actively enjoy practicing my asanas, and if I kept thinking about how I wanted a different body or if I could only do the poses I used to do while I was practicing, the deep appreciation and gratitude I have for the body I do have and for the beauty of my aliveness would be crushed (see Without Mirrors). So this is an issue for those of us who are aging as well as those younger people who struggle with body image issues.

(I’ll be writing tomorrow about practicing with a goal of becoming healthier, which I think is a whole different story, though also not without its own pitfalls.)

Yet I can certainly see the temptation for all of us to fall prey to this kind of thinking because we’re bombarded daily even by yoga magazines and certain yoga teachers with messages encouraging us to feel dissatisfied with our bodies and telling us to try to get the "body you want." I don’t know if this is happening because the yoga writers or teachers actually know they are selling out or whether they just aren’t bright enough to realize what they are doing. But, regardless, I feel it is vital for us, no matter our size or shape, age or race, to continue to get the message out that you can really only love the body you have after you let go of the fantasy of getting the body you want.

“The years I’ve spent wishing I looked different, acted different, was different—all a waste of time but apparently held the lesson/s I needed to learn. I never felt that yoga was available to me, a fat person. Yoga was the domain of the lithe and “enlightened.” While I think that is still the predominant thought, I KNOW yoga is available to anyone willing to let go of their “cerebral” inner voice and listen to the wisdom of their own body. It’s a tough sell, especially if you’re fat, but it is so worth the effort.” —Janet Wieneke

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Without Mirrors (or Yoga Selfies)

by Nina

by Hokusai

For the sake of this blog—or maybe just because I can’t resist—I try to keep up with what’s happening in the yoga blog-o-sphere and on Facebook. Lately, there has been this whole backlash regarding “yoga selfies” - that trend many of us have been subjected to, of yoga practitioners sharing photographs of themselves in fancy yoga poses in a bid to to see who can outdo one another athletically or perhaps just get more publicity (see yoga selfies: tara stiles & NY post spark big ol’ convo). The event that set off the latest firestorm of criticism was yoga teacher Tara Stiles riding around New York City doing yoga poses in a glass box on a truck to promote her latest series of yoga videos.

I was starting to feel that I should weigh in, too. After all, if you’ve been reading our blog for any length of time, you’d know that we’re interested in the power of yoga to foster health and equanimity, not in its ability to make us look good in photographs (which seems rather, uh, counterproductive). And a long-time friend of mine suggested to me that while there are already plenty of younger women writing about yoga for curvy bodies (see Interview with Anna Guest-Jelley of Curvy Yoga), there was not much out there about older people and body image, and she thought that I should write something about it on the blog. I explained that I was reluctant to, not because I didn’t believe it was important, but because I didn’t feel I had much credibility on the topic. For much of my life, I was lithe and slender, and actively enjoyed the body I was born with. Maintaining that enjoyment is more of conscious struggle these days, as I’m in my early sixties and of course I don’t look the way I once did, especially—to be frank—with no clothes on. But, I explained to her, I still thought that someone who had struggled more with body image issues should be the one to take this topic on. 

Then by chance while I was cleaning out my attic (I’m still working on my Aparigraha) this weekend, I found something I’d written a number of years ago for a book on body image that never took off (my co-author, who was the one who had body image issues, lost interest). The piece I wrote was intended just for women, and doesn’t address the issue of aging, but you know what? I think it still speaks to the larger issue. And it reflects my gratitude for one of the profound gifts that my practice has given me: an appreciation for the beauty of my aliveness. Even now with gray in my hair and arthritis in my right hip, I still feel this way when I’m working in my garden, walking down the streets of my city, or practicing yoga alone on my mat.

Without Mirrors

What if you forgot entirely about how you looked and could just walk down the street feeling entirely comfortable in your own skin, relishing all the physical sensations of being alive? And what if the simple movements of putting one foot in front of the other, of swaying your hips, and moving your arms, would feel utterly delicious to you, as if you were savoring the taste of a perfectly ripe summer peach or taking in the exquisite fragrance of a field of lavender? Wouldn’t you stop obsessing about the size of your breasts, belly, or thighs, the texture of your hair, the shape of your nose, the smoothness of your skin? And wouldn’t you simply rejoice in the beauty of your own aliveness? And feel immense gratitude for the gift of your body, the way it is now, the way it is today?

Everyone talks about the “yoga body” these days as if it were some kind of a look, some kind of fashion statement. They even, God forbid, talk about the “yoga butt.” But honestly as we look around our yoga classes, we see women of every shape imaginable, some slim and lithe, some buff and muscular, and some soft and voluptuous. So what if the yoga body has nothing to do with a look and everything to do with a feeling? Because in yoga we practice without mirrors. We do not look at ourselves, but rather feel ourselves and listen to our bodies. Yes, our yoga teachers help us to improve the alignment of our bodies. However, this is not so we look better, but so we can do the poses with more ease and can breathe more freely when we are in them (a good test of whether you are doing a pose with good alignment is to check whether you can speak in a normal, relaxed tone of voice while you are in the posture).

So are you ready to give up the fantasy of looking perfect for the reality of feeling wonderful?

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Taking Back the "Yoga Body"!

by Nina

Are you familiar with the term “yoga body?” What does it mean to you? Unfortunately, for many people, this term connotes a young, slender, super-bendy woman posing on the cover of a magazine along with promises that doing certain yoga poses will result in a “fierce and fabulous” body, worthy of a photo shoot. Recently, a book cover by yoga teacher Sadie Nardini seems to capitalize on this concept:

Here, a young, attractive and very slender woman, who is not even doing yoga on the cover (really, what is that silly position she’s in?), seems to be promising that in 21 days, you’ll have a body that looks like mine!

Of course, if you’re one of our regular readers, you will know that when we talk about the effects of yoga asana on your body, we’re referring to overall physical health, including strength, flexibility, balance, agility, and reduced stress levels, not the way you will look after practicing for 21 or more days or the advanced poses you’ll be able to show off. So in general we just tend to ignore mainstream media’s obsession with physical beauty and the resulting distortion of yoga practice. Recently, however, some discussions in the blogosphere as well as at my own dining room table made me realize it would be worthwhile to raise my concerns about this disturbing trend and to take back the term “yoga body.”

First of all, there has been the “scandal” over Lululemon’s founder and CEO Chip Wilson’s statements blaming women’s physical “flaws” for problems in the company’s yoga pants. Yes, people, in explaining why certain women found these expensive pants were pilling, Wilson said that “quite frankly some women’s bodies just actually don’t work for it,” and “It’s really about the rubbing through the thighs, how much pressure is there over a period of time and how much they use it.” The take-away here was that if your thighs touch when you stand with your feet together, you don’t have the “yoga body” needed to wear certain “yoga pants.” Do I even have to explain how offensive—and completely antithetical to the real purpose of yoga—this is?

Then, I read some inspiring posts by yoga blogger, Roseanne Harvey, an average-sized yoga practitioner, who decided to test the program in Sadie Nardini’s book and document the results by photographing herself in before and after photos. She decided to do the program for two reasons. The first reason was to test the rather ridiculous time frame being promoted. I’ve already written about the issue of being realistic about the time period required for results (see Take Your Time). But it’s very compelling to see the dramatic before and after photos Roseanne took of herself after doing the program. Spoiler alert: she looks basically the same in both photos, possible even a little rounder in the after photo.

But more importantly, Roseanne wanted to take the opportunity to explore the concept of a “yoga body,” asking some of her favorite yoga writers to weigh in on the topic. And she concluded by saying:

“But I’m starting to feel that the “yoga body” is something that needs to be reclaimed (or possibly even claimed; was it ever ours to begin with?). It needs to be reclaimed from Google, reclaimed from marketers, reclaimed from a fragmented culture that has mixed messages and ideas about the human body.”

Yes, Roseanne! I agree wholeheartedly. So this is me joining your movement! And I’d like to add that while most of the discussion around the term “yoga body” focuses on body image and body weight—certainly vital issues in our culture—what about age? What about the gray hair, wrinkles and sagging flesh that come along with the natural aging of the body? My final inspiration for this writing post was seeing this recent photo of BKS Iyengar on the occasion of his 95th birthday.

How about this as the ultimate “yoga body?” Here is a 95-year old man, complete with sagging flesh, white hair, and wrinkled skin, who is still in good physical and mental health, and who is completely comfortable in his skin. In this case, I really do think the picture itself says it all.

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