Book review: Yoga and body image, Melanie Klein & Anna Guest-Jelley
I have been thinking about being more inclusive in my teaching for a while now, and I have been looking all over the place for material & inspiration. I want to hear the voice of people with different body types, different sexual orientations, different skin colors, etc...
This book gathers testimonies from yogi.ni.s with different background and gives a great overview of the way yoga can change body perception and create a lasting change in people's life.
It is structured in different parts:
Making choices and creating change
In the margins
Culture and media
Parenting and children
Gender and sexuality
It was such a great read!!
I loved reading all these different voices, the impact of yoga on people at different moment of their lives.
We all have different lives, experiences and challenges. Most of us have privileges that we are more or less conscious of, and when are aware of our privileges, it is important to hear the voice of others.
As a social activist and feminist, I believe yoga has to be inclusive, and should be a vector for positive change. This book was a very good mind opener, I learned a lot, it inspired me, and made me think.
Quotes:
"In a world that is increasingly mediated, with ads telling us what we're lacking and how to fill that void and gain self-esteem by using our credit cards, ads that are practically shoved down our throats on every available surface where our eyeballs land, what is more subversive that turning it all out?
"Through yoga, I was able to feel whatever emotion was arising in my body without immediately wanting our of it. "
"By experiencing discomfort in small, manageable ways on the mat and learning to breath through it, yoga offered me a practical skill to deal with dissociation. The reality is that painful feelings were happening all the time, but no one taught me how to live with them. "
"Child pose is the place I always go where I will without fail hear that loving soft voice of the divine, telling me that I am loved, that I am needed, that I am wanted."