Jessamyn Stanley

Finding self-acceptance both on and off the mat. In Sanskrit, yoga means to “yoke.” To yoke mind and body, movement and breath, light and dark, the good and the bad. This larger idea of “yoke” is what Jessamyn Stanley calls the yoga of the everyday—a yoga that is not just about perfecting your downward dog but about applying the hard lessons learned on the mat to the even harder daily project of living. In a series of deeply honest, funny autobiographical essays, Jessamyn explores everything from imposter syndrome to cannabis to why it’s a full-time job loving yourself, all through the lens of yoke. She calls out an American yoga complex that prefers debating the merits of cotton versus polyblend leggings rather than owning up to its overwhelming Whiteness. She questions why the Western take on yoga so often misses—or misuses—the tradition’s spiritual dimension. And reveals what she calls her own “whole-ass problematic”: Growing up Baháí, loving astrology, learning to meditate, finding prana in music. And in the end, Jessamyn invites every reader to find the authentic spirit of yoke—linking that good and that bad, that light and that dark.

My Yoga of Self-Acceptance

Yoke

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Find your breath and you're practicing yoga. The posture itself is irrelevant. That means you, me and, everyone we know are always practicing yoga in every posture, whether it's clear to us or not. When you realize yoga isn't just happening when you're on a yoga mat, it becomes clear that the breath is the first thing that should be established in every moment, and not just when you're practicing a sequence of postures. Because, really, every moment in life is a yoga posture. Standing up tall when someone's trying to shrink you is a yoga posture. Protecting your loved ones is a yoga posture. Finding the breath in these moments inspires you to action and confirms your faith. Sometimes finding your breath can be the difference between seeing someone else's point of view and punching them in the face.

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