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Jessamyn Stanleys newbookbegins with a story about a mistake.
© Cornell Watson
But yolk, the yellow part of anegg, made it to print instead.
Exactly what you might expect.
Stanley freaked out, contemplated calling her publisher, and considered writing to the reader.
Then she got on heryoga matand let herself feel everything that cropped up.
I needed to stare it down.
This opening anecdote sets the tone for the entire book.
Stanley examines herself as searingly as she explores capitalism, cultural appropriation, white guilt, andcannabisconsumption.
She shares her triumphs, her failures, and the ways shes still unfolding.
For Stanley, mistakes and imperfections are essential aspects of practice.
I want to enjoy the moments where I am happy, smiling, and proud, she says.
But those feelings don’t exist without mistakes.
There’s no way to learn to stand without falling.
SELF: You wrote most of the book pre-pandemic, right?
What was the process like?
Stanley:It was much more complicated than I had anticipated.
I wroteEvery Body Yogapretty quickly.
And I was like, I could do it in a year.
Its four years later.
The first couple of years were just research.
I was reading, and I was watching some things, but mostly reading.
And that, to me, is really interesting.
You write about cultural appropriation versus appreciation.
How do you navigate that line in your own life?
I think that so much of American yoga ends up being anappropriation of yoga practiced in South Asia.
But being conscious of when Im using Sanskrit is a big one for me.
It’s so deeply wrapped up in South Asian heritage and culture.
And the reality is that I don’t think there’s a way to not potentially offend somebody.
I think that you will.
It’s just life.
But awareness can do a lot.
Are there stories in the book that youre afraid for people to read?
Oh, I have huge fear.
I’m really telling the truth on this one.
I felt fear about the white guilt, even though I know it to be my truth.
Is this something that has ever come up for you?
And if the answer is, No, I’ve never felt that way.
And I don’t know what you’re talking about.
And actually, what you’ve written here really offends me, I’m like, Tell me more.
I would love to hear more about this.
This is a real conversation.
In your chapter about self-love, you disclose your sexual assault.
And you write, Hating myself is a reflex of getting to know myself.
What is that reflex like?
What’s the process of knowing yourself and being offended or hating yourself?
Honestly, the assault I talked about inYokewas the one I felt comfortable sharing.
There’s a bunch of other shit that I didnt talk about.
But not wanting to look at myassaultwas why I ended up talking about it.
Because I was like, I hate myself for this.
It’s all just a reverberating monster of me not accepting myself.
The people that were also involved: They could be dealing with any emotion.
But what I will do is give myself permission to feel all of it and not be ashamed.
That has been deeply cathartic for me.
Any advice for cultivating that permission?
It seems like such a place of self-compassion.
That is what the practice of yoga is for me.
Its practicing compassion over and over again.
It took years of physical practice before I understood what was happening in a mental, emotional way.
It could be any kind ofmovement.
Using the way that you think about your body as a jumping-off point can help.
So like saying, Yeah, I say shitty things about myself.
Period, and I’m not going to give a shot to make an excuse for it.
I’m not going to give a shot to pretend like that’s not the case.
I’m not going to take a stab at blame it on anyone else.
Just accepting that and practicing that every day is plenty of work on an emotional level.
And from there, it just escalates.
There are endless things to be compassionate about.
Is there one thing you hope folks take away from your work?
Whatever that means, whoever that is, on whatever day it is.
And what you bring to this world is important.
And there’s nothing that ever happened to you that wasn’t exactly what it needed to be.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
