Endorsements
“Yoga is a practice of releasing limiting beliefs so the body can continuously shift into the healing, calm state that Nature intended. This book is an embodiment of the practice; be prepared to let go of your limitations and begin loving the skin you’re in. Bravo!”
– Elena Brower, Yoga Teacher; Author, Art of Attention
“Talk about brains and beauty coming together for the greater good! This is a must read for hungry souls hearing the call toward their important life shift. A recurring daydream for something more meaningful. To finally let go of the negative self flagellation, for a life of joy in the everyday in every way. Through the beautifully chosen stories in this anthology, you’ll begin to see that through yoga, one can obtain positive body image, no matter what age, race, body shape or gender. That through this calming and centering practice, any and all have the ability to change lives, starting with their own simple act of self love that ultimately heals all.”
– Emme, Supermodel, TV personality, Body Image advocate and founder of EmmeNation.com
“Inclusivity, critical thinking and real-life stories that are from practitioners of yoga who are actually real make Yoga + Body Image a manifesto for the evolution of the practice and culture of yoga. The voices in this compilation are raw, intelligent, trustworthy and much-needed.”
– Jay Fields is the founder of Grace & Grit Yoga and the author of the books Teaching People, Not Poses and Homebody Yoga.
“The image we construct of our bodies is a complicated convergence of identity, media, and upbringing. The contributors in this collection don’t shy away from the complexity, and instead dive into the whole spectrum of experiences. As a body-based practice, yoga has the potential to heal or harm our relationship to our body. This book opens up the conversation and illumines how yoga can be a practice that truly heals and benefits everyone — no matter the size, shape, age, color or gender of their body.”
– Roseanne Harvey, founder of It’s All Yoga, Baby
“This is an important book, sharing a diversity of voices united by insight, courage, and compassion. Read it and join the movement to shift not simply yoga, but our society in general in a more positive, healing, and authentically empowering direction.”
– Carol Horton, Ph.D., author of Yoga Ph.D. and co-editor of 21st Century Yoga
“This book is filled with raw, poignant stories that bring to life the different ways that body image issues show up for people and the role that yoga played in helping them understand and address their challenges. I especially appreciate the diversity of voices and the conversation about the way that the mainstream yoga culture can perpetuate body image issues. Thank you Anna Guest- Jelly and Melanie Klein for this honest, thought provoking and heart opening anthology!”
– Hala Khouri, M.A., E-RYT and co-founder of Off the Mat, Into the World®.
“An antidote to the instagram-induced craving to be another semi-naked, hyper-fit yogi doing arm balances on a moving vehicle, Yoga and Body Image reminds us that it’s not what we look like, but how we live that is the measure of our yoga practice. And we can’t practice yoga or love or compassion or joy without our body. This book does us a great, compassionate service by pointing the way toward loving others by first loving our whole self, including our one precious body, as it is, right now.”
– Cyndi Lee, yoga teacher and author, May I Be Happy: A Memoir of Love, Yoga, and Changing My Mind
“I’ve always considered yoga a metaphor for life, and nowhere is this metaphor more resonant than when it comes to body image and our sense of self. Both take practice, strength, flexibility, patience, balance, stillness, movement and always breath. This amazing book doesn’t just provide us with inspiration it provokes it, and encourages us to find stillness, and embrace the diversity in ourselves and each other – all in the midst of a popular-culture practically insisting we don’t. I’m so grateful to the authors and contributors for this gift.”
– Seth Matlins is a father, former Hollywood marketer, and does what he can to help make the world a better place for girls. Creator of #TruthInAds
“If, as Patanjali asserts, yoga is the task of enhancing our facility to witness, Klein and Guest-Jelley have assembled a profoundly yogic text. Not only for its spectrum of witnessing voices, but for its close examination of how we actually witness ourselves — with anxiety, accusation, shyness, forgiveness, or wonderment — first through the eyes of others, but slowly progressing towards a kind of inner vision.”
– Matthew Remski, author of Threads of Yoga
“In this union of smart, powerful, and emotional voices, Klein and Guest-Jelley illuminate how yoga can heal, foster acceptance, and promote awareness and empowerment. The book makes clear that the practice of yoga, contrary to popular notion, is for each and every body.”
– Stacey Rosenfeld, PhD Clinical Psychologist Specializing in Eating Disorders/Body Image Author of Does Every Woman Have an Eating Disorder? Challenging Our Nation’s Fixation with Food and Weight
“This book takes ‘consciousness’ raising to a new level, adding a diverse range of voices to the ongoing conversation about the personal, the political, and the creation of a more just and balanced world. It’s yoga for feminists, and feminism for yoginis—a thoughtful union, and a complex blend.”
– Deborah Siegel, PhD, author of Sisterhood, Interrupted
“This morning I noticed some fresh gray hair on my head and a few new moles on my body — this body is changing as I enter my mid-forties, that’s for certain. It’s much harder to accept these changes than I had anticipated. And while I can’t stop the aging process, I suspect that how I embrace or reject it will fundamentally impact, perhaps even determine, my health, wellbeing, and happiness for the decades to come. This powerful book is an inspiration, perhaps even a roadmap, for this vital journey.”
– Brian Leaf, MA, author of Misadventures of a Parenting Yogi and Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi
“The world needs strong individuals who speak their truth so we can gain the much-needed wisdom to acknowledge and accept our unique paths. Yoga and Body Image is a beautiful collection of experiences written from the heart and for the heart, and is sure to bring healing to those who read it.”
– Brenda Feuerstein, author, Yoga teacher, and Director of Traditional Yoga Studies and the Inner Freedom Project
“I have been teaching Gender Women’s Studies since 1998. This book is the corrective to the beauty myth that has unfortunately never gone out of style—life threatening dieting and body hate. Yoga does have the ability to teach women from the inside out body love. This volume does that. It exemplifies radical self- care and is exactly the kind of tool to help women in a concrete hands on way find their way to their own body finally- to find their way, literally, home.”
– Marie Cartier, Ph.D. and author of Baby, You Are My Religion: Women, Gay Bars ad Theology Before Stonewall