How yoga has helped me to finally feel at home in my body
[Trigger warning: eating disorders/ distorted body image]
I have hinted at this on different occasions, when talking about my yoga journey on my website, and in a few social media posts: One of the aspects of yoga I am most grateful for is that yoga has helped me to feel good about myself again. To get in tune with my body. To appreciate my body as it is. To finally feel at home in my body - after struggling with body image for years.
Truth be told, I think this part of my yoga journey, is one of the main reasons why I teach yoga. Why I love yoga so much. For me, yoga has been life changing. With my offering, I do not promise any form of transformation, problem solving, healing or therapy but I truly believe everyone can benefit from yoga - on a physical but also on a mental level.
So what is my story? As a teenager I struggled with eating disorders, first anorexia, then bulimia. Luckily, I “got over it“ after a few years - meaning I stopped with the destructive behavior, got back a “healthy“ weight and enjoyed food again (mostly without a guilty conscience). However, what stayed for years to come: A pretty distorted body image, constantly not liking my body - no matter what other people told me or what size I could easily fit into. How much time and energy wasted …
Yoga was (and still is) the tool I needed to get back a healthy relationship with my body. For years, I felt so disconnected from my body, did not listen to it, did not appreciate it. However, this slowly changed when I started to regularly practice yoga because I felt my body in a totally new way. I started to appreciate it for the way it felt, for the postures I was able to do, for getting stronger and more flexible day by day. What I finally learned was to value my body for what it can do and not for how it looks (or rather what I think it looks like). Maybe this is common sense for a lot of people, for me it has been eye opening, in fact life changing.
Obviously, I am more than aware that eating disorders are super complex. They are not only related to body image but to problems that root much deeper. In most cases the eating disorder is rather a symptom, not necessarily the problem itself. Besides, I am aware that there is no one-fits-all solution. However, also research indicates that yoga might be helpful in the treatment and recovery of eating disorders. As a consequence, more and more recovery programs include a yoga practice into their approach.
Eating disorder or not, I think a lot of people have lost the mind-body connection - and I am convinced yoga can help with this.
