Stories Yoga Tells: Movement as Metaphor

Photo credit: Aquadro Photography

Yoga is a natural story teller. When I began my relationship with yoga — a sector of the wellness industry I had previously regarded with not much seriousness — I was searching for ways to navigate anxiety and depression. I came to the craft in hopes of diving deeper into meditation, but came to it warily, in many ways judgmental of the Western economization of an ancient Eastern tradition. I, like many skeptics, thought yoga as it was sold in the West was hogwash, a cheesy pseudo-spiritual MLM marketing scheme from which mostly wealthy, thin, white women capitalized. I was cynical yet curious, and so kept an arms length. When I meekly began attending public classes, I stayed on the outer edges of them, and did my best to minimize interaction with the teacher and other students. Fresh out of college in my early twenties, juggling a chaotic and demanding leadership role in the nonprofit sector, I was seeking direction. More simply, (or more complexly…) I was seeking mere ease in my skin. I was willing to try anything, even methods I wasn’t sure would help, in hopes of either minimizing my depression or accepting it, holding and sitting with it, with a gentler perspective. As a writer, I came to yoga critical and ready to (over?) analyze. But soon, I found that it, itself, was a writer too.

My first few classes were mostly gentle/restorative beginner levels, at a lovely…