This weeks yoga story is about Anna Guest-Jelley, a curvy woman who practices and teaches yoga in Nashville, Tennessee.
My dad is a writer, and he and I have always connected through the written word. Soaking up books like sponges--especially on beach vacations. Penning a hilarious yet informative end-of-year newsletter. Expressing something poignant when needed.
I followed in my dad’s footsteps and got a degree in English, and then another. There was a time when I loved creative writing: I wrote poems and free-form stories. I imagined myself holed up in a writers’ colony, working away in my solitary cabin.
Somewhere along the way, though, writing became only practical to me. I could express myself well in reports and produce compelling marketing. As I started doing this more and more, I began identifying with it. I saw myself as someone who could get * important * points * across. Who was alternately serious, warm, convincing, or thoughtful, depending on the subject and task at hand.
The more I did this, though, the more I forgot about my other writing loves. The more I started saying things like “Oh, I’m not a creative writer” with a sneer of disdain. I didn’t so much look down on people with those skills as dismiss the fact that anyone could ever associate me with it. That wasn’t my thing. That wasn’t me.
It’s interesting now to look back on this arc of my so-far writing life. This move toward “serious” writing coincided with a marked hardness in my life--to always focusing on moving up in my career, to not bothering with things like emotions, to trying to hate my body into thin submission.
The yoga mat is where all this started to fall apart--in the best of ways (although it didn’t always feel that way). After years of straining through classes and forcing myself to do a posture in the exact way the teacher instructed because I couldn’t imagine any other option, I took another look at my practice. And after nearly fifteen years of dieting and the inherent struggles associated with the fluctuations between binging and restricting, I was questioning whether or not there was a better way. Whether maybe, just maybe, the stories I’d invented about myself were just that--tales spun out of insecurity and a desire to guard myself: “not a creative writer,” “too curvy for yoga,” “not good enough until I reach x pounds.”
This began an exquisite journey for me--one I’m very much still on. What I’ve found is that the more I open to my body, just as it is today (which is a harder reality to face than I would have initially thought), the more I see some things that surprise--and delight--me. That I have a husband who loves me for me. That my life is full of interesting and loving friends, colleagues and family. That my yoga practice is beautiful, even if it’s not what you’ll see in the latest copy of Cosmo. That I am a writer, and that creativity takes many different forms.
I’ve learned to breathe into the curves--of my writing, my body and my life. Whether lying in Savasana or typing at my computer, I’m seeing what fresh joys arise--even if they manifest as pain or grief or doubt. Because what I’ve found for me, and now my yoga students, is that we all want to connect with our bodies and hopes, regardless of our size. And that is certainly something worth claiming.
For more information about Anna, her yoga schedule and the exciting new projects she's involved in, visit her website or follow her on twitter.
Namasté,
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