AustralianYogaJournal-May2018

18 PHOTO: JONATHAN PETIT

may/june 2018

yogajournal.com.au

Yoga’s sweetheart talks about motherhood,

#metoo, and the future of yoga

(and it’s not online or on social media).

I spend a lot of time every day just laughing and smiling

with my baby girl. There’s something so beautifully

intelligent about feeling your feelings in the moment, the

way babies do. There’s no fi lter or faking it. When she’s sad,

she cries; when she’s happy she laughs. I think we would all

feel a lot better if we allowed ourselves to feel things when

they surface.

In 2014, I decided I wanted to do something good with

the infl uence I had as @yoga_girl. I was sick of posting yoga

photos on Instagram. And I started feeling uninspired by the

yoga community that grew out of social media, even though

I was part of that growth. A lot of people in my life passed

away that year, so I started writing about my painful journey.

My entire Instagram following changed. I used to get

questions about yoga poses or pants, but then people started

asking for serious help—with depression and loss, eating

disorders, even suicide. I’m not a therapist, so my staff and

I began looking for people we could connect readers to.

I realised I needed to go way deeper if I was going to actually

be of service. That’s when we started oneOeight.com (online

education), which spurred 109 World (a seva organisation),

our animal rescue, and eventually Island Yoga in Aruba.

I want Island Yoga, our retreat and teacher training

business, to remain a very different type of yoga experience.

The work we do is more related to personal development

than asana. Our method involves a lot of sharing— in

groups and one on one. Our trainings help people feel

whole. If we don’t feel whole, we’re always going to

feel like we’re not enough. But if you can be a whole

person, you’re going to be a good yoga teacher.

For me, yoga is now about connecting people so they

can create community. That’s really hard to do online and

through social media. I kind of hope everything spins back

around and drops off the Internet—that people loop back

into the practice of student-teacher relationships and being

in a room with other people. Social media still has a place—

for example the #metoo movement. I just wish more

teachers, especially younger teachers in the online space,

would think of social media as a way to help the world,

instead of just as a way to become a big name. There is so

much work to be done.

Rachel

Brathen