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june 2017yogajournal.comDo this short sequence 3–5 times on its own or as part of a longer
practice to open your heart chakra and experience compassion.1 Begin in Mountain Pose with your hands together at your heart.
Inhale and reach toward the sky. » 2 Exhale, bringing your hands
behind your back. Interlace your fingers. Inhale and outwardly
rotate your shoulders while lifting your heart. Ground firmly through
your feet and press your knuckles toward the earth. » 3 Exhale to
fold forward. Bend your elbows slightly as you try to keep the heels
of your hands touching. » 4 Inhale, unclasp your hands, and ener-
getically sweep your arms upward as you lower your hips into Chair
Pose. » 5 Exhale and fold forward into a Standing Forward Bend.
Finish by inhaling back to Mountain Pose.WHEN I WAS GROWING UP in Dayton, Ohio,
in the ’8os, I did a lot of quintessential
“American” things: I was a cheerleader,
a ballet dancer, a gymnast. And yet I knew
that I was not the ideal American woman.
She did not look like me; her image in the
media—white, super thin—did not refl ect
me, a black girl with a very athletic build.
Our differences were only reinforced by
what I experienced in my world every day.
Constant remarks from my gymnastics
coach, like “Tuck in your butt, Chelsea,”
made me feel like I had failed—by no
effort on my part other than walking in
a black girl’s body. And when I traveled
to national cheerleading competitions, the
girls who won and appeared on the cover
of the competition magazines did not look
like me. It was not a surprise, but I also
knew early on that it was not OK.
As a teenager trying to meet the stan-
dard ideal of a cheerleader’s body type,
I developed an eating disorder—one
I carried throughout high school and even
returned to in early adulthood. In fact, thefi rst time I walked into a yoga class, I was
there because I wanted to lose weight.
I had recently fi nished my master’s degree
at Teachers College, Columbia University,
and the stress from working as a public-
school teacher combined with my uncon-
scious relationship with food caused me to
put on pounds. So when I heard that hot
yoga would help me lose weight, I said,
“Sign me up!”
It was not necessarily love at fi rst
sight—I fainted! I’m not really sure what
happened, I just woke up with cold towels
on my forehead. I can’t believe I ever went
back, but I’ve always had this attitude of
“I’m going to see this through.”
I dabbled in yoga for a while, still
focusing on the physical benefi ts. Then,
in 2oo4, a very good friend of mine was
violently murdered. That’s when I really
turned to yoga: I knew something more
was happening during the physical prac-
tice, and I wanted to use it to get through
that tragic loss. I started going deeper into
meditation and discovered Kashi Atlanta
ashram, where I eventually became a certi-
fi ed yoga teacher.
I began to use yoga as a tool to reveal
how much of an effect the loss of my dear
friend was having on me, and it taught me
how to use this practice as a way to feel in
order to heal. Yoga led me to refl ect more
on how I was treating my body—the ways
I accepted and did not accept myself—and
it began to transform me. I became more
conscious and loving toward myself, and I
realized yoga is not about weight loss at all.I now use yoga to uncover and understand
the layers of experiences I encounter in the
world, including those that continue to
make me feel like I don’t belong.
For instance, despite my 1 o years of
teaching yoga, students regularly seem
surprised that I’m the teacher in the room.
Maybe they’re making an assumption that
someone named Chelsea doesn’t look like
me. Maybe it’s because they’ve never seen
a yoga teacher, or an image of one, who
wasn’t a white, thin woman. When some-
one walks out of my class before it begins,
I often wonder if it’s because of who I am
or what I look like. When I roll out my
mat and take the seat of the teacher, do
they suddenly realize that they are in the
wrong class or that I am the wrong teacher
for them? And then there are the students
who stay, and at the end of class say things
like, “Wow, I cannot believe that you’re
such a great teacher!”
Through my practice, I’ve realized that
this is not about me; this is not a refl ection
of who I am as a yoga teacher. More than
anything, it reveals how necessary it is
to have opportunities for connection.
Because for every person who walks out
of my class, there are dozens of others
who do not look like me (with regard to
race, gender, or class) who stay to hear
what I have to say and to share their own
stories. And so my sadness and frustration
is more geared toward those people who
left—a missed opportunity for connection
and what yoga was intended for in the fi rst
place, union.CHELSEA
JACKSON ROBERTS
ATLANTA,GEORGIAW
OPEN YOUR HEART
STYLIST: JESSICA JEANNE EATON; HAIR/MAKEUP: BETH WALKER; TOP: ALO; BRA: LULULEMON; BOTTOMS: TITIKA