CAMEL POSE VARIATIONAfter I had been involved in yoga for a while as
a body-positive advocate, so many people told
me, “You should go to teacher training,” but I was
like, “I’m not going to be a yoga teacher.” There
were too many yoga teachers already. Why did I
need to be another one?
My father helped change how I saw all of
this. He does not care about the weird world of
Internet publicity and did not acknowledge my
Internet presence—he still doesn’t. But last year,
I found myself in this big media bubble. I was on
Good Morning America and in New York magazine.
After I began to get mainstream attention, my
dad said, “It seems like you need to do this,
Jessamyn,” and offered to pay for my teacher
training.
It was the most incredible, life-changing expe-
rience I’ve ever had. I’m kind of the anti-yogi and
maybe went into the training somewhat jaded.
By the second week, I was, like, crying. I was
doing a partner exercise with a girl a lot smaller
than me. I kept apologizing for putting my body
weight on her: “Oh, I’m sorry. Oh, I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.”
She finally said, “You know you don’t have to
apologize, right?”
I said, “I guess I’m apologizing for my own
existence.”
Then I thought, “Oh, my god, I really think that.”
I cried all the way home. It was the most
cleansing experience. I have issues with being
fat. I have issues with my blackness. I apologize
because I cannot accept my own existence. So
many people feel the same way. I have told this
story so many times, and someone always says,
“I feel that.”
That is the reason to teach yoga—to help others
acknowledge these things and move past them.
The more people who are trained to be yoga
teachers, the more people there are to spread
around its messages. The training opened my
heart, and it opened my eyes.