Jessamyn Stanley
Jessamyn Stanley
Jessamyn Stanley is an American yoga teacher and body positivity advocate and writer. She gained recognition through her Instagram posts showing her doing yoga as a "plus-size woman of color," who self-identifies as a "fat femme" and "queer femme." She is the author of the books Every Body Yoga: Let Go of Fear, Get On the Mat, Love Your Body and Yoke: My Yoga of Self Acceptance.
"We often think that yoga is only about the combination of postures, breathing, and meditation, but it results in a lot of internal work, too. That work has led me to understand my own liberation — not just of my physical body, but of my emotional and spiritual bodies. A huge part of that has been recognizing that I am a sexual being, and thats not something that I need to apologize for or be ashamed of."
"It’s so idealized, like, your life must be perfect if you can hold a balance posture on the beach. But the actual practice of yoga isn’t about that at all. The image isn’t important. The practice is."
"I didn’t realize that in truth what makes you a good teacher is really living your own practice, and living it so much that you request it to other people. Ultimately, everything you do that you teach someone else is something that you’re working through to teach yourself, and that practice of really digging within yourself, it feels like having your soul cracked open."
