04/12/2024
Working in the world of Yoga Retreats and Trainings,
I find there’s as strong a pressure to be
“getting it right”
in regard to diet
as there is to practicing asana.
You all may remember I (radically!) don’t believe in a “right” way to practice asana.
That’s simply put. Long version,
I believe
first we must UNLEARN our conditioning
in which lie many beliefs around “doing things right”
thing which we may believe and drive our every day decisions, but which at their core,
may be built on world views which
WE DIDN’T EVEN CHOOSE TO BELIEVE
and which may not serve us.
This is a massive process of uncovering.
From this place, grounded in an open awareness, curiosity, and self-receptivity,
yes, we can begin distinguishing our approach to asana as “right/wrong” (I prefer the term “appropriate“),
because we know we are coming from a place where intuitively we KNOW what is appropriate for our practice.
We know when and how to push our edge to build strength, stamina, resiliency.
We know when and how to foster a sense of deep rest and restoration.
Before we unpackage the prior conditioning, we can’t be sure if our approach to practicing with our physical form is rooted in self-respect or in the endless barrage of “shoulds” we’ve picked up our whole lives.
It’s the same with food.
Asana and food both fall within
“Annamayakosha”,
the yogic perspective on building the physical form.
We ARE what we eat and habitually do,
quite directly.
I’m willing to say there is rampant disordered eating across the yoga industry world. I’m willing to shout this from the rooftops.
Yes calorie concern, but primarily:
which foods are “good” “bad”.
Ayurveda teaches that EVERYTHING is medicine and the same EVERYTHING is poison, depending on context.
An example. I was raised in a health conscious yoga world as vegan. I didn’t touch meat until I was 22. I never intended to. It was (and still is) a deeply ethical choice.
It turns out, ethics in the postmodern reality are not so cut and dry.
When I started to learn the nasty underbelly of the origin of some of my vegan food, I began to question.
When animal products became a prescriptive solution to medical issues I had pretty much alway
