Yoga from the Inside Out

   I finally finished reading Yoga from the Inside Out, and I have to say, I really enjoyed reading it, especially since a lot of what she reflected on were emotions and thoughts that I've experienced during middle school, high school, and college.
   The kinds of topics about self-image that Christina Sell talked about were things I a lot of women have gone through and still go through. I even know of a few guys in my life that experience discomfort with themselves because of their friends and family, and society's depiction of the ideal body.
   "I assumed I would be more lovable if I stayed thin...I felt depressed, hopeless, unlovable, and scared of growing up." Her honest telling of her low self-esteem, and her endless difficulty with battling it really resonated with me. I never went as far as bulimia or becoming addicted to exercising, but then again I just simply hated eating myself sick, throwing up, and physical activity of just about any kind. That didn't stop me from beating myself up over my eating habits, lack of exercising, and my big stomach, hips, and thighs. Save a few rare times, I was hardly ever made fun of for my size, but I eventually realized during my freshman and sophomore year of high school that I didn't even need anybody attacking me for my size, looks, and habits - I did a good enough job of that to myself on my own. I've been more cruel to myself than most others probably ever could psychologically. I was the evil voice in my head constantly giving horrible answers to my sad questions of why people didn't want to date me or be my friend, even during times when I should have been happy with the close friends and loving family that I currently had. She experiences something similar to this when her yoga teacher during a workshop is being supportive instead of criticizing or yelling. "Since the teacher wasn't yelling, I could see more clearly how I was the one who was always yelling at me, and I was the person who was constantly criticizing my own efforts."
   I could respect how honest she was willing to be about the very things she considered shameful, like her bulimia. I also loved how she emphasized that you needed to be honest about all these problems and faults in order to begin to process of accepting them and yourself in order to love yourself. There are a number of ways to come to this realization and begin the slow, and honestly endless, process of fixing it, but she chose yoga as her passion and her way of connecting with the divine and her true self.
   Her depiction of society, which she calls the Sleeping World, was interesting and very true. From a young age, we're constantly exposed to media, marketing, and sometimes peer and family pressure that "holds us hostage to ideals for the human body that are unrealistic, often unhealthy, and founded on a lack of respect for our essential worthiness or goodness". Unless we simply decide to shut ourselves away in our houses or go out and live in a yurt in the forest as a hermit, we're going to be exposed to society's ideals and expectations of what everyone should look and act like, ironic in a nation of supposed individuality. This pushing for what industries say will make us happy can often have the opposite effect of depression and low self-esteem, when we realize that we can never meet those expectations, or simply don't want to, but by then we feel like we're worthless and unlovable if we're not pretty enough, handsome enough, tall enough, slim enough, etc. This is what Christina gets at when she's discussing the negative effects of the Sleeping World, and she explains it as part of the reason she was so hard on herself throughout the years.
   Plus, she's right when she says that as hard as it is to wage an external war against societal ideals, it's even harder to wage an internal war against the resulting ideals we make for ourselves. It's hardest, finally, to "face ourselves honestly", to acknowledge the way we naturally are and confront the negative thoughts we let stir and boil within us about these natural parts of us. She went through this kind of self-observation and self-acceptance with hatha yoga, where she learned to pay attention to her emotions and her body through poses, the yoga community, and the support of her yoga teacher and spiritual leader. She had to confront her damaged self-confidence and problems with body image and bulimia, something really hard to do since we, as humans, don't ever want to face and admit our faults, especially faults we can't do anything about (at least not without plastic surgery or other somewhat extreme methods of changing who we are). It's sad that we are given this idea of "perfection" and made to feel so utterly uncomfortable and unhappy with ourselves, and we fall into this mindset so easily, that we would rather surgically add and take parts away, resort to disorders and endless dissatisfaction, and more, instead of simply facing these demons, accepting them for what they are, and trying to love and nurture them for the kind of person they make you, perfect just as you already are.
   It goes into this idea that she brings up - because we see ourselves as faulty, unworthy, and unsatisfactory, we begin acting in a way that we think proves it's all true, and it reminded me of the idea of self-fulfilling prophecy, a term in psychology that essentially means this. Because we believe something or predict something will happen, we behave in a way that inevitably makes it come true, incorrectly causing us to think we were right all along and reinforcing us to continue believing it and acting that way. This kind of negative cognitive thought hurts groups and individuals in many ways, and it happens in many different disorders and just generally with problems of shyness, anxiety, and low self-esteem.
   Overcoming these kinds of damaging thoughts remains an ongoing practice, long after you finally acknowledge their existence and damaging effects. It's not something that can be resolved in a single day, no matter what you might hope or think about yourself. Like Christina explains, these kinds of thoughts and problems (such as bulimia and other disorders) will always come back in one way or another. The importance lies in how you handle them when they arise again and how much support you have during the hard times. She was right in emphasizing how important it is to have others who understand, support, and love you. It's honestly, to me, one of the best feelings in the world to know there are others like you or who at least completely understand what you're going through, and they want to help or be there for you no matter what. Through yoga, the support of the people around her, and a stronger relationship with the divine, Christina believes she has finally found a wonderful way to face these hardships and find peace within herself, and that's a fantastic thing. Because of yoga and this spiritual connection, she has learned many different ways to find confidence and peace in herself, such as wearing more revealing clothing, being more authentic and true to herself, saying yes to things she never would have had the confidence to say yes to in the past. I'm not yet sure about how yoga, and everything emotional and spiritual revolving around it, might be able to accomplish this within me, but then again I probably just haven't actually tried. And after all, I've only just begun.
   I'm not a religious person, but it still really hit me when, at one point, when she's talking about how we feel constantly pressured by society, friends, family, etc. to "fix" and "manicure" ourselves to fit into a narrow "ideal", she asks, "If we really knew that the Divine unconditionally loved us, would the concept of a "bad hair day" even make sense?" This question hit me really hard and even made me tear up a little, because, to me, that felt like the very base level of the problem behind the pain I and others I know have put ourselves through. If I felt completely loved and accepted as I was by everyone around me for once, or even just completely loved and accepted by the one person who actually mattered, then I'm sure I wouldn't feel so self-conscious and anxious about trying to appear pretty, and slim, and friend-worthy, and employable, and lovable. If I could be sure people weren't negatively judging me, and if I could just stop expecting everybody to negatively judge me, then I could finally feel a heck of a lot more confident and satisfied with myself than I do now.
   Christina found that unconditional love in the divine, and its his love that helps to reassure and strengthen her when she begins to doubt. The comfort and happiness that comes with that kind of realization, and later reassurance, is beautiful and wonderful, even during times when those evil thoughts try to rise up from the dead to whisper in your ear that there isn't anyone who truly likes all of you and why (it's amazing how many reasons one can come up with when you enter into that kind of downward spiral). I know I pretty much have that from my parents, my grandparents, and my childhood best friend, all of them amazing people who are very dear to my heart. However, there have been numerous times when it was hard to remember them, especially during times when other people you weren't expecting come into your life and succeed in cannonballing that safe fortress of self-confidence and happiness that you managed to build against the constantly invading bad thoughts, with the help of those who love and support you.
   But then, it's during times like those when you most need to reach out to and believe in those people who love and support you unconditionally and endlessly so they can be there for you and help you to rebuild, because, as Christina says, it takes many threads to weave a beautiful blanket. It's when you most need to reach within yourself to realize and accept the damage that has been done, pick up the burned and broken pieces you're afraid to touch, and find the power and self-love to build them back up even stronger than before. As Christina shows in her book, the unconditional love and reassurance of others (whether they are everyday people or the divine) and the unconditional love and reassurance of yourself (through whatever means makes you happiest and most fulfilled, whether it be yoga or something else) has that kind of empowering, fantastic, freeing strength. Despite being surrounded by people full of self-doubt and a society of dissatisfaction, this kind of strength forever brightens and changes your life for the better. And along the way, or maybe afterwards, you can begin to help others find their inner strength and light, and we can be one step closer to a stronger and better world (Sleeping and/or Divine) for everyone.