The Power of Yoga & Self-Acceptance with Jessamyn Stanley

Jessamyn Stanley is an internationally acclaimed voice in wellness, highly sought-after for her insights on 21st-century yoga and intersectional identity. As a successful award-winning yoga instructor and entrepreneur, she is the founder of The Underbelly, a streaming wellness app and community, co-host of the podcast Dear Jessamyn, and co-founder of We Go High, a North Carolina based cannabis justice initiative. She is a regular contributor to SELF magazine, has been featured on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine (UK), and covered in the New York Times, Vogue, Glamour & Sports Illustrated among many other domestic and international media outlets. She is also the author of Yoke: My Yoga of Self-Acceptance and Every Body Yoga: Let Go of Fear, Get on the Mat, Love your Body. 

Connect with Jessamyn via the links below: 

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessamyn-stanley-7b82118/
• Website - https://jessamynstanley.com/.
• Twitter - https://twitter.com/JessamynStan
• Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theunderbellyyoga/
• Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mynameisjessamyn/
• Book - https://amzn.to/3pc3uSk

HIGHLIGHTS

02:16 Dealing with suicidal thoughts with raw honesty

09:12 All things in life is some version of Yoga

13:35 Yoga transcends the trappings of capitalism 

14:44 Healing is non-linear and comes in many forms 

22:49 Yoga can heal both body and mind

29:31 Acceptance is not letting it go, it's acknowledging that it's still there

32:26 You can't separate the ugly from the beautiful

39:01 Yoga and Cultural Appropriation 

42:44 What is the difference between appropriation and appreciation?

49:43 We need to acknowledge why people are unhealthy 

54:15 Capitalism thrives in our insecurities

58:56 Strengthening communities is the key to make lasting changes

QUOTES

09:40 Jessamyn: "That word, yoga, it literally just means 'to bring together'. It doesn't mean postures, it doesn't even mean breathwork or meditation. And so in life, we're always bringing things together. And we're specifically bringing things that on the surface don't look like they go together." 

12:08 Jessamyn: "Postures are really great and are really an incredible way of understanding the practice but you can practice yoga without ever stepping on a yoga mat, without ever practicing a traditional posture." 

14:07 Jessamyn: "Sometimes I get so consumed by wanting to identify with capitalism and with capitalism's many offspring, that I get lost, the practice will become solely about those material items when ultimately it's just so much more. It's so big and complex and links you to everything that has ever been and will ever be." 

22:50 Koya: I went to heal my back. I didn't know that I was gonna get the mental benefits of also healing my childhood and family trauma and things like that. That's a lot that we just harbor inside as women that unless someone talks to us about it, it's still in there." 

32:28 Jessamyn: "Beautiful things are also ugly at the same time. If you don't accept the ugliness of it, you can't experience the beauty of it."

49:31 Jessamyn: "If you're not willing to have a conversation about the reasons why people are unhealthy, then how are we going to become healthy? And that comes in so many different forms. It's not about how much you weigh specifically. We all incur so much trauma that we don't acknowledge, and it shows up in our lives in different ways because that's not attached to our overall health. it's just an incomplete picture with incomplete medical research."

50:49 Koya: "If someone's hurting anywhere, we're all hurting everywhere. It's the oneness. We're all yoke, we're all connected, we're all the energy that governs the whole Earth." 

54:11 Jessamyn: "That is one of the vestiges of capitalism I think, is that we are so focused on our flaws, because in order for capitalism to work at its peak, we all have to think that there's something wrong with us, because otherwise we won't buy anything."

58:57 Jessamyn: I always think of ending systemic racism as a very lofty goal and aspiration because it does require so much of each of us, but that's how that can happen. If we're honest with ourselves, if we make spaces that are accepting, truly, then that is how we can heal systemic racism."

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