Why am I passionate about this?
I’m an award-winning author of novels and magazine articles. You can find my articles—many on mind-body and spiritual topics—in Oprah magazine, Prevention, National Geographic, and more. I started doing yoga back in my twenties when a woman almost-literally floated by me at the gym. When someone said she was the yoga teacher, I got off the spin bike and followed her into the class. I’m now a certified yoga teacher and longtime meditator. I’ve studied many classic yoga treatises, but it’s so much more fun to read—and to write—books that deliver yoga’s deep philosophies in a lighthearted, easily digestible way.
Meryl's book list on conveying yoga’s deep teachings
Why did Meryl love this book?
You’ve got to love someone who calls out those who think American yoga is a skinny white woman’s practice.
Stanley is a funny, deeply honest, large-bodied, gay Black woman who knows yoga is great for everyone—in fact, her prior book is Every Body Yoga. I love the way she weaves yoga’s philosophy and practices into this short and readable memoir of her life.
And I especially adore how she grasps yoga’s real purpose, which isn’t to pretzel up in funny poses but to slow down and calm the mind. Or, as she puts it: “Honestly, you really only need to know one pose and it’s called sitting the fuck down.”
How can you not want to recommend this book to, well, everyone?
1 author picked Yoke as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Finding self-acceptance both on and off the mat.
In Sanskrit, yoga means to “yoke.” To yoke mind and body, movement and breath, light and dark, the good and the bad. This larger idea of “yoke” is what Jessamyn Stanley calls the yoga of the everyday—a yoga that is not just about perfecting your downward dog but about applying the hard lessons learned on the mat to the even harder daily project of living.
In a series of deeply honest, funny autobiographical essays, Jessamyn explores everything from imposter syndrome to cannabis to why it’s a full-time job loving yourself, all through…