[ARC Review] Yoke: My Yoga of Self-Acceptance by Jessamyn Stanley

In her debut Every Body Yoga, Jessamyn Stanley walked readers through the how of yoga. Now, in her follow up, Yoke: My Yoga of Self-Acceptance, Stanley goes over the why. Breaking her personal whys down into thirteen sections, Stanley covers everything from personal acknowledgment and acceptance, to cultural appropriation, to poses and meditation. She spoke truth to power and detailed her own journey through the predominantly white world of American yoga practice. Sometimes raw, but always honest and insightful, Stanley has written the modern manifesto for the practitioner who doesn’t fit the yogic mold. 

I had such a hard time putting Yoke down. Once I started reading, I was drawn in by Stanley’s often-brutal honesty about practicing and teaching yoga as a queer, Black woman in a predominantly skinny, white yoga world. With all the honesty, however, there was no need for sympathy; Stanley owned the situations she often found herself in, acknowledged their importance, and learned from them. We can all stand to learn from her outlook on life. 

There are many lessons to learn from Yoke. From persevering when first starting out with yoga to how yoga practices, like meditation, are so heavily interwoven into our lives--our very essence of being--already, Stanley makes yoga accessible in a way the old texts and sutras do not. I particularly took to heart her emphasis that yoga isn’t just the poses and that, in fact, you can truly practice yoga without contorting yourself into odd positions. The chapter on meditation was also especially insightful, and for the first time in possibly forever I can see myself actually meditating. Usually, yogis emphasize letting thoughts flow out of you when meditating, but Stanley’s imagery of feeling like you’re sinking deeper into a bottomless ocean actually made the idea of being overcome with thoughts while meditating doable. I feel like I can meditate now without feeling like I’m failing at it. 

I loved that this wasn’t another how-to yoga guide. Stanley is very much aware of the arena she’s playing in, and that makes her trials getting to this point that much more raw and sometimes brutal. Her personal anecdotes throughout Yoke showed that she is impassioned and unafraid to clear her own path within the yoga world. This was a fantastic read, full of heart and soul and the inspiration for me to maybe give yoga another try--but under my own terms. 

A huge thanks to Workman Publishing and Netgalley for providing an advanced review copy of Yoke.