Yoga And Self-Acce​​​​​​​ptance

Yoga teacher Sara Clark shares her journey from self-consciousness to courageousness, plus an asana practice paired with mantra to help you feel confident in your own skin.

I REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME I became self-conscious about my body. I couldn’t have been older than seven. I was wearing my favorite floral one-piece bathing suit, and my friend’s little brother told me that I had big legs. Those words felt like a punch to the gut. I was suddenly aware of my body in a way that I hadn’t been before. From that moment on, my body became something others could accept or reject without my consent. That comment planted a seed of shame that would eventually grow and lead me on a long journey from self-destruction and dysmorphic thinking to self-discovery and spiritual renewal.

At the age of nine, I transitioned from being homeschooled in a diverse suburb of Syracuse, New York, to the public school system in Bel Air, Maryland—a predominantly white community. I was not only aware of my “big” legs, but also my hair texture, my far from European-shaped nose, and my darker skin color.

I began comparing myself to the “popular” girls, who wore ponytails that swayed from side to side as they walked the halls. In an attempt to “fit in,” every few months I would sit for hours in a salon while a hairdresser transformed my hair into hundreds of long, tiny braids, called micro-minis, in hopes of mimicking long, flowing hair.

My image consciousness wasn’t helped by the fact that my loving parents, who grew up in the South during the civil rights era, were incredibly conservative. To protect me from what they viewed as a world that oversexualized black women’s bodies, they made sure there were no short shorts in my wardrobe. Instead of celebrating my long limbs, I hid them, growing more and more ashamed of my figure.

Negative self-talk began to fill my head. During my senior year, I went to the prom with a white friend. After that, his friends stopped talking to him for choosing a “brown girl” as his date.