YOGA, SEX & THE SELL-OUT – WOMEN RISE UP!
VS 
It’s International Women’s Day, and as part of a global community of yoginis, there’s an important conversation that needs to be amplified and shared far and wide.
As I’ve been participating more in the world of social media of late, to share about my heart & soul project social enterprise yoga school Yoga for Humankind, I’ve become more and more dismayed at the representation and popularisation of yoga – sexualised, impossibly gymnastic and massively glamourised. It’s the antithesis of Yoga – the quiet, inward journey to peel back the layers of false identities, beliefs and constructs, and find the Truth of what remains after all that is shed.
‘Inspiration’ is great, but this kind of yoga-glamourising creates an image of yoga that feeds into exactly the kinds of day-to-day social stigmas, ideas and values that create problematic and harmful self-image, self-worth and impossible ‘goals’; that take us outward instead of inward; that ultimately harms bodies instead of harmonises; that alienates instead of unites… and that the genuine path of yoga actually seeks to unravel.
It’s been building within me to write on this topic, and it’s totally impassioned me today, on International Women’s Day, to read these insightful, poignant and powerful words… thank you to Roopali, the powerful woman who wrote this great blog post on the topic.
Yogis, Yoginis, HUMANS – can we please stop the sexualisation, physicalisation and glorifying self-promotion in the name of yoga? Can we please instead promote the common denominators of being and humanity, such as: the Self that is our collective ground of being, belonging, vulnerability, resilience, imperfection, befriending ourselves and our bodies, and our real stories of love, hope, loss, peace, struggle, devotion and community.
In loving respect and hope,
Mei Lai xo
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