Yoga With Purpose
I have been thinking about why I took on this project (Yoga With Purpose) to try and fundraise money for the Global Women’s Project, why I think it is so important. Apart from the obvious reasons; I trust the Global Women’s Project and their work, I think Bri (the CEO) is a stellar human and I care deeply about gender equality. I also think it is so, so important for the yoga world (in fact, any facet of the for-profit business world) to understand their power, platform and privilege.
I think that the yoga industry existing in a neoliberal society means that the goal of yoga can become very individualistic. And while I wholeheartedly support self-care and doing things that make you feel good. I think there is a responsibility to do a touch more than that.
I think that yoga can and needs to extend beyond the pursuit of the individual to feel good. To also use the momentum and popularity of yoga to engage collectively with broader social issues and inequity. This article describes it so well. That self-care is important yes, but doing yoga alone isn’t going to fix structural abuse, discrimination and imbalances in power.
In “a world whose abusive logic wants you to see no structural problems, but only problems with yourself, or with those more marginalized and vulnerable than you are. Real love, the kind that soothes and lasts, is not a feeling, but a verb, an action. It’s about what you do for another person over the course of days and weeks and years, the work put in to care and cathexis. That’s the kind of love we’re terribly bad at giving ourselves, especially on the left.”
“the broad recognition that self-care, mutual aid, and gentle support can be tools of resistance, too”