BODY MINDFUL YOGA

Create a Powerful and Affirming Relationship with Your Body

Robert Butera, Jennifer Kreatsoulas, Llewellyn (NOVEMBER) Softcover $17.99 (240pp) 978-0-7387-5673-8

Body Mindful Yoga overcomes common stumbling blocks around body image.

Hardly anyone, it seems, has a balanced relationship with their body—it’s all either self-loathing or inflated self-love. This book creates a path to an even-keeled, worth-affirming view of the body. The key is yoga, but in this case it’s more about mindfulness than movement. The crux of the book is how the words people use harm self-image and how flipping the script creates a beautiful relationship.

The book looks at the way people talk about their bodies and selves (such as overapologizing), the moral language people apply to food (what foods are good or bad to eat) and the shame it generates, and the aggressive language of fitness (“no pain, no gain”), as well as language related to fashion and social status. It examines the damage people do to themselves without even realizing it, which will be eye-opening for many.

But for each detrimental phrase or way of thinking, the book offers an alternative: clear, powerful mantras and beliefs that erode the damaging obstacles and bring healing into deep places. This shows how the change that so many people long for, but think is impossible, is within reach. From that place of balance and love within the self, the book ventures into yoga poses using clear, lifelike sketches and succinct instruction.

The four-part structure of the book—“listen,” “Learn,” “Love,” and “Live” —provides a smooth rhythm, moving from deep within to the physical to a more outward focus. The “Live” section is about bringing the benefits of mindful yoga to others—not in an instructional way, but living out wholeness and affirming it in others.

Body Mindful Yoga brings transformation from the inside out.