A letter to… Girls like me
Love, Jess x
In those classes, all I felt was dejected and rejected
Hi, ladies!
After a long, hectic week, we all want to relax and unwind.
For me, my happy place was always on a yoga mat. Especially in summer 2013, when the anxiety I suffer from peaked.
So, I found a yoga class, rolled out my mat and looked forward to a calming session.
Only, as rows of slim, toned, bendy women kicked into a headstand, I waited patiently.
Expected the instructor to come over, show me an alternative move suitable for me to do. But she didn’t. I continued to sit there, heart sinking.
Totally ignored.
A size-30, I was the biggest girl there by a mile, but I may as well have been invisible. How humiliating. Yet, every new class I tried, it was the same.
And if I wasn’t ignored, I was treated like a newbie, even though I’d been doing yoga since 2007.
‘If you can’t keep up, that’s fine,’ instructors would say. Or... ‘Some day you’ll be able to do these moves,’ they’d smile, which let’s face it, was highly unlikely.
Instructors simply didn’t know how to cope
with someone like me.
I’d always been bigger, and had grown happy with the way I looked. Yoga relaxed me. Yet in those classes, all I felt was dejected and rejected. The odd one out among a sea of flexible yoga goddesses who could effortlessly bend forward into a downward-facing dog position.
Meanwhile, my tummy prevented me even reaching my toes.
It just made my anxiety worse, not better.
So I started practising at home, instead.
Working from books, I’d find all sorts of poses that worked for my size.
That’s when I decided to focus not on what my body couldn’t do but what it could.
Then, in September 2017, my mother-in-law Davi, 60, gave me a flyer for a yoga teacher-training course.
Open to all, it read.
‘You should sign up,’ she encouraged.
‘I’m not sure,’ I worried.
I feared I’d still feel out of place.
‘You’ll be great,’ my husband Dan, 36, insisted.
So off I went. At the evening classes I didn’t just learn complicated yoga poses.
I learnt much more about what my body is capable of.
What all bodies are capable of.
My tutor and fellow trainees were welcoming, and I no longer felt out of place.
In May 2018, I graduated, determined to set up my own yoga sessions here in California.
Not just for big girls, either. ‘Everyone will be welcome,’ I told Dan.
Celebrating empowerment no matter what your shape, size or gender.
I posted my poses online, too, to drum up business and inspire others.
Of course, they attracted the attention of trolls.
Carrying that much weight is going to kill you, one wrote.
Others accuse me of promoting obesity.
But I ignore them. Because most people tell me I inspire them, that their confidence has soared. That’s the reason
I keep going.
No-one should feel like I did in those early days.
I want every girl out there to know, no matter what your shape, size and ability is, you can do anything you set your heart on.
Whatever makes you happy – whether it’s yoga or not – don’t let anything hold you back.
I know I haven’t.