Growing up, and even now honestly, yoga was presented to me as a "joy of movement," but also a fix-all for my fatness. I legit pulled muscles I didn't know I had because I thought by twisting myself into shapes that my body rejected and trying to eat the greenest of the green diets that I would suddenly not be the fat Black girl and transform into a suburban cheerleader with blue eyes and the best thigh gap ever to be had.
Shockingly, that never happened, but I'm confident I kept several therapists fed.
Now, I tend to do yoga because it is something I really connect with. However, my focus tends to be on the other more meditative and observance-focused limbs of the yogic path instead of the two most common practices-- asanas (movement) and pranayama (breathing).
Therefore, I’ve put together a reading list in no particular order that has been helpful to me in expanding my thought process surrounding what it means to be a yoga practitioner.
