Yoga Journal and Me

I sat down with the August edition of Yoga Journal, and felt conflicted. Do I like this "People Magazine" of the yoga world, or is it superficial sell-out yoga stuff? Reading through the first half, I weighed the costs and benefits of the collection in print. The magazine spends time selling me consumer shit I don't need, while at the same time it opens socially conscious niche businesses to a wider market. I find myself involuntarily annoyed when every Yoga teacher puts a stamp on their brand of yoga and markets it as original, and even more provoked when that brander poses for the cover-story, but I also respect the ingenuity it takes to make a career in this much needed, underpaid field. As with every women's magazine, there is a section on food complete with a collection of recipes, and I enjoy the simple, healthful approach Yoga Journal takes (I will tell you how I really feel when I attempt one of its recipes). Some pages inspire me, other pages make me  reel. Is this magazine a cheap commercial exploitation or a community building publication?

So halfway through the magazine I was still on the fence. Then I read the article which sealed my critique, and killed my cynicism: "Self Adjust" by Paula Derrow. She wrote from her own experience, not from her ego. Her article was not rooted in a self-serving desire to teach, or as an attempt to make a name for herself in the yoga world. It was her story as a personal reflection, and I was reminded of how powerful that can be. I lost myself in her words as she described her fall from the high-rise New York heights of publishing, to the humble backwoods cottage she was forced to retreat to. Her comparison of the competitive, pressurized, revolving door yoga classes in New York City to the unglamorous, DIY, "real yoga class" of her New England farming community reassured Midwestern me.

Yoga isn't about being competitive, or about comparison, and it especially isn't about judgement. My sneerings at Yoga Journal are all about my ego. These misanthropic musings tell me more about myself than about anything in the magazine. Anais Nin said, "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." Am I envious of the cover model who is making it as a yoga teacher? If we examine our reactions to the worldly stimulus we encounter, that which we recognize can act as signposts on our path to self-awareness. When we are self-aware, we can learn to discard the bad and cultivate the good.

There is this rift in the yoga community between so-called trendy yogis and true seekers, but we don't have to be divided that way. Fake it til you make it can work just as well in yoga as in anything; the benefits will be real no matter the approach. Each of us can be a teacher just as each of us is a student. Even the annoying ones teach you about patience! Sharing our experiences can only help us grow, as we each bring our individual egos, perceptions, and reactions to a common medium. So Thank You Yoga Journal, for putting it out there!