Review: Body Mindful Yoga: Create a Powerful and Affirming Relationship with Your Body

Body Mindful Yoga: Create a Powerful and Affirming Relationship with Your Body by Robert Butera
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My thanks to Netgalley, Llewellyn Publications, Robert Butera and Jennifer Kreatsoulas for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. My opinions are 100% my own and independent of receiving an advanced copy.

In today’s swell of the wellness arena, being mindful is what it is all about. You can’t get any buzzier of a buzz word than mindfulness. Yoga has reached an all time high in popularity and so many people are chanting mantras while living their best life, while being body positive, do we need one more book? Needless to say, I was a little hesitant to read “Body Mindful Yoga”. What is mindful Yoga? But body image continues to be a difficult subject for me to come to terms with, I at least wanted to know what it was all about.

Truth be told, I am one of the masses who is embracing mindfulness and yoga has become a steady diet (along with healthy food - ugh!) It has helped me get through the ordeal of late stage cancer and cope living with chronic pain. But I have taken enough courses, read enough books to know that there are a great many respected authors who have something to impart to this world, and others who want to jump on the bandwagon and sell you the snake oil.

This book is a bit of a mixed bag for me. As I made my way deeper into the book, I thought it got better and I definitely have a few take aways that I can incorporate into my daily practice. First, know that this is not a typical yoga book with poses and pictures and instructions on how to do each pose. The author is on a mission to “radically alter the way we see and value ourselves as well as the way we view, evaluate, and relate to others and the world at large. Body Mindful Yoga is “part of a movement rooted in social justice and anti-oppression.” The author wants you to throw out the negative talk we internalize regarding our bodies and reframe our “body narrative”. They break it down into four steps: Listen, Learn, Love, and Live.

The beginning third really put me off and I though this would be a bust. It is mostly hype trying to convince you how amazing this ideology is. Once they got into the actual methodology I found that there are some excellent journalling exercises that, I think, will really help me become more aware of the language I use towards my body image and awareness is really what mindfulness is all about. They cover finding out where these messages come from, your attitude towards fitness, food, social media and fashion. These journal exercises are something that I think I will revisit over and over again. They also touch on using mantras or affirmations and there are 16 yoga poses that they highlight. They reframe these basic poses demonstrating how to apply the mindful part of what you just learned and add some in depth information that I found very useful.

Although heavy handed at times, I found this had something to offer. In the current culture, body image is a problem for many people and any help to reframe your thoughts in a positive light, I welcome. Applying the mindful component with yoga made the whole philosophy full circle and I think there is something for everyone in this book.

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