Jessamyn Stanley, Leading Wellness Thought-leader; Co-founder, The Underbelly; Author, Every Body Yoga and Yoke My Yoga of Self-Acceptance
Interviewer: Michal Lev-Ram, FORTUNE

MPW Next Gen 2022 - Embracing The Moment

Conferences

Jessamyn Stanley, Leading Wellness Thought-leader; Co-founder
Interviewer: Michal Lev-Ram, FORTUNE

we're gonna get you guys moving literally in just a minute here by the way, in this next session. So stay tuned Alright. In its current westernized form, yoga can often be summed up by three words, expensive, thin and white. There is widespread perception, right or wrong amplified by social media that this ancient practice is for affluent people in more curated surroundings. Encounter point, Jessamyn Stanley embodies the yoga tenet of living without judgment. Her yoga classes podcast and books encourage people to come as they are, to accept themselves as they are. We are thrilled to have this proclaimed Beyonce of yoga with us today to talk about her shame, eradicating work and living in the moment. Please welcome my guest Justin and Stanley to the next stage. I always come with a have a seat, have a seat. Okay, so I'm gonna ask you first, just you know, I gave a few words there about what you do and and and the podcast in the book and everything, but how do you describe yourself and your career and what you do? You know, I say that I'm a yoga teacher, but ultimately I'm a yoga practitioner. I show up in my practice because it is my medicine. I came to yoga through depression when I was in graduate school, I was going through the change of life that happens for all of us, where you're like, who am I is this really what I need to be doing? And yoga really offered me a space where it was okay to just be myself. I did not see anyone who looked like me, quite frankly, I was frequently the only fat person in class, usually the only black person, it was a deeply alienating experience for me, but what it gave me was the confidence to really look within myself and see that there's always power there, but I started sharing my yoga practice on social media because I wanted to connect with other practitioners, but more than anything, what happened was that I had people be like, I didn't know fat people could do yoga and I was just like, why do you think fat people can't do yoga? Fat people do all kinds of things all the time. Thank you. Yes, so I was like, we just have a visibility issue truly, we just need to show ourselves more and ultimately, my community, the underbelly was formed from that space. I wanted there to be a place where what is different about you is celebrated. That is what we champion. That is what we lift up. I think that a lot of the wellness industry is about changing yourself and about trying to fit into a mold, but instead of trying to like really change every piece of yourself, what would happen if each of us looked at our pain points as our greatest sources of strength. So the underbelly is a place where it's okay to just be yourself and it's okay to let your light shine. I love the name. Um we have a picture that I want to show. Um No, you knew about this. Don't worry, we didn't when you were five years old. No, I'm kidding. No, but if we could please show the photo, which hopefully there we go. Okay, so tell us about just like what do you want, what do you hope? What do you want to convey? And I know you're very you're very much about visual and you're all over instagram and you know, you just do this beautiful, just what do you want to convey visually to the world? You know, honestly, what I'm conveying is that if I can do this, you can do this too, because when I first start practicing yoga, I literally could not sit comfortably with my legs crossed, like I could not, I feel like the most common thing I hear is I can't touch my toes, meaning either. I cannot do that at all. But when you see a really complex yoga posture, really what you're seeing is triumph over difficulty. Like it's really seeing someone look within themselves go to the hardest place, what you're seeing is my turmoil. You are seeing my trauma, you're seeing me work through it and if you can see that you can see yourself because everyone in here has experienced that everyone is working through and working with some of the hardest pieces of this life and we spend so much of our lives trying to cover it up and trying to pretend like it's not happening when actually it is the source of everything, it is the greatest source of strength. All right, I'm gonna ask you about something. We cannot show a photo of this, but tell me about naked yoga. Oh, okay, great. Yeah. You know, we can't show that right now. Um So naked yoga has actually been a huge part of my yoga practice um since at the beginning and it is a huge part of how I've come to accept my body. Really looking at it. Really looking at all the pieces that I was told that I should hate. But um I started I wanted to share that with more people because I think that because we hide our bodies underneath clothes and especially if you're fat, you spend so much of your life trying to like find the right angle and like what sweater is gonna cover this part of my body. So having a space where you can actually just let that go and you don't have to worry about what other people think of your fat rolls and your thighs and all of that, that is a place of such immense power that if each of us is able to tap into that individually, how can we impact this global landscape. So and actually, if I can be like totally frank with you, part of why I wanted to start sharing a naked yoga practice on only fans was that I had had so much of my social media content hidden and and I have been blocked on quite a few platforms for things that I was like, I don't really think that this is that big of a deal. But what I noticed when I post something that is really different and and complex is that it always has a really positive impact on people and that there are always people who are like, I never saw somebody who looked like me. I never, I didn't know it was okay to love my body. And I'm like, if we can think about not just how each of us individually will see that, but how our Children will see that and then the world that they can live in and how they can start to just not even worry about some of this body stuff that the rest of us are gonna be carrying for the rest of our lives, I think that we can see long term generational change show of hands by the way, how many of you practice naked yoga? No, you have some converts to coming. It's coming. It's I know that, you know, so many of us are taught that we should be fundamentally ashamed of our bodies and you know, honestly, I don't even think that that's a bad place to start. I think that's a really fertile ground for growth and I think that if you can practice it at home by yourself, it's not about showing the world Yeah, just practicing it at home by yourself and and seeing how strong it makes you feel and how powerful it really makes a huge difference in your life. Um I it's good segway. I wanted to ask you to have this term wellness curious, what does that mean? Exactly, and what advice do you have for people who are wellness curious totally, I think of all of us as being wellness curious and wellness is such a buzzy word right now and I feel like to the point where it's like what is wellness? How can I find this? And I think that all of us were just trying to be well, you're trying to be well, especially now in a world where chaos is just mounting day after day being able to come back to yourself and just say, hey who am I, what do I need? What practices make me feel good. And seeing that wellness is not just in, it's not just a yoga practice, it's not just bubble bath sometimes. Wellness is not spending time with people who make you feel bad about yourself sometimes wellness is just taking a moment to breathe when otherwise you might want to slap somebody, you know, like it's really just actually listening to the voice that lives inside you and that is something that all too often we are taught to quiet, don't listen to the voice inside yourself, look outwards, but the leadership that comes from listening to that is I've said this a million times, but it is powerful and it makes long term change regardless of what you actually do with your life. So you don't have to commit to like practicing yoga every day or taking a bubble bath every saturday, like semantics, what's most important is that you value yourself, that you see that the light that lives within you is important and that that is, that's why the care needs to happen um questions for gentlemen, please just raise your hand and we will come to you. Um I want to ask you about social media because speaking of wellness um that can have all sorts of negative implications. Um there's a lot of toxicity out there and a lot of positivity too, and I know you use it to express yourself to build your brand, to put your message out there of positivity um but how do you also balance it with with your own personal wellness, what works for you? You know, I have to tell you social media is one of my happy places and I think that this is like a weird thing to say right now because it is seen, it is it can be so toxic and so negative, but I was a very introverted kid and for me it was really important to have a place where I could actually make friends with people and I could be open and to this day that is how I think of social media, but it is the place where friendships are built and where community is made, and I think that frankly, for all businesses, that's a really helpful framing that if you think of it as the place where community is held and where love can be fostered, that's really the point of making the content, um something that has been really interesting to me is that if you are deeply authentic and are really honest with yourself and share that with other people, it inspires them to do the same thing. So that's another piece of the social media puzzle for me is how can me just letting my authentic truth shine sharing my true real yoga practice, no matter how politically incorrect it is, no matter how messy it looks, no matter how hard it is to digest, who am I encouraging to do the same thing and the response is incredible. I mean, people leave relationships, get new jobs, start new practices all because you saw one person practice a yoga posture on social media. So I think that seeing myself as a part of a bigger community and also seeing myself as a part of a legacy. You know, I think about my grandmother and I think about my aunts and I think about people who, you know, they really they had to put their head down so that I can do what I do, and I think their light is shining through me. How can my existence be really the crowning achievement of their lives to It's interesting you you brought up the fact that wellness is so often focused or the idea we have of it is that it's it's trying to change something and you obviously a lot of what you're about is self acceptance and and loving yourself. Um how do you so how how do you actually define wellness to people who practice with you and and to what your what is wellness to you and we're gonna stretch in a minute, by the way, so be ready. You know, I think of wellness as being anything that makes you feel good, anything that feels good and that is a wide spectrum. And I think that often when we talk about wellness, it's about your physical body, but the physical body is just see it is just the outward expression of whatever is happening inside yourself, and not just what's happening, like the parts of your physical body that are unseen, but talking about mental health and having a really honest conversation about that. And the fact that all of us struggle with mental health, that I think that is a part of the human experience is to actually grapple with the different parts of yourself. And to me, wellness is not about finding a happy place or about an ending point, it's about accepting that negativity is a part of it, that sadness is a part of it through grief. We experience the greatest parts of this life and it's only through experiencing the darkest, deepest parts of it. So wellness is not just you know those things that make you feel like energized and positive, it's accepting that there are parts that make you feel less than two. But that that's where the strength comes from, that's where the endurance comes from and that's how we can become better community members and really accept that true leadership comes through adversity. Okay, so hopefully this is not going to be like a moment of collective suffering here but I hope but but we would love for you to get everybody to stand up, do whatever you want them to do and lead us in a stretch because I think we're all ready for it please. Yes, if you want to stand, please do if you don't want to stand. I feel you literally, every part of this can be done seated. But yeah, just inhale your arms up and overhead really and feel that the energy is coming from the very base of yourself. So if you're seated, you're rooting into your core. If you're standing, you're rooting into your feet and reach up through each fingertip, reach up and open and start to bring your arms back behind you a little bit and you start to feel some tension, you're gonna be like Justin men, I do not feel like doing this anymore. I don't like it, that's cool, lean into something that makes you feel hatred extend through your inner elbows. Yeah, that's right. And then let your arms come even further back behind you, open your chest up. Yes, y'all very nice. Let your head fall back, it gets scary here, you're leaning into the fear and then let the arms come down by your sides. Now do me a favor, take your right hand, your middle finger and your ring finger, whatever feels good, stick it in your left ear and let your palm come to the side of your head. This is my like, middle of the day, Y'all know how there's that part of the day where you're just like they have tried me and I cannot go further. This is the move. Let feel like there's a weight on your right elbow and then drop your right elbow over to the side. Ha ha feel that stretch start from the inside of your left ear and then it pulls down to your left shoulder and then drop your left fingertips down. You can shake them out a little bit, release your jaw and you can let your finger slide out of your ear and just let your palm melt against the side of your head. You can close your eyes here and I started to do this like share hip thing where my hips poke out to the side, try to bring the weight into your left hip also, hmm. Very nice, spread through your toes. One more breath like this and then bring your right hand to the right side of your head and just gently push your head back into place. Okay supposed to pop, let's do it again on the other side. And if you feel a pop, it's all good, it's all good. Lean into the sensation, there's a weight on that left elbow, drop your elbow down. Mhm. So you start to feel it inside your ear and then it comes down your right shoulder and then that's the place where you can just let your right arm go, shake it up, shake out your fingertips. Uh huh. And you can close your eyes here and you're not trying to find silence. You're not trying to let the chaos go. You're trying to welcome it all in your fear is a part of who you are, The chaos is necessary, you are necessary. And then bring your left hand to the left side of your head, gently push your head back into place and then just take a moment here, close your eyes, the arms drop down, relax your shoulders, let your whole body get very very soft. If it feels good and true and authentic to you. You can bring one palm over your heart if it feels true, bring the other palm over your heart and bow your gaze down. Tune into yourself to the power of this light. Your contradictions are there on purpose. Your scars are your glory. You were made for this and then bring your gaze up. When you're ready, blink your eyes open. Have a wonderful day. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I don't I don't think I've ever closed my eyes during an interview first time for everything. That's right. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Y'all have a good day.