Yoga and Body Image Online Immersion:
A Gateway To Your Full Potential
Get a jumpstart with this free one hour class: Beyond Buzzwords, Sound Bites and Empty Slogans. Discover the number one reason everyone needs practices to create and sustain a positive body image. Hint: The beauty industry will never validate you. It's my mission to teach you what will.
Stop feeling insecure about your "flaws," and hiding your light. It's time to reclaim the time, energy (and money!) you spend on fixing yourself so you can step through your insecurities, shine bright, and stand fully empowered in the world.
Enrollment closes TODAY, Sept. 28th at 5pm pst
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STARTS SEPTEMBER 25, 2017
Intro Rate ONLY $147 (Over $300 Value.)
Enrollment open until Sept. 28th, 4pm pst
8 Week Immersion
Launches - 9/25/17. We meet online two times per week.
Feel connected.
You're not an outsider. Meet up with your global family of body lovin' bad-asses.
Facilitated by Melanie Klein
Body Image Educator and Body Acceptance Advocate
9 Guest Experts
Authors of Yoga + Body Image and Yoga Rising
"I don't know if you realize how many lives you've truly changed in your classes, but just... on behalf of us all, thank you so much for providing us with a space to transform into healthier and happier people. My whole family loves you for it."
Facilitated by Melanie Klein: Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies, body acceptance advocate and media literacy educator, co-editor of Yoga + Body Image: 25 Personal Stories About Beauty, Bravery & Loving Your Body, editor of the forthcoming anthology Yoga Rising: 30 Empowering Stories from Yoga Renegades for Every Body and the co-founder of the Yoga and Body Image Coalition.
"When will I like the image I see reflected in the mirror? How can I stop fixating on my body so I can live my life already?!"
Not Wanting To Be Seen Makes It Impossible To Develop Your Gifts and Talents and Share Them With The World
- Waiting on the weight?: Many men and women pass up exciting career and life opportunities because they feel unworthy in their body. "Maybe after I lose 10 or 20 pounds I'll start to go for it!"
- Body Shame: Shame is a very powerful emotion. It paralyzes. It cuts deep. It's isolating, yet widely experienced. It makes you hide from the world, miss out on fun and pass up pleasure.
- Is your internal body critic always on?: "My butt is too big. My face is too fat. My legs are too thin. My body is not strong enough. If I were thinner? If I were prettier? If I looked like her?"
Far too often, the reflection we see in the mirror is a grossly distorted image of ourselves influenced by our experiences, interpretations and expectations. As a result, much of our dissatisfaction (and disappointment) with our bodies and compromised self-esteem is a result of an image not rooted in reality, but grounded in an illusion. This deception keeps you in a cycle of self-hate. Breaking free from it is a process and a practice.
Introducing: Yoga and Body Image
8 Week Online Immersion
Catered to Your Schedule. Join from home. Access recordings.
Unlike a college course there will be no required readings, homework assignments or tasks.
This is designed to be a place of inquiry, introspection and a way to dive in deeper. Right from home.
Part book club, part coaching circle, part consciousness raising group. Totally transformative.
Have you read the book and wish there was a community going through it together? Do you want to read it in an actively engaged group?
Reconnect with Your Body and Create a Positive Body Image. Set yourself free.
It's also an opportunity for participants to investigate, explore and piece together their own body image story as well as share and fine tune the practices that have or may increase their own sense of self-acceptance.
YOUR IMMERSION EXPERIENCE AND CURRICULUM: What to expect.
This 8 week online program will use the Yoga and Body Image book as a guide to help you rewrite your own body narrative and redefine your relationship with your body. Haven't read the book? No problem. You'll benefit regardless of where you are on your journey.
Private Facebook Immersion Lab
You'll connect with and get support from a worldwide community. And together, you'll explore, grow and transform.
Week 1: Getting Started. Your Body Isn't the Problem.
This week is about getting grounded, creating space for a new paradigm and a new body image practice. You'll get clear about: What is body image? How can yoga have a positive impact on creating a healthy body image and improve one's relationship to one's body? How is a healthy body image the gateway to your full potential?
How our body image is created from in a unique socio-historical experience and context and how that intersects with race, class, gender, family background, culture and more.
Week 2: You're Not Alone. Your Community Awaits.
Although it feels like it, you're not alone. Feelings of shame and inadequacy are far too common. Yoga can help heal and transform. It can be the catalyst to creating a deeply fulfilling and vibrant community that is accessible to all. Discover how to receive and give support. Be inspired by others in the movement... this is a collective endeavor and extends far beyond our personal experiences and actions.
Week 3: Finding Your Power
Learn how to find your power and your voice. Proclaim your truth and re-write your body narrative -- this week is about taking action and being rooted in your power -- we'll explore how and why writing and sharing our personal narrative contains the seeds of power and participants we'll be given guidance and inspiration to do that. Tap into your truth, discover your voice and own your experience with vulnerability and courage. This is cathartic for you and inspiring to others.
Week 4: F***k Your Beauty Standards
Connect to your inner renegade. Inside you is a rebel with a cause. You'll discover how to identify and challenge the dominant representations of beauty. We'll move from margin to center and rise above the limitations and lies of mainstream standards of beauty and measures of worth + value. Create your own beauty paradigm.
Week 5: Radical Self-Acceptance
Discover daily practices to uplift and inspire, including writing as a healing modality. Based on this week's guest: In Beautiful You, author Rosie Molinary, passionately encourages women, "whatever their size, shape, or color—to work toward feeling wonderful about themselves despite today’s media-saturated culture. Drawing on self-awareness, creativity, and mind-body connections, Molinary incorporates practical techniques into a 365-day action plan that empowers women to regain a healthy self-image, shore up self-confidence, reframe and break undermining habits of self-criticism, and champion their own emotional and physical well-being."
Week 6: Progress, Not Perfection
Learn how to live and share your truth no matter how messy. Not pushing ourselves, judging ourselves on how well we're living a body positive life -- not judging ourselves when we don't necessarily feel self loving -- seeing this as an ongoing journey of exploration and discovery -- and truly treating ourselves gently and with compassion -- not a perfect asana, not a perfect ass, not a perfect state of being at all times, but one that is present and unconditionally loving -- and celebrating the progress no matter how seemingly small.
Week 7: Self-Acceptance as a Spiritual Practice
Instead of storing emotions (hiding) in our body due to fear or shame, this week focuses on integration of the full self and how our past hurts lead us into growth and wisdom. Our painful past experiences coupled with mindfulness practices can teach us about ourselves and how to live more fully and at peace. Learn how to do this without fracturing and/or hiding any part of our being. We can't grow into unconditional self-love when we deny any part of who we've been or who we are.
Week 8: Self-Love In Action
What does unconditional self-love look like? How can you engaging mindfully with others and our community? Learn how our inner light becomes a beacon and a healing balm for all.
Take what you've learned over the last 8 weeks and step into the biggest and best versions of yourself. Learn how your courage can act as the diverse role models we desperately need and inspire others.
Yes, Melanie. Sign me up for the 8 week immersion. Just $147.
Enrollment open until Sept. 28th, 5pm pst
Melanie Klein, M.A., is a writer, speaker, and professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies. She attributes feminism and yoga as the two primary influences in her work. She is committed to communal collaboration, raising consciousness, media literacy education, facilitating the healing of distorted body images and promoting positive body relationships. Her areas of interest and specialty include media literacy education, body image, and the intersectional analysis of systems of power and privilege. She is the co-editor of Yoga and Body Image: 25 Personal Stories About Beauty, Bravery + Loving Your Body (Llewellyn, 2014) with Anna Guest-Jelley, a contributor in 21st Century Yoga: Culture, Politics and Practice (Horton & Harvey, 2012), is featured in Conversations with Modern Yogis (Shroff, 2014), a featured writer in Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Mindful Living (Llewellyn, 2016), co-editor of the new anthology, Yoga, the Body and Embodied Social Change: An Intersectional Feminist Analysis with Dr. Beth Berila and Dr. Chelsea Jackson Roberts (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016) and the editor of the forthcoming anthology, Yoga Rising: 30 Empowering Stories from Yoga Renegades for Every Body. She co-founded the Yoga and Body Image Coalition in 2014. She has been practicing yoga and meditation since 1996 and currently lives in Santa Monica, CA.
Anna Guest-Jelley: Week One: We: w
Anna Guest-Jelley is the founder of Curvy Yoga, an online yoga studio and teacher training center that helps people of all sizes find true acceptance and freedom, both on and off the mat.
Anna is the author of Curvy Yoga: Love Yourself & Your Body a Little More Each Day and the co-editor of Yoga and Body Image: 25 Personal Stories About Beauty, Bravery & Loving Your Body. To learn more about Curvy Yoga, visit CurvyYoga.com.
Pranidhi Varshney is the founder of Yoga Shala West, a community-supported ashtanga yoga shala in West Los Angeles. To support yoga practice on and off the mat, she writes regularly, has released an album of Sanskrit chanting, is a Yoga Gives Back ambassador, and sits on the advisory board of the Yoga and Body Image Coalition. Through all her work, she aims to build community and touch the heart.
Dr. Parker is a life long practitioner of yoga and is well known for her pioneering efforts to blend psychology, yoga, and meditation as effective self-care strategies that can enhance emotional balance, and contribute to the overall health and well being of practitioners. She has a special interest in utilizing and teaching Restorative Yoga and meditation as self-care practices for managing ethnic and race based traumatic stress. She is a nationally and internationally renowned media personality,
educator, author, and thought leader.
Dianne Bondy is a celebrated yoga teacher, social justice activist and leading voice of the Yoga For All movement. Her inclusive view of yoga asana and philosophy inspires and empowers thousands of followers around the world – regardless of their shape, size, ethnicity, or level of ability.
Dianne contributes to Yoga International, Do You Yoga, and Elephant Journal. She is featured and profiled in International media outlets: The Guardian, Huffington Post, Cosmopolitan, People and more. She is a spokesperson for diversity in yoga and yoga for larger bodies, as seen in her work with Pennington’s, Gaiam, and the Yoga & Body Image Coalition. Her work is published in the books: Yoga and Body Image and Yes Yoga Has Curves.
As a radical self-acceptance champion, Rosie Molinary, MFA, uses profound questions and wholehearted connection to empower people to treat themselves well so they can connect with their talents and passions to authentically and intentionally live their purpose and help heal the world.
The author of Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self Acceptance (Seal Press) and Hijas Americanas: Beauty, Body Image, and Growing Up Latina (Seal Press), Rosie teaches at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, offers workshops and retreats, and speaks on self-acceptance, body image, self-care, media literacy, the Latina experience, and intentional living around the country.
A committed activist, Rosie helped found HAMMERS, a non-profit initiative to provide emergency home repair for low income families in her community, and Circle de Luz, a non-profit that radically empowers young Latinas by supporting their transformation through extensive mentoring, holistic programming and scholarship funds for further education.
Pia is a writer, public speaker and personal coach. From Harlem to Hawaii, she has led dozens of workshops and presentations on body politics, identity, intersectional feminism, media literacy and social justice. Her work at Adios Barbie is informed by Pia’s own life straddling different worlds as a bi-cultural Mexican and American who has never quite fit in, but has finally found her home. She has also worked with numerous groups including the Department of Education, PBS, ITVS, among others, to create media and educational initiatives that center around the experiences of marginalized folx. Committed to love and justice, Pia is a yoga student/teacher and unprofessional dog walker.
Pia has taught on topics such as Increasing Learning Through Culturally Relevant Arts Education, Anti-bias and Media Literacy in The Wake of September 11, White Privilege 101, Social Media as a Tool for Social Justice and Change, and most recently Yoga, Commodification and Cultural Appropriation. She and her work at Adios Barbie has been mentioned in The Wall Street Journal, Fox Latino, Vh1, The Guardian, MSNBC, BBC 4, The New York Times, Forbes, Al-Jazeera, Seventeen, Fitness, Glamour, among others. Pia has also appeared numerous times as an expert on CNN’s Headline News (HLN) and Huffington Post Live.
The challenges that I walked through have given me the tools that I need to lead a life of purpose. For me, being a teacher means being an example. I don’t pretend to have perfected anything, but I continue to make progress in my life and I extend that into the yoga room every day. My teaching is a reflection of how far I’ve come, the life I lead, and the ideals that I continue to strive toward. Through yoga, many of my dreams have come true and I am lucky to have a wonderful community of family, friends and students to share it with!
Jivana Heyman, C-IAYT, eRYT500, is founder of Accessible Yoga, an international non-profit organization dedicated to increasing access to the yoga teachings. Accessible Yoga offers Conferences, Trainings, an Ambassador program, and an online Network dedicated to sharing yoga with every body. He is co-owner of the Santa Barbara Yoga Center and an Integral Yoga Minister. With over twenty-five years of training and teaching in a classical yoga tradition, Jivana has specialized in teaching yoga to people with disabilities with an emphasis on sharing yoga philosophy. His passion is making Yoga accessible to everyone.
Over the past 20 years, Jivana has led more than fifty yoga teacher training programs around the world. In December 2015, Jivana was invited to teach Accessible Yoga at the United Nations in Geneva, and he continues to work toward expanding access to the teachings of yoga.
Melody Moore, Ph.D., RYT is a social entrepreneur, a licensed Clinical Psychologist, yoga teacher, author, and speaker. She is the founder of the Embody Love Movement Foundation, a non-profit whose mission is to empower girls and women to celebrate their inner beauty, commit to kindness, and contribute to meaningful change in the world. Dr. Moore’s work has been featured in the books Yoga and Body Image (eds. Klein and Guest-Jelly) and Yoga and Eating Disorders: Ancient Healing for Modern Illness (eds. Costin and Kelly) as well as National Geographic Magazine, Yoga Journal, Yoga International, Mantra, Elephant Journal, and Origin Magazine. She created the collegiate BodyImage3D program for Delta Delta Delta, and is their subject matter expert on self-love and body acceptance. She is the National Eating Disorder Association’s advice columnist, an advisor for World Muse, and a faculty member for Off the Mat, Into the World, a social-profit that empowers leaders to become conscious activists. In 2015, she was featured as one of ten “Game Changers” by the Yoga Journal and chosen as one of 100 “Most Influential Global Leaders Empowering Women Worldwide” by EBW2020.
Yes, I'm In! Enroll Me in the 8 Week Immersion. Just $147.
Enrollment closes today Sept. 28th, 5pm pst
You need details? I got details.
For those of you who need the nitty gritty, here's how it's going down.
Except for week 1, Mondays start with a guest connected to that week's reading theme. We'll have a short discussion, Q & A + practice of some kind (asana, meditation etc), followed by instructions on that week's reading plus a suggested action plan for the week.
We'll meet via online video 2x a week. If you can't make it live, you'll get recordings in a password protected, members-only web portal. Total time = 15 hours ( week 1 + 8 with me = 90 minutes/each = 3 hours + weeks 2 - 7 1 hour/each with me = 6 hours+ 8 weeks @ 45 minutes/each with guest = 6 hours TOTAL 15)
Fridays we'll discuss that week's theme, and readings and open up for coaching. I'll offer an exploratory exercise/ meditation which will end with instructions on how to create an individualized mantra to support you through the weekend and into the next week.
Online Immersion FAQ's
What times do we meet? Where do we meet?
This is a virtual class. If you have a computer and internet access you can join! We will meet every Monday at 4pm pacific standard time and every Friday at 2:30pm pacific standard time for 8 weeks.
What if we can't make the live classes?
No problem! All the web classes, plus guest talks will be recorded and uploaded to our members only web portal within 24 hours.
I've never read the book. Can I still join the 8 week immersion?
Yep. The book serves as a template for the program. And each week you'll be guided through a journey with me facilitating your experience and offering optional action plans.
I've done so much work on myself. Will I get something new out of this?
We all need rituals and practices to create and sustain a healthy, positive, loving relationship with our body. Loving your whole self requires work, much like a marriage, union, or similar commitment does. Regardless of where you are, or how much work you've done this immersion will only serve to free you up further.
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