(Note: this article is a repost and was originally published last year.)

Hello, beauties.

There is a yoga class in my neck of the woods that fills up daily. Loud, sexy music pulses while the (mostly) female participants sweat and stretch into the process of doing Yoga. I hadn't been to this class in years, having birthed three babies and not having the space in my day for a two-hour excursion (drive time included) away from my family.

My children are all in school now, so a dear friend and I made a plan to meet at the class. Once I was there, I settled onto my mat, excited for this most decadent luxury. Soon my heart began to sink: the energy in the room was frenetic. The music I had remembered as soulful and sensual was replaced with a jarring beat, people were talking, and what I had remembered as a sacred experience felt chaotic. I became deeply aware of a feeling of depletion in the room, and nowhere was the juiciness or softness I crave in my Yoga practice. All around me were women so thin I could only imagine the measures with which this had been attained. A hard frequency hovered in the room and permeated the bodies, the music, the space. I worked extra hard to relax into myself for my practice.

I used to be that woman, I thought. I was the one living on coffee and salad. Images of my dear friend in Vancouver, living out her last days, occupied my heart. Frail and so thin she was, as cancer took its toll on her beautiful being. I remembered how she often shared her desire to be thinner, usually shared as a joke, but I knew it was an ache at times. She was a beautiful woman with a full face and stunning blue eyes. In her final days, the dis-ease had given her cheekbones and not one bit of fat on her sweet body. How many of us go through our lives wanting to be thinner? Looking around at these women in this class, I wanted to tell them all about my dear friend. I wanted to tell them that they were beautiful and ask them if they felt nourished. I wanted to invite them to my home for the little yoga class I teach in my living room, where we chant and sing and eat mung beans and rice and drink tea together.