it’s kind of funny how i… love yoga? it’s my favorite part of the day? it’s the only time i’m not 200% dissociated and/or a puddle of anxiety?
but when my doctor asks if i’ve tried yoga, my immediate reaction is FUCK YOU.
because yoga has not magically cured my chronic pain, nor has it magically made me neurotypical. i think it genuinely has prevented my muscle and joint pain from getting worse. but, it also makes my chronic fatigue significantly worse - because i really do enjoy yoga, i use up 200% of my spoons, and then i have to go back to bed for the rest of the week. and that’s my own decision, not something a doctor should be telling me to do.
when i say “i love yoga” i mean that i love doing yoga at home. with no abled people around to judge me for what my body can or cannot do. it’s 80% “lying in corpse pose while listening to music and trying to remember to breathe.”
people who say “have you tried yoga?” generally don’t have any background in ayurveda, and usually don’t even “believe” in alternative medicine. they’re saying it because they assume that your symptoms come from laziness. it’s a form of what one of my favorite writers (stephen buhner) calls “puritanitis - the involuntary spasm of the puritan reflex”.
yoga is great, when done voluntarily by people who enjoy it, at the level that their bodies are at. saying “have you tried yoga?” if you yourself don’t have a medical background that includes an understanding of what yoga does and doesn’t do for the body, and/or the person has not specifically asked you for advice, just makes you an asshole.