I lied to my yoga students for almost a decade.
I stood on stages, both in person and online, giving wellness advice, then spent weekends with my head in a toilet. I hammered home the importance of listening to one’s body, then forced myself through hours of aggressive exercise. I’d write newsletters and social media posts about my eating disorder “recovery,” while still quietly calculating every calorie I consumed in a food tracker app.
People looked to me as an expert. They trusted me with their bodies. They allowed me to physically adjust them in yoga poses and listened to my advice when I told them what they should and shouldn’t do in class. They listened to me when I talked about my eating habits. Of course, I failed to mention the fact that while I was preaching “healthy” advice, I was personally making very unhealthy choices.
I was on the hamster wheel of the wellness professional. The fitter and more adept at yoga I looked on the outside, the more of an authority people thought I was. I look back at pictures from that time and see my body doing impressive shapes with a huge smile plastered across my face. Thanks to photoshop, I was able to remove the black circles under my eyes from the hours of vomiting. Positive comments on social media and the dopamine hit reading them momentarily relieved my incessant anxiety and self-judgment. I felt an immense pressure to keep up a persona of shininess and vigor, though internally I felt nothing but dull and hollow.
My intention was pure. I wanted to help people feel better. I wanted to teach them how to listen to their bodies and to be kinder to themselves—probably because I desperately wanted those things for myself.
What does it mean to be well?
Most of us seek out wellness because we want to feel better, or we are advised to do so by a medical provider. Google Analytics confirms America’s growing interest in the matter. There’s been a steady increase in wellness-related search terms over the past 20 years. The seemingly endless stream of experts and fads can make anyone just dipping their toe feel quickly underwater. Thanks to social media, anyone can have an opinion, regardless of their training or background.
Understandably, we gravitate toward experts who look how we want to feel. Who better to lead us to health and happiness than the super-fit gal all over our Instagram feed with professionally shot workout tutorials and a beaming smile? Much of what these people say sounds valid, and some of it absolutely is. But mostly, we listen to these “experts” because of what we see on the outside.
Things came to a head for me personally when I finally recognized that my wellness routine was actually causing me to be unwell. From the over-exercising and malnutrition, I stopped getting my period and suffered ongoing dental and digestive issues. The pressure I put on myself to fit a certain mold invoked such severe anxiety that I chewed my cuticles until they bled and cut myself off socially from intimate relationships. Perhaps my story is an extreme example, but it inspired me to ask myself the question: If our wellness routines are making us psychologically unwell and more stressed out, are we really getting healthy?
My health improved when I stopped looking at wellness in the vacuum of my physical body. I quit blindly following outside experts because they looked the part and I widened my priorities to include my psychological, social, and spiritual well-being. For example, I started to sleep when I was exhausted instead of forcing an early morning workout. I started to eat when I was hungry instead of restricting what I ate all the time. I chose laughter and late dinners over chasing hypermobility the next day. These might seem like obvious choices, because they are. I started to listen above the noise of the latest trend or fit-fluencer advice and tap into the wisest source we all have access to: our intuition.
Now, at 42 years old, I can honestly say I’m healthy. I can’t do half the yoga poses I used to or fit into any of my old clothes, but my relationship to wellness is the most balanced it’s ever been. I no longer measure wellness by the calories on my plate or the numbers on my scale. Health is the whole picture of my very full life.
My intention behind my yoga teachings hasn’t changed: I still want to help people feel better; I still want to teach them how to listen to their bodies and be kinder to themselves. But now I actually know how. And I’m here to tell you that you know how, too.
So, if the start of the new year has you hoping to rise above all of the health and fitness noise we’re all bombarded with this time of year, here are my tips for approaching wellness from a more holistic and intuitive lens:
1. Judge your fitness level on how you feel, versus how you look. Is your energy sustainable throughout the day? Can you pick your kids or grandkids up without tweaking your back? Can you lean over to tie your shoe without falling over? These are all indicators of overall health and emphasize functional movement, which is our body’s ability to safely and effectively move in everyday circumstances.
2. Get professional advice from experts based on their training and experience versus their appearance. Trained professionals can be indispensable when it comes to offering guidance and providing personalized options. But what makes someone an expert? Is it their six-pack abdominals? Or the fact that they can do incredible physical feats? Something I’ve seen over and over again in the 20-plus years I’ve been working in the fitness industry is that the most adept people are not always the best teachers. When you are looking for guidance, seek out someone who is respected and well-trained. And remember, even with all that person’s training, the foremost expert on your body will always be you.
3. Get nutritional advice from a registered dietician. Your local spin instructor may not be the best person to listen to when it comes to healthy eating habits. Ditto on that social media influencer you follow or even your best friend. When you want advice on food, seek out a certified dietician or other trained health care professional. And if you find yourself questioning their advice (as not all experts are the right fit), trust your gut (literally!) and get a second opinion.
4. Unfollow fitness influencers or stop studying with teachers who make you feel worse about yourself. We say it’s for inspiration, but if we’re watching someone’s Instagram feed green with envy or going to a class and then spending the whole time berating ourselves for what we can’t do and don’t have, then it has crossed from aspirational to abusive. Think of your fitness classes much in the same way you do your food. Everything we see and do is stuff we are digesting. Are you consuming toxic content? Are you overdoing it? Are there flavors of acceptance and compassion? How do you feel after?
5. Widen your wellness scope: Dr. Margaret (Peggy) Swarbrick, a professor at Rutgers University, introduced the 8 Dimensions of Wellness model—one I’ve found incredibly helpful in my own journey toward achieving true health. The dimensions include physical, spiritual, social, intellectual, emotional/mental, occupational, environmental, and financial. They help us view our lives and health from a much more holistic perspective. We are multifaceted human beings whose well-being expands way beyond our body. Instead of getting fixated on your appearance, take a pause and assess the bigger picture of your whole life. Are your social relationships fulfilling? Do you live somewhere with clean air and clean water? Do you have faith-based practices?
Perhaps the most potent antidote to all the wellness noise and nonsense these days is remembering your unique intention behind pursuing health in the first place. For me, it’s always about wanting to feel better. When I lead with that, my choices are much clearer. There is never going to be a one-size-fits-all fitness hack or fad that serves all eight-billion of us. Our wellness journeys will be as individual as our fingerprints. But something we can strive toward as a collective is making choices that are kind and healing.
Sarah Ezrin is an award-winning author and world-renowned yoga educator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sarah lovingly guides people along their wellness and parenthood journeys. Grab a copy of her new book The Yoga of Parenting wherever books are sold.
