Whole

Happy New You! Are you groaning at the wellness overload on socials at the moment? As a yoga teacher I should probably be lapping it up – spamming local Facebook groups making the most of this annual opportunity to attract people to my yoga offerings. However, I’m finding it a bit much this year and I’m not alone in that. It’s a hot topic with my yoga teacher friends as we discuss the latest gimmicks and images we are seeing to sell classes.

I’m a firm believer that you do not need to change who you are every January. This whole rhetoric focuses on us not being good enough unless we do A, B and C and look like X, Y and Z. Yet this is something I firmly believed in my 20s and 30s and would strive to achieve. “If only I had my hair cut like Victoria Beckham then all would be well.” I genuinely believed that by the way… As a 50-something I am now pushing back at this lack of wholeness which is perpetuated by the patriarchy and capitalism. I’ve yet to go on a protest march.

Yoga teaches us that we are already whole and I think we need to be reminded of this.

Yet, how yoga is portrayed on social media is, in many cases, the opposite to its teachings. The gimmicks, the visual aesthetic of what a yoga practice, yoga students and indeed yoga teachers should look like. Back in the day when yoga classes were advertised almost solely on flyers or by word of mouth, you probably had no idea what the teacher looked like, what brand of leggings they wore, or if they could do “advanced” poses.

These days being good at marketing, using slick tools such as Canva, is as much part of a yoga teacher’s job as sequencing a class. In the 2025/2026 Yoga Teacher Benchmark report 47% of teachers say they dislike using social media but feel it is necessary. 7% say they love it. Me? I’m a bit of both. I enjoy the creative side but hate having to put my face out there.

As a middle-aged woman who has one eye noticeably smaller than the other (think Romesh Ranganathan!), who struggles to keep her eyes open in photos and smile naturally, putting my photo out there on social media is unpleasant but necessary. It’s hard to stick to “I am whole” when many of the yoga teacher images I see in my feed are of aesthetically pleasing, flawless, young people. As we are constantly reminded youth and beauty sells! I appreciate I sound like a bitter old woman but I’m not. I do catch myself in the comparison act and remind myself why I wanted to teach yoga in the first place. One of the (many) reasons was because I did not necessarily look like a yoga teacher. For example, my legs and arms are short making some poses biomechanically unachievable no matter how many hours I practice.

So what’s my point?

I want you to know that if you practice yoga with me there is no pressure to look a certain way. To fit a particular body image, or wear a specific brand of expensive leggings, or to look like everyone else in Tree pose. I don’t care if you wobble, laugh or fart. I’m happy if the class is so relaxing that you fall asleep and let out a little snore.

I am not going to try and change you. Come as you are. You can start yoga at any time. It does not have to be in January or when you have done A, B and C or look like X, Y and Z. You are always welcome. You are enough and you are already whole.