Yoga for Eating Disorders

As a yoga teacher, you sometimes meet students who take you to your own limits. How do I deal with it? What can I expect of myself? How can I tell what is right for the moment?

Out of breath I stomp up the steps of a stately old Berlin building. What will await me? And who? How many? An impressively obese middle-aged woman with a curly head and angular glasses opens the door for me: “You are the woman for yoga? A polite smile scurries over her face, then she makes it unmistakably clear: “I am Mrs. P. from the team and will definitely not participate! Ms. P. steps aside and I think about where I can change and collect for a moment. On the toilet. Of course.

I look into the simple Ikea mirror made of light-coloured wood above the sink. My gaze gets stuck on a notice on the bottom of the mirror: “WARNING. Reflections in this mirror may be distorted by socially constructed ideas of beauty.” I have to smile and ask myself the correct meaning of distorted. Distorted=distorted, falsified.

Yes, that fits, because I am on the toilet of a Berlin club for eating disorders. Once again I look in the mirror and ask myself the question: Am I too fat? Am I too thin? And what is it like when this question is always on your mind?

When this question becomes the focus of all thinking? When this question becomes an addiction that dictates the whole daily routine and tyrannizes self-confidence? That must be exhausting. Unbelievable, terribly exhausting and lonely. I find myself neither too fat nor too thin and decide to step in front of my new students.

A spacious Berlin room with stucco on the ceilings, which otherwise serves as a group therapy room. Now tables are moved to the side, chairs stacked, yoga mats rolled out. I am happy to be able to hold on to my role as a yoga teacher, to distribute bolsters, belts, blocks.

Then we sit in front of each other and I look into the faces of five women whose stories I can only guess. What did I expect? Drought, emaciated, childlike bodies, sunken faces, far too big eyes… I don’t see anything of it. I see two ladies in their forties, one overweight, the other small, very petite, frail, the back round, perhaps to protect the scarred heart. And I see three young women, in their 20s, who also don’t show off any pointed bones but are of normal weight, but are bloated in the face.

The young women are pale, some have rings under their eyes, their eyes are covered up and much of them radiate a deep sense of insecurity. I suspect that the young women are bulimic.

When I think about eating disorders, the clinical picture of bulimia seems to me to be the meanest. Eating-breaking addict. Lots and lots of food are swallowed in a very short time, the main thing is a lot, the main thing is fast, until the pressure becomes unbearable and then secretly puts his finger down his throat and hopefully chokes everything up again.

I’ve read that you can’t vomit everything, that leftovers, especially fats, always remain in the body and that bulimics are therefore rarely remarkably thin, often rather a little chubby and above all bloated in the face. No wonder when I imagine that several times a day they devour enormous amounts of food and choke it up violently. Only not to feel themselves and to distract from another, a mental pain.

The first contact with my new yoga students

I take the teacher’s seat and look into suspicious faces. Where do I start? How should I practice with these women? I feel into what could connect us. I am talking about the fact that I too am insecure.

That I didn’t know what to expect, but that I find the subject of eating disorders, bodily delusions and false ideals of beauty important, and that as a teacher I would like to learn how to deal with them in a healing way; because I see them again and again in the classes: the thin, dry, driven, ambitious women and also the overweight, who are ashamed that their stomach is already in their way from the dog to the lunge.

I tell the participants that I would like to learn from them and that I am grateful that they have all appeared here today. And I ask if they would like to be touched by me during the practice with Hands On and I am surprised. Almost unisono I hear “Absolutely! We absolutely want to be touched.”

I ask if there are any physical limitations beyond the known problems. Laura, a young woman in her early 20s, whom I suspect to be a mixture of anorexia and bulimia, speaks with a lowered gaze: “My knees are broken …” Her voice becomes quieter with every word. “I have to wear knee pads and always have pain. I would love to join in so much, but I feel …. so handicapped.

I used to dance salsa, today it hurts me when I just stand”. A wave of compassion grabs me and I try to turn it into compassion and take Laura with me on the journey. “I will offer you variations again and again, you can pause at any time and next time you tell me how your knees were after the practice. Shall we try it that way?” She nods and a shy smile scurries over her swollen face. She never lifted her eyes.

I teach a simple flow with moonlight restorative elements on the bolster and lots of breath. I speed from one mat to the other, slide blankets under broken knees, show how to help the dog’s leg into the lunge step when overweight, distribute blocks and straps, lay hands on and breathe, breathe, breathe with the participants.

The dainty woman, Simone, is already out of her way with the classic sun greetings. Simone thinks she has to do her own thing. She pauses during the course of the event and looks at me suspiciously: “I always do the sun greetings differently, that irritates me here. I’m doing mine now.” I answer spontaneously that I would wish that she could get involved with what I offer here. “Otherwise I must ask you to leave”, I close friendly and am surprised myself about my clear words. Have I gone too far?

Was I too determined? And yet, I stand by what has been said and am surprised that she likes to stay. Was this a test of my endurance? Acute eating disorders, especially anorexic people, to whom I would count Simone, are often highly intelligent, often manipulative and can become provocative, Hartmut M., a therapist specializing in addiction problems, enlightened me beforehand.

As it seems, the clear announcement was exactly right, because from this moment on Simone fits in without comment and her cartilaginous body seems to become a breath more permeable. In the course of the hour I go to her again and again and carefully place the hand in the child between the bony shoulder blades and invite her to breathe, to expand, to expand, to create space.

Her body feels like that of an old woman, I guess she won’t be 50 yet. Intuitively I use words that have to do with vastness, softness, light and lightness. I avoid brainwashed Spirit Talk and walk over the body, over what can be felt concretely, and often have the focus on the second and third chakra, lower abdomen and solar plexus. I feel how the breath gets bigger in the course of the hour, the faces, the bellies relax, I am happy and share it with the participants.

In fact, here and there I see a smile and even Laura, the young woman with the knee pads, sometimes raises her shy gaze from the floor. Even if she doesn’t look at me, her gaze at least once wanders through the room.