In her latest blog post, Niya Bajaj highlights how the experience of intersectionality--or multiple social identities--impacts eating disorders and recovery outcomes. She explores how the yoga concept of svādhyāya (self-study) guides us to deepen our awareness of what influences our identity and body image. Niya also explains how researchers and care providers can apply svādhyāya to help address eating disorders in a truly inclusive way by including systemically excluded populations in the eating disorder community.

In this month’s blog series on yoga therapy and inclusive eating disorder recovery, Niya Bajaj sheds light on how food insecurity is associated with all forms of eating disorders and can have negative impacts on recovery. She shares why the practice of satya, or truthfulness, helps us better recognize and address this reality and includes practical suggestions to create true inclusion for all by including systematically excluded populations in the eating disorder community.

Writer and yoga teacher Ashley Paige explains how the third chakra relates to eating disorder recovery. Learn why exploring your strengths, values, and sense of purpose are important for both recovery and this chakra.

In our latest blog series on yoga therapy and inclusive eating disorder recovery, Niya Bajaj investigates how gender identity impacts eating disorder recovery, and explains why yoga therapy —specifically the practice of pratyahara—can help support a more inclusive eating disorder recovery for transgender, non-binary and agender individuals.

Guest contributor Liz Dehler shares about the Buddhist meditation of loving kindness and how integrating it into her recovery and life has helped her love herself more fully and build nurturing relationships with others.

Learn about the yoga philosophy known as the kleshas, or psychological blocks. The kleshas can be a helpful lens through which to understand how eating disorder thoughts and behaviors create blocks in our lives. As Ashley Paige shares in this blog post, once we understand the block, we can learn to make new choices that will lessen its intensity and eventually remove it.

The culture we are raised in provides the lens that determines what is beautiful and influences our body image. Guest contributor Niya Bajaj explores how the philosophical principles of yoga, or the niyamas, are guides for both addressing biases and definitions of beauty and healing body dissatisfaction. She offers practical suggestions for how to apply the niyamas to address eating disorders in a truly inclusive way, beyond the limitations of personal and cultural biases.

Guest contributor Liz Dehler shares how the Buddhist teaching of impermanence can be a tool in eating disorder recovery that helps us shape a new relationship with our experiences and the world around us. Liz provides some practical ways to begin embracing impermanence in your daily life and a short meditation to practice also.

Writer and yoga teacher Ashley Paige explains how the second chakra relates to eating disorders. Learn why addressing our emotions and expressing ourselves—both essential for recovery—are related to this chakra.