Your Body, Your Best Friend

Erica Mather

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Assertiveness
• Shamanism

Informations

• Publié par: New Harbinger Publications
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781684033454
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

“A groundbreaking integration of positive psychology and body awareness, Erica’s book provides just the right mix of pointed cultural critique and heart-opening compassion. You will find the voice of a friend whose truth-telling is both provoking and healing. I recommend this book for everyone looking to truly love their bodies.”
— Kino MacGregor , author, yoga teacher, speaker, and founder of Omstars
“I’m proud of Erica Mather’s contribution to humanity as a Forrest Yoga Guardian, and now as an author. Erica’s book, Your Body, Your Best Friend , holds the keys to freedom from your mental imprisonment. Erica’s deeply intelligent investigation into the nature of entrapment is fascinating. Breathe deeply as you read. Seek out these keys and take action. Good hunting!”
— Ana Tiger Forrest , creatrix of Forrest Yoga, and author of Fierce Medicine
“Erica is a true ‘body whisperer,’ helping women to create a truly healthy relationship with their bodies. Erica is one of my favorite yoga teachers, and I’ve always found her compassion and genuine love of humans allows me to return to center, and integrate body and heart. May this book touch many women with its vulnerable wisdom and powerful truths.”
— HeatherAsh Amara , author of Warrior Goddess Training and The Warrior Heart Practice
“Informative, honest, and free of judgment, Erica Mather’s book can help even the most self-critical of us to view our bodies in an uplifting light. Your Body, Your Best Friend is exactly what our society needs more of: a breakdown of where we’ve gone wrong in how we relate to our bodies, and the guidance to get it right.”
— Ariane Resnick, CNC , chef, author, and wellness expert
“Grounded yet mystical, Erica Mather brings both practical advice and nourishing wisdom to help you create a healthy, heartfelt relationship to your body. Trading comparisons for compassion and perfectionism for potential, in these pages you’ll learn to tend to your body with more creativity and lasting kindness.”
— Elena Brower , author of Practice You
“Erica Mather has written a masterpiece! Even if you’ve digested a library full of diet, exercise, spirituality, and self-help books, you’ve never heard (or even thought) of the life-changing concepts in this book. This wise and inspiring manual for making your body your best friend comes from a woman you will want as your other best friend. She’s that special.”
— Linda Sivertsen , author, and host of the Beautiful Writers Podcast
“This book is everything! For a start, Erica reminds us that we are not alone in our body confusion. She teaches us why this has happened with smarts and clarity that allow us to feel smart, too. Then she empowers us through meditations, journaling, and sensory awakenings that help us find our way home again—home to our own, good bodies that are just the right size to hold all the love and pain and beauty of a real life. I’m giving this book to all my women friends.”
— Cyndi Lee , founder of, OM Yoga, and author of Yoga Body, Buddha Mind and May I Be Happy
“With Your Body, Your Best Friend , Erica Mather has created a road map on how to interrupt conversations that make us feel unworthy. It’s mystical, spiritual, practical, but mostly: truthful. This is a book I’ll be buying for all the women in my life.”
— Jennifer Pastiloff , author of On Being Human
“ Your Body, Your Best Friend is the ultimate guide for how to feel amazing in your own skin. Erica skillfully inspires and prompts you to shed the habitual behaviors, obsessive thoughts, and negative self-talk that can get in the way of compassion, love, and joy. She makes radical acceptance accessible.”
—Tasha Eichenseher , former brand director at Yoga Journal , and yoga teacher
“Erica Mather is living evidence that your body can be your best friend. She has tirelessly done the work, and is the perfect leader for anyone who is willing to change and heal the way they connect with themselves. This potentially life-changing read will guide you to see and experience yourself in a new and exciting way. These pages contain medicine that reaches deep into the body, mind, and soul.”
— Kyle Gray , author of Raise Your Vibration and Angel Numbers


Publisher’s Note
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
In consideration of evolving American English usage standards, and reflecting a commitment to equity for all genders, “they/them” may be used in this book to denote singular persons.
Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books
Copyright © 2020 by Erica Mather
New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
5674 Shattuck Avenue
Oakland, CA 94609
www.newharbinger.com
“Autobiography in Five Short Chapters” from THERE IS A HOLE IN MY SIDEWALK: THE ROMANCE OF SELF-DISCOVERY by Portia Nelson, copyright© 1993 by Portia Nelson. Reprinted with the permission of Beyond Words/Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
Lines from UNDERSTANDING OUR MIND (2006) by Thich Nhat Hanh reprinted with permission of Parallax Press, Berkeley, California, www.parallax.org.
Cover design by Amy Daniel; Acquired by Ryan Buresh; Edited by Kristi Hein
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mather, Erica, author.
Title: Your body, your best friend / Erica Mather.
Description: Oakland, CA : New Harbinger Publications, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019054110 (print) | LCCN 2019054111 (ebook) | ISBN 9781684033430 (paperback) | ISBN 9781684033447 (pdf) | ISBN 9781684033454 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Body image. | Body image in women. | Self-acceptance.
Classification: LCC BF697.5.B63 M385 2020 (print) | LCC BF697.5.B63 (ebook) | DDC 306.4/613--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019054110
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019054111
To all the women of the past, present, and future who dare turn their suffering into great wisdom and beauty.
The body is the shore on the ocean of being.
—Sufi (anonymous)


Contents
Introduction
Lesson 1: Disarm the Happiness Trap
Lesson 2: The Grass Is Never Greener
Lesson 3: Turn Poison into Good Medicine
Lesson 4: Tame the Spin Doctor (The Power of Choice)
Lesson 5: Reclaim Your Body as Safe; Call Your Spirit Home
Lesson 6: Your Body and Beauty Are Unique
Lesson 7: You Are More Than Your Body
You’re On Your Way
Acknowledgments
Resource Guide
Introduction
Hello, dear reader! Congratulations! I hope that this will be the most important book you ever read. Yes! That is my wish for you.
Why? Because I have a deeply held belief that our relationship with our bodies is the most crucial relationship of our lives. You might scoff, but consider this—it is your primary relationship, the one that will be with you until you die. Relating with the body is the training ground for learning the most noble of human qualities: understanding, patience, compassion, generosity, acceptance, and appreciation, to name a few. In essence, many of the energies that make up what we call “love.”
Beyond this, I also believe that we humans (women, in particular, but also men) spend entirely too much time doing battle with our bodies, hating our bodies, and trying to change our bodies in impossible ways. It is—mostly—time wasted. It’s precious minutes, hours, days we could be putting to much greater use, for ourselves, the people we love, society, and the planet.
It might be selfish of me, but I want to reap the rewards of you spending less time worrying about a thigh gap and more time thinking about improving air quality. Or whatever is your passion. Silly, selfish me! If this book can affect the way you think about your body, it will indeed be the most revolutionary book you ever read. It could change your life, and mine! This is my sincerest hope.
You might wonder what authority I have to write this book. Well, first, I’m a human with a body. But beyond that, there are two main narrative strands that have led me to this concern for the time we waste hating our bodies.
First, I’ve struggled with body-image distortion my entire life. I’ve learned from my challenges with emotional overeating, restricting, and compulsive overexercising to come into a different relationship with my body and the being living within. The primary tools I’ve used along the way and that I will teach you about are yoga (specifically Forrest Yoga, a yoga method in which I am a “Guardian” or high-ranking senior teacher/teacher trainer) and Buddhism. Therapy has also figured hugely into my recovery, but I’m unqualified to instruct you in that area.
Second, I’ve been living with chronic injury and illness for nearly thirty years. Childhood athletics and professional piano playing damaged my body in ways I’ll never recover from. Adult-onset migraines were what finally broke me completely, brought me to yoga, and taught me to create this new relationship with my body and the pain it feels. So much of my knowledge and wisdom has come through engaging with my own injury and illness, using the tools of yoga, and then applying them to many hundreds of yoga students in New York City.
Along the way, I’ve established a business called The Yoga Clinic, which focuses on the therapeutic applications of yoga for people who are challenged by injury, illness, and aging. I’ve also founded a coaching program, the Adore Your Body Transformational Program, whi