Don’t tell me to do Yoga
Welp, it happened again. I had just sat down with my signature order (espresso and a mochi donut) at my favorite coffee shop and began to work on my latest piece. It’s a paint marker illustration depicting a colorful night procession. The woman next to me struck up a conversation, complimenting my art. She liked it, and we had a very pleasant exchange. I ever so briefly mentioned my disability. I did not speak about it negatively, only its impact on what I do, but the atmosphere of the conversation immediately shifted.
She said she was sorry for me, and began to ask me questions. Question: what do I have? Answer: I have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a connective tissue disease. Question: what does that do to a person? Answer: it affects the production of collagen, an important protein found in connective tissue. Many people with hEDS experience joint instability, hyper mobility, and chronic pain, but it affects people differently. Interestingly enough, she did not ask what I do to manage it. I do physical therapy, take medication, and I use a wheelchair for energy conservation and pain management. I also use a ton of short term interventions to manage daily aches and pains.
“Have you tried yoga?”
The question sits awkwardly in the air as I take a deep breath. Here we go again.
We are now in the prescriptive part of the conversation. She recommends things, and I say yes, yes, no, yes. It’s tedious, and I shut it down as quickly as I can. Why is it so tedious? Well, because I’ve had this conversation before. Over and over. I personally have been asked this question probably fifty times, by fifty different people. It seems to be every able-bodied person’s first instinct. Some ask if I’ve done, or will do yoga, before they even ask what I have. Like yoga is a magical cure all, appropriate for any disease or illness, even if they themselves have never done yoga.
It seems as soon as someone learns of my illness, I invariably receive recommendations and suggestions, and this is an experience that seems common among my disabled peers. And it’s not just yoga, I’ve received hundreds of recommendations. They delve into diet and nutrition, e.g. have I tried: keto, cutting out sugar, cutting out gluten, losing weight, etc. They’ll ask about movement disciplines, yoga being the most common, but then pilates, tai chi, dance, meditation, and then if they have exhausted those, they’ll ask about Eastern medicine interventions: acupuncture, reflexology, cupping. I have fielded probably hundreds of recommendations, and for the record, before anyone thinks to ask, the answer is yes. I have tried many of these things.
The conversation stuck out to me in a way it hasn’t in the past. Haunted me as I sipped my espresso, and after I put away my markers and returned home.
I truly believe the woman in the coffee shop meant well. I know that most people mean well. They don’t like the idea that I might be in pain, and their inquiries come from a place of genuine concern for my well being. But walking back from the coffee shop, I finally placed my feelings of discomfort; the reason I dislike this conversation. Intent is not the same as impact, and there is often a subtle inquiry in these “harmless” bits of advice, and that is: is this your fault? Is your disability the result of your inaction? If you did yoga, would you still be disabled?
I have been re-reading Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s book, The Future Is Disabled; Prophesies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs. I read it about a year ago, but it was early in my disability journey, and there was a lot that I wasn’t ready for. As I read it again, I realize I have come a long way in making sense of my body, the movement, and my place in the world. I am thinking about the book as I contemplate the “have you tried yoga” phenomena, and this exchange with the otherwise nice lady at the coffee shop. Because this kind of uninformed and unsolicited advice is predicated on the assumption that disability is an individual misfortunate, that can, and should, be “fixed” with individual solutions. A core component of The Future is Disabled is that disability is not only a natural part of human diversity, but that disabled thought is critical to creating a just society for all. “It’s radical to imagine that the future is disabled. Not just as tentatively allowed to exist, not just OK, I guess there’s one white guy with a wheelchair, cool, diversity. But a deeply disabled future: a future where disabled, Deaf, Mad, neurodivergent bodyminds are both accepted without question as a part of our vast spectrum of human and animal ways of existing, but where our cultures, knowledge, and communities shape the world” (Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s, 2022, pg. 22).
In our culture, disability is synonymous with suffering, and most people never interrogate why that might be. Could it possibly be because of the lack of affordable, available healthcare? Could it be the stigma disabled people face in the workplace? Could it be being physically barred from buildings, venues, or public spaces, as the result of inaccessible infrastructure? When you get into the topic of disability, and the hardships that disabled people may face in our world, the topic of systemic injustice must come up. Despite popular belief, suffering is not an inherent part of disability. While I would not wish chronic pain on anyone, many, if not most of our physical impairments, could be managed with adequate healthcare and resources if we lived in a society that still cared for people outside of their labor. Disability does not have to be terrible, humiliating, or undesirable, as it is often represented. The suffering is manufactured.
Systemic problems require systemic solutions, and the real interventions for disabled suffering are political. But that’s an uncomfortable truth for many able-bodied people I encounter. So uncomfortable, that they would rather believe that our disabilities are the result of our own incompetence or inaction, and we simply need to be properly educated on what would eliminate (or mitigate) our disability. Hence, yoga.
And the ultimate tragedy is that this is such an unbelievable time waster. I truly believe that as a whole, able-bodied people have very little to teach disabled people. I don’t mean as individuals, obviously; I have many able-bodied mentors in academics, art, and life, whose opinions I value very dearly. I mean as a culture, we have already received the lessons of the abled. We already learned the way we should feel about disability from their movies, their books, their politics. As Piepzna-Samarasinha describes, when speaking on the representation of disabled bodies in science fiction,
“In the Bad Future of all kinds of dystopian imaginings, disabled people are either everywhere, with our pathetic, pain-filled, dysfunctional, broken bodyminds. We are the tragic autistic son in Children of Men who can’t look up from his devices, the ‘disfigured’ ugly babies produced by toxic waste and climate change. We’re a cautionary tale told to children, warning them to fight climate change and fascism or just look what will happen. On the other hand, in so much utopian social justice-oriented science fiction, it’s unquestioned that in the good utopian future, disabled people don’t exist. Everyone eats organic, and disabled babies are eliminated before birth through genetic selection that no one ever calls eugenics. In the happy future, we’re all dead. And isn’t it better that way? Fuck that.” (Pg.17).
Rather than focusing on what disabled folks can learn from able-bodied folk, able-bodied people could learn so much from disabled folk, something Piepzna-Samarasinha speaks on at length. I actually do utilize a ton of individual solutions to manage my own health. I remove barriers for myself every day. I engage in disability activism, mutual aid (there is an incredible section about mutual aid in The Future is Disabled), and I try to create opportunities for my disabled peers, as they create opportunities for me. I, and so many other disabled people, perform herculean feats on a daily basis. “Like every kind of oppressed people, disabled people are geniuses at staying alive despite everything. And we are often the only ones who remember each other and get in the trenches and kick ass to save each other when everyone else ‘forgets’ about disabled people.” (Pg 51). These survival skills can be taught; after all, we the disabled taught them to each other. These lessons make life and living so much easier, and could help the abled too, if they cared to listen.
If you love your disabled friends and family, there are so many other ways to help them, and to be an ally in our collective liberation, you can probably just ask. Meal prep is a great form of mutual aid for me personally, for example. And if you really, really want to suggest something to them, all I can say is this. First, ask them if they are interested in receiving a recommendation. If the answer is no, respect that. Even if you really think it might help. Secondly, starting a new thing can take a lot of preliminary research: finding a place, calling them up, seeing if they take your insurance, finding out the cost, etc… If you want to recommend something, offer to take on some of the labor you are suggesting to the disabled person. And finally, if they do not ultimately follow your advice, even if you have put some effort into researching it, don’t begrudge them. Maybe don’t even bring it up.
I wanted to write this piece for January, because this year will likely be hard. We will likely face heartbreak and misery, both able-bodied and disabled people alike, and I encourage you to find community in these dark times.
In the following issues, I will expand more on what I believe are critical lessons we can take from this moment to make our resistance more impactful, as well as what I am learning and what I am doing as I continue to educate myself. This was a very disability-focused essay, but in my mindscape, art and disability go hand and hand, and I will continue to explore that in the coming features. In the meantime, strap in, pick up a copy of The Future is Disabled, take care of yourself, and don’t tell me to do yoga.
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. The Future Is Disabled : Prophecies, Love Notes and Mourning Songs. Vancouver, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022.
Illustration by Anna Neshyba, “Why Don't You Do Yoga?”
