Embodiment and Inclusion: An Interview with Ellie Roscher

Ericka Jones, who leads workshops on diversity and inclusivity in yoga, sat down with fellow yogi Ellie Roscher to talk about her new book, The Embodied Path: Telling the Story of Your Body for Healing and Wholeness. In the book, Roscher interviews people about their body stories and invites readers to breathe intentionally, move intuitively, and tell their own body’s story. By turning toward our bodies with curiosity and honoring our body stories, we can help build communities where every person’s body is safe and belongs. 

Ericka Jones: How does having “an embodied path in and through our bodies with no arrival” align to no arrival with social justice?

Ellie Roscher: Our culture conditions us to drive toward a destination. We pitch our happiness into the future instead of living the present moment. The world entices, “You will be happy when you earn more money, when you find a significant other, when you lose five pounds, or when you retire.” We strive and never quite arrive because the destination is a mirage. It is our work to cultivate a defiance toward these messages and embrace the body and life right in front of us with reverence, joy, and delight. 

Yoga, meditation, and writing are three rigorous practices of remembering that lead me to deeper embodiment. They invite me back home to my body and the present moment. One breath at a time, I remember there is no arriving. Inhabiting my own body more deeply as I age and unfold is the work of my life. Connected, social justice work is also the work of my life. We will not arrive fully in our bodies or fully in a just society. Yoga, meditation, and writing build resiliency in me. It strengthens my inner ethical intelligence. I respond more and react less. I come to more moments of conflict resourced with a settled body. I can cultivate a sustainable pace, flowing on this journey of which there is no arrival.

Ericka Jones: In 200-hour and continued practices, yoga focuses so much on asana and poses versus the energetic benefits of each pose. How do we shift this focus in western/modern culture? What connects breath and liberation in social justice?

Ellie Roscher: We live in a culture valuing speed, productivity, and efficiency. I first tried yoga after my college gymnastics career. I entered the studio to burn calories and achieve. I tried to win yoga.

Gymnasts hold their breath. Yoga, conversely, gently invited me to breathe mindfully. As my breath slowed, so did my thoughts. As my breath expanded, so did my being. The sound and rhythm of my breath soothed me. It anchored me in my body and in the present moment. I explored how breath can build heat, calm nerves, release tension, increase energy, and increase grounding. The more I synched my movement with breath, the more my asana practice prepared my body for stillness. In stillness, I could take the witness perspective and observe my thoughts without attaching to them. In stillness, I could surrender, practice non-doing, and allow my body to feel what it feels. I got access to the subtle energies of my body. Then when I returned to my asana practice, my attention and awareness shifted from striving to dwelling. I entered my body more fully, and there I experienced moments of liberation.  

It is helpful to name how not just asana but all of yoga addresses and contends with our fixation on speed, efficiency, and productivity. It offers a different path to peace, liberation, and healing at the body level so we can work with others in our communities toward collective healing and communal peace. 

Ericka Jones: With diversity of bodies and embodied paths, how do teachers teach embodied within their own body, while creating space for others to be in their body? 

Ellie Roscher: Instead of making it about me, I can take on the posturing of a guide and teach in a way inviting yogis back to themselves. I practice the types of asana I lead, in part so my cues stay embodied. I live what I say. When I feel poses in my body, when I breathe to the other side of resistance, when I notice energetic shifts in my own body, the yogis I am guiding feel invited to deepen their own experience in their own bodies. When I attempt to speak to all bodies at the same time, it lands flat. When I listen deeply, look intently, see individual bodies, and speak specifically to the energy in the moment, yogis feel seen, heard, and invited to have their own experience in their own specific body. 

Ericka Jones: Thank you for the book and the chat, Ellie!

Ellie Roscher: Thank you! 

The Embodied Path is available now for pre-order at your favorite bookstore or find links at ellieroscher.com.