Sophie is a yoga teacher and founder of Sophie's Safe Space. She offers online yoga courses specifically for fat, curvy, plus-size people with large (and of course all other) bodies - and with her great work she contributes to more inclusion for all body types. We have been big fans for a long time and are therefore particularly pleased that she has just expanded her offering: you can now also do pregnancy yoga for fat women with Sophie - and very soon also yoga for the period after pregnancy. Yeah! We wanted to find out more about the new courses, Sophie's motivation for her body-inclusive offering and her own pregnancy. That's why Lea spoke to Sophie for our postpartum magazine.
First of all: we don't use flowery descriptions in the interview, but talk about being fat. And being overweight. It's about excess weight, large bodies and plus size. Quite deliberately, because we want to remove the (de)valuation from these terms and establish them again as completely normal body descriptions. Like tall and short, blonde and red-haired. To this end, we think it's important that fat people establish these terms themselves again and thus normalize them.
Dear Sophie, thank you for taking the time to talk to us about being fat, your pregnancy and your work. Tell us how you came up with the idea for Sophie's Safe Space?
I was always fat, and for a long time I was not in harmony with my body, and diets were part of my life. And as absurd as that sounds from today's perspective, I started doing yoga in my early 20s because I wanted to lose weight (again). And then something really crazy happened, because yoga triggered a pretty intense transformation process in me: through yoga practice I was able to deal with body acceptance, perception and self-love in a really new way and get to know myself and my body in a completely new way. At the beginning I did yoga with real ambition, I wanted to sweat and exert myself and it was only a good hour if I was totally exhausted afterwards. But over time I became gentler and more loving towards myself. I was able to shake off the pressure and do yoga without a goal. And at some point I thought that maybe this could do other people good too: to attend a yoga class where the principle of performance does not apply, where there is no pressure and no goal. Instead, where I can ask myself: who am I right now? Where am I and how am I feeling today? This is important to me.
And it all started in a yoga retreat that I attended as a participant. I had a great yoga teacher there who I really liked and who made me think for the first time that I could do that too - teach yoga. It actually took another three years to actually put that into practice, so fixed were my ideas about what the bodies of people who lead movement should look like. That's why I wanted to create a space that I had always lacked: a safe space in which I could exercise without pressure to perform and without a goal. In which I can decide for myself what I need and what I don't need at the moment of the lesson.
We're not just talking to each other today because you teach yoga and have recently started doing this for pregnant women, but also because you're currently pregnant yourself. Congratulations! Just to put it in general terms: what do you think about being pregnant as a fat woman?
I want to be very honest: it's OK, but that's all. It's a tough physical and mental experience for me, but I don't think it's really my thing. Why? Because for me it's not that radiant state that I'm in and that suddenly gives my life meaning. I don't feel that infinite love for my unborn child yet either - zero. That's the honest answer to that question. And I think it's important that stories like this about pregnancy are public, because I think that some women feel the same way secretly.
What I find really crazy in this context is how much shame there is out there in the world of mothers. I always thought that being fat was tough and associated with a lot of unsolicited advice, expectations and judgements. But being pregnant - or fat AND pregnant - is really crazy. There is a lot of shaming and I think that's really wow. So here's a message to everyone reading this: all feelings are allowed, it's totally normal not to just feel happiness.
That is also the essence of the weeks - "everything is OK." - and I personally found it crazy during my pregnancy that it wasn't so much about my fat body, but also really a lot about my (not always positive) feelings and expectations. Maybe that's why I started the postpartum period so naively, because the social narrative of having children is simply consistently positive, there is little room for fear, melancholy, irritation and sadness. I find it crazy how little is talked about the fact that there is this whole range of feelings.
Nevertheless, pregnancy is also a time in which a lot of measuring, weighing and evaluating takes place, even in relation to the body. This can be particularly triggering for fat women and unfortunately the way they deal with it seems to depend heavily on the doctors and midwives. Have you experienced (weight) discrimination during your pregnancy?
Luckily, I'm in a good position, I have a gynecologist who at least tries to deal with the issue well and I'm also in therapy at the same time, for pregnancy depression, among other things. And I found a midwife who is fat herself, that was important to me. She knows what she's talking about and doesn't ask questions that don't belong in my pregnancy. And if I'm completely honest, the only person who has really seriously discriminated against me so far has been myself. I've unpacked a lot of things before, tried to pull fat-phobic body images out of myself - and during this pregnancy I've really had a few moments where I've asked myself whether I'm back to square one with the way I see myself. I try to practice the body kindness that I always talk about, but it really doesn't always work, often it's a matter of struggling from week to week.
Thank you for your honesty, Sophie. I think it's really important that you talk about it so openly. Pregnancy is a borderline experience - regardless of weight - and it's actually a small miracle that not all pregnant women are constantly running around screaming. I can still remember from my pregnancy how scared my body wouldn't be able to cope.
Yes, and that's normal! Even when they're not pregnant, fat people are constantly afraid that their body isn't doing enough, that it's too big, that it can't do something. So how normal is it if these feelings also arise - perhaps even more strongly - during pregnancy. Because that's a time that's already so charged. Yoga can help with that too: regaining trust in your own body and realizing that it doesn't have to be able to do anything and yet can do a lot.
Yes! I noticed that I was getting worse and worse when I felt judged too much. And I was able to regain my sense of self-efficacy with small gestures. One of these gestures for me was weighing myself, because this public weighing in the doctor's office was a huge trigger for me. So at some point during my pregnancy I decided that I wanted to weigh myself at home. And my midwife completely refrained from asking me for any information about my weight. Why am I telling you this? Because I want to make it clear again that nothing in this system is compulsory. You don't have to weigh yourself (or have yourself weighed) and you are not at the mercy of the examinations in any other way either.
But back to yoga: you've just launched a digital yoga program for fat pregnant people and I couldn't be more excited. I think it's really important and I believe it's really important. How did you come up with that?
For me, most things come about like this: I look for something, can't find it, ask myself why it doesn't exist yet, and then just do it myself. And that was the case here too: I looked for prenatal yoga and found videos of people who are still very flexible even in advanced pregnancy. But that's not me - and neither are many slimmer pregnant women. That's why I started training to be a prenatal and postnatal yoga teacher: and boom: there is now prenatal plus size yoga. Crazy, right? And all of this, of course, without a weight loss goal and any pressure. Just as a gentle exercise option that works during and after pregnancy. And I'm happy if this can help many women out there to have a safe space for themselves and their bodies, even during pregnancy.
Thank you for the open conversation, Sophie!
* Photo credit: Angela Sisto (IG: @angela_sisto_)
