Jesse Golden

Yoga Instructor, LUCYPRO, and model

You may recognize Jesse Golden: she’s the one that can do the Scorpion Pose (Vrschikasana) in our ads and make it look like a breeze. Of course, she’s been doing yoga for eleven years (and grew up as a ballerina). “Because I had a dancer background, I was always the girl who could do all the cool poses, even before I even stepped into a yoga class,” Jesse admits. Three years ago, the natural yogini decided to train for a teaching certification—right around the same time her body began to deteriorate from a potentially devastating disease. Jesse recently took some time with us to discuss her practice, and how it helped her get through the most difficult period of her life.

How has yoga affected your life?

Yoga to me is everything. It’s such a huge part of my life. Everything kind of changed for me about three years ago, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and yoga turned from something I did physically into something that really helped me get through an awful time in my life. It was heartbreaking, because here I was going into something that I had such a passion for, and my body started giving out on me. It started with little things and it gradually got worse to the point that I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t bend my fingers, I couldn’t pick up my son, I couldn’t open a up bottle of juice for him. Thank goodness, my teachers were very supportive…and all the things I was learning about yoga philosophically really helped me as my body went through all these awful things. My meditation practice became amazing.

So through yoga, meditation, diet and medicine I’ve been in remission now for the last two years. I feel so blessed and so lucky; I know there’s a lot of people that haven’t recovered as well as I have.

Of course, there are days where I still feel awful but something my teacher once said to me still sticks with me to this day: “When you don’t want to go to yoga is when you need to go to yoga.” I feel so grateful that my body is capable to do all those things again, so I really take advantage of getting up and moving and doing what I can do, because there was such a long time where I couldn’t even walk.

What would you say to someone just starting a yoga practice?

It’s such a gift to have a working, functional body. If you can get up and move and use your body, do it! Your body will love you for it. Yoga affects so many areas in your life besides the physical. Just a simple warrior pose, just being able to sit in it and breathe through it, and not worrying about what your body is feeling and to just be in peace in it…it’s amazing. I always used to say, “Yoga is my Prozac.” It’s my Prozac. So I have to go. It’s just something that I have to do. And you should do it too—and wear your lucy pants while you’re at it!