This training contains 24 hours of live content.
We're Making Peace With Our Bodies and Building Unshakable Confidence, Together.
Making Peace With Your Body is your support system for ditching diet culture and accepting your body so you can live out loud.
Live, online training with Amber Karnes. Enrollment opens October 19
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Dominant culture (the society we live in) teaches us to believe lots of things about our bodies:
Having a thin, young, “perfect” body is the ultimate goal in life, and that your peace and happiness will follow once you attain it
Some bodies are more valuable than other bodies, and your body is ranked somewhere in that list. Wherever it ranks, it could be better
Your worth is defined by your beauty, age, the size of your body, your body’s abilities
Your body is a project to constantly be improved upon until it’s “perfect”
Yoga is only for skinny white women
...and so on.
These messages are pervasive and insidious.
They are conditioned into us from the day we are born.
We take them in, implicitly and explicitly, on a daily basis, from advertisements, media outlets, the books and movies we consume, the diet industry, the beauty and fashion industries, our families, friends, coworkers, churches, schools, teachers, our yoga studios.
And these messages get reinforced:
When every image used to market and sell yoga or wellness shows a thin, young, hyperflexible white woman, reinforcing the idea that yoga isn't for you
When a competent employee in a larger body is passed over for a promotion in favor of a thinner, less-qualified person
When a fat person goes to the doctor for an injury or illness and the doctor prescribes weight loss instead of treating the issue at hand
When your yoga teacher teaches to everyone else but tells you to “just rest in child’s pose” (which doesn’t even work in your body, anyway)
When you lose weight and everyone around you praises you and treats you better, but then the same people offer deafening silence or outright shame when you gain the weight back
When you settle for dating the guy who keeps you a secret from all his friends but tells you how amazing you are in private
Realizing the big and small ways that diet culture and fatphobia are harmful can be painful and eye-opening.
Folks in larger bodies are discriminated against in a pervasive, systemic way in this culture. And when a person’s larger body size intersects with race, age, gender, or disability, then discrimination, stigma, and social shame usually increase in intensity.
And our individual body image is complex and layered. It is a cumulative web of our conditioning since the day we were born, layered on top of our lived experiences, combined with our personality and way of doing the world.
Maybe you've tried everything, but you still hate your body sometimes (or all the time).
Raise your hand if any of this sounds familiar...
You are fed up and DONE with the dieting rat race and lose-gain weight cycling
You’ve tried the fakey “I’m a radiant goddess” affirmations and you wanted to throw up. They didn’t work.
You know that you can’t live up to impossible beauty standards but you still find yourself wasting money on diets, beauty treatments, or exercise plans trying to get there anyway
You’re okay with the concept of self-acceptance or body positivity for others, but you still want to change a few things before you can accept yourself
You’re sick of the mean voice in your brain that constantly criticizes your body, but you don’t know how to shut up this negative self-talk loop
You’re pretty sure if you could just lose weight once and for all, your problems would be solved
You’ve been putting off some important things until you lose weight or look better: asking for a promotion, booking a vacation, asking out that person you have a crush on, having a baby, or wearing that outfit
You desperately want to make peace with your body but you don’t know the way to get there
It’s really tempting to think that the solution to all of your problems is to “simply” change your body.
Maybe you’re new to the idea that you can make peace with the body you have today.
Maybe you’ve been working on body image for a while, you follow body positive teachers and influencers online, or you have started to become aware of the way that diet culture has infiltrated your brain.
Or maybe you’ve been at this body acceptance thing for a long time but the journey is just taking too long.
It's tempting just to assume that "simply" changing your body will fix all this. But you’ve tried that. Maybe you even had a little success, and noticed that your brain still told you that you weren’t good enough.
Deep down you know better.
You know that shame is never a motivator for positive change.
You know that the same-old rat race of dieting and regaining weight isn’t the way.
You know that hating yourself is not a path to self-love.
You know that your life’s purpose is not simply to be some object to be gazed upon.
You know you’re worth so much more than that.
Deep down, you already know this.
You already know the key to accepting and appreciating your body isn’t changing your body.
The key to accepting and appreciating your body is changing your mind.
Yoga helped me make friends with my body and my mind.
I first came to yoga in my early 20s. At the time, I was told it was a way I could lose weight (which I desperately was trying to do). But what I discovered through yoga changed everything.
It wasn’t anything like what I thought it would be. I discovered that after I would practice, I'd leave class feeling calm, grounded, and sure of myself.
In these yoga classes, I got to know my body in a whole new way.
When your body is the opposite of what society says is worthy or good, it can be painful, disorienting, and difficult to spend too much time really inhabiting your (imperfect, human) body. Mindful movement made me more physically certain of myself.
Yes, my body got stronger. Yes, I learned to make the shapes that the teacher was asking for, and I learned to move with intention. But my mind got stronger as well. My yoga practice made me know in my bones that my body was a powerful, good, and safe place to be.
The practices of yoga and mindfulness led me down a path of radical self-acceptance. I discovered that my thoughts about body size had not come from a place of truth, but from society’s expectations and narrowly defined beauty standards.
And I want to share all the tools, techniques, and tips for body peace with you so that you can make peace with your body, too.
Stop wasting time, money, and energy on diet culture. Start living life out loud.
If you’re ready to break free from the grip of diet culture, make peace with your body, and build unshakable confidence, then Making Peace With Your Body is the right place for you.
Through the practices of yoga, mindfulness, and radical self-acceptance, you can reframe your thoughts that are telling you that your body is the thing that’s holding you back from your dreams.
You’ll feel empowered to ask for that promotion, go on that date, enjoy time at the beach, or book your big vacation (whatever those things are you’re putting off “until” your body is perfect)
You’ll know the exact steps to get from self-loathing to self-love, and you’ll be working through them in your own right timing
You’ll feel good in your own skin, connected to your body, and present in your mind
You’ll know exactly how to shut up the “mean girl soundtrack” in your brain, and choose helpful thoughts that create the results you want in your life
You’ll stop making self-loathing a part time job and fully show up in your own life
There is a better roadmap toward making peace with your body that already exists.
And it’s got nothing to do with changing your body or fitting into some arbitrary beauty standard.
Let's make a ruckus, together.
I’m Amber Karnes (she/her).
I’m a yoga teacher, ruckus maker, the founder of Body Positive Yoga, and the co-founder of the Accessible Yoga Training School.
I’ve made it my life’s work to help folks just like you build unshakable confidence using the tools of yoga, mindfulness, and self-acceptance.
And I want to invite you to join me on the path to making peace with the body you have today.
Learn more about me here.
I'm ready to join!What Amber’s students are saying
The power that we hold to heal ourselves
“How powerful community can be. It was so wonderful being around women who were committed (even at different levels) to achieving body peace. I love looking at our bodies together and witnessing the power that we hold to heal ourselves and each other. I think what Amber does is so important in holding space for us to find one another and lead us through example, wisdom, kindness, and humor.”
-Making Peace With Your Body alumni
Radical body positivity
“I learned so much and reaffirmed a lot of what I had already learned and was feeling weak on. It was great to be able to learn from Amber and so many other knowledgeable women. The session on body image/opting out of diet culture was a great primer and overview of everything. It was great to talk about how all of these systems of oppression work together and to realize how radical body positivity really is.”
-Making Peace With Your Body alumni
Making Peace With Your Body is an 8-session, LIVE online course.
Each live session is 3 hours with a scheduled break and time for yoga practice through movement, breath, discussion, and self-reflection.
Making Peace With Your Body is an online course (and a community) where we are working toward accepting our bodies, building unshakable confidence, and living our lives out loud.
This course is not going to try to sell you on the “power of positive thinking” or convince you that all you need is a new red lipstick or the right outfit to feel your best.
We will be looking toward concepts from yoga philosophy to connect with our personal power, make friends with our minds, and find body trust.
MPWYB is a practice. And in this course, we will have a consistent practice of reflection, analysis, and action-taking as a community.
Making Peace With Your Body is a roadmap to body acceptance through the lens of yoga philosophy, mindful awareness, and social justice principles.
Session 1
Body image deep dive
Before we can make lasting and sustainable change, we’ve gotta take stock of what’s real for us in this moment. After a centering practice and introductions, our first session together will mainly be spent in reflection and sharing.
We will explore what we’ve been told (implicitly and explicitly) about our bodies, how body image affects our relationships, work, and lives, why we want to change certain things about our bodies or appearance, and more.
From a place of mindful awareness, we can start to determine if the way we currently think and feel about our bodies lines up with how we want to think and feel.
Session 2
Understanding body image through a justice-focused lens
After we take stock of our current thoughts and feelings about our bodies, it’s time to unpack those messages and meanings and zoom out a bit. Body image isn’t just our individual thoughts and feelings, but a reflection of our conditioning from dominant culture. We’ll explore how systems of oppression (like white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, and diet culture) work together to convince us that we’re not good enough and rob us of our personal power. Then we’ll look at ways to move from an extrinsic lens (society’s gaze and expectations) to where the power really lives and belongs: inside of us.
Session 3
Revamping your negative self-talk loop
Learn how to turn down the volume on that “mean girl soundtrack” that plays in your head all day (or learn how to change the station completely). If you’ve ever wished you could make your self-talk a little more humane, this session will give you practical tools to do just that. We’ll explore the concept from yoga philosophy of pratipaksha bhavana (choosing our thoughts on purpose). We will learn how a practice of non-attachment, mindful awareness, and intentionally choosing our thoughts (rather than letting our brains run away with us) can help us completely change our relationship to our bodies and our minds.
Session 4
“But what about your health?!”
Inevitably when discussions of self-acceptance come up, the rhetoric turns to, “Self-love is great, but what about your health?” In this session, we will examine the messages we receive about health on both societal and individual levels. We'll learn about the history of the BMI chart and why it’s not only scientifically pointless but also racist. We’ll look at what science and the existing research says about the connection between weight and health. We will also explore Health at Every Size, an evidence-based, weight-neutral wellness paradigm, and how to set goals and measure success if we wish to pursue health (instead of just thinness).
Session 5
Practical tools for making peace
Coming home to our bodies starts with learning to work with our thoughts. But there are many other places to work with body image. We’ll talk about other ways into learning to appreciate the body we’re in, including possibilities that exist in our wardrobe, a discussion on self-care, learning to arm ourselves with knowledge in places we may encounter stigma or shame (like an airplane or the doctor’s office), and finding our community.
Session 6
How to take care of yourself when everything’s impossible
This session is all about ways to build resilience in your body, mind, and spirit. We’ll explore tools and techniques from the practice of yoga that will allow us to understand and process emotions, downregulate our nervous system, find relaxation, and connect with our breath. These practical, take-with-you tools will enable you to connect with your own personal power, no matter the circumstances around you.
Session 7
Your no-stress holiday plan
The holiday season can be fraught with anxiety for many of us. Maybe you have to be in the presence of an openly racist family member or you are just trying to dodge your aunt’s judgmental comments about your weight. Spending more time around family members we don’t often interact with can prompt a whole cascade of stressful thoughts and feelings. In this session, we will apply what we’ve learned about working with our minds, keeping attentive awareness in our bodies, and strategies for dealing with stress to make a plan for well-being as we approach the end of the year.
Session 8
Moving boldly forward
In our final session, we will talk about our way forward. This will include resource sharing around sustainable, daily ways to keep working with our body image. We’ll discuss ways to more fully step into our power and purpose and work toward justice for all bodies. We will also have a closing circle with an opportunity for folks to share about their experience over the past few weeks.
Tuition for Making Peace With Your Body
We offer sliding scale pricing for this training:
- $395 Community Rate: For folks who need financial assistance
- $495 Sustainer Rate: Base cost of this course
- $595 Supporter Rate: For folks who can afford to pay a bit more, you'll enable community members experiencing financial difficulties to join at a lower rate!
If none of these price points work for you, there are a limited number of partial and full scholarships available. Apply for a scholarship here.
When you register for Making Peace With Your Body you’ll get:
- Instant access to your student portal, where you’ll have welcome messages from me and tips to set yourself up for success
- 24 hours of live training with me: a place to learn in community with others on this path
- Video archives with captions of all live content
- A rich resource list including guided audio recordings of meditation and breathwork exercises to sit with discomfort
- Reflection prompts to deepen your learning
- 24 hours CEUs (after completion of the course content, you may submit your certificate for contact hours through Yoga Alliance if desired)
What Amber’s students are saying
I never would have had the confidence before…
“I never believed yoga was something I could do. I didn’t think my large body would be able to move in the way needed to reach the poses. But now I practice yoga everyday and am documenting my journey with raw photos. Without [Amber's course] I never would have had the confidence to try yoga let alone share pictures of myself practicing.”
-Katie
I feel like I’m doing yoga with a friend
“Before...I was unable to sustain a consistent yoga practice. But now I feel eager to get on the mat and kick off my day with empowering movement and grounding practices. I feel like I’m doing yoga with a friend when working with Amber.”
-Deb
Who this course is for
Folks who crave radical self-acceptance but aren’t sure how to get there on their own
If you’re not satisfied with the status quo that says you must be thin, rich, and young to be happy, you’re in the right place. If you’ve watched friends or folks you follow on the internet embrace radical self-acceptance but aren’t convinced that you could do the same, you belong here. If you’re ready to learn to unapologetically claim the space you take up in the world, you belong here.
Yoga practitioners or teachers who want to explore body acceptance through a yogic lens
If you’d like answers to questions like... How is non-attachment related to the size of your thighs? How can we use the practice of pratipaksha bhavana (choosing the opposite thought) to give our self-talk soundtrack a complete makeover? How can we incorporate yoga philosophy, breath, movement, and presence on and off the mat to bring us closer to a positive relationship with our body and ourselves? You belong here.
People who want to learn body trust in community
Accepting yourself in a culture that constantly tries to convince you that you’re not enough (or that you are too much) is a tall order. It’s tiring to swim upstream all the time. Sometimes you need someone to grab your hand and pull you along for a bit.
Community is where these tender seeds of acceptance can grow and flourish. When you join MPWYB, you will belong to a community of compassionate, conscientious folks just like you who are working to ditch diet culture, accept their bodies, live the practice of yoga, and claim up the space they take up in the world. We get stronger and banish shame when we share our stories. We sense possibilities when we hear others’ stories.
Folks who are tired of postponing “living their real life”
If you’re sick of feeling like you can’t book that trip, wear that outfit, ask that hot person out, ask for a promotion, or make bold moves until...
- You lose the weight
- Have your degree
- Have a relationship or a baby
- Have money in your bank account
- Whatever other reason
You can start living your life, out loud, unapologetically, as exactly yourself... today. You belong here.
What Amber's students are saying
I make better choices...
“I have noticed myself responding not reacting so much & when I do react to situations quite often (not always!) I recognise that I’m reacting & I can tell myself to calm down and take a pause. Brilliant! And even if I only do a short practice…my body says thank you & sings for a while afterwards. When I’m practicing consistently I make better choices in regard to food & other life things. And that’s a big win!”
-Lee
Amber is a very effective teacher
“Amber is a very effective teacher. She’s incredibly bright in a non threatening kind of way. I like the way she asks follow up questions. I like that she isn’t afraid to politicize the body or take a public stand against white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, and other systems of oppression.”
-Making Peace With Your Body alumni
Frequently Asked Questions
I feel guilty spending time and money on myself.
I feel phony thinking about doing this. I'm not sure that I'm worth it.
I don't think I have time for this.
Do I need to be a certified yoga teacher to take this course?
I really want to do this work but I’m afraid of getting on a live Zoom call and saying the wrong thing in front of a big group.
I'm not really a "yoga person." Will I be able to keep up with these classes?
Is this course only for plus size/fat people?
Is this course only for women?
Is this training all online? How does it work?
What if I can't make the live calls? Can I still take the course?
How long is the training?
Are there any prerequisites for this course?
Do I need special equipment or software for the training?
How long do I have access to the training materials?
Can I share the videos, workbook, or other resources with other teachers who aren't in the course?
Can I earn continuing education credit or contact hour CEUs for this training?
How much does it cost?
Are scholarships available for the training?
Are payment plans available?
What if I need a refund?
What if I need help?
But what about the real problems out there in the world?
Maybe this stuff resonates with you.
Maybe you want to accept your body and stop obsessing about your looks.
But maybe you feel guilty for spending so much time obsessing over your “small” problems (cellulite! wrinkles!) in a world with so many big problems and injustices.
But the truth is, the personal is political.
The dynamics of oppression and power in dominant culture replicate themselves in our institutions and in our relationships (including the relationship to yourself and your own body).
The way we think, feel, and act toward our *own* body informs the way we think, feel, and act about *all* bodies.
And so the big and small problems are one in the same.
Get free because you have more important work to do.
Get free from diet culture because we need you to use all that time, all the energy, and all the money you have spent worrying about food, calories and your weight to actually live your yoga practice and fight for the full humanity of those who have less privilege than you do.
Get free from diet culture because we need your imagination, your art, your gifts, your activism, your yoga practice to be powerful.
Get free from diet culture because fighting for all bodies (yes yours, but also all the “ugly” and "unworthy" bodies) to be seen as inherently worthy will actually make the just, fair, and equal world we want a possibility.
Get free from diet culture because if we want to live in a better, more just world, we have to start with untangling our own hearts and minds from a hierarchical view of beauty and worth.
It’s uncomfortable, this journey. Body positivity and social justice is not a one and done.
It’s a lifetime commitment to the lived practice of yoga that asks us to remember the truth of who we really are.
And it’s a radical path. Yoga philosophy is radical. Accepting your body in a world that says it's not good enough is radical. It’s uncomfortable. But yoga gives us the tools to stay.
Learn to stay with the discomfort. We need you in the fight for liberation for all bodies. Your students need you. Your community needs you. The world needs you to do this work.
