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Have you tried the yoga of minding your own business?
Nobody asked for your advice.
There’s a joke in the chronic-illness world: You mention a problem you’re having, whether it’s back pain, a clogged sink, or fake calls from the IRS. Someone responds, “But have you tried yoga?”
It comes from our experiences on social media in particular. When we talk about what it’s like to be in our tired, achy, unpredictable bodies, or just how we’re doing on a given day, we’re barraged with unsolicited advice. The most popular recommendation always seems to be yoga, though turmeric, homeopathy, restrictive diets and other notions come up a lot, too.
Don’t get me wrong. Yoga is great for some people, and for some kinds of aches and pains. But if the original poster says something like, “yoga made my joint pain worse,” the advice-giver often acts upset. “I was just trying to help!” they’ll say. Then the original poster is compelled to soothe the commenter, when they never asked for advice in the first place. It sucks.
At the same time, there’s this stereotype that folks with chronic illnesses are lazy. That if we only tried this remedy or that therapy, we’d be “cured.” But most of us have already tried everything we can think of. In Paula Kamen’s All in Your Head, her memoir about a migraine that wouldn’t go away, she enumerates every treatment…
