Stanley wasn’t always a yoga-devoted, body-affectionate proclaimer of self-love. At 16, Stanley tried Bikram yoga and describes her first experience as "hell on earth.” Seven years later, on the heels of a messy breakup, with a Groupon discount in hand, she tried it again.
“Everything that was so bad about it that first time was perfect,” she says.
Returning to yoga helped Stanley cope with her 
depression. After struggling with weight issues her entire life, yoga finally gave her the tools to accept herself for who she was.
“Yoga makes you stare at yourself,” she says. “It literally puts a mirror up in front of you where you are like, this is who you are. And this is what you have to become okay with.”
For the young 20-something, yoga became a metaphor for the obstacles in her life. Instead of letting her past experiences and fears dictate her decision-making, she decided she would take on new challenges.
So when the Groupon ran out, and she couldn’t afford to take classes, she transformed her living room into her own personal studio, using anything from a dog leash to VHS tapes as equipment.
“For me the hardest part was just getting to this place where I actually understood just how much of my own boundaries—my own mental boundaries—were in me not enjoying the experience,” she says. “You can't sit around and think, 'oh, well there’s not already one of me doing this.' Well, that could be said for anything—are you going to let that hold you back your whole life?”