How Yogi Ashley Hart Stopped Feeling ‘Stuck’ in Her Body and Changed Her Life

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And she was finding that the larger universe could be merciless. “I had left all my comforts—my nest—and gotten into this big, new place. I didn’t know how to find my center. And I was being told to lose weight. But even more than that, it was my own perception of how I should look, as a model in the industry. I learned a lot about myself and the world, but it was a dark time.” A time of counting every almond or bite of apple that went into her mouth, of becoming “full-on obsessive and compulsive and anxious. I was overexercising and trying not to eat.”

Then a fellow model invited her to a Bikram yoga class. “Honestly, what got me in the door was the idea that it would make me fit and help me lose weight,” Ashley admits. But once she was there, she had a moment that she now calls an epiphany. “The class was in a German dialect that I didn’t even understand. But I was staring at myself in the mirror as I was doing a pose, and I suddenly felt this separation from ‘Ashley,’ this body that I had been so mean about, and it felt like this gap, this breath. I realized, I can have these thoughts about myself—you’re fat, or you’re this, you’re that—but that’s just a thought. And everything I think is not reality. They’re simply thoughts.” Lightbulb. Moment.

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Learning To Let Go

That glimpse of a new reality was Ashley’s first baby step in a decade-long journey that took her from Europe to the U.S., from yoga to meditation, and from single to married. She became so enthralled with Bikram that at 18 she traveled to Mexico for four months of training to become a teacher in the practice. “That was profound and intense,” she says. “Two 90-minute classes a day in a 100°F studio, and lots of self-study.” But it took several more years for Ashley to turn from what she calls the “ego” approach to yoga—that is, focusing only on her fitness and weight—to a more spiritual dimension.

This yoga pose is amazing for stress relief:

She had moved to New York, working as a model but also teaching Bikram, when it dawned on her: “I’m doing these 26 postures in a hot room, but there’s so much more to yoga.” Once again she studied up, signing on for teacher training in ashtanga-based Vinyasa. That form is vigorous—though not as strict as Bikram—but also incorporates flow, controlled breathing, and focusing the mind. “I started to fall in love with the subtle parts of yoga—it doesn’t need to be so intense. It’s about how kind you can be to yourself.” Having begun as a way of training and shaping her body, Ashley’s yoga practice morphed into something less physical. “Eventually, I was literally sitting on my butt in meditation and realizing, Oh, this is yoga too,” she laughs.

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Enter another learning experience: On an assignment in Chicago six years ago, Ashley met Buck Palmer, a fellow model and a dedicated yogi whose specialty was meditation. He convinced her to come to L.A., where he lives, and try a four-day course in Vedic meditation (similar to transcendental meditation, it uses a personal mantra). “That course changed my life dramatically,” says Ashley. “And it keeps getting deeper and more subtle.”

Now And Zen

The other thing that changed her life? Being with Buck. The two married in 2015 and now both live in L.A., where Buck has become a full-time meditation teacher while Ashley continues modeling (she travels to Australia every six weeks to work with the Aussie companies Swisse Wellness and Just Jeans). But there is change afoot: Ever the student, Ashley recently started an integrative nutrition program. “Within a year, I’ll be a health coach,” she says. “I would love to work with young women on their health and their relationship to themselves and life. We all have a judgmental side, with social media and all these images we can look at. Even most of the models I work with have their ‘feeling fat’ days.”

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She can relate. “I still have that little devil on my shoulder that tells me, ‘You’re not good enough or pretty enough, or you’re lacking.’ But now I can just smile at it.” Her goal as a coach would be to encourage women to be healthier—drink water, go for walks, eat good food—rather than to diet and overexercise and “become a hard shell.” Ashley should know; she’s been on both sides of that divide. Now, as she approaches her thirties, she says, “I’ve got a desire to be more settled. But with meditation I can find that stillness wherever I am.”

This article originally appeared in the January/February 2017 issue of Women’s Health. For more on Ashley’s inspiring story, pick up a copy, on newsstands now.