Wrestling with Yoga is the sparkling, gen­tly humor­ous and deeply thought­ful sto­ry of Dem­be’s jour­ney as an evolv­ing Jew: a young mom, free spir­it, and nurse who trad­ed the ICU for a yoga stu­dio — only to find that the inner peace her soul sought in yoga was present in her faith all along.

Her sense that her life is miss­ing some­thing inde­fin­able yet essen­tial leads her on a search for pur­pose that uncov­ers life-chang­ing par­al­lels and con­flicts between her beloved yoga prac­tice and her Jew­ish heritage.

Nev­er dog­mat­ic, she walks us through her method­i­cal reex­am­i­na­tion of near­ly every­thing she’s accept­ed as a guid­ing prin­ci­ple, while dis­cov­er­ing pro­found con­nec­tions to her Cre­ator and plac­ing her faith at the cen­ter of her dai­ly life.

As she learns more about Judaism, she shares her delight at dis­cov­er­ing new ways to hon­or the beau­ty of every­day life, and her dis­com­fort with excess­es that chal­lenge her beliefs.

For Jews con­tem­plat­ing their lives in the con­text of their faith, Shelly offers acces­si­ble sug­ges­tions for gen­tly mov­ing towards a more spir­i­tu­al lifestyle.