• Age: 12 to 18
• Grade: 7 to 12

A handbook for the self--a compassionate, honest, and personal guide to empowering yourself, and others, for a safer and more inclusive world.

BEING A TEENAGER can be a beautiful time in your life. But it can also be one filled with self-doubt, worries, and complicated relationships. Focusing on school and activities, friendship and family, feeling comfortable in your body, knowing and celebrating who you are in this world--it's hard to do all at once. Sometimes it may feel as though you're not doing it right, or that you don't know how to do it. Sometimes you may feel alone, and like you don't fit in--because you don't look like other people, or because you're not the "right" size or shape or skin color. It's tough to feel like you belong when so many things, like social media and the internet, are telling you that you don't.

Girlvana will inspire you to connect with your body, mind, and community to become the best possible version of yourself. Using the ancient teachings of yoga and the foundations of meditation and breathwork, this book will teach you to explore yourself from the outside in--to honor your body, to invite and accept your feelings, to work through tough conversations and negative thoughts--to develop self-acceptance and self-love.

Along the way, you'll also discover the power of finding and using your voice so you can become a better friend and ally; so you can speak out and fight against injustices and inequities; so you can use your privilege for good; and so you can, ultimately, demand change for a brighter world.

Featuring yoga flows and meditations, and in­cluding breathing exercises and journaling prompts, Girlvana is the essential guide for any self-identified young woman in today's world.

Ally Maz's profile page

ALEX MAZEROLLE (aka Ally Maz) is a writer, entrepreneur and yoga teacher. She is the founder of Girlvana Yoga, Ladyvana Retreats, and is the co-founder of the renowned yoga/fitness studio The Distrikt. Alex's gifts have sent her all over the world leading yoga workshops and speaking engagements in Tokyo, UK, Central America, Canada and the US.
Alex is a Global Yoga Ambassador for Lululemon. She is known for her warmth, her propensity for real talk, and her commitment to making yoga as accessible as possible. She has lent her expertise to NHL and MLB players, co-created a yoga app with EA sports, has taught classes ranging from 500 to 8,000 people, taught a private class to the rapper Common as well as her popular yoga tutorials with Lululemon. She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York with her husband, Bill, and pupper Butcher.

"Girlvana helps readers release unworthiness and step into greatness! This is a timely book with an empowering message.”—Gabrielle Bernstein, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“One of the bravest things one can do is let others see you. An accessible and powerful handbook for young people, Girlvana teaches the value of embodied practice, and includes the precise brave mentorship for our times.”—Adriene Mishler, creator and host of Yoga with Adriene

"Girlvana is a breathtaking and beautifully written book you want to give every woman and teenage girl you know. A gem for our generation."—RODA AHMED, bestselling author of Mae Among the Stars, and CEO and founder of HighTree Publishing

"Girlvana is revolutionary. Serving as an outstretched palm, it invites each reader into their own transformation by way of connection--to breath, to body, to the self, and to beyond the self, to something much greater that can only be cultivated through being in community. This work shows us what is possible when we choose to build a life from a whole place--not just a perfect place."—DANIELLE DOBY, writer