A Film to Touch the Heart and Spine
By Theresa Shay
Living with Scoliosis: Giving Voice to Real Stories, a new documentary by Scoliosis Support and Research, premiered in London at the end of October (2025). I’ve watched it on YouTube three times so far. This short film shines the light on five individuals with scoliosis sharing their experience and feelings about living with the condition.
My pre-teen and teenage years had a lot to do with scoliosis – doctor appointments, x-rays, trips to the orthotist where it burned to inhale, finding clothes that fit and best hid my brace. Life required many accommodations. I remember slipping off my shoe and using my toes to get a hold of my pencil in 10th grade English. I couldn’t bend due to my brace, and Kevin Smith ignored (or didn’t hear) my whispered request for assistance.
Freed from the brace at age 17, my scoliosis world went quiet. It stayed that way for decades.
Willingness to reengage with this significant piece of my history decades later has been taking shape for a few years now. I wish I were so far on my journey of dispassion that there wasn’t much to report. The opposite is true.
I teach about the yoga principle that we can rise above identification with the physical body to experience the eternal nature of the soul. I experience that. At the same time, this soul resides presently in a physical form that lives with scoliosis. That connection feels important.
Eli shares in the film how he has felt self-conscious about his scoliosis in the world of modeling. Lynne speaks about body image. Katie is an advocate on social media inspiring others to embrace their shape.
My way of dealing with an asymmetrical body was to cover it up and not look. That separation worked fine. One gift of coming to TriYoga just six years out of being braced was that I developed a conscious and loving relationship with my body soon after that period of disconnect. I have spent my yoga decades feeling extremely grateful for my body.
Could I, as each of the five in the documentary do, step in front of a camera and hold my condition up publicly? Could I look you in the eye without blinking and say, “I’m Theresa and I have scoliosis?” Could I go a step further and dare to claim aloud what I know to be true? “It is possible to live well in a spine with scoliosis.”
I want to be so centered – so asymmetrically centered – that no thought wave moves me from this pillar of clarity.
Lynne shares in the film that she wishes more people could confidently wear their curve. I love that phrase. I have worn my curve confidently in the past three decades of practicing TriYoga. I am not ashamed or embarrassed about how I look, though I notice I have a hard time getting dressed on scoliosis teaching days when it serves my students to be able to see my contours and asymmetries.
But it’s not body image that tugs at me.
My concern is how the second half of my life will go with gravity weighing in on this long curvy twist I carry.
The only two people in the documentary who have not had spinal fusion surgery are Amelia, just a few years into her journey which began at age 2, and Lynne, the Olympic athlete. “I’m still surgery-free now,” Lynne shares, acknowledging the direction this journey goes for many people with scoliosis.
I want assurance that what I have done and what I will continue to do will serve my spinal health for the next half of my life. I want to trust that my lifestyle choices will mean I am not decapacitated by pain and won’t have to consider surgery. I want to believe that I am being carried through this vulnerable inquiry of how I can help others with scoliosis through yoga. I want this lifelong journey of living with scoliosis to end as bright as the journey has been up to Now.
The oldest person in the film, Louise, holds space for wisdom. I notice she looks more like me than the others. “But I don’t regret any part of it,” Louise shares, “because it’s all been part of my particular adventure and journey. My relationship with pain is to try and really listen to it, to listen to my body… Something about the pain was daring me to live on a deeper level. It’s made me a deeper person. It’s made me a more compassionate person towards other people’s pain.” Louise offers the parting words of the documentary. “It’s made me wonder about what is really important in life.”
I want people to know the depth of this invitation that life offers, this daring to live deeply, this capacity to wonder about what really is important. I want to help people engage in a constructive relationship with their body, especially people with scoliosis because I understand being in that shape.
And still…yet still…the journey is vulnerable. The emotional waves crest and reach the shore of my awareness with surprising strength. I lengthen my spine and breathe into Louise’s inquiry. What is important in my life Now?
“I’m Theresa, and I have scoliosis.”
This documentary can be watched on YouTube. The Scoliosis Research and Society organization in the United Kingdom can be found at https://ssr.org.uk/.
Theresa Shay is the founding director of TriYoga of Central Pennsylvania, where she teaches weekly yoga and meditation online and trains others to teach TriYoga®. Each week, she shares wisdom cultivated from decades of TriYoga study and practice.
Learn more about her here. Theresa can be reached at Theresa@PennsylvaniaYoga.com. Find her on Instagram @theresa_of_triyoga for more inspiration and light.