In this chapter, we unpack the embodied and economic precarity that envelops spiritual body work, such as yoga teaching, in neoliberal economies. Using a life history approach, we illustrate how Maria - a part-time yoga teacher and single mum of two - navigates acute experiences of embodiment (ill health, childbearing and childrearing) and the economic precarity of supporting herself and her family. We theorize how the mobilization of spirituality through doing and teaching yoga represents a reprieve and health-management tool, but also produces and reinforces neoliberal, postmaternal and postfeminist discourses. This ultimately results in the individualization of responsibility in terms of work, but also personal health and family demands.
