Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom
Colleen Saidman Yee
Language: English
Pages: 272
ISBN: 1476776784
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
From a rebellious young woman with a dangerous heroin habit to a globe-trotting fashion model to “First Lady of Yoga” (The New York Times), Colleen Saidman Yee tells the remarkable story of how she found herself through the healing power of yoga—and then inspired others to do the same.
I’ve learned how to extract the beauty of an ordinary day. I’ve learned that the best high exists in the joy—or the sadness—of the present moment. Yoga allows me to surf the ripples and sit with the mud, while catching glimpses of the clarity of my home at the bottom of the lake: my true self.
The very first time Saidman Yee took a yoga class, she left feeling inexplicably different—something inside had shifted. She felt alive—so alive that yoga became the center of her life, helping her come to terms with her insecurities and find her true identity and voice. From learning to cope with a frightening seizure disorder to navigating marriages and divorces to becoming a mother, finding the right life partner, and grieving a beloved parent, Saidman Yee has been through it all—and has found that yoga holds the answers to life’s greatest challenges.
Approachable, sympathetic, funny, and candid, Saidman Yee shares personal anecdotes along with her compassionate insights and practical instructions for applying yoga to everyday issues and anxieties. Specific yoga sequences accompany each chapter and address everything from hormonal mood swings to detoxing, depression, stress, and increased confidence and energy. Step-by-step instructions and photographs demonstrate her signature flow of poses so you can follow them effortlessly.
Yoga for Life offers techniques to bring awareness to every part of your physical and spiritual being, allowing you to feel truly alive and to embody the peace of the present moment.
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fingers around your big toes and press your thumbs into the floor. Straighten your arms, lift your torso, and look forward, lengthening your waist. Maintaining that length, bend your elbows and lower your torso and head into a deep forward bend. Stay for 5 breaths. Inhale, look up, and take your hands to the floor underneath your shoulders. Walk your feet a foot closer together, take your thumbs to the top of your buttocks, and push them toward the floor as you come up to stand. Jump your feet
body hang between your legs. In the squat, work your arms down along your shins, elbows bent, until your inner knees press high onto the outer back arms. Press your hands to the floor, positioning them shoulder distance apart. Shift your weight forward onto your hands and, if possible, lift your feet up off the floor into Crow Pose (b). Pull your heels closer to your buttocks and straighten your arms as much as possible. Lift your head and hold for 5 breaths. Lower your feet lightly back to the
openness in the shoulder joints. Triangle Pose Variation Triangle Pose Variation (trikonasana variation). Stand at the front of your mat and step to the right about 31/2 feet. Inhale and lift your arms, parallel to the floor. Turn your left foot in 15 degrees and your right foot out 90 degrees. Inhale, then exhale and extend your torso to the right over the plane of the forward leg. Rest your right hand on the floor, on your right shin, or on a block just outside your right foot. Once in the
to change course without regret. One of my mentors, the Zen Buddhist Roshi Joan Halifax, asks her students to do an exercise: “Write down the most horrendous death that you can imagine,” she says. “Now write down the most ideal death that you can imagine. Now,” she instructs, “tear up both pieces of paper. Because your death will probably be neither of these.” Disappointment occurs when there is attachment to outcomes. One of my favorite Sutras is 1.12: abhyasa-vairagyabhyam tan-nirodhah. My
parents, dormant or fraying marriages, troubled kids, kids leaving home, and, for many, the seismic changes of menopause and aging. Some are trying to make sense of a life that has taken unexpected turns. Others are exhausted and need to reconnect to themselves and nature. Still others are facing big decisions and are looking for clarity. Some just want to do yoga with women, eat healthy food, and get a tan. Most of these women get nervous about “sharing.” Many have jobs that require public