Yoga for Life Quotes

“Even After All this time The sun never says to the earth, “you owe Me.” Look What happens With a love like that, It lights the Whole Sky. —“The Sun Never Says,” Hafiz (tr. Ladinsky) By 2001, Robin and I had been together for almost two decades and married for twelve years.”
― Colleen Saidman Yee, Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom

“Running had always put me into a kind of trance. It was one of my first meditative experiences, and it let me escape from my self-berating, never-good-enough routine. Running produces endorphins that are calming; running lowers anxiety. I loved the feeling I had when I ran. It was shelter from the storm.”
― Colleen Saidman Yee, Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom

“You can wait your whole life and never happen upon contentment.”
― Colleen Saidman Yee, Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom

“My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations. —Michael J. Fox”
― Colleen Saidman Yee, Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom

“As Maya Angelou said: “You remember people not by what they do, but by how they make you feel.”
― Colleen Saidman Yee, Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom

“Maya Angelou said: “You remember people not by what they do, but by how they make you feel.”
― Colleen Saidman Yee, Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom

“Most of us cling to what’s familiar, which can stifle the possibility of spiritual growth. Trying to make something permanent often creates frustration and sadness because it’s not possible. What we hold on to as fixed is in reality always changing—like trees through the seasons.”
― Colleen Saidman Yee, Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom

“Yoga peels away layer after layer of debris to uncover what has been there all along. It’s like the Bob Dylan lyric: “How long, babe, will you search for what’s not lost?”
― Colleen Saidman Yee, Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom

“Becoming rigid in a chaotic situation is like being caught in a riptide and struggling against it. If you fight, you’ll get exhausted and be swept away. Yoga is like a life raft that teaches us to observe and listen and allow ourselves to be carried by the tide until we find a place where we can safely break its hold.”
― Colleen Saidman Yee, Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom

“Life is full of acceptance and rejection. Unfortunately, many of us focus on the rejection. Yoga tells us it’s more useful to practice swaha, the idea of which is do the best you can, and let go of the rest. Tibetan Buddhists often translate swaha as “so be it.” Swaha is the rudder that can help us maintain equilibrium. •”
― Colleen Saidman Yee, Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom

“Yoga sequences are designed to uncover our birthright: love, joy, and freedom. The body can experience these essences as space, ease, and liberation.”
― Colleen Saidman Yee, Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom

“Final Relaxation (2) Final Relaxation (2). Keep the legs strapped and place a bolster or a rolled-up blanket under your knees. This shavasana lengthens the lower spine and releases the muscles of the lower back.”
― Colleen Saidman Yee, Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom

“as we face our own fears, we give others the courage to face theirs, too.”
― Colleen Saidman Yee, Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom

“The key is to accept what is and not allow yourself to be jerked between likes and dislikes, attachments and aversions. Accept what is, right now, whether it’s comfortable or painful.”
― Colleen Saidman Yee, Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom

“all”
― Colleen Saidman Yee, Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom

“Most of us cling to what’s familiar, which can stifle the possibility of spiritual growth. Trying to make something permanent often creates frustration and sadness because it’s not possible.”
― Colleen Saidman Yee, Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom

“escape from my self-berating, never-good-enough”
― Colleen Saidman Yee, Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom

“A few days later, I ask, as nonchalantly as I can, “Mom, what makes you so sad?” “I miss my trees,” she says. Today, as I stand at my own window with a cup of tea in my hand, gazing out at the beautiful, mature trees outside, I wish I could tell my mother that I understand her connection with trees. I realize now, that on that morning, Mom was doing her own form of yoga. She was practicing drishti (a soft-focused yoga gaze) out the window toward the memory of her cherished trees. She was calming herself by filling and emptying her lungs, which is like pranayama (yogic breathing exercises), except hers, unfortunately, involved a cigarette. She was repeating her own quiet prayer over and over. In yoga, we call this a mantra. Gaze, breath work, and mantra are ways to calm the mind in preparation for meditation. Mom’s tears represented her open heart, her willingness to feel and sit with her sadness, rather than mask it. Damn, my mom was a yogi. Who knew? I’d thought yoga was my discovery, quite separate from anything she taught me.”
― Colleen Saidman Yee, Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom

“One night, my husband, Rodney, and I were surfing YouTube videos when we stumbled on a video of a Fiona Apple concert. It was an “aha!” moment for me. I thought: This woman is telling the truth with her body. She’s not what you would typically call a good dancer, she was jerky and unconcerned about looking pretty, but something about her was raw and real. She was moving with her wounds, with her limitations—she was moving truthfully. She wasn’t hiding, and she wasn’t afraid to be vulnerable and expose herself through her voice and movements. Her courage and honesty made her dance mesmerizing and powerful. It penetrated something deep inside me. When you bow to someone and say, “Namaste,” it means, “The deepest part of me acknowledges the deepest part of you.” Fiona Apple’s performance was a Namaste from her body to mine. I want to have the courage to be as honest in my life, my teaching, and in this book as she was in that dance. Yoga can bring you to this kind of truth by helping you to observe, then to let go of, the habits you cling to and the stories you use to protect yourself. As you practice, you become intimate with your body, which many of us spend a lifetime either alienated from or waging war with. Yoga practice can pierce emotional places that most of us guard or avoid. Our bodies are intelligent, more a source of direct truth than our minds, but we rarely listen to the wisdom that’s buried in our beautiful chambers.”
― Colleen Saidman Yee, Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom