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Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom
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.
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.
254 pages, Paperback
First published June 2, 2015
84 people are currently reading
901 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
June 16, 2015
A Love Letter to Life & Yoga
A truly inspiring story in and of itself, but Colleen's ability to frame the stages of her life through the lens of her yoga practice transforms for her biography into a manual for making more than peace of your life.
A truly inspiring story in and of itself, but Colleen's ability to frame the stages of her life through the lens of her yoga practice transforms for her biography into a manual for making more than peace of your life.
March 26, 2020
I just was hoping for something a bit different is all - so I am going to leave it at DNF for now and come back to it at a later time.
September 28, 2015
Colleen Saidman Yee - famous yogini, model and the wife of the wonderful yoga teacher Rodney Yee (as well as now being a publisher author) - has written an autobiography that is searingly honest. Ms. Yee's life is one never lived halfway. She seems to have experienced everything. She had a career for years as a successful, high-profile model. She was struck by a car when she was a teenager, out playing "chicken" with friends while she was high. She was a heroin junkie who kicked her habit BY HERSELF in about a week; someone who, on a camping trip with her brothers, was struck by lightening; and someone who suffers from epilepsy. And yet, despite all of that, Colleen is now one of the most well-respected and loved yoga teachers in the United States.
Ms. Yee’s extraordinary life has been an unconventional roller coaster ride which she relates with honesty and energy in her new book, "Yoga for Life: A Journey To Inner Peace and Freedom". As she recounts her amazing story, Colleen (born of Italian-Irish stock) supplements each chapter with specific yoga routines of her own devising to address each emotion and/or topic covered in that particular chapter. (She does something very similar with her classes, inserting specific music and a reading into the physical work to enhance the students' experience.) We can all identify with whatever she’s going through: feelings of guilt, of not being “enough”, of measuring our lives by getting that A++ instead of the A+ on a school paper (which she recounts herself doing). Always wanting to be perfect - and never being satisfied by anything.
She's so positive and encouraging it's crazy. Pictures of her throughout the book capture the glow of her face and you are struck by her energy and happiness throughout the text. Finding her own peace freedom from her demons through yoga, Colleen emphasizes the many benefits of the practice and how anyone - ANYONE - can put yoga into their own lives and experience personal growth and expansion. Yoga, she says, isn't all about being able to wind your leg behind your head (though people like me are working towards that, as well!). Rather, it's about finding release and a feeling of potential through a consistent practice of flowing and physically challenging poses that dig into the heart of your feelings, your body and your soul. And which, if you let them, can gradually change how you view yourself and the world around you.
Now let me say this: If you have read this review, thinking, “Oh yeah, another book from a chanting hippie”, you could not be more wrong. “Yoga for Life” is a beautiful work from a beautiful lady, who has come to know herself more deeply than most people ever do in their own lifetimes. Her words and work cannot be dismissed so easily or so meanly. She’s an example of what a person can become if only they are open and live their lives with complete self-honesty. Her joy radiates through each word, making you feel that you, too, can experience this same joy for yourself in your own life.
If you already practice yoga, as I do, Colleen’s story will enhance your enthusiasm and your practice. If you don't already practice, this book, I promise you, will make you want to start. I can't think of anything I've recently read that has left me feeling so much joy at each word and that had me nodding affirmatively as she touched on feelings I’ve had myself in the last month since I’ve begun my practice. “Yoga for Life” is a gift for everyone. And I'm about to start reading it for the second time!
Namaste.
Ms. Yee’s extraordinary life has been an unconventional roller coaster ride which she relates with honesty and energy in her new book, "Yoga for Life: A Journey To Inner Peace and Freedom". As she recounts her amazing story, Colleen (born of Italian-Irish stock) supplements each chapter with specific yoga routines of her own devising to address each emotion and/or topic covered in that particular chapter. (She does something very similar with her classes, inserting specific music and a reading into the physical work to enhance the students' experience.) We can all identify with whatever she’s going through: feelings of guilt, of not being “enough”, of measuring our lives by getting that A++ instead of the A+ on a school paper (which she recounts herself doing). Always wanting to be perfect - and never being satisfied by anything.
She's so positive and encouraging it's crazy. Pictures of her throughout the book capture the glow of her face and you are struck by her energy and happiness throughout the text. Finding her own peace freedom from her demons through yoga, Colleen emphasizes the many benefits of the practice and how anyone - ANYONE - can put yoga into their own lives and experience personal growth and expansion. Yoga, she says, isn't all about being able to wind your leg behind your head (though people like me are working towards that, as well!). Rather, it's about finding release and a feeling of potential through a consistent practice of flowing and physically challenging poses that dig into the heart of your feelings, your body and your soul. And which, if you let them, can gradually change how you view yourself and the world around you.
Now let me say this: If you have read this review, thinking, “Oh yeah, another book from a chanting hippie”, you could not be more wrong. “Yoga for Life” is a beautiful work from a beautiful lady, who has come to know herself more deeply than most people ever do in their own lifetimes. Her words and work cannot be dismissed so easily or so meanly. She’s an example of what a person can become if only they are open and live their lives with complete self-honesty. Her joy radiates through each word, making you feel that you, too, can experience this same joy for yourself in your own life.
If you already practice yoga, as I do, Colleen’s story will enhance your enthusiasm and your practice. If you don't already practice, this book, I promise you, will make you want to start. I can't think of anything I've recently read that has left me feeling so much joy at each word and that had me nodding affirmatively as she touched on feelings I’ve had myself in the last month since I’ve begun my practice. “Yoga for Life” is a gift for everyone. And I'm about to start reading it for the second time!
Namaste.
October 18, 2015
While this book does contain yoga asanas and plentiful photographs, presented by theme, this is a story about finding one's identity and self-acceptance more than a yoga book per se. The author has experienced addiction, serious health issues, and an interesting work career ultimately leading to yoga and marriage to Rodney Yee. As an author her story is told with little ego or pretension. A great read for anyone that enjoys stories of personal journeys, regardless of whether they practice yoga or not.
June 8, 2015
I laid in my hammock in the sun yesterday and read this cover to cover. It's part memoir, part yoga instruction. I love how the author delved into the deeper practice of yoga, instead of just the asanas. She has lived a very interesting life and I really enjoyed how she weaved the different lessons of her journey into chapters with accompanying yoga sequences. Beautifully done.
July 7, 2021
Nice set up...a short story from her life - and how she's peeling back the layers - coupled with a yogic teaching followed by a written outline, with photos, of a yoga practice linked to the teaching point or story.
Excellent photos, would be great to have links to videos of the routines
Perhaps too much celebrity covering "the gem in the heart of the lotus." Ego in ink with some humility about certain weaknesses Stubborn, controlling...Honesty, but how deep?
Typical, rigid, anti-science, alternative bs. Natural childbirth for ME (no matter the child). Yes to heroin, ecstatic yoga, juice cleanses, spirit guides, Marianne Williamson, no to anti-seizure medications, epidurals, sensible diets
Big yoga studio success. I was 40, not 37. 🙄
Disregarded the RY ick factor eventually. Not privileged (dad a colonel!)
I see dead people
Yoga is the state where nothing is missing - Sharon Gannon
Iyengar - You can only be as intimate with others as you are with yourself
Excellent photos, would be great to have links to videos of the routines
Perhaps too much celebrity covering "the gem in the heart of the lotus." Ego in ink with some humility about certain weaknesses Stubborn, controlling...Honesty, but how deep?
Typical, rigid, anti-science, alternative bs. Natural childbirth for ME (no matter the child). Yes to heroin, ecstatic yoga, juice cleanses, spirit guides, Marianne Williamson, no to anti-seizure medications, epidurals, sensible diets
Big yoga studio success. I was 40, not 37. 🙄
Disregarded the RY ick factor eventually. Not privileged (dad a colonel!)
I see dead people
Yoga is the state where nothing is missing - Sharon Gannon
Iyengar - You can only be as intimate with others as you are with yourself
Want to read
June 12, 2016When Colleen sent me an advance copy of this book, I devoured it over a weekend. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year and it’s a must-read for every woman who wants to feel good in the skin she’s in, develop confidence, forgive the past and create a brilliant future. From a rebellious young woman with a dangerous heroin habit to a globe-trotting fashion model to “First Lady of Yoga,” 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. Colleen’s funny, moving and compassionate approach helps women set down their shame and pick up their voices. Her work has helped me find more joy through asana, honest self-reflection and loving kindness. This book is a treasure – it’s also incredibly well written and delicious.
August 12, 2015
I liked this - it has sequences that tie in with interesting themes (truth, love, fear etc) and personal stories that go with them. Tells saidman yee's story of yoga and has lots of pictures of her wearing a unitard in a slightly 70s way. Wasn't crazy about the format or design of the book, but the content was great.
June 27, 2015
Another book that I came across at the right time. Refreshing and honest. By sharing her story, Colleen inspires us to let go and just be and shares a foundation for discovering our own self acceptance. So glad I read this. I enjoyed this and it held my attention from start to finish.
January 28, 2016
An amazing teacher. I enjoyed a class with her and training she and Rodney Yee designed, Urban Zen - a really fantastic program. So kind and down-to-earth. Enjoyed the book.
November 30, 2016
Another great book from a leading yogi. Her life was so interesting with different layers of complexity. It really humanizes a person who looks so beautiful and seems so at peace when you see her in pictures. She really imparts some wonderful lessons and nuggets of wisdom while discussing her life's journey. The only reason I didn't give it a 5 is because of the pictures showing her yoga sequences. The pics are very small and you really need to do a lot of reading to understand what she wants you to do, which I find to be a bit of deterrent. However, I really like her emphasis that sequencing is just as important as alignment. There's a yoga sequence that corresponds to each portion of her life's journey and how it can help you heal if you identify what that need, which I find that fascinating.
March 26, 2017
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I live near Bluffton, IN where the author's early life took place and I've had tho good fortune to get to know her sister, so I do have a personal connection to the story. One of my children also lives in New York, adding another connection. It's the story of a life filled with ups and downs, bad decisions, good fortunes, and a willingness to embrace life when it embraces her back and when it doesn't. The author's discovery and incorporation into her life of yoga are woven throughout the memoir, complete with photos and instructions of practices that the reader can do.
A very life affirming book that is worth reading!
A very life affirming book that is worth reading!
July 25, 2018
I finally read this book I bought several years ago! My sister introduced me to yoga through Gaiam DVD in 2013 or so. The author was featured in the video and her husband. I have not studied the principles behind different yoga practices but I have done Yoga for 4 years routinely. Yoga has changed my life. Yoga is calming, balancing and stress relieving. I am a Christian and believe that our bodies our temples of the Holy Spirit and these exercises, meditations and poses honor our bodies. I am more balanced and can change my focus immediately with yoga.
The book is very interesting and honest. This book is real. I learned so much from it.
The book is very interesting and honest. This book is real. I learned so much from it.
January 6, 2017
This book was a gift from d-n-l Kim. Each chapter deals with a theme (roots, trauma, forgiveness, etc) which, taken together, forms a memoir of Colleen Yee's life. The chapters are followed by sequences of yoga poses that relate to the theme. Since I love a memoir, I read the chapters quickly, relating to much of the story; I glanced at the poses for later inspiration. Having now finished the story, I will include the pose sequences in my practice. Highly recommended, thx Kimberly Andrews Vidrine.
April 20, 2018
There aren’t enough stars to rate this insightful and touching book. I couldn’t put it down, (and that rarely happens) Like all good stories, I didn’t want it to end. Her prose combined with her practice were beautifully laid out, easy to understand, and relatable. We’ve all been there, and it’s a joy to see someone like Colleen choose to share her story with grace, beauty, bravery, and truth. Namaste.
July 8, 2015
Great read! She lets you in to her very real life and makes you feel comfortable enough to contemplate the practice as something you can teach as well. Her examples are beautiful and orientated for all levels. I loved this book! I look forward to opening it from time to time to do a variety of different poses for certain issues we all go through.
January 12, 2018
I wasn't sure I would like this book but was pleasantly surprised I did. Full of life lessons and wisdom. A little disjointed, needed better editing. The practices she includes are wonderfully put together with much thought and care.
July 24, 2017
Of all the yoga inspirational/how to books out there, this one is beyond the best. She doesn't gloss over her life, her past, her problems, all while keeping it relevant to yoga. This is a brilliant, beautiful read with many insights on life and yoga.
December 27, 2017
I didn't expect to enjoy this book as much as I did. It has been in a stack next to my bed for quite a while. Last night I picked it up and started reading it and couldn't stop. I enjoyed Yee's honesty and how open she is with sharing her story. I definitely recommend this to any yogi.
December 30, 2016
Always inspiring to read about someone else's journey in yoga. I loved the sequences for yoga practice that went with each chapter.
January 1, 2017
Beautiful book and one I shall return to again and again I am certain.
Not just for the practices but all of it.
Loved reading about this amazing woman and her life.
Joy
Not just for the practices but all of it.
Loved reading about this amazing woman and her life.
Joy
May 6, 2017
Best yoga book I have read in a long time. An honest account of the transformative value of yoga.
March 22, 2018
So many of these celebrity books are fluff that I went into this one with some trepidation. But Colleen Saidman Yee is a different kind of celebrity, she's brutally honest, self-aware, and open not only to learning from her experiences but to sharing them. Over the course of her life she has confronted serious challenges including addiction, a lightning stike, and a seizure disorder, that have helped her grow into the woman she is. This book, while infused with yoga, isn't really a yoga manual but a story of personal growth. Yee is down to earth and seemingly without the ego that one would expect. The one thing I didn't enjoy actually was the afterword by her husband Rodney Yee. I finished the main story feeling inspired by this amazing and very real woman and then read a glowing chapter about how she belongs on a pedestal and is virtually a goddess. While it's lovely that her husband worships her to that degree, his fawning and bragging undid a lot of the gritty feeling I had gotten from Colleen's perspective. Nevertheless, this is a very worthwhile read.
January 14, 2018
This is a fascinating book about the author and her life's journey. How she turned her life around from being a possible drug addict and made the most of her modeling career and then transitioned into being a dedicated yoga teacher. She shares her mother's deep religious affiliation, her family roots and her ability to find peace and understanding through the study and practice of yoga She is honest and truthful in her successes as well as failures. She is a role model for those of us who suffer guilt and never feeling we are good enough no matter how successful we become. Yoga asanas release stress buried in the past particularly in women. It also gives us a way to accept and forgive ourselves. Very well written and insightful.
August 15, 2019
Excellent, honest and beautiful story. I will practice the poses and sequences after reading the book. I appreciate that credit was given to the co- writer on the cover, as so few famous people credit their co-writers. I really identified with Colleen and discovered one reason why- we are the same age. I feel that we walked some of the same paths. I felt a profound feminine energy from her story and I highly recommend it to women “ of a certain age.”
November 27, 2022
Learnt a lot about yoga and life in general. Colleen is a free spirited woman and I could relate to so many things. I learnt about silent seizures from her. I even connected with her on social media and she responded which made my day. I always follow her workshops schedule and I see her as a knowledgeable and dedicate yoga guru. Colleen and Rodney are working together and spreading yoga all across North America and I have so much admiration and respect for such people.
October 17, 2017
More of a memoir with yoga sequences, which was not exactly what I was expecting or looking for, so perhaps that explains my rating. Two sequences were interesting for exploring. I didn't find it said in detail anything deeper about integrating yoga into the full scope of your life, to me it just scratched the surface.
August 2, 2019
A pretty quick read. Every chapter is a different fascinating and unpretentious life story paired with a bigger life lesson and a simple sequence of yoga poses to use when learning or working through that life lesson. I like the sequences but this was one of the best “taking yoga off the mat and into life” books I have ever read. Thoughtful and honest. Really good.
December 31, 2021
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Colleen Saidman Yees memoir. I too have been practicing yoga for 13 years. Her inspirational memoir enabled me to put me in her shoes. I too have had challenges in my road to wellness. She is a shining example of strength, beauty and courage. I highly recommend this book to women and men of all ages.
September 1, 2019
3.5 stars,/b>
Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom is one part autobiography and one part yoga instruction. Colleen Saidman Yee discusses her journey from Midwestern girl to drug abuser to model to yogi with complete candor and rawness.
Yoga for Life: A Journey to Inner Peace and Freedom is one part autobiography and one part yoga instruction. Colleen Saidman Yee discusses her journey from Midwestern girl to drug abuser to model to yogi with complete candor and rawness.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews