May I Be Happy: A Memoir of Love, Yoga, and Changing My Mind - Softcover

Lee, Cyndi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0142180424 ISBN 13: 9780142180426

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2014

Synopsis

For all her wisdom as a teacher, Cyndi Lee understood intuitively that she still had a lot to learn. In spite of her success in physically demanding professions - dancer, choreographer, and yoga teacher - Lee was caught in a lifelong cycle of repetitive self-judgment about her body. Instead of the radical contentment expected in international yoga teachers, she realised that hating her body was a form of suffering, which was infecting her closest relationships - including her relationship to herself. Inspired by the honesty and vulnerability of her students, Lee embarked on a journey of self-discovery that led her outward - from the sacred sites of the parched Indian countryside to the center of the 2011 earthquake in Japan - and inward, to seek the counsel of wise women, friends and strangers both. Applying the ancient Buddhist practice of loving-kindness meditation to herself, Lee learned that compassion is the only antidote to hatred, thereby healing her heart and changing her mind. With prose as agile as the yoga sequences she creates, May I Be Happy gives voice to Lee's belief that every life arises, abides, and ultimately dissolves. By becoming her own best student, Lee internalizes the strength, stability, and clarity she imparts in her Buddhist-inspired yoga classes.

About this title

About the Author:

Cyndi Lee is the founder of New York City's OM yoga center and provides OM yoga teacher training worldwide. A regular columnist for Yoga Journal, she lives in Columbus, Ohio.

From Booklist:

Renowned yogi and established memoirist Lee has written a book that, under the right circumstances, could change your life. Lee tackles with candor an issue that plagues most women—nagging dislike of some aspect of their bodies. Lee’s own fixation has been on her weight. For years, neither her successful career as a professional dancer nor the affirmation of her husband convinced Lee to change her attitude, or her eating habits. With refreshing humor, she acknowledges both the narcissism and the inescapability of this sentiment, allowing the reader to watch as her thoughts vacillate from hating her thighs to hating herself for hating her thighs to hating herself for hating herself. She eventually turns to her yoga practice and the tenets of Buddhism, which prove to be a challenging but workable road map toward inner peace. Short accounts of Lee’s style of yoga and instruction methods make this book of particular interest to those familiar with yoga, but any woman will find insight and genuine encouragement toward self-acceptance, even self-love, here. --Amber Peckham

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0142180424
• ISBN 13: 9780142180426
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272