training kite review

hey, it’s marie forleo and you are watchingmarietv, the place to be to create a business and life you love. and today is a very specialday because i get to introduce you to someone who’s been a teacher and a mentor in mylife. colleen saidman yee is an internationally respected yoga teacher who has been teachingsince 1998. before that she was a top fashion model with elite and ford and also lived incalcutta working with mother teresa. she’s the founder of yoga shanti in sag harbor and,along with her husband rodney yee, other studios in west hampton and new york city. colleenhas been featured in vanity fair, yoga journal, new york magazine, oprah, marie claire, andin allure. in her new book, yoga for life, we learn about how she went from a rebelliousyoung woman with a heroin habit to a globe-trotting

fashion model to, as the new york times callsher, the first lady of yoga. colleen, thank you so much for being here. it is my honor. oh, it’s my honor. so if you guys don'tknow, colleen has been my yoga teacher for almost 10 years now. started taking classwith you back in 2006 and, i have to tell you, before i started practicing with youand then with you and rodney, i liked yoga but it wasn’t anything that i felt so drawnto, and you have been such a great teacher in my life. like, every summer when i comeout to practice with you it’s like you help bring me back to myself, and thank you forthat. and i wanted to congratulate you. so,

colleen, yoga for life. i read this book coverto cover. brilliant, brilliant job. thank you. it’s wonderful. and something struck methat you said right in the beginning. you start off the book saying, “know you’reenough.” and you write, “i watch women holding it together afraid that if they slowdown everything will fall apart. i watch women being ashamed that they’re aging and feelingunworthy of love. women in my classes coping with addiction and body and relationship issues,mother issues, competitive issues, and an inability to tell the truth.” i read thatand my heart simultaneously broke, because i saw myself in it, and it opened up becauseit was such a sense of relief. when i read

the book i got the sense that you too areon this journey. how have you experienced this idea of you’re enough? knowing you’reenough? how does that make sense in your life now? so interesting, marie. the first time i heardthat phrase was actually a month into writing the book and i’m like, “who am i to writea book? i didn't even graduate college, for heaven’s sakes.” and my agent was like,“just every day sit down and write for an hour, just any story you can think of.”so i’m like, “alright.” we were in paris, london, morocco, teaching around the globe.so i was doing that and i was hitting a wall and music is my inspiration, always has been,always... especially lyrics. so i started

listening to this jason isbell song and thelyric was, “cover me up and know you’re enough.” and i was just like, “yes. yes,we’re enough. i’ve been running for my whole life.” you know, covering up or runningor trying to show the world something that i wasn’t for fear that i wasn’t enough.and it just, like you said, it broke something open in me and i thought, “you know what?i can do this. i have stories to tell.” and they’re everybody’s stories. minein some ways may be more dramatic or in some cases less dramatic, but to have people know,a, they’re not alone and, b, they are enough. and if we could break the armor at the veryfirst line of my book it says that if one woman would stand up and tell her story, thewhole universe would break open. it’s just

like, yes. tear the armor, show the worldwho you are, and give other women confidence to do the same thing. funny, i was scouringthe internet one night when i was having a hard time sleeping and watching youtube videosand there’s this video of fiona apple, and i was mesmerized. she was dancing and singingand it was really jerky. like, it wasn’t beautiful, it wasn’t graceful, but somethingin her touched me so deeply. it was like this woman is wounded and she is not afraid toshow that. i felt like it was like this beautiful namaste, right? from my heart to yours. herei am. i’m dancing. my dance may have a limp, but the dance with the limp is almost morebeautiful than a dance without a limp. there’s... that’s what i get, that’swhy i come back to your class and your work

again and again, because i constantly feelthat okayness in my own self. now, you’ve been teaching for almost 20 years now? yoga.when you were first getting your training at â jivamukti, you have a story in the bookabout the fact that you were so into this training, yoga was such a huge breakthroughin your own life, all the other things that you went through, and you walked in and yousaid, you know, “i just wanna do this for my own personal development and my own practice.i don't wanna teach.” tell us about that. it was about two thirds of the way throughthe training and i just had this realization of, “oh, i’m not gonna do this. i am notgoing to get up in front of people and teach yoga. that’s... i can’t. i’m not goingto and i need to let sharon and david know

that now.” and what were the reasons? well, i walked into their office and it was...it was literally almost like they expected me. they’re sitting there and i’m goingthrough my list of reasons why i just want to let you know now that i have no intentionof being a yoga teacher and these are the reasons. i’m shy, i am not the one to getup in front of the classroom and speak my truth or chant, because i am also tone deaf,so that’s just not gonna work here. and i also have epilepsy, and you never know whena seizure is gonna come on. and can you imagine how mortified i would be and traumatized theclassroom would be? so i told them all and

they listened and they were very graciousand graceful. and so i left and about an hour later i get a phone call. it was sharon. sharongannon, my... my teacher, my mentor. and she said, “hello colleen, this is sharon.”“yeah, hello?” she said, “you’re teaching my 6:15 class tonight. it’s already soldout and i’ll be taking the class.” forget about it. that’s insane. and whatdid you feel in that moment? horrified. terrified. just sweating. like,just blind almost. you know those moments when you actually can’t see, hear, think,feel? so i... it was three and a half hours of prep and i went home and i memorized everysingle word. i still remember the sequence to this day that i taught. i memorized everysingle word. i think it’s the most nervous

i have ever been. but i got up there, i remembersharon was in the back right corner, i remember exactly what she was wearing, it was justso surreal. so i taught the class and i walked outta there high as a kite. it was just so...for some reason i don't love the word empowering, but it’s the only word that comes to meright now is it was just so... i was like, “if i can do this, there’s a lot morepossibilities in life that could open up.” because i’ve... i’d put myself in sucha shell as a fashion model for so many years and being exonerated for my external appearancethat my internal life had gotten pretty dilapidated. so to be able to stand up there in front of75 people including one of the women that i respect most in the world and teach a classand walk out and feel like i did a pretty

good job for my first class, it was... andi’ve had a lot of unnatural highs in my life and this one was just... just amazing.buzzing from head to toe. so did you really believe when you walkedin that room that you would never teach? absol... i knew i would never... it wasn’teven a belief, it was solid. it was fact. i was never gonna teach. isn’t that so incredible that another womanstanding up, seeing something in you beyond what you could see in yourself at that pointand then now i have the benefit and thousands and tens of thousands and millions of peoplehave the benefit of your teaching. that is really, really...

...incredible. yeah, she threw me off the cliff. yeah. and she knew she had to do it right away ori was gonna turn and run. yeah. and that for me in my life too, so manytimes if i’ve been thrown in the fire is when i discover my strength and it’s thosepeople that are willing to push me off the ledge that do it, it’s amazing. one of theother questions that i had was around your experience with mother teresa, and it so warmedmy heart that you were writing these letters to her since you were a little girl and then17 years later a letter came back. can you

tell us about that? yeah. i read an article in life magazine,do you remember life magazine? yes. way back when. and it was pictures of motherteresa serving the poorest of the poor. and i was, i’m guessing, 11 or 12 at the timeand i have 5 brothers and was feeling very overwhelmed and i was like, “ok, this isthe answer.” looking at her, looking at the peace and the love, and i was deep intocatholicism as a child as well. and so i just wrote her letters and i told her all of myproblems and i said, “you might think i’m joking because i’m young, but i really wantto work with you.” at the time i thought

i was going to be a nun. i hadn’t had sexyet, so the nunnery was still an option for me. and i didn't hear back, i didn't reallyexpect to hear back, and then i’d write a couple more times, 54 a circular drive calcutta,india. and then, yeah, 17 years later an envelope came from a woman named sister priscilla andit said, “you are ready to serve the poorest of the poor.” and i’m like, “woah.”and it had just come at a time that i had just broken up from a 16, 17 year relationship,so it was perfect. and when you got there, that experience ofactually doing the work, what did that teach you? concisely it taught me that the only way topeace is through service. and the nuns taught

that day in and day out. mother teresa hasthis beautiful saying, apparently it’s written in her chambers, and it says that the fruitof silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, thefruit of love is service, and the fruit of service is peace. and it was just so beautiful.the whole time i was there i had two dresses and i’d wash one out every night and thenwear the other one. and, i mean, coming from the fashion world where it was all about makeupand designer clothes and the best hair, i wasn’t ever really as happy as i was inindia. i’d shaved my head, i was wearing these really quite ugly, i still have them,they’re hanging in my closet next to my other herve leger and whatever else. but ijust found out that i could be happy without

all of that extra stuff. i still love theextra stuff, don't get me wrong, but there is a place deep inside that can be touchedand it is peace and it comes through service, and that was the main lesson... i mean, atone point when i was in india i was working at this home called prem dom and it’s mainlyfor the mentally unstable. and i was given the assignment to wash a man that had elephantitisof the testicles, which is quite a chore. and i’m watching the nuns and could tellit was a test for me, and i realized that i was bathing god. and whatever you want tocall god, it became a privilege and an honor and i felt peace. the next piece in the book that really gotme was about this idea of impermanence. and

there’s something that you wrote that, again,was another moment, i’m reading it, and i felt myself wanting to cry. “what’sthe use of working so hard? everything is transitory. my yoga studio won’t last, mystudents will die, i’ll die. why bother waking up every morning and teach yoga? whybother loving when our loved ones will eventually be taken away from us?” and you shared thatyou come back to the mother teresa quote, “what you spend years creating someone coulddestroy overnight and create anyway.” yeah, but that’s the big yoga lesson, really.it’s everything that we put so much stock in is transitory. right? it’s impermanent. and suffering comesfrom clinging on or pushing away the stuff

that’s just changing all around us. so what’sthe point of doing anything then, if it’s all changing? i mean, that’s like this bigquestion. i struggle with that. there’s sometimesif i’m pushing myself so hard and i’ll, you know, crash in my bed and go, “whatam i doing this for?” and that’s why this passage moved me so much. i think the answer to that is if you don'tthen you freaking sleep through this beautiful life. all we have, like, all we have right now isthis amazing moment between the two of us. that’s what we have and that’s real andthat’s now. whereas if we’re thinking

about something that could happen tomorrowor something or some remorse from something, we’re not awake, we’re not present, andthen we end up, as mary oliver said, “what are you gonna do with this one precious lifeof yours?” and we do want to be awake for our life, wewant to be present. we don't want it to be a blur that we haven’tfelt, seen, lived, touched, breathed, just embraced and enveloped the moment whetherit’s a moment of intense grief or beauty or sadness or joy. it’s just... it’s thereal stuff. it is the real stuff and it is important.every time i start to feel myself going to that clinging, thinking about josh or my familyor planning for the days that inevitably you

know will come, and i come back to this workor come back on my mat on a class with you and it feels like i get in touch with thatpeace, and that’s just so important. there’s a mark twain quote that comes backto me. i’m a worrier. i am a big worrier. i’m here to say i’m working on it, i’vegot the catholic guilt thing going on and i’m constantly what if whatever. but there’s this mark twain quote and hesays, “i am a very old man and i look back at my life and i’ve had so many difficulties.most of them never happened.” absolutely. it’s like we spend so much, we waste somuch energy and we’re tired enough. right?

we don't need to waste energy there. so the last thing i wanna go over with you,i think one of my favorite parts of being on the mat and being in the class with youis always at the end you bring us home and it’s the talk at the end and i feel likei walk out and the poses were great and the asanas were great and the breathing was great,but there’s something that you always touch in me and i feel like it’s in this bookand it’s the buddhist meditation about fear. would you read that for us? of course, of course. just sit. notice whereyou feel hard and sit with that. in the middle of that hardness you’ll find anger. sitwith that. go to the center of the anger and

you’ll probably come to sadness. stay withthe sadness until it turns to vulnerability. keep sitting with what comes up. the deeperyou dig, the more tender you become. raw fear can open into the wide expanse of genuineness,compassion, gratitude, and acceptance in the present moment. a tender heart appears naturallywhen you are able to stay present. from your heart you can see the true pigment of thesky, you can see the vibrant yellow of a sunflower and the deep blue of your daughter’s eyes.a tender heart doesn't block out rain clouds or tears or dying sunflowers. allow both beautyand sadness to touch you. this is love, not fear. colleen, thank you so much for being heretoday, it was such an honor. congratulations

again on your book. for everybody watching, yoga for life by colleensaidman yee. it is a fantastic, beautiful journey and i highly recommend it. thank you, marie. now colleen and i would love to hear fromyou. if there’s one area of your life or your body that would be well served by a littlemore attention or presence or love, what would that be? now, as always, the best discussionshappen after the episode over at marieforleo.com, so go there and leave a comment now. did youlike this video? if so, subscribe to our channel and we would be so appreciative if you sharedthis with your friends. and if you want even

more great resources to create a businessand life that you love, plus some personal updates from me that i only talk about inemail, come on over to marieforleo.com and sign up for email updates. stay on your gameand keep going for your dreams because the world needs that special gift that only youhave. thank you so much for watching and i’ll catch you next time on marietv.