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

A Memoir of Love, Yoga,
and Changing My Mind

CYNDI LEE

DUTTON

Published by the Penguin Group

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Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First printing, January 2013

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Copyright 2013 by Cyndi Lee

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

REGISTERED TRADEMARKMARCA REGISTRADA

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Lee, Cyndi.

May I be happy : a memoir of love; yoga, and changing my mind / Cyndi Lee.

p. cm.

ISBN: 978-1-101-60967-5

1. Hatha yoga. I. Title.

RA781.7.L44 2013

613.7046dc23

2012021472

Printed in the United States of America

Set in Weiss Std

Designed by Jamie Putorti

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors or for changes that occur after publication. Further, publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity.
In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers;
however, the story, the experiences, and the words
are the authors alone.

For Mary and Dzolly
and
my beautiful Millie

Arising

V inyasa has three parts: arising, abiding, and dissolving. And the dissolving of one thing is the arising of the next. Every day turns into night turns into day. Winter becomes spring becomes summer becomes autumn becomes winter. Waves roll in and slip back out; tides ebb and flow. Every breath is like this. Every life is like this.

Each flower buds, ripens, and blooms, wilts and fades away. The leaves fall to the earth and create the ground for a new plant to grow.

The Sanskrit word vinyasa means to place in a special way. It means that everything is connected and the sequence of things matters. It means that every action, thought, or word that arises now is planting the seed for future fruit. In a special way means the unfolding of life is logical. If you plant a tomato seed, you will get a tomato. If you plant an apple seed and you wait long enough, you will get an apple tree. And if you plant a hard thought, you will get a hard heart.

T heres something wrong with my knees. This thought bubbles up like a lava lamp blob pinched off from the rest of my consciousness, which is still oozing around the depths of my jet lag nap. Deep murky sleep is normal for me after I cross the international date line; but having a sideways furrow across my knees is not normal, and it hurts. My Buddhist studies have taught me that thoughts lead to action and as my mind registers this thought about pain, my body responds naturally. I reach a hand out of my fetal position to rub the tender spot and fall asleep again.

I wake up with my hand still on my knee and look around the room. The furniture makes me think of England. Lolling over onto my back, I stretch my legs straight up to the ceiling. This might not be normal for other people but most mornings you can find me somewhere in the world with my feet up in the air. Im a yoga teacher and turning upside down is part of the gig. I slowly circle my ankles, which tend to swell on long international hauls and then, just to get a little abdominal work in, I stretch my arms up to the ceiling. Taking hold of the gathered elastic around my ankles, I pull my sweatpants down to my thighs to check out my lumpy knees. With one hand still on my ankles, my other hand reaches over to the British-y bedside table and grabs my red cats-eye glasses to take a closer look.

Aha. With my two upside-down legs now aligned side by side, I see a horizontal indentation tracking across both knee caps. Im only five-foot-four-and-a-half inches tall but these Western-sized legs were too long for the leg room provided by a coach ticket on Cathay Pacific. Fifteen hours of having my knees smushed against the metal dowel lining the seat-back pocket had evidently changed the topography of my knees. Remembering how my flattened breasts always spring back into shape after a mammogram gave me hope that my crushed knee flesh would similarly re-plump, returning to normal soon. Recovering normal is part of the gig, too, when you are a traveling yoga teacher.

People think being a yoga teacher means you are always chill and never grumpy; your mental outlook is radical contentment and your body is outrageously flexible in a sexy way. But that is not the case; not for this yoga teacher anyway. Well, actually, I am extremely flexible. That part is true. But the other parts come and go, depending on how much sleep I get, what I eat for breakfast, how much money I have in the bank, whats happening between me and my husband, David, or how many time zones I crossed in the last twenty-four hours. Perhaps that sounds quite ordinary and distinctly non-yogic, but without all that normal stuff in my life, I wouldnt be a very good yoga teacher. How can I help others grow and transform if I havent done it myself?

Another thing that many people dont realize is that yoga teachers are not born as yoga teachers. We are not born standing on our hands or doing the splitsalthough I did all those things in my backyard when I was a kid and then just never stopped. Many American yoga teachers, like me, are regular people who have had the great fortune to be introduced to the path of yoga in our lifetime.