This is the second time I have read this book. When I read it back in 2009 I gave it four stars. Now, I give if a full and enthusiastic five stars. Of course, the book hasn't changed, but my receptivity to its message has.

This is not a book about yoga poses. This is a book about how yoga can be a part of your life. Donna Farhi writes beautifully about how yoga can help us become more calm and more centered. Fortunately, it's not all unicorns and rainbows though. She acknowledges her own ugly thoughts and difficulties to show that everyone has her own journey--and it's not always like you see in the movies.

This time around I read the book with a pencil in-hand to make notes and underline my favorite passages. Let me share some with you:

"The yoga tradition tells us to make the house of the body a fit place to live."

"Rather than constraining, discipline is any practice that contains our thoughts, energy, and actions so that we can use ourselves in a potent way. Just as a bucket riddled with holes cannot carry water from one place to another, lack of containment of our physical, psychological, and psychic energies sabotages our best intentions."

"We practice finding our center and staying in our center in the hothouse conditions of practice so that when push comes to shove, we will know where to turn."

"In truth, it matters less what we do in practice than how we do it and why we do it."

"Intention has a way of coloring all experience."

I highly recommend reading this book more than once.