Singer Lee Hyori spoke candidly about how 12 years of dedicated yoga practice transformed her inner life.
In a video posted on May 10 to the YouTube channel ‘Ah Yoga,’ she reflected on the early days of her practice and described her journey in honest terms.
She listed three reasons she first took up yoga: she didn’t want chronic shoulder pain; she wanted to pull off impressive poses to show others; and she hoped to gain insights from books and similar sources.
Practice, she said, quickly taught her otherwise. \”I realized my asanas were too weak to show off,\” she admitted, adding that the experience made her aware of how many true masters there are.
For Lee, the greatest reward has been a sense of calm. With so much surplus energy, she asked, \”If I hadn’t done yoga, where would I have put that energy?\” She said she found balance in a simple life — keeping a steady routine, raising a dog and practicing yoga — and felt content. \”The world’s sources of dopamine are so strong,\” she added. \”It’s hard not to be swayed by them.\” She described her devotion to yoga as a \”healthy addiction\” that kept her from falling into other, less salutary dependencies.
Yoga has become a firm pillar of Lee’s self-esteem. Not naturally someone who sticks with routines, she called yoga \”a tool that made me proud of myself.\”
\”Realizing I had the quiet persistence to keep going even when no one was watching filled my self-esteem,\” she said. That inward shift, she added, changed how she saw other people — she finds it difficult to see anyone as anything but beautiful.
Since marrying musician Lee Sang-soon in 2013, Lee Hyori lived on Jeju Island. She recently moved to Pyeongchang-dong in Seoul and now operates a yoga studio, where she continues to teach and practice.
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