This is the third in a series this year we’re covering in my weekly Y12SR session (Tuesdays 7 pm ET). Each month, I explore one of the 12 Steps through my own experience as a Yoga practitioner. What I’ve noticed over the years is that even if we may not identify as a person in recovery from addiction (of any kind: substance, process, behavior) it is a useful framework for looking at any behavior from which we seek freedom.
“[We] made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”
I’ve chosen to represent this step in its original wording in honor of the historical and cultural context during which the 12 Steps evolved- Akron, Ohio in the mid 1930’s, by two middle to upper class Christian white men and countless others getting sober around them. I think when we study literature (and Alcoholics Anonymous is, after all, literature) it is not only necessary but respectful to consider context.
Yoga taught me that effort has an energy. Ease has an energy. I can be in effort, or ease, or both at the same time. I can over-effort and over-ease, too. Some situations require more strength and steadiness; others require more ease and softness. It’s like that on the mat and off the mat, in life.
All of us come to the table with habitual ways of responding or reacting. Yoga and meditation show us where we resist, cling, grasp, or avoid. These lessons become a gift. In Yoga I learned to follow guidance I could feel inside how to approach situations in a way that creates less suffering. This guidance didn’t come from me, but from a power I understand that flows through me (and existed long before I did).
It was this knowing that helped me take Step 3 more earnestly. In sobriety the blinders came off, and I was aware of my habitual clinging and grasping and avoiding. I had come by these honestly, as they were adaptations in my childhood nervous system. As I looked at the role of self-will in my own story, I learned that while many, if not most things are out of my control, my choice to become humble and teachable is not. And that decision to be teachable saved me in the end. It allowed me to let in a power greater than myself and in doing so, I begin to see all the ways my fearful patterns were keeping me from experiencing serenity and finding freedom. It turned out that drinking alcohol was only part of the problem- the tip of the iceberg.
I don’t know any honest recovering person who claims to have had a one time, “lightning bolt” spiritual awakening that rendered them completely devout and surrendered and spiritually perfected. For most of us, it’s one day at a time, living our way into the next right, honest, good thing. I wasn’t born into a perfect world; this is the one I get to practice in. This is the world where, daily, I must face what is in front of me, and make a decision to act as if there is a design, a purpose, a trajectory and a story that I can’t see yet and my job is to stay in the frame, stay in the game, stay on track and stay in the flow.
Nikki (Myers, founder of The Yoga of 12 Step Recovery) says that sustainable recovery is an energy management game. The effort for me today is finding and maintaining a peaceful and continuous flow of energy. Yoga and meditation and being in community- all the while staying teachable- are the keys to that peaceful and continuous flow of energy. It’s dedication- showing up, doing my best and letting my best be good enough- that makes this work sustainable. I’m grateful to have reached that understanding at the point in my life that I did. Experience has shown me that any time I resist, any time I force things, or withdraw in anger or resentment, that flow is interrupted and it can take a long time to find it again.
My instinct is to try to control things through action or even inaction. With this step I began to truly surrender - which is not the same thing as resignation. Many people get stuck at this phase because change is not easy. Letting go is not easy. This step prepares us to be led in the next few steps through the thickness and heaviness of our dis-ease and to begin to look at the habits of our minds. But we need not get stuck. The flow is right at our fingertips- and in our toes, in our spines, in our hearts, right in our breath. And we can always start over, moment by moment. Freedom is available in this breath, and this one, and the only way I know out of suffering is through the flow of things.
This doesn’t mean I don’t experience anger, judgment, disappointment, or other hard or negative emotions. It means I understand the proper role of emotion- as energy in motion. My job is to maintain my practice so that energy has somewhere to go. In other words, I have to act as if I have faith and trust in a power greater than myself to take care of things. I also acquire agency, as I get to discern what is worth my energy. This is the “proper use of the will” described in 12 Step literature. By being in the flow, and trusting in it, I can let go of things that are not essential. This frees up my energy to be of service, which is really where the joy lies in recovery, as we find in the later steps. The joy and the freedom of wise effort.
Sending love,
Dana
We have four more weekly Yoga, Writing and Recovery sessions on Sunday evenings, 7-8:30 pm ET: March 6, 13, 20, and 27, 2022. If you’re interested in meditating, moving and writing with me, sign up here.
