Yoga is my Recovery Program (4 Minute Read)

Yoga is my recovery program.

"Nowhere to go. Nothing to get. No one to be."

Recovery for me isn’t only about removing alcohol; it’s about waking up after years of letting life “happen to me.” I drifted, reacted, tolerated, and coped instead of consciously choosing. I harmed myself in ways I don’t want to remember. I numbed instead of feeling. I surrendered my agency without even realizing it.

There’s a paradox in recovery. I’m learning to surrender spiritually while taking responsibility for my human life. I don’t feel powerless the way recovery language implies. If anything, I’m beginning to recognize how powerful I actually am. "It is our light that most frightens us" (Marianne Williamson). Yoga is teaching me that I can choose how I meet "what is" with awareness, finding ease in the discomfort of life.

It took me 10 years to fall in love with yoga. More importantly, it took me 10 years to get in alignment with yogic principals. My entry point to yoga wasn’t spiritual at all. I started yoga during a holiday season working at Lululemon in 2015. A friend suggested yoga as my next challenge (ie. arm balances and inversions). Most of us think yoga is a fitness trend of “postures,” but the asanas are only mentioned twice in the 194 Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. While I’m grateful that Lululemon opened the door to yoga, I'm embarrassed that "us Westerners" often miss the deeper point of yoga (I think my Grandmother had a more positive influence on me when I was 8. I remember her trying to teach me yoga then).

Back in 2015, I was living in chronic fear. Raising a son with a contentious parallel parent, constantly trying to stay above water while it felt like he pushed my head under. That was my perception anyway. Everything intensified when I remarried. I felt so powerless then, not because of alcohol, but the grief, financial pressure, custody issues, and blended family chaos was unbearable. Alcohol was my escape, my anesthesia from the pain. Solutions felt elusive likely because of years and years and layers upon layers of avidya (misperception and ignorance).

My teacher says it only takes one conscious breath to practice yoga. I don’t think I took a single conscious breath for many years. I was always on guard trying to keep us alive, finish graduate school while fending off emotional and financial threats. I had no capacity for Dharana (focused concentration) because I wasn't practicing the Yamas and the Niyamas either (the first two limbs of yoga). I was unethical to myself and to my own body. I abandoned my intuition. Without those foundations, Pratyahara (turning inward, removal of the senses) was completely out of reach. I still struggle with Pratyahara and Dharana, but everything feels more accessible without alcohol. I’m finally available to myself.

One thing I discovered on my mat is how easy it is to turn yoga into performative obedience, another place where you wait to be told what to do, another place to hand over agency. But that’s not yoga. My mat is becoming a spiritual mountain, a place I go not to be instructed but to be transformed. If you want yoga to be your recovery program and/or spiritual practice, my advice is to find a teacher who wants you to make yoga your own, not theirs. Let them guide, not dictate. (And, if you simply want movement, that’s OK too. You're exactly where you're supposed to be on your journey.)

Removing alcohol didn’t just make yoga easier; it made yoga possible. Yoga is both a practice and a state of mind, and since sobriety, I can actually practice both. I can breathe consciously. I can feel. I can stay in the discomfort. I can meet myself, and not run away. For the first time, I can have a personal relationship with myself and the eight-limbed path instead of intellectualizing it from afar.

At this point in my sobriety journey, I can’t imagine not practicing who I am becoming. They say when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Yoga is my teacher, my friend, and my guide. I am forever grateful for the courage I had to quit drinking, so I could finally see clearly.

What is your next right step to wiping away avidya, and seeing more clearly?

Namaste, the light in me humbly honors the light in each and every one of you.

Melanie 🫶🏽