Both recovery and yoga are processes of integration.
Yoga means union.
Yoga means union or to yoke. It is a process of moving toward integration. We do that by looking within rather than looking outside ourselves for a sense of wholeness, a sense of inner peace, a sense of fulfillment, and a sense of love. Yoga is the process of making your practice a part of your life. And spiritual awareness and awakening are at the center of yoga.
Yoga is the means and the end.
“Yoga is both the means and the end,” states B.K.S. Iyengar. The goal of yoga is to realize a unified state, which Iyengar defines as “integration from the outermost layer to the innermost self.” It is integrative. Rather than trying to get rid of thoughts or suppress emotions, we release ourselves from the turmoil they instigate. We do this by training ourselves to observe as watchers of our experience with detachment as we practice.
Connection with Consciousness
As yoga students, we study the interface of the personal and the Unified Field of Consciousness with discipline and devotion. And we learn to go with the flow rather than try to control everything in sight. We perceive that Consciousness drives all action and that we are simply vehicles and vessels as Consciousness actualizes into form.
Recovering wholeness
And so is recovery. In recovery, we are recovering our wholeness, which we lost track of in active addiction. We are looking to reintegrate ourselves back to who we were before we started reaching out externally to find peace, to cope with uncomfortable emotions, to get us through a moment of difficulty, to reach for a sense of safety we lost track of within our being.
Recovery, Yoga, and Integration
In recovery, we focus on healing whatever got us reaching out for a solution to an internal problem. Substance use or behaviors may have helped us adapt to the issue we are having with some moment in the past, but we realize this strategy no longer serves us. We join a community of like-minded people striving to recover their wholeness. And, like yoga, we practice the teachings in all aspects of our lives. We shift our focus away from feeling cut off from the power of Consciousness to reconnecting with Consciousness as it expresses itself through us. In recovery, we feel whatever is arising in our field of awareness, welcoming it all as part of the exquisite human experience.
Reestablish health and inner peace.
And through this reconnection, we can reestablish health and find inner peace.
In my recovery coaching practice, I teach these principles to help people establish a solid foundation in their recovery and life.
