I have been so honored in the past ten days to enrich, expand and deepen my relationships with several people and to examine the self created borders between them and myself.(NOTE: borders are not boundaries – which are healthy and necessary.) Finding limits in these borders I have been using my yoga and my recovery programs I have been able to SEE them and SEE myself and SEE how these entities interweave and stand apart.
I am recovering from co-dependency, the left-overs from having grown up in an alcoholic home, dancing with the shadows of mental illness, and from my own addictive behavior. The struggle to find the sweet and embraceable parts of my inner self has been (to use an over-worked but applicable phrase) FIERCE. It has been a fierce and tenacious enterprise. I can’t give up; I have to trust and believe that the inner goodness is there and worthy.
The trick is not to let set-backs floor you. Let me state that another way: the trick is not to let set-backs floor ME. I look at the wisdom and brightness of students and feel concern that I am not offering “sufficient”. I spend time with my teachers and mentors and think “I will never get there” (wherever “there” is!) And those are all limiting beliefs, beliefs that harken back to the 6th and 7th Steps of my recovery programs. My defects and short comings are characteristics that are born of an ego deflation process that is an ego problem in reverse. Rather than the too LARGE feeling exceptionally adept and competent; when tired, fearful, or out of balance I feel less than and isolated. By feeling apart from and small I am cutting myself off from the yummy goodness inside myself. That veil of self absorption is anathema to connection. Connection is crucial, both to stay in the middle of the herd and to remain in community with others, higher power, and true self.
Back to the steps, back to the mat, back to the cushion.
Regroup, reframe and reconnect. Breathe. Take the deliciousness of my own experience, listen without judgement (of others OR self), integrate and inform my impressions without criticism and enjoy the sweet and colorful salad of life. This is the application of the principles in all my affairs. In the teaching and the learning, at home and on the road, in the classroom and the conference room, in the car and on the trail, listen with an open heart and the unhealthy bondage will change to healthy bonds.
Kyczy Hawk E-RYT200, RTY500 is the author of “Yoga and the Twelve Step Path”, a leader of Y12SR classes, and the creator of SOAR(tm) (Success Over Addiction and Relapse) a teacher certification training that she holds with her good friend Kent Bond E-RYT500. Find out more about her, her classes and the training at www.yogarecovery.com