Our thoughts are not the [only] reality

I used to hear a pharse in the rooms of recovery: "feelings are not facts". While I do maintain that feelings are real, they are indeed not facts. Neither are my thoughts! 

The impressions of the present moment are real, but the charge or ruminations of the past- not reality. The ponderings and prognositactions about the future, also, not reality.

It is hard to grop, to get, to absorb this as my thoughts can give rise to energy in my body. My body feels in the present moment. My heart is beating hard and fast NOW. My hands are cold, NOW. My shoulders rise NOW. And there is nothing but the feelling of the fingers on the keys and the sounds of the tapping that are real.

My issue seems to come from identifying my fears about the future as being real. The mis-education in my body, the lack of breath and present time awareness scalds my mind- making the ideas in my head more real than what is around me.

So, yes, the thoughts are not the problem. It is the illusion that they are real, when I identify with them. And I may think that the thoughts themselves are facts, as if every thought were of the present.  

With breath, with my senses, with practice I come to the moment, let go of thoughts, and just let them road. I do not need to own them.

The thoughts are not the problem. Thoughts are the nature of the mind. The problem is that we identify with them.

- Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, "No Excuses" 

Kyczy has published several books including “Yoga and the Twelve Step Path” 2012 and “Life in Bite Sized Morsels” 2015. Her book “Yogic Tools for Recovery; A Guide To Working The Steps” will be out November 14, 2017.

She is a contributor to national and international magazines (I Love Recovery Cafe, Yoga Times, 12 Step Gazette, OM Magazine, Recovery Today Magazine and Indigo International, among others.)  Kyczy has developed a series of yoga sequences for Studio Live TV that incorporate recovery principles in all-levels yoga classes. The link for them can be found on her website www.yogarecovery.com.

Breathe In Your Dignity

Breathe In Your Dignity

Dignity is such a powerful word.  In our yoga practice aligning ourselves in tadasana - standing mountain- I conclude the description of finding alignment, righting our stature, with the words "balancing your head with dignity".   I use those words purposefully - to bring the ideas of the head (the mind) in alignment with our physical body and our feeling body - to bring them all together -  in a way that opens us up to our own wonderful be-ing.  

Standing tall with foundation, integration and dignity we can feel our self ESTEEM, our own self regard and self respect.  It is in finding those qualities in ourselves that we can be authentically familiar with them and offer them to others.

My own practice of lovingkindness has opened me to the power of compassion and to the fact that all beings want to be happy. Everybody wants to have their innate dignity recognized and to recognize the innate dignity of others.

- Sharon Salzberg, "Why I Support Fast Food Workers"

Kyczy Hawk is the author of "Yoga and the Twelve Step Path" and founder of S.O.A.R.(tm) Success Over Addiction and Relapse. She offers training on line and teaches in person in Treatment Centers, and Jail. She also leads Y12SR classes at Willow Glen Yoga in the Silicon Valley area of California.

www.yogarecovery.com