10.4.2015 UNITE To Face Addiction

Some of you know I was in DC 10.4.2015 for the Unite to Face Addiction Rally and Advocacy days. It was amazing to see 15K people standing up to smash the stigma about this disease. It was uplifting to congregate with nearly 700 advocates who were preparing to meet with their legislators to ask for co-sponsorship of important bills (CARA and REDEEM.) It was powerful to realize I had a voice; a voice for myself and for the voiceless. I was proud to be there.

This is what I want to share about the experience.

I believe in recovery. I believe in a life after the wreckage. I believe in the struggle. I believe in healing. I believe in our internal and eternal goodness. 

I believe there are those who still suffer who need help. But believing is not enough. 

Our society, the organizations that are there ostensibly to assist those of us who need help most, are not equitable in their assistance, are not well funded in their programs, are not accessible to all.

Part of the reason for that is that is our legislators don't know who we are. We have been silent until now. WE ARE IN RECOVERY AND WE VOTE! I am ready to come out of the shadows and stand up for my healthy life. I am walking away from the stigma of shame. I am living a life of "conscientious compassion" in thought, word and deed. 

If you want to know how to join, and it is not too late to stand up and be heard, let me know. There are simple things you can do from your desk, computer and phone, that will help us all.

We can practice activism from the heart.

p.s. CA Representative Zoe Lofgren signed on as co-sponsor of CARA a few short days after we met with her in person. You can make a change. Stand up and be heard.

When compassion and justice are unified, we arrive at what I call conscientious compassion. This is compassion, not merely as a beautiful inward feeling of empathy with those suffering, but a compassion that gives birth to a fierce determination to uplift others, to tackle the causes of their suffering, and to establish the social, economic, and political conditions that will enable everyone to flourish and live in harmony.

- Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, "Conscientious Compassion"

Kyczy Hawk RYT E-500Author “Yoga and the Twelve Step Path” and “Life in Bite-Sized Morsels” and “From Burnout to Balance” among others. She is the founder of S.O.A.R.(™) Success Over Addiction and Relapse. Kyczy has been teaching recovery focused yoga classes since 2008.  Taking the foundation of a traditional yoga training she received from the Lotus Yoga Teacher Association (of the Himalayan Yoga Institute), she has combined the wisdom and inspiration from other teachers along the way.  Publishing “Yoga and the Twelve Step Path” was the happy conclusion to years of study and research into the inter-relationship between the philosophy of yoga and the principles of 12 Step recovery.  A leader of Y12SR (Yoga of 12 Step Recovery) classes for nearly five years and a devoted teacher to people in treatment centers and in jail- Kyczy created a teacher training program for others who wish to work in this field. Trauma sensitivity and the somatics of moving home into your body are some of the basics taught in S.O.A.R.(™) Success Over Addiction and RelapseWith deep bows she thanks her teachers; Sarla Walters, Durga Leela, Annalisa Cunningham and Nikki Myers.More about her work can be found at www.yogarecovery.com. 

Start From Where You Are

Start from where you are - WHOLE heartedly- accepting yourself in this present moment. Start from where you are - rather than the place you wish were were, you hoped to be, or thought you should be. 

Start from where you are - loving yourself in this perfect moment, this correct time. There is no other place or condition or feeling that you could be or have. This IS you, right now. Be THIS fully, be this with compassion.

Start from where you are - accepting this moment is the doorway to the next; this is the way to be in this next moment fully. It is one of the cosmic jokes; you can't change until you ARE.

The paradox of our practice is that the most effective way of transformation is to leave ourselves alone. The more we let everything be just what it is, the more we relax into an open, attentive awareness of one moment after another.-  Barry Magid, "Five Practices to Change Your Mind"

Kyczy Hawk E-RYT200, RTY500 is the author of “Yoga and the Twelve Step Path” (2012) and “Life In Bite Sized Morsels” (2015).

In The Rooms  sponsors an online Yoga Recovery meeting Sunday 7am PST.  Log in and join her there.

She leads two Y12SR, yoga of twelve step recovery, classes a week for the public at Willow Glen Yoga in San Jose. Kyczy is the creator of SOAR(tm) (Success Over Addiction and Relapse) instructing teachers about the unique needs of the recovery population. This certification training now available in an ONLINE study course.  http://www.yogarecovery.com/SOAR__tm__Cert_all.html

Check out her ONLINE RECOVERY INFUSED YOGA CLASSES:

http://yogarecovery.studiolivetv.com/MemberRegistrationYR.aspx 

Love Radiates Out In Concentric Circles

Love radiates out, in concentric circles, emanating from a heart of acceptance and peace.  When I am in my peaceful space, with neither the critic nor the applauder in the fore, when I am in the place of non- judging and non-comparing I am open to the expression of love. 

This love flows IN to my inner being, and flows out to all beings.  Like a kid on a good day- everything is animated, real, and available to be loved and accepted.

And it follows that if this can come from me to me and to you; perhaps it is available out there, to me FROM the many "you"s as well.

Today - I will act "as if" and see what happens. I am loved.

There is far more love available to us in any given moment than we might be aware. And there is much, much more love in our hearts than we as adults have been conditioned to believe is appropriate to express.- Kate Johnson, "Making the First Move"

Kyczy Hawk E-RYT200, RTY500 is the author of “Yoga and the Twelve Step Path” (2012) and “Life In Bite Sized Morsels” (2015).

In The Rooms  sponsors an online Yoga Recovery meeting Sunday 7am PST.  Log in and join her there.

She leads two Y12SR, yoga of twelve step recovery, classes a week for the public at Willow Glen Yoga in San Jose. Kyczy is the creator of SOAR(tm) (Success Over Addiction and Relapse) instructing teachers about the unique needs of the recovery population. This certification training now available in an ONLINE study course.  http://www.yogarecovery.com/SOAR__tm__Cert_all.html

Check out her ONLINE RECOVERY INFUSED YOGA CLASSES:

http://yogarecovery.studiolivetv.com/MemberRegistrationYR.aspx

Healthy Habits of the Mind

Samskara is the sanskrit word describing the condition of mind patterns, the ruts in the mind that we go to through habit. We may find ourselves falling in to them most easily when we are emotionally, physically, energetically, intellectually or spiritually impaired.  

Most often it is an unhealthy software routine that doesn't bring us new information or insights; merely reinforcing and repeating an unhealthy and unhelpful pattern of thought. Ruminating over worries, things we cannot change, fears and insecurities and, often, our negative feelings about another, each time we repeat these negative patterns they become easier to access. It takes effort to change.

Whether it is jealousy, anger or a resentment, by repeating the cause in your mind you are deepening the pattern of thought.  Try instead to make a NEW THOUGHT PATTERN, a healthy one.  Try this:

“If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free.Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness,and you will be free. Even when you don’t really want it for them and your prayers are only words and you don’t mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Alcoholics Anonymous, 4^th Edition, pg. 552 Freedom From Bondage

Kyczy Hawk 500RYT, 200E-RYT is a yoga teacher and author. She has recently published "Life in Bite Sized Morsels". "Yoga And The Twelve Step Path" was released in 2012.

The founder of S.O.A.R.™ Success Over Addiction and Relapse, she teaches recovery oriented yoga online and in person. Kyczy also leads recovery infused yoga classes online with Studio Live TV. 

Read more on her website: www.yogarecovery.com  

Is That All There Is?

It is everything and it is only a part.  AA is my rock and my foundation, and I have an amazing castle of life to build; turrets, flying butresses, widow walks, and balconies from which to view the panorama of my life.

I would not be able to build as high and as elaborate (or sturdy) a life as I have now without the fundamentals. I also don't let fear or a strange superstition tell me that AA (or any 12 step program) is the only resource for me.  Recovery has given me a life and I intent to LIVE IT; with Yoga, with activism, with meditation, with many communities of healing, and communities of wild investigation.

As I will will practice "gazing at a mountain AS a mountain, and not as a reflection of myself" I hope that the 12 Step Programs can do the same: avoiding the thought that the variety of resources to recovery are in anyway a comment on AA as an answer to recovery.

For Today:

“The oft-heard cry ‘A.A. is all you need’ has the
hollow ring of fear – fear that if any member
dissents from the belief that A.A. is the one and
only, the total and complete answer to all the
alcoholic’s ills, then all the other members will
perish with him.”

A Member’s Eye View of Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 23
World Services pamphlet P-41

Kyczy Hawk 500RYT, 200E-RYT is a yoga teacher and author. She has recently published "Life in Bite Sized Morsels". "Yoga And The Twelve Step Path" was released in 2012. Join her Sundays 7am PT online for the Yoga Recovery meeting on In The Rooms

The founder of S.O.A.R.™ Success Over Addiction and Relapse, she teaches recovery oriented yoga online and in person. Kyczy also leads recovery infused yoga classes online with Studio Live TV. 

Read more on her website: www.yogarecovery.com 

Turning Into Difficulties

TURNING INTO DIFFICULTIES WILL TEACH YOU WHAT YOU NEED.

While I remain thoroughly and completely powerless over my substance of addiction, I am not powerless in my life.  I dont' control what comes down my path, but I CAN be mindful about facing it.  What hurts me teaches me. It can be hurt for others or myself. Some things may be very small touching only me. It may be an event or experience others might not see or understand.

The importance does not lie in the event itself but how I acknowledge it and how I respond.  Both nicks and stabs, trips and falls show me the way. BE BRAVE, see, accept, learn and heal. 

Finding a way through the pain is our gift to ourselves and can be our gift to the world.

Feeling alarm or devastation can guide us to a deep sanity, reminding us of who we are and what we need. Our power to act, our power to take part in the healing of our world, our power to bring things back into balance, comes from the same source as that devastation. Our pain for the world, and our power to take part in the healing of our world, both come from the same place.- Joanna Macy, "Allegiance to Life"

Kyczy Hawk 500RYT, 200E-RYT is a yoga teacher and author. She has recently published "Life in Bite Sized Morsels". "Yoga And The Twelve Step Path" was released in 2012.

The founder of S.O.A.R.™ Success Over Addiction and Relapse, she teaches recovery oriented yoga online and in person. Kyczy also leads recovery infused yoga classes online with Studio Live TV. 

Read more on her website: www.yogarecovery.com 

How to Resist Cravings

Nibbana (Nirvana, not the band, but another word for that place of non- suffering, non- attachment, release from the past and all cycles of life - bliss).  

Craving is suffering, it is attachment, it is the past, and it can be the future. How do we release its hold?  Looking into it, looking into the feeling that is UNDER the craving and addressing that.

Are you lonely, are you tired, are you unsettled, unhappy, unfed?  Do you need to be nurtured in an emotional, physical or spiritual way?  Is the object of your craving (a person, a substance, an activity) really a cover for something that is more difficult to address or perhaps more elusive.

Take five minutes. Investigate your feelings, the condition of your body mind and spirit. It is with practice that we disconnect from the illusion that the object of our craving can help us. IT CANNOT; IT SEEKS ONLY TO SATISFY ITSELF!  Once you 'give in" to the craving - it will ask for more and the pain remains.

How can we address craving?  Not by ignoring it, but by delving deeper and beyond.  After that there is bliss.

Try looking into how feeling gives rise to craving. It's because we want pleasant feelings that craving whispers—whispers right there to the feeling. If you observe carefully, you will see that this is very important. This is where the paths and fruitions leading to nibbana are attained. If we extinguish the craving in feeling, that's nibbana. —Upasika Kee Nanayon, “A Glob of Tar”

Kyczy Hawk 500RYT, 200E-RYT is a yoga teacher and author. She has recently published "Life in Bite Sized Morsels". "Yoga And The Twelve Step Path" was released in 2012.

The founder of S.O.A.R.™ Success Over Addiction and Relapse, she teaches recovery oriented yoga online and in person. Kyczy also leads recovery infused yoga classes online with Studio Live TV. 

Read more on her website: www.yogarecovery.com