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Should There Be a Twelve-Step Program for Yoga?

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An unhealthy relationship with yoga can spring out of nothing

Have you ever asked yourself if your yoga practice is an addiction? Webster defines addiction as “persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful.” Does that sound like your relationship with yoga? Persistent? Sure. Compulsive? Maybe. Harmful? Could yoga be harmful?

Years ago, while attending a teacher training seminar, I heard a veteran teacher state that yoga often appeals to people who have an addictive personality. He said some of yoga’s most dedicated practitioners are people who have traded one addiction for another. I knew he wasn’t suggesting that a regular yoga practice is a sure sign of a reformed addict but his words were thought-provoking. Looking around the room, I wondered if anyone had kicked a drug habit. I didn’t turn the question on myself or examine my own relationship with yoga because I had never had any personal addiction issues. Years later, I was to learn firsthand that an unhealthy relationship with yoga can spring out of nothing and doesn’t require a history of compulsive behavior.

Life has a way of telling us when we go astray. I once lost my way with respect to yoga when, I’ll admit, I became obsessed with mastering Ashtanga’s First Series. My progress was thwarted by one pose in particular: Marichyasana D. My goal was straightforward: bind in the full expression of the pose, without modification. Some days I could do it, but some days I couldn’t. In the latter case, as I saw it, the pose would win. Unknown to me, an insidious change had occurred in my relationship with yoga. Instead of looking forward to my practice I began to dread it. I didn’t want to face the pose that might beat me.

It took a traumatic event to break me out of my self-imposed prison. Oddly, my relationship with Ashtanga changed for the better when I had a serious medical scare that required surgery. Usually, after you’ve been cut, you need to heal before you can resume normal physical activity. Thus while recovering from surgery I was unable to bind, jump or deeply twist for several months. This necessary rest led to an epiphany: I was still practicing (modified), I was still alive and nothing else mattered. My former obsession with technical achievement in asana practice seemed ridiculous. Now, I was remembering what yoga was really about.

Unfortunately (now this is really starting to sound like an addiction story) old habits are hard to break. You get back into your patterns. I relapsed. This time, it took an event that completely shook my world to put things back into perspective. That event was the death of Luis G. Saldivar, my hero. My father. It happened a year ago, the day after Thanksgiving. In comparison, my medical scare seemed like a walk in the park. My physical practice stopped and, when it finally returned, it came back slowly. I couldn’t do Savasana for a while and I still have trouble with it. I fell back on something I don’t normally do: chanting. It came naturally to me as they lowered my father’s coffin into the earth. Chanting and tears and a final supplication to God to please let this just be a dream. My final words to my father were “Om Shanti.”

Something had to rock my world in order to restore balance to my life, at least with respect to yoga. So somehow, a terrible event that continues to be a well of sadness in my life has restored normalcy. It made me realize that the object of my previous obsession was irrelevant. My arbitrary hurdles were of no consequence.

In temporarily dropping my asana practice my relationship with yoga became closer and I gained a deeper knowledge of its power. Yoga is much more than asana. It’s important to remember that the asana is only a component of yoga, a tool, a means to an end.

Weeks later, when I was ready to resume my physical practice, I saw how my attitude had changed and how much better I felt about doing yoga. I no longer cared where my practice took me. I’ll paraphrase the words of yoga teacher Brian Kest when I say that I didn’t worry about where I was going because I was already there. I had heard that concept expressed countless times in a variety of ways. In yoga we are often reminded to “be present” or to “be in the moment.” The point was driven home.

So the next time you practice, if your balance is off that day, or you can’t complete a bind, or you get stuck in traffic and miss your favorite class ... remember it’s not about the asana. Practice yoga wherever you are.

I invite readers to share stories of life experiences, in the comments section below, that have strongly affected their yoga practice or, vice versa, when yoga has had a profound impact on their lives.

If you would like to join me in one of my yoga classes, my schedule can be found on my Web site at yogabon.com.

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