Ballad of a reluctant Yogi-Part 4
I went back to my practices and committed wholeheartedly. I went deeper. And as grace would have it, the advanced program that I had run away from some years back was scheduled again about the time my 90 days was up. The program offered an experience that enabled a person to experience themselves beyond the wall of the physical self—beyond what we have accumulated in this life. Something told me I had to go. So, I got on a plane, and a bus, and scooted up the hill to the ashram. As soon as I entered the ground, my ego knew something was up. The fear was immense. But maybe I was open enough. Maybe the soil was ripe for expansion. As soon as I walked into the mediation hall, the bottom dropped out for me. I didn’t have a concept of what was “me” and what was not “me” anymore. I entered a completely new dimension of myself. When I accessed this space, there was an explosion of joy and bliss. I didn’t even have to finish the process. It hit me as soon as I walked into the energy charged environment. I was blown wide open.
Coming down the hill into town after the program, I was ecstatic. I took a walk in a park, and with my mind, I had to consciously bring myself back into the form of my own body by defining myself as independent and separate. I would come up to a tree, look at it, and say to myself, “Ok, this is me,” and then touch the tree and say, “This is the tree.” I had to consciously define myself as a separate entity. This went on for a few hours. I visited my family and was overjoyed to see them. I was exploding with energy. When I came home to Colorado, it continued. There was an inner pathway to an energy that I had never experienced before. I could ride my bike for thirty miles at a click and never be tired. I had connected to a dimension of myself that was profound, energy charged, and free of my conditioned thinking and responses. Over the next few weeks, I began to notice the change that had occurred within me. My PTSD was gone. My system had completely reset. I never again woke up in a nauseous state of dread, separation, and fear as I approached the day. A tremendous amount of useless information had been instantly downloaded from my mind, leaving me with a new dimension of intelligence that was beyond accumulated thought and learning. There was a sense of ease and freedom that I had lacked all through my recovery process. I had found the freedom that had been promised in the rooms of AA and ACOA that had never been granted me.
Has my journey continued? YES. I’ve still had to work and recognize my old, subconscious, learned patterns. I’ve come to see that I tend to use the old survival tools that I have been given to incorporate, function, and survive in the world. But the PTSD and trauma response has been removed. I still have to live and be a part of the physical world, but if I maintain my connection and practice, I’m able to have one foot in the dimension of myself beyond what we refer to as name and form. That dimension is always available to me if I continue to evolve and practice. I still experience fear, but it's normal to circumstances. It's not an inherent, forever on alert fear which crippled me in the past. As I have proceeded in the world of recovery and trauma informed care, I really don’t hear anyone talking about this kind of experience. Can we manufacture this kind of experience for all who suffer this ailment of trauma and addictive conditioning? I have not encountered anyone that has revealed this type of experience to me. So, I have looked back on my 17 years of recovery and yoga practice to try and identify some key factors in relationship to what, why, and how it happened. What happened in relation to my experience as a recovering addict, ACOA, trauma survivor, and human being? Yes... human being. What enabled me to experience myself in such a way that my system remembered who it was beyond my conditioned responses to life? What did I recover and why? It's taken some time to identify and pinpoint it in relation to recovery and spiritual lore. I hear a lot of talk in recovery circles about people living with trauma response, but no one really talks about transcending it. But it happened to me... Why?
I never wanted any of this recovery and spiritual nonsense—I was suspicious and reluctant the entire way—but it happened anyway. What follows is a somewhat academic approach to a system of spiritual technology and self-inquiry that gives us an experiential possibility of transcendence. This transcendence is what is referred to as samadhi, self-realization, Christ consciousness, buddha nature, or the access to the dimension of ourselves that lies beyond name and form—beyond what we have accumulated as body, mind, emotion, and experience. I feel it’s the secret of recovery. It’s a combination of contemporary recovery tools and the 5,000-year-old science of experiential spiritual practice, that when incorporated together, expedites the process of recovery and spiritual transcendence. The process is tailored to unclog the pathways of energy in relation to our physical, emotional, and energy bodies, giving us the possibility to experience ourselves in a new dimension of grace. I’m not a yogi in the traditional sense. “ I am.” I’m no different than you. Anonymous through and through. I don’t sit on a pillow in Yogic garb, dispensing philosophy from a cave or temple. I'm not repeating quotations or philosophy out of books beyond my own experience. All the philosophy everyone is quoting doesn’t create an experience. The experience created the philosophy. What is your experience up until this point? Ask yourself.
Really, I’d rather write poetry or songs than to write this book. I’d rather sit at the corner café, musing with the fluttering of birds and passersby, contemplating the push and pull of the sun and moon. I’d rather be eating or fishing. But the result of this process was so profound for me that I feel it's my duty to pass it on, so you might have the possibility of staring into the abyss of a bliss and happiness so deep that it changes the reality of your existence and the world. Grace is always a factor. No one can be successful without grace. It's impossible. I’m living proof. It’s a fact. I didn’t choose this path …. It chose me. It showed up. My imperfect family showed up. Spiritual abuse showed up. The drunkenness showed up. The misery showed up. Shame showed up. Failure showed up. Sorrow showed up. Then sobriety showed up—in spite of myself, and who I thought I was. The terror showed up. The freaking Indian Yogi Guy showed up. It all just showed up. I’m so lucky. The universe conspires always to reveal to us just what needs to be revealed. It’s the definition of perfection, really. We just have to listen. Did I try at every turn to run screaming from the burning building and back to the known and my old self? Yes. I don’t know what kept me crawling back and moving forward. It was probably a deep-seated voice beyond the subconscious that was strong enough to outweigh the fear—the The Secret of Recovery 15 fear that deep down I knew was just a wall blocking me from something greater. To the union that I begin and end with . A place I like to call “Home”. I’ve laid it out because…if you are meant to…you will find it too.
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Ballad of a Reluctant Yogi-part 3
All this happened within a week. There were participants that had shared about an advanced program that they had taken. When they shared about it, they could not contain themselves. They fell apart with joy and tears. This scared me even more. The only thing scarier than our self-imposed, comfortable prison is the raw joy of experiencing a piece of unbounded freedom. It seems every time the ego butts up against the possibility of its own demise, it spits out its own form of squid ink called fear. That fear blots out the sky and disorients. It clouds the path one must take for one's own good. It’s a tremendous hurdle. For trauma people, it's even worse. The transcendent experience to overcome and reset the conditioned trauma response is almost a traumatic experience in itself. Asking a trauma person to do what is needed to realize himself beyond his or her protection mechanisms is like asking him to go insane.
That’s what it felt like anyway. But that's what is actually needed. I left that week overjoyed and committed. I started doing kriya yoga practices. Things started to move within. But what I thought was going to be a peaceful process was instead tumultuous. The practices started to open me up. Shit was moving and coming up. What was coming up wasn’t so pretty. The self-inquiry element in my AA program gave me something to do with it that was concrete. Slowly, the practices loosened, brought The Secret of Recovery 9 up, and revealed my interior life. My motivations, fears, regrets, loss, shame, guilt, and dishonesty were all revealed and came up for me to deal with. My distorted, protected, and comically put together self started to become unglued, and then I worked it out through the process of the program steps. This took time. Everyone is different. For me, the next few years was a back and forth dance on a train I was unable to get off of. Every time I had tried to exit stage right, the doors would slam shut. And I would find myself crawling back with the realization that there was no other option but to move forward. I did the back and forth dance that grace required for me to transcend my own trauma response. Most of the dance was not pretty. I did my best. I thought AA and therapy would help fix it and restore me to sanity. Although it helped to know where my trauma responses came from, it did not ultimately carry me all the way across the stream. Self-knowledge availed me nothing when it came to trauma. I was trapped in a never-ending cycle of a conditioned response that I had no control over. I could not solve the problem with my knowledge or willpower. I went in and out of my practices and tried to move forward. I’d drop them and start them again.
The inner fear was overwhelming at times, but I carried on. I never let the fear get the best of me. I plowed through it, but I was not free. I’d wake up terrified in the mornings. I’d throw up in trash cans before performances. I’d throw up dealing with my son. The whole public-school system was a huge trigger. I went back to a counselor. She identified the abuse and flaws in my upbringing and then offered me a book on Jesus. I did EMDR. I redoubled my efforts in the program. I tried the advanced program with the little, Indian man, and I was so terrified that I left. I did another yoga program. I would re-up my practices and then quit them altogether. Back and forth I went. Mind you, I never wanted any of this shit—it just happened. I crawled back into AA thinking I was the problem, only to become more depressed. The AA crowd would just look at me like I was doing something wrong. An AA guy’s biggest fear is that the program is not going to work. He hangs on to the program like it’s life or death because it is. But I re-committed myself. I did more inventories, looked at myself and my reactions to things. But my identification as a 100% be all, end all, selfish addict didn’t add up. I was trapped in a bubble that I couldn't explain. I rolled out of bed every morning feeling sick to my stomach and dragging myself through each day. For almost ten years, I did this in recovery. For ten years, the freedom they promised eluded me.
Then the wheels came off, and I crawled into ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) and found out the root of my PTSD and trauma. I did the work. I accumulated an immense amount of knowledge about my predicament. But in the end, self-knowledge still availed me nothing. I was trapped in a conditional response, as a result of my story, that I had no control over. Finally, I had had enough. I was at the end of my rope. In the first yoga sutra, it says simply, “And Now Yoga.” Why? Because we have tried everything else. I had done the yoga kriya practices I had been taught, but I had never done them completely to open and make them a part of my system. If we start a somatic or yoga practice, we must do it once a day for ninety days, or twice a day for 48 days, for it to become a permanent part of our system. What we are doing is balancing our system and paving new energy pathways to access deeper states of consciousness. This breaks down the walls of our cellular protection mechanisms. If we fail to do this, energy just takes the path it once took. It always takes the path of least resistance and goes right back where it came from into the old riverbed in our bodies. In hindsight, I did it all half-assed. I was undisciplined. I always took the easier, softer way. I wasn’t all in. But at this point, I committed myself to a daily Kriya that opened and balanced the system. (Yoga kriya is a combination of asana, pranayama, chanting, and meditation. It takes about 25 minutes to do.) I did not want to do it. But I found myself doing it anyway.
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Jeff Finlin on The Secret of Recovery
Hello, everybody, this is Franklin Taggart. And today I'm really excited to be interviewing my friend, Jeff, Finlin. Jeff is a person that I've known for several years now. And I'm really excited to be talking today about his latest book, The secret to recovery. And, Jeff, welcome to this interview. And thanks for the reason for it. I'm really excited to talk about your book today.
Thanks very much. Thanks for having me.
Q: First of all, how long have you been in recovery? personally?
Oh, I've been kicking around about 22 years now and it's been quite a journey.
Q: In your book, you tell the story of finding a yogi who helped you to kind of take your recovery to the next level, we're going to get into much more detail about that. But I want to just kind of set the stage a little bit to find out, what was your recovery experience, like before you met him?
Ah, it was good. You know, it was kind of a, you know, walking, walking on the edge of a cliff, I really knew that, you know, I went to AA and - because that was really the last house on the block. I didn't know where else to go.
I was, you know, I couldn't stop drinking, and I was filled with fear. This fear bubbled up inside of me that I knew wasn't normal. My father had went to, through AA and so he kind of got me on that path. A little bit. And, and it was good being a part of a group of people, and a fellowship, just going into that field of energy, I feel for those three or four years prior to meeting, my Yogi guy, enabled me to stay sober, you know, I could quit before that, but I couldn't stay quit. And I started working the step process. But honestly, I really didn't get any emotional relief for a couple of years, maybe two and a half years, it got worse for me, not better.
I was able to stay sober and I started that process of those steps in what turned out to be kind of the wrong spirit of embracing those steps. But it was it was a start anyway you know.
Q: When you say the wrong spirit, what do you mean by that?
Well, you know, we have to love ourselves unconditionally. We have to accept ourselves unconditionally, good, bad, right or wrong, evil, we have to accept what we've done, and who we are, before really any of that step work worked for me on any level.
And, you know, I was, I was terminally wracked with self loathing and guilt and shame. And I thought, you know, this program could propel me somewhere, somewhere else into a new state of reality. But I had to accept myself 100% first, who I am, I always say you have to love the horse thief, you know, before anything can happen for you, you really have to have 100% acceptance of where you are, or you just set up the opposite. You circle around in a field of opposites.
So that's what I really didn't get it first, you know, I thought I was a bad person. I thought it was morally bankrupt. I thought, you know, there was something terribly wrong with me that I did something wrong, that it was my fault, all these things and, and it really, it really kept me from moving forward in the proper fashion.
Q: What did it take for you to get to that place of self acceptance
For about 10 or 15 years. You know, it really, you know, it really, it was really it was a long process for me. It took it took getting on the path, and the path really revealed where I needed to go. And my pain and confusion was my touchstone to my progress. And over time I was able to see a certain element of myself that prevented my own growth.
Q: You've come to a place in your own understanding where you connect a lot of your addiction to trauma, can you tell us a little bit about how that has come into your awareness and, and how you've addressed that?
Well, um, that came into awareness, you know, I was doing, I was being a good a person, I was showing up, I was doing everything that they told me I needed to do. I was serving serving, I was doing the inventories over and over again. And at some point, at about 12 years sober, the wheels just came off, none of that worked anymore. And I realized I was really incapable of receiving love, you know, my conditioning and my upbringing, built certain walls of protection inside of me to where I was unable to receive from the outside, receive love from the outside. And all this was really subconscious.
And I went to my, my best friend and my, my, a guy in Nashville, and I said, you know, the wheels are just coming off, nothing's working anymore. And I told him a little bit about how I grew up. And he said, Well, you're, you're two years earlier than me. So I had, I had the same kind of upbringing, and he introduced me to adult children of alcoholics. And that was a, that was a big gateway into, you know, some self knowledge about why I felt the way I felt why I approached every facet of my life a certain way.
So, that was a beginning for me. But that took a long time, you know, before I got there. Yeah. I mean, somebody asked me about, you know, I did an interview not too long ago, and the guy was talking about trauma. I was like, was there any talk about trauma back when you got sober? It wasn't, there was none. And so, um, I couldn't have discovered these things about myself, even if I wanted to, because it because there's a certain evolution that's happening within the recovery and spiritual world that is revealing this to us. So I couldn't have I couldn't have had that realization, even if I tried, you know, back in the late 90s, when I got sober.
Q: So you'd reached a point where, through the 12 step program, and through some of the other supports that you had taken on that we're kind of in the traditional addictions, path and recovery path. At some point, you became aware of Yogi and you were compelled to attend a program. Can you tell us a little bit about what what precipitated that?
Well, it was very, it was very grace driven. It's like when the when the students ready the teacher showed up, and that was, and, and that was it for me Come 140% or whatever. Because I was as reluctant, as is the next guy. You know, I was this old black leather, cigarette smoking, cynical, you know, guy and I hated all that stuff. I hated all that spiritual people, and bla bla bla bla, and, and, and a friend of mine dragged me to to see this man, and I didn't really even want to be there. You know, he offered to buy me dinner. If I went with him, and I was like, Okay, well, we'll go eat steak. And he's like, sure, whatever you want, you know. And he drove me to see this man and I walked into the, to this church and he was just giving a talk and this little Indian guy walked in and when he walked down the middle of the church, the entire energy changed in the room. Yeah.
And he opened his mouth. And he started talking. And it was like, I'd been waiting to hear what he had to say my entire life. It was just, you know, I had to admit that I was wrong, you know that, that something was going on here. And then I signed up for a program and spent a week with him. And he did things that I could not explain, you know, he moved the energy in me move the energy in the room.
And when I after that week I was hooked. It was like something this thing came into my life that seemed like a doorway for me. And it was just given to me really, by, by grace on a on a big level, you know?
Q: Now in the, in the subsequent time, you were given a practice that is covered in detail in the book. But can you tell us a little bit about the practice itself, and some of the some of the things that you saw as a result of the practice happened in your life?
This guy is a Kriya guy. So we, you know, it's defined as yoga, but we didn't do any asanas. Yeah, everything was done with the breath and what and what the practice does, it opens and balances our system, you know, our physical system is made up of polarities of opposites. And what we're trying to do is experience ourselves beyond the physical. So in our trauma is lodged in ourselves, our experiences lodged in ourselves. So what these practices were just simple Kriyas, and they, they balance and open the system, and then push energy up the middle, the middle channel of the body, and you start to be able to experience yourself in a different way as a result. And you can do all this with your breath. It's, it's very, it's a very simple process, but you have to be consistent about it.
And through that process, the trauma and the reaction to the conditioning that was lodged in my body, started to release itself and come up. And that's how those processes work. It's, it's basically what they call somatics, you know, somatic therapy, you release the energy in the cells, and it opens up and starts to come up, and you're able to experience yourself in a different dimension beyond the physical.
Q: Now, that's not always a particularly easy or clean experience, is it?
No, and it was very tumultuous for me, you know, like, they talk about, you know, oh, well, I started doing yoga and meditation, because they told me, it would make me peaceful. And, and at first, that was the last thing that it did, you know, all my bullshit started coming up and revealing itself to me, and it really wasn't pretty, you know, it was, it wasn't pretty for, for quite some time. I mean, we all come to the table with our own path where with our own unique past and our own unique sense of circumstances and conditioning, and so it's going to be different for everybody.
And, but initially, it wasn't, it wasn't very pretty, but through the through the A and the 12 steps through those inventory processes, I actually had somebody something to do with it, somebody to talk to about it, a program to write it down and release that energy and get rid of it. So that's what really what I've tried to incorporate in, in, in my deal or my program is the is the mix of those two, because what I never got an A was the practice element. And what I never got in the practice element, or in the Buddhist Sangha, or the yoga studio, was what I got in a. So the two of them went interpreted in the right in the correct manner in relationship to self love. They they were really profound for me. Yeah.
Q: Can you talk a little bit about one of the things that you've said in the way that you described the latest book that you've written, The Secret of Recovery you've said, so much as that what recovery requires is a spiritual awakening. How did this particular set of experiences lead to your own awakening?
Well, that that's the whole point of spiritual practice, you know, and I think I've defined what that is in the book, and it just gets so clouded over. And, you know, so what is it where we're trucking, you know,
in yoga, there's five levels of being for our physical, they're the result of our conditioning, food, body, mental body, energy, body, and intellectual body. And then there's one part of us that's non physical, called Ananda or the bliss body. And really, what we're trying to recover is that dimension of ourselves, before we accumulated, whatever it is we accumulated. And once we touch that dimension of ourselves, it changes the relationship with everything we've accumulated. So as soon as I touched that dimension of myself, I was no longer a victim of my story, I was no longer a victim of food, I was no longer a victim of what I thought there was a, I could see, I could see all that stuff clearly. And I knew who I really was.
And that's what we're trying to recover. And I don't think that's said enough in, in recovery world. It's like, No, we want a good job. We want a happy family, we wanna, you know, we want a psychological experience, or we want a medical experience, what actually is a spiritual experience? And how does it relate to recovery? Because that's, that's the one thing I bought into when I first got sober. You know, it's like, what's required is a spiritual experience. And what does that mean? You know,
Q: In the book, you you go into much more detail about the practices. What I'd like to talk about is how did how did this particular book come about? I know that you had written a book a few years ago called Recovery Yoga, that's actually a daily kind of a daily, it's almost like a devotional where you would go in and you would have a daily reading and something to kind of set your day up for, for good things. But in this particular book, you ended up with a much more personal story in it, can you talk a little bit about how you came to the point where you knew you had to write it?
Well, I thought, I really knew that I had to share it, you know, I thought it was like my duty to really share it because I had an experience in an ashram. I had that, that awakening experience, and all my trauma response disappeared. Yeah. And, and, you know, at first it was, it took me a while to figure out what happened because it was so profound.
And, and then, after a while, I really started, I didn't need the process. I didn't need the path anymore. Because I'd already walked through that doorway, right, and I started to forget it, you know, I started to really forget what what it is that I did, in order to actually get up to that point to make myself available or open enough to actually have that experience.
So I kind of got scared, I was like, I need to write all this down, you know, for other people. Um, and really, it's...upon doing that, I realized, wow, this has been the entire focus and trajectory of my whole life for the past 22 years. It's what all my songwriting and music work is about, it was about documenting certain stages on that path. And I really became just incredibly grateful, and in the realization that, Oh, this is kind of what my purpose has been for the past 22 years.
And I felt it just it it's important to document it and, and let people know that this is possible. Because we, in the trauma world, we're talking a lot about, you know, trauma informed care how to live with your trauma, not how to, you know, not how to trigger your trauma and all this stuff, but nobody's really talking about like, wow, it's it's completely possible to walk out through a doorway, a free man. Yeah. And that's what happened to me, you know.
Q: Can you talk a little bit about at after the fact now that you see this, this book as something that is a gift for other people in recovery, but it's not necessarily for people who are just starting out in recovery, it's like, the people who are doing the 9090 meetings in 90 days phase probably aren't ready for this book quite yet. Tell us a little bit about who it really is perfect for?
Well, I think it's perfect for that one a deep, and it's perfect for people that you know, are through the detox stage, they're, they're ready to make a commitment to their recovery. It's not really for people in treatment centers, though, though, they could all there's, there's never a perfect time to start on this kind of path. You know, they do teach yoga and in, in treatment centers, but generally, treatment centers are trying to just get people in a very short period of time stepping in the right direction, you know, and get them detox. I don't even know if that's possible. And in to completely detox and 28 days, yeah, I look back, it probably took me eight or nine months to completely detox, you know, and, or longer, I don't know. Um, so if people that are out of treatment, and want to really start working on a process that, you know, can set can set you on a path to freedom, and it and people that are ready, really to make a commitment to spiritual life.
Q: If a person was to pick up the book today, and start reading it now and start to really apply the practices that you've that you've included in the book what would they be able to anticipate in terms of the impact of those practices on their lives over the longer period of time? Not necessarily the, the more immediate timeframe, but over the longer period of time, as they incorporate these practices into their lives? What different kinds of impact would they be able to expect?
Well, that's, that's a problem. Because I, you know, I, I lit, there's one section in the book, I repeat three times. And it basically is if you think you know, where you're going, you're selling yourself way short, if you have any expectation about where this process is going to take you. You almost throw a monkey wrench into the process, you know, it all starts with not knowing. And, you know, if I set myself up for Oh, this is gonna get me a house and a wife and a job and I'm gonna be happy, it's like, you know, you're selling yourself way short, because I have no idea what's going to happen when I start these process, this process,
I really have to be kind of at the end of my rope, and in some ways, and be willing to just get on the magic carpet and see wherever it goes. And it goes different places for different people, you know, so I'd be, I think I'd be remiss in in answering your question, like, as as to letting know people what to expect? Yes, you really don't. And everybody comes to the table with a different set of a different makeup and a different story and a different experience. So when you start opening the system, it's going to be different for everybody. Yeah.
Q: Now, one of the things that you also offer, in addition to the book you very often will offer classes and things like that. So what we want to make sure of is that people know first of all, where they can get the book. Where would you send them first to pick up a copy of the book?
Just go to Amazon, or my website, www.jefffinlin,com and there's a link there to Amazon. Yeah, it's and you can get it most anywhere in the world. The Amazon's just easiest, you know, I know they're the evil Big brother to some people. But it's just, it's easy, and it's, it's cost effective, and they'll drop it right at your door. Yeah.
Q: And how would you encourage people to get in touch with you
Just through my website, or, you know, you can always email me at jfinlin@yahoo.com.
I offer free consultations to people, you can always call me up, we'll talk about where you're at what you want to do. And, and then I offer a program to take you through this process that we could talk about.
Q: In your own experience to finish things up with, I'd like to, to hear from you as far as what's the what's the greatest miracle that you consider that you've experienced in your own recovery?
Well, there's lots of them, you know, it's, it's very emotional. You know, I mean, I think about, I was talking to somebody yesterday about when I went in, first went into the recovery rooms, and how angry and full of hate I was, and, you know, just for all those people in there, I didn't want to be there, you know, my, actually, my first sponsor may may go into my home group and tell everybody how much I hated them. You know?
And, and the guy was telling that to he was, he's not in recovery. So he was like, Whoa, man, you know, and, but when I did that, and I just laid it on him all, you know, I told him, You know, I slung it heavy and hard. And they just laughed at me. They laughed, they laughed at me, you know, and they were like, welcome, welcome. You're one of us, you know.
And there was, there was some people in that in this is one example, there's some people in, in my home group, there's this one guy, that every time he would go to share, he was the guy that sat in the same chair and collected all the, the pamphlets in the end, he had this giant rubber band wrapped around all this literature and stuff. And every time he would go to speak, and I would just go, Oh, God, I just want to run away. But over time, I started to laugh at him. And I started to like him. And then next thing, I knew I was helping him move out of his house. And he had to have a leg amputated, and he was in this nursing home and, and he wasn't doing well, and I would I bake him a pie and take in food. And, and I thought about how much I hated this man, you know, back in the day, what happened to me, what what happened to me, in between that time, where I would show up and take him food, turn on his TV and sit with him and laugh with him is like, that's, that's a miracle right there. And Hi, you know, I cannot really understand how or why that happened. But it was, it was completely amazing to me. And I always go back that to that. And remember that as like an example of the possibility of grace and recovery and how this great change of spirit is possible within us if we just show up and, and get the hell over ourselves, you know, so that that's a good one right there.
Q: I think that's a great place to end and I appreciate you just being so open with your own story and really, really grateful also for your book, because I feel like that it's gonna be something that makes a huge difference for a lot of people. So I'll remind people that the name of the book is the secret to recovery by Jeff Finlin. You can find more about Jeff at www.jefffinlin.com you should be able to see it there on the screen. And I would encourage you to check that out right now. So thanks. Thanks again, Jeff, for being a part of this today.
Thanks.
Q: My pleasure.
How do we start this recovery dance
So you find yourself here at the beginning.
What is required?
What is the first step?
What can you expect in this recovery process?
Well my first job as a teacher is to put you at ease. The hurdles you have to jump are not that big of a deal. The spiritual process can be a tumultuous one but it's all going to be ok. It's a grand adventure. My job is to go through the process with you and let you know where the ground is. I can do that by sharing my own experience and holding your heart along the way. It's not going to be easy at times and it's going to require a commitment and a devotion to the process. This process will align your energies in such a way so you can experience life to its fullest. We want as much ease and comfort as is possible. This process has to be a priority in your life. Why? Because every outside situation in our lives is the result of who we are at this moment on the inside. The whole goal of any recovery or spiritual process is to align you with the forces and the flow of the cosmos, so we can experience life to its fullest. So that's what we are going to do.
How do we do that?
We do this by getting rid of all the things that get in the way of that. A great yogi once told me that the recovery I sought was already inside of me. My job was to remove all the muck and conditioning that I’d accumulated so I could experience it directly. My job in recovery is not to accumulate more information, it's to empty the vessel. It's to lighten the load. Self knowledge we found out avails us nothing anyway. In this process we are going to incorporate and do things that eventually lighten our load so we can walk around happy, joyous and free. That is the promise. This takes a willingness to discover something new.
So the first step is to admit we do not know. We also have to admit that we don’t know where this process is going to take us. Then the next step is we have to get on the train of action and ride. This will enable us to have a new experience of ourselves. The vehicle we ride is simply a self-inquiry process mixed with a somatic practices that open and balance our system. This is our discipline. Most people think freedom is doing whatever the hell you want. But freedom is about discipline. This enables us to experience a new dimension of ourselves.
A second very important element that is required is radical acceptance of who we are and the predicament we find ourselves in. We may have done terrible things, we may have found ourselves in all kinds of sordid places. We might not feel very good about ourselves. But we have to accept where we are as part of our path. We cant be taking these actions of recovery and spirituality to deliver us from all our evils. We have to start where we are with a clean slate. This can be difficult. Most of us crawled into recovery in a really bad place. But we still have to accept and love ourselves for who we are right now. We go from there.
We start with a program of action that embraces our everyday activities and then investigate how we respond to this thing called life
Our ultimate goal is to realize ourselves as a piece of life.
So put your mind at ease and we will go on a great adventure.
The adventure is recovery
Trauma, Yoga and Spiritual Recovery
Listen to the enlightening Podcast. Jeff talks with Dr. Craig Heacock about Trauma, Yoga and the profound possibilities of spiritual recovery.
The 5 levels of being—part 2
The 5 levels of being -part 2
THE ENERGY BODY—
PRANAMAYA KOSHA
Pranamaya means composed of prana or energy—the vital principle, the force that vitalizes and holds together the body and the mind. It's invisible and can only be measured through physical response. It pervades our whole organism; it's one physical manifestation is the breath. As long as this vital principle (the breath) exists in the organisms, life continues. This layer has a power all its own. It connects and holds our physical form together. Let's go back to the exercise where we hold our breath to try and kill ourselves. The breath connects our physical being to the forces that lay in and outside the body. This is why the breath is used in so many ways to help us realize the connection between the physical and non-physical part of ourselves. We need the breath and exchange of the breath to maintain our physical existence. Once the breath stops, the physical body just falls away. It cannot be maintained. The breath is impermanent. When we identify ourselves in this layer, we say— I am the breath.
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