I have been sober for over 16 years, and have worked the 12 steps of recovery in the traditional way many times over those years. In 2021, when I published my own step workbook, called Embodying the 12 Steps: Kundalini Yoga for Recovery, I began following a unique recovery journey, one which pairs yoga sets, meditations, mantras, and breathwork with each step. I have started a new step journey every January since then, and each time I do, the depth and profundity of what I uncover astonishes me. How can I keep working the same step process, but uncover new things, deepen my insight into myself and my life, and find new ways to heal each time? The steps offer a way to go deeper, and deeper, each time you work them, beyond the early years of learning to stay sober or abstinent.

On October 17, 2022, I interviewed Kelly West of Austin, TX, via Zoom. She is a Journey through the 12 Steps participant who took the course in 2021, and she shared her experience with the Journey and how she has been using KY12 since then.

I have now taken the Journey through the 12 Steps three times. The first time, in 2019, was before publishing the Workbook, to fine tune the manuscript and conduct the experiment on myself. I experienced firsthand the profound changes and healing that are available when you combine the 12 Steps with Kundalini Yoga and Meditation. The following year, in 2020, I walked the Journey with the first group of women to join the program. We took a full year together, starting in person in January, then meeting over Zoom once the pandemic began. Thanks to Zoom, I began recording each session in April, capturing the KY12 Step 4 practices and approach. In 2021, I guided another group of women, from all over the US, Canada and the UK, entirely over Zoom, and was able to record the sessions that had not been recorded in 2020 - but decided not to walk the Journey myself. And then in 2022, I felt it was time to access the deep healing and transformation available again, with a new group of women, using the 16 videos I had created over the previous 2 years, with the goal of completing the 12 Steps in 6 months. And I am so grateful that I did. 

Do you struggle with issues of craving, longing, loneliness or abandonment? Or do you feel like your creativity is blocked? Click below for some embodied ways to skillfully work with these aspects of life.

The following is an excerpt from Rachel’s recently released Step 4 Guide called Compassionate Inquiry

A foundational principle of Kundalini Yoga is expressed in the mantra Sat Naam. Sat Naam means True Identity. Whenever we say or contemplate Sat Naam, often in sync with our breath, we are connecting to our true selves, to Truth, to reality, to what is. Truth is a great teacher. In the Kundalini tradition, one of the ways to name God is Sat Naam, reminding us that when we have connected to Truth, we are connected to something very powerful. As both a Kundalini Yoga teacher and psychotherapist specializing in 12 Step recovery, I suggest that in the first of the 12 steps, we admit we are powerless over our various addictions and problems—that our lives have become unmanageable. When we undertake Step One around a specific substance or behavior, we are consciously examining what is true about our relationship with that substance or behavior.

Like many girls, I was shy and self-conscious, afraid to use my voice, afraid to be seen. The authority figures around me were to be feared, not questioned, and my thoughts, feelings and opinions seemed inherently less valuable than theirs. This extended into my adulthood, with supervisors at work who I felt subservient to, professors in grad school scoffing at my ideas, and even my yoga teacher trainer telling me as I taught my first practice class, “No one wants to hear what you have to say, just read what it says in the manual.”

But things started to change as I opened my own yoga studio and became my own boss—and evolved even further as I developed the idea to write a book.

I believe that getting sober at age 33 in 2008 was the beginning of my kundalini awakening. The doubt, fear, unexpressed grief, and years of unprocessed emotions needed to be allowed up to consciousness before my inner light could be remembered. By putting down the alcohol, cigarettes, pot, and unhealthy relationships, and embarking on a 12 Step program, I began to learn the tools of emotional healing and how to live life - and the possibility of bringing my gifts into the world was awakened.

Old habits and addictions, relationships, family connections, diet, work and career – everything comes up for review. If it’s not in alignment, it will most likely be removed from your life.