Step 2
“Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity”
Came to believe implies a conclusion. You now have an awareness you may not have had before. Jesus calls himself the light and isn’t the purpose of yoga enlightenment? Enlightenment in this sense meaning to turn the light on’. Most of us have come to the realization again that taking a close look at our past history with our addictions that 99.9% of the time it never had worked out as we had planned. Somewhere along the line we always seemed to lose control. This coming to awareness or ‘Came to’ is a time to say hey, yes in my experimenting with this thing I in all of my best efforts now see that it never ends well.
I learned in the rooms of AA to share my experience strength and hope. So my experience with drinking and using started early. I was drinking and smoking by the age of 15. I went from boons farm to malt liquor adding in the mix hallucinogenics, pot, and nose candy from time to time. As my addiction gained momentum I began to get involved in relationships with men that helped me live out my co-dependency because somehow I was still some angel of light and had some saving to do. Through bad relationships, getting a DUI, and spending a night in jail I finally was able to see at the age of 25 that I may have a problem. From the time I got my DUI to the time, I actually stopped drinking was 9 months. I still needed to ‘experiment’ to see if I could still manage this thing in my life. The last drink was NYE of 2006 going into 2007. I wanted to go to a yoga class but I could not find one in time. So I did what I knew to do which was go drinking. I remember bellying up to a bar with one of my housemates and drinking what I knew always would get me good and drunk which was jaeger. I never ended up getting drunk. It didn’t work. I remember thinking ok that is it. The next day was the beginning of my new life as a sober person in recovery. I Came to.
Now in step 1, it talks about powerlessness. This step is identifying the power. We as Christians know that power to be the Holy Spirit. The bible says “For I have not given you a spirit of fear but of power, love and sound mind” I realized looking through all of my experiences many of which you would say I was hell-bent on my own destruction. I knew there was someone keeping me safe because of my own accord many times I put myself in a position to be taken out completely. So I knew that God had saved me from my own self many times. This was the power greater than myself. And because if I had the power to quit drinking wouldn’t I have done it by now?
The bible says in Deuteronomy 30:19 KJV “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live”
It was absolutely insane to think that I could continue on as I had been without further consequences. They say in the rooms of AA if you really are an alcoholic you have a choice to either quit drinking and recovered up in jail, institutions or death. You may be struggling with other addictions such as food as an example or relationships. You can see how any of our addictions can lead us into a life that is headed for those 3 options. Spiritual death/sin is the worst of them. Sin defined as knowing the right thing to do and deliberately not doing it.
You may have heard the definition of insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. This is the essence of this step. This was my experience and many others. The God of the Bible is described as the Alpha and Omega. And this verse “lean not on your own understanding but in all your ways acknowledge God” We have to realize that God needs to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves and that restores us to sanity. He has been with us and has covered us. Sanity is defined as healthy. Yoga is a way to recover your body/temple to health. In a lot of ways, an addict has a nervous system that is shot. We have held trauma in the body and in many ways destroyed parts of our bodies through our addiction. I hope you can see how the practice of Yoga can help heal the body and remind us of the spirit of God living in us. Also, remember yoga is always a prayer in motion. A way to pray, worship, and in essence say yes to God in partnering to help him heal you. It’s a living amends to yourself.
One of my favorite verses in the bible if not my favorite is Romans 12:2 “Be not conformed of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. “
This is what it is going to take… a renewing of the mind. To allow God to bring us back to sanity back to health back to himself. At the root of this, we have chosen to go our own way and we through continued experience and experimentation realized this was not working for us.
May God help us.