“Actively Participate in Your Recovery” I told them…

In 16 years of teaching, I have spoken countless words in yoga classes—mantras of guidance, encouragement, and insight. And many of them, in hindsight, make me *cringe*. Because well, know better, do better, right?Because growth means outgrowing. Because wisdom demands revision.

One phrase I’ve used often is: **“Actively participate in your recovery.”** I’ve believed in it. I’ve taught it. And I still do. But life, in her infinite mischief and magic, recently showed me that recovery is not a simple act of managing the mind, but a ceremony of the body.

See, the mind loves a goal—it loves to chase, to conquer, to measure. But the body? The body is the temple where transformation actually *happens*. We strive, we reach, we endure, and then—when the task is done—we collapse. And in that collapse, the mind chatters: *Was that good? Was that bad? Will I do it again? What’s next?* The mind is binary—good/bad, success/failure, worthy/unworthy. But the body… the body knows no such limits. It transmutes. It *feels*.

Yogic wisdom tells us the body is an alchemical vessel, designed to move energy, to process experience, to dissolve the past before it hardens into the future. But only if we listen. Only if we trust.

I understood that but I was mistaken about the depth surrender required to truly recover. And then, in 2024 happened.

I left a community I had spent a decade in—a rupture that came with a cross-state move, the severing of a job, the breaking of a mentorship, the loss of a deep friendship, the crumbling of my spiritual home, financial upheaval, and the derailment of the creative work I had been pouring myself into. And in response, I did what I always do: I *handled it*. Because handling it is one of my sharpest swords.

Nine months of relentless motion later, I landed in a space of safety, with kindred spirits and familiar ground beneath me. And I knew—I *knew*—that my body needed to recover. That she had carried me through fire, and now she needed time to cool.

So I, in my infinite hubris, *scheduled* recovery. *A month should do it*, my mind decreed. A tiny, arrogant dictator making rules for a being far older and wiser than itself.

And my body, patient and knowing, let me believe that. She let me think I was in control. She let me think I could *decide* the timeline of healing.

Until, six weeks into my tidy little one-month recovery, I finally *woke up*.

This is what makes me cringe. I had been teaching about recovery as if I truly understood what it meant to surrender everything I *think* and trust only what I *feel.* And yet, when my own body was calling for that same trust on a level never felt before, I tried to control her with schedules and expectations.

The mind is loud, but the body is steady. She does not barter. She does not rush. She simply *is*. And when I finally turned toward her, truly turned toward her—not as something to manage, but as something sacred—I saw the truth: Healing takes as long as it takes.

I could fight her. I could let my mind spin fear-based stories—stories that said my home, my work, my community, my purpose would abandon me if I didn’t *get back to it* fast enough.

Or…

I could trust her. I could quiet my frantic mind and listen. I could believe in her ancient rhythms, in her deep knowing. I could surrender to the mystery of it all.

And that is what I am doing. I rest when she is tired, I do the things that bring her energy, I ask for help with the things that don’t. I sit in stillness and learn her language; how she sees and hears, what she feels through her skin, and tastes in her mouth. How the inhale is cool in the nose but her exhale, it is warm. When I find places in that feel like they are holding on for dear life, I move them. When I find places that remember being strong but have grown tired, I kindly strengthen them. When she starts to weep, I weep. When she starts to laugh, I laugh. When the heat of anger arises I welcome it and search for the need that has not been met. And underneath it all I continually ask my mind to trust that it is all JUST AS IT SHOULD BE.

So no, I won’t stop saying *“Actively participate in your recovery.”* But I will never again say it as though it is *simple*.

I will say it with reverence. I will say it with awe. I will say it knowing that to truly recover, to truly transmute pain into wisdom, is an act of radical trust. A ritual of surrender. A sacred rebellion against the mind’s tyranny.

To turn toward the body and *believe her*—to honor her timing, her language, her magic—that is the work. That is the way.