Unfolding the Lotus: Working the Fourth Step through the Chakra System

Introduction

“Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise.”

― Horace

The seven major chakras are like seven windows into our consciousness. To observe and understand what the chakras are telling us gives us the ability to understand who and what influences our lives, or our recovery. We try to bring balance to these seven areas and keep harmony in the imbalance. To bear witness to this dance of energies is to know yourself. To know yourself is to know your higher self or God, and your lower self, which might be addiction.

To know yourself you need to know what made you who you are. What events shaped your belief systems and perspectives? Why do you think and behave like you do? That is not to say that you blame others for your past or for your addiction but you need to have an understanding of the energies that have been built up and held on to in order to make any long lasting change in your life. To find out these things we need to do the work.

We need to find balance in our lives. Knowing the chakras allows us to see what is out of balance and learn how to bring harmony back into our chakras, and, in doing so, bring harmony and serenity back into our lives. Of course, we must be able to see and witness our selves to be able to determine what is out of balance. Working the fourth step on our chakras brings stillness to our vision like a pond that becomes clear and reflective after the ripples of a disturbance calm down. When we are in harmony with ourselves we can be in harmony with others, we can be a productive member of society. We can find freedom to express ourselves as we were supposed to from the beginning, before the disease altered our lives. We can be the message that recovery has to offer. We can finally live happy joyous, and free. Working this step has brought me some amazing insights. With those insights I have been able to make changes that I was not able to previously make working the steps. If working recovery is like peeling an onion I peeled several layers on this step, I think you will find the same thing will happen for you.

Often in recovery we focus on our emotions especially resentment which is good and necessary but we forget to work on the body, we forget that there are other emotions besides resentment and fear. We are like firemen putting out fires and we get so busy with that we do not ponder on where the fire started. Of course we have to put out the fire first, but we need to get to the source of the problem to find true relief. Working this step we will be looking for the source, the last embers hiding under all the ash...to permanently extinguish those ill-conceived beliefs that could kill us.

I began writing this book several years ago. The idea for it came during my training to be a yoga teacher. During the training we discussed the chakras and how the chakras influence our lives in a deep and meaningful way. Since I had been in recovery for over ten years at that time, I filtered everything through the recovery process, and I began to see that by understanding the chakras I could better find serenity and a sense of equanimity in my life. I was at a point in my life and my recovery where I was looking for something new, something to make recovery exciting again. I soaked up the yogic philosophies like a sponge and, like everything else, I brought my recovery with me. This book took so long to write because being an addict I could not do just one training but took several, some at the same time. Also it took a while for the ideas to come to reality. It was when I thought to make this a fourth step that it took flight. At first I thought it should just be a renegade step guide, but the more I wrote, the deeper the writing was taking me, the more I was convinced to make it a book instead of a paper. I had a yearning to get the information out to as many people as I could so a book format seemed the best vehicle for that. Plus I began to really enjoy writing and expressing the passion that I have for not only recovery, but yoga and other ways to find spirit outside of meetings and talking to a sponsor. It took a year to write the questions down and formulate a direction for the book. I then “worked” the step as I continued to write. My goal was to see if the questions worked, if the outcome was meaningful, if it made sense as a fourth step. It took me a year to finish the step working with my sponsor, Ivan, and he helped with some of the wording of the questions to make them flow better. Then I had a friend and someone I work with do the step, it took him a year to finish it as well, but I knew I was on to something at that time. He said that doing this step in this format he was able to work through some issues that working the steps several times and going to a counselor for years did not address.

Just by picking this book up I can tell that you have an open mind. Perhaps you have heard of the chakras and are interested in how they can be used in recovery, or perhaps you are like me just looking for something different. This book was intended for someone who has been through the steps using the typical work book or work sheets and is now looking to take their recovery to a deeper level. There are many layers to us and our lives, we may never get to the core of who we are or what we are about but we try to the best of our ability to go forward. What else can we do? There are so many that I have known through the years who have decided that they have learned enough, where recovery began to get boring and either stopped doing steps or left the fellowship all together. Some come back after a few years beaten again by the disease, but some I just never hear from again. I often wonder about those who left. It is interesting how close you can get with someone and have them leave without a trace. Perhaps they are leading productive lives, maybe even happy, but I cannot imagine they are seeing the miracles that we who stay in the rooms see. When I stop doing recovery my defects come out, denial comes back, self-centeredness comes back, but perhaps that is just me. At any rate by picking up this book it is showing that you care for your recovery and still find the process of recovery to be of value in your life, and for that I salute you.