Yoga’s third niyama, or ethical mandate, is tapas. This means burning zeal for practice. It refers to directing our greatest energies into our spiritual lives.

Many of us are familiar with burning zeal in one way or another. This same sort of tireless energy can take a gazillion different forms. Olympic athletes, politicians, people who picket abortion clinics, scientists bent on cures, anorexics, Black Friday shoppers, and gamers who play the same game for 20 hours straight all demonstrate burning zeal for varying goals. Tapas is about harnessing that energy for spiritual practice.

Saints from all religions have done this for ages. I once visited the shrine of Santa Narcisa de Jesus in Ecuador. I was impressed to learn of her busy tapas-driven schedule: eight hours a day of praying, followed by four evening hours of self-flagellation. Some yogis, especially certain holy men and women of India, follow similarly hardcore regimens. They may stand on one leg for years, surviving on only two glasses of milk per day.

People with addictions may recognize this impulse to go all in. But how do we, as recovering people, harness the zeal of tapas in a healthy way? It’s about cultivating good habits through regular self-discipline. Maybe your sobriety centers on attending recovery meetings or church or some other spiritual group, taking yoga classes, working out, and/or regularly getting together with like-minded sober friends. Whatever your recovery regimen, there will be days when you’d rather skip the healthy option and wallow on the couch. You don’t have the energy. You don’t have the desire. What’s the point?

Often, the point is not apparent in the short term. But tapas has a long horizon. It’s the engine that keeps you going for those long-term goals. Tapas can help recovering addicts plan their goals in the first place.

However, compulsive people have to balance their tapas with common sense. Burning zeal can look a lot like compulsion.

Some of us have experienced both addiction and eating disorders. For me, my alcoholism and anorexia seem like flip sides of the same coin. When I gave in to drinking, I completely surrendered control, blacking out nightly and doing God only knows what. When anorexia ruled me, it was about trying to control everything. Anorexia is the ultimate example of tapas gone overboard—the burning zeal to starve myself disrupted that most basic survival feedback loop of hunger and eating.

So, we need to approach tapas with care. We need to keep the goal in mind, steering toward that desired point on the horizon rather than getting caught up in the pride of perfectionism.

Say you sign up to run a marathon. Most sensible runners devise a training plan, upping the mileage by 10% per week and blocking out rest days. Compulsive runners go too far, too fast, too soon, getting shin splints or messing up their knees. Then they valiantly (in their minds) keep running. Come race day, they’re in too much pain to enjoy the event—if they’re not so crippled they can’t even make it to the starting line.

Instead, recovering addicts need to find the right amount of tapas. For recovering folks, a tapas mindset means adhering to our healthy habits on a daily basis, even when it’s uncomfortable—but not when it’s truly painful.

One of the most common examples of tapas you might encounter in early recovery is the suggestion to go to 90 twelve-step meetings in 90 days. This is an excellent way to find support, build a new habit, and learn from others who have quit a substance. Many recovering people who complete 90 in 90 feel a sense of victory. Years later, they repeatedly mention their 90 in 90 accomplishments to newcomers. I think it astounds them that they went from someone fucked up on alcohol and/or other drugs to a person who could be counted upon to show up at a certain time every day at a place other than a bar or their dealer’s house. If they accept a position as meeting secretary, greeter, or coffee make, that further ups their accountability and helps establish a good habit.

Near the end of my young drinking days, one of my coworkers was worried about me and wanted to offer support and guidance. We planned to go to breakfast one morning. However, as somebody who blacked out every night, I often woke up in random places. So, I was elsewhere the morning that Mike came to fetch me at my apartment. A missed breakfast is a minor faux pas compared to many things I did drinking. But I remember his annoyance and bewilderment when I ran into him, and I nonchalantly explained I’d passed out somewhere—as if where I ended up sleeping was as beyond my control as the weather. The look on his face gave me a little glimpse of how far off course I was from being a reasonable, reliable person.

Fast-forward many years of sobriety and tapas later. I had a birthday plan to meet eight other people at 6:30 in the morning, carpool to swim laps together in our favorite pool, and then go out for breakfast at a café. While we were drinking coffee, some of my friends mentioned traits that they liked about me—extraordinarily touching and a bit squirm-inducing. One said she appreciated how much I showed up as a volunteer leader at our summer open-water swimming group.

Wow, I had become a dependable person! People expected me to show up when I said I would. And this is the kind of person I want to be.

If you find wisdom in yoga, recovery groups, or whatever your spiritual path is and hang around dependable people, you can become one. Finding the burning zeal within to develop good habits pays off over the days, months, and years because what you practice day after day after day after day shapes your character and is what you become. As we know from using. But in recovery, we can become the opposite—reliable, trustworthy credits to humanity.

Yoga is more than poses.

SOBRIETY IN FLOW: With Teresa Bergen, discover a deeper aspect of yoga beyond the poses. Explore the philosophy, ethics, and spiritual principles of yoga intertwined with sobriety. Dive into the transformative power of the yamas, which enhances character and relationships. Join Teresa monthly for insights on how yoga and meditation can guide our paths to recovery and clarity.

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