The following post is taken from my daughter’s interview with Tommy Rosen (see his bio below) during the 2017 International Yoga festival in Rishikesh, India.
Q: Can you tell me about your experience with healing and recovery through yoga?
A: I struggled my whole life with addiction and found my first ‘rock bottom’ when I was about 22. I went off to drug and alcohol treatment for nearly two months and you might say my life began again. I was given a second chance. And on this path of recovery that I discovered through this treatment centre, I was led to the 12 steps, which was very powerful for me in my healing.
And then – I found that there were three things that were generally not being addressed in recovery in almost any recovery modality that I had come across in the world. And those three things were
- The body – managing the body, managing stress;
- The breath – how to use the breath to change your emotional state, how to use the breath to attain a state of meditation, how to really learn how to breathe as a foundational modality for health. It actually is important to breathe well – not just to breathe.
- And the third thing was diet. Nobody was really drawing the connection between the food you eat, and the behaviour that comes out of you. Or the food you eat and the way you feel – or between the food you eat and the things that you think.
So the body, breath and diet – three of the most important things in life – were left out of Recovery.
Yoga addresses the body and addresses the breath. Addresses the mind and through yogic lifestyle, addresses diet – your relationship with food. It was the next level – it presented me with a whole… well, I think what’s going to be the rest of my life, of learning. It’s a bottomless well of learning and growing. And healing, at the deepest level.
See the next post in this series: Addiction – a Family Disease?
Tommy Rosen Bio:
Tommy Rosen is a yoga teacher and addiction recovery expert who has spent the last two decades immersed in yoga, recovery and wellness. He holds certifications in both Kundalini and Hatha Yoga and has 24 years of continuous recovery from drug addiction.
Tommy is one of the pioneers in the field of Yoga and Recovery assisting others to holistically transcend addictions of all kinds. Tommy is the founder and host of the Recovery 2.0: Beyond Addiction Online Conference series and the #MoveBeyond Group Coaching Program. He leads Recovery 2.0 retreats and workshops internationally and presents regularly at yoga conferences and festivals.
Tommy’s first book, Recovery 2.0: Move Beyond Addiction and Upgrade Your Life, was published by Hay House in October 2014.
