A Journey from Karma to Dharma: The SuperHealth Origins of KY12
Guest post by Rachel Surinderjot Kaur
When I got sober in 2008, I had no idea the life that was in store for me. I had been living as an alcoholic and codependent, repeating the same crazy relationships and unmanageable lifestyle, and I felt like I was on a road to nowhere until a really bad hangover and a therapist in recovery prompted me to try AA. As I struggled with my early sobriety and tenuous sanity in the AA and Al-Anon programs, the Universe, and my AA sponsor, brought me to my first Kundalini Yoga class. There I found what I had been looking for – a daily way to connect with the Divine, and a practice that helped me stay sane and grounded even as my life was undergoing much necessary upheaval. So even though 12 Step programs – especially the meetings and the support of others in the program, as well as working the Steps – had gotten me sober, Kundalini Yoga gave me the conscious contact with a Higher Power that I needed to find the courage to live a whole new life. Daily Stretch Pose and Ego Eradicator, as well as 31 minutes of Kirtan Kriya, jump started this new life and gave me the willingness to make important changes in my life, in my marriage, and in my work in the world.
I was guided to become a Kundalini teacher to help others, and to open a Kundalini Yoga center even though I had no background in running a business. After 3 years of full time teaching, I was inspired to take the 8 day SuperHealth intensive training in Espanola in 2015. What an amazing experience! Highlights included: 31 minutes of Har Aerobic Kriya; yogi marches through the desert; cayenne tablets and garlic carrot juice; and honest conversations about life and addiction. There, I met many other yogis interested in helping others with addiction, some of whom were in 12 Step programs themselves. We traveled to an AA meeting together in Santa Fe, and began to have a conversation about what it would be like to combine the 12 Steps with Kundalini Yoga to support yogis new in recovery, as well as to share the practices of Kundalini Yoga with people already in recovery. Why not access this universal program that had helped millions through emotional, mental, and spiritual healing, and combine it with the embodied and meditative practices that we all had been so impacted by?
Thus began the path and project of Embodying the 12 Steps: Kundalini Yoga for Recovery. Along the way, I have worked at sober living homes and with private clients, sharing the meditations and juice recipes I learned through SuperHealth. And I supported my younger sister in her early recovery with those practices and recipes. I developed classes based on different SuperHealth topics, like Cold Depression and Frozen Anger, which I put on YouTube. I also helped edit the SuperHealth training manuals, thereby reading and re-reading all the wisdom and knowledge shared in the manuals. Mukta Kaur came to give a weekend course at my yoga studio in Boulder, and also gave her blessing to the KY12 project – in fact, she shared that she had had the idea of pairing meditations with the Steps, but hadn’t pursued it. So it felt like an important extension of SuperHealth, and I spent the next year talking with the people I had met at the training and developing the idea further. We decided to create a manual, which would include links to kriyas, meditations, mantras, and pranayama to help someone embody each Step; we also began to write the yogic viewpoint of each Step, including various teachings like the Aquarian Sutras and the 10 Bodies. We decided to ask different yogis in recovery to write a story of their experience with each Step, similar to how personal stories are included in the Big Book of AA. And we developed questions to write on and contemplate as a person worked their way through the Steps. Also included were links to recipes for Yogi Tea, Golden Milk and kitcheree, and references to the SuperHealth juice recipes. The project was several years in the making, taking a back seat to my teaching, running a yoga studio, and working with private clients, but I felt that if I did nothing else before I died, I needed to get this manual out there into the world, as my life’s work.
In 2019, I took myself through the 12 Steps with the beta version of the KY12 Workbook, making important discoveries and edits along the way. The following year, I took a group of women in my local area through the Steps, making more edits and discoveries, as well as shared the program with individual clients. I saw the powerful impact that it had, and was encouraged to keep going. Then COVID hit, and Zoom came along, and I was able to reach more people around the world with the next round of the Journey through the Steps program. I also received approval from KRI to offer a training course during the summer of 2021, so that others could feel empowered to offer KY12 to their communities – my dream is that the program ripples out all over the world, reaching more and more people who need it.
It seems like I could make edits and improvements forever, but I know that the Workbook won’t do any good being made perfect while people are suffering. So the final edits were made, and it is now available in both digital and print versions (on Amazon soon). The print version has a QR code which allows you access to the digital version containing all the links to the kriyas and meditations.
All along the course of this journey, I have returned again and again to helping others on their recovery path, knowing what a miracle it is when someone plagued by addiction finds hope, willingness, community, and a daily practice to keep them going. This is my dharma, my path of service and meaning. And my prayer is to help many others find their own path to service and meaning through an embodied recovery.
Rachel Surinderjot will be live later this week in our Facebook group (Friday, October 15th @ 2:30 pm- MT)! We will have a brief interview, learn a little bit about one of the 12-steps, followed by Rachel Surinderjot leading the group through a meditation supported by the step. Details about this event and how to join HERE.
Rachel Surinderjot
became a certified Kundalini Yoga teacher in 2011. She has a Master’s degree in Classics, is a Registered Psychotherapist, and has certifications in The Yoga of 12 Step Recovery (combining yoga and 12 Step meetings) and SuperHealth. She is the creator of “KY12: Embodying the 12 Steps,” and she leads groups of women in a Year Through the Steps. She owns Adi Shakti Yoga & Therapy located in Longmont, Colorado. She continues her recovery journey to this day through various 12 Step programs. She is available to offer trainings, lead workshops, and provide private sessions for group and one-on-one support.