Integrating Yoga with 12 Step Recovery

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Integrating Yoga with 12 Step Recovery

Yoga and Recovery with Heather Hagaman Heather has a private practice as well as teaches yoga at Beloved Yoga in Reston, Virginia.

This is my current biography that I am sharing so that you can get to know me:

Heather Hagaman is a Certified Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT) and an e500RYT with a Master’s Degree in Psychology. She also is a lead teacher of 300hr teacher training. A Pioneer in the new field of Yoga and Recovery, which utilizes Yoga and Meditation to help people move beyond Addiction and build fulfilling lives. Heather trained in Yogaville with Durga Leela, founder of Yoga of Recovery. There she learned the integration of Ayurveda and 12 Step tools to treat Addiction. Heather went to Kripalu to train with David Emerson E-RYT, author of Healing Trauma Through Yoga and Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, MD, pre-eminent researcher in the field. She received her Certification as a Trauma-Sensitive Yoga Instructor and is working with survivors of complex post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Heather also is a Certified Y12SR (Yoga of 12 Step Recovery) Instructor and facilitates a 12 Step based discussion group coupled with a Yoga class that weaves together the wisdom of Yoga with the practical tools of 12 Step programs. Heather sees clients individually, by appointment, for Yoga and Recovery Coaching, offers workshops on Yoga for Eating Disorders, Codependency, Anxiety and PTSD. Every year she teaches a 30 hr Trauma Informed Yoga training program. Because of her own background in recovery, Heather brings compassion and deep understanding into her classes. She holds a safe, loving and confidential space for students to experience inner connection and a way back to wholeness. Heather believes that “the 12 Steps saved my life, and Yoga gave me a new way to go with it.”

03/28/2026

I have been thinking about relationships in recovery. I have sadly had to let go of some friends a long the way which has not been easy. It might have felt judgmental to the person I had to move away from but now I realize it’s more about consciousness and my nervous system feeling safe.

Here are my thoughts - take what you need and leave the rest:

One of the most important insights I have come to understand is the difference between conscious co-regulation and unconscious relating.

In conscious relationships, two people can co-regulate. They can sense each other’s nervous systems with awareness, take responsibility for their own internal state, and offer a steady presence to one another. There is mutuality. Both people can give and receive. Both people are willing to do their own inner work.

In unconscious relationships, this dynamic does not exist in the same way. One person often becomes the relationship's regulator - the one expected to remain calm, loving, giving, and steady. The other person relies on that energy but does not know how to meet it or return it. They may not have done the work to develop the capacity to self-regulate, let alone co-regulate.

Looking back, I can see how this pattern showed up in many of my relationships with both women and men. I brought a deep desire to love, support, and give. At the same time, I often found myself in relationships where the other person could receive but could not meet me when I needed support in return.

This imbalance created a lack of safety over time. This wasn't because anyone was intentionally harmful, but because the capacity for mutual regulation was not there.

What I have learned is that love alone is not enough. Capacity matters. Emotional responsibility matters. The ability to both self-regulate and co-regulate matters.

As I continue to grow, I am learning to value relationships where there is mutual awareness, where both people are willing to do their work, and where support flows in both directions. I am also learning to recognize when a relationship asks me to carry more than my nervous system can sustainably hold.

This awareness has changed how I relate. It helps me move toward relationships that are safer, more reciprocal, and more aligned with my well-being.

03/25/2026

I can always tell when I’m not getting enough community support through my 12-step meetings. I start to feel it in my body first - then it shows up as anger, impatience, and intolerance toward the people around me. And even after all these years of learning and living the truth that I can’t control others -that I didn’t cause, can’t cure, and can’t control what ails them - I can still slip.
That’s when I know it’s time to come back to my lane.
Sometimes it means there’s something deeper asking to be seen… an old skeleton, a tender place stirring beneath the surface. As we say, “if it’s hysterical, it’s historical.”
So I pause. I ground my body. I soften my breath. I step back into my wise mind.
Because rage? It burns me from the inside out. It doesn’t inspire or connect - it separates. And while it hurts to admit that I can still be cruel after so many years of peace, that awareness is also the doorway back.
Back to compassion.
Back to empathy.
Back to connection.
Back home to myself.

03/19/2026

One of the truths I’ve learned through both yoga and 12-step recovery is simple: secrets keep us sick.

When shame, fear, resentment, or trauma stay hidden, they don’t disappear. They live in the body and nervous system, shaping how we think, feel, and react.
In recovery we begin to heal by bringing what is hidden into the light with safe and trusted people.

Yoga supports this process in another way. Through breath, movement, and stillness we start to listen inward. We reconnect with the inner wise self that has always been there beneath the noise and the shame.

Healing happens when secrecy is replaced with honesty, connection, and compassion for ourselves.
We were never meant to carry it all alone. 🌿

03/18/2026

As March arrives, I find myself filled with joy after spending the past two months cradling my newborn grandson in my arms for hours. There’s something miraculous about the chemistry of connection - the feel-good hormones flowing through us: dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, and especially oxytocin. Holding, rocking, and cooing with this tiny human has had my oxytocin levels overflowing.

And something beautiful has happened.

My nervous system feels calmer than it has in years. Even my long struggle with binge eating has become more manageable. I feel stronger and more resilient than I have in a long time.
Along the way, I’ve found an unexpected teacher: my CGM. I’ve begun to think of it as a kind of wise inner guide - almost like an OA sponsor on my arm. Instead of shame or guessing, it offers quiet, honest feedback about what helps my body stay steady. And something I haven’t experienced in years… the food noise has gone quiet.

I’m also being reminded of something I often teach in yoga and recovery spaces: connection is powerful medicine. When our nervous systems experience safety, love, and attunement, the body releases the very chemistry that helps interrupt addictive loops and bring us back to balance.

I’m deeply grateful for the wisdom tiny humans bring into our lives, and for the guidance that helped me find balance without adding medication. These days my medicine looks like yoga, cardio, weightlifting, mindful eating, listening to my CGM… and lots and lots of baby holding.

12/26/2025

As the New Year approaches, I’m noticing how gently I need to hold myself around “resolutions.” I don’t usually make them.

But this year feels different. I’m out of wiggle room.

For most of my life, I’ve lived in a cycle of disordered eating - binges and restriction, sugar/carbs or all protein, rarely balance. I used to say (the same way I once did about drinking): I’ll stop when I hit rock bottom.

The truth is, my rock bottoms just kept getting deeper.

Today, I’m facing insulin resistance, heart and cholesterol issues, and I’m now using a continuous glucose monitor - a tool I never imagined I’d need. This feels like a moment of truth. Not punishment. Not shame. Just reality asking me to choose a different path.

I believe this is deeply connected to CPTSD and addiction - another place where my nervous system learned to survive. And now, like recovery has taught me, I don’t have to do this alone.

I’m sharing this to be honest, to stay accountable, and to ask for support as I learn new ways to care for my body with compassion instead of control.

If you’ve walked this path - or are walking it now - I’d love to hear from you. 🤍

My shift in perception starts today...this is the first step..

12/10/2025

I’ve been reflecting on how the first three Steps in AA mirror the heart of Kriya Yoga from the Yoga Sutras. Two very different traditions… yet they begin in almost the exact same place.
In yoga, Kriya Yoga is the foundation for all spiritual growth:
tapas — the honest heat of facing ourselves
svādhyāya — compassionate self-study
īśvara-praṇidhāna — surrender to a Higher Power
And AA starts with:
Step 1: I can’t.
The moment of truth, when our old ways stop working.
Step 2: Something greater can.
The inner clearing that makes space for real change.
Step 3: I’ll let that Power guide me.
The beginning of trust. The softening that opens the heart.
Different words, same wisdom.
Both Bill Wilson and Patanjali understood that the spiritual path doesn’t start with perfection — it starts with humility, honesty, and willingness. It starts with admitting we can’t do it alone… and discovering that we were never meant to.
This is the doorway to freedom in both yoga and recovery.
This is how old patterns loosen.
This is how we become available to grace. 🙏✨

11/07/2025

Step 5: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs

Yogi Step 5: We speak truthfully, satya… about the constant themes and samskaras to ourselves, to our higher power and to another trusting yogin. We feel seen, we feel heard and feel loved. We breathe in this love and let go of the grip of the stories of our lives.

11/04/2025

AA Step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Yogi Step 4: Once we are present, we are able to practice self awareness through svadhyaha and look at our parts in the unmanageable situations in our lives. We write out the story of our reactions seeing them as teachers that have given us the gift of learning. We trace back in time habitual reactions or samskaras and inventory them to look for a constant theme. We are fearless in our inventory and draw upon the breath to stay steady and grounded.

10/30/2025

Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Yogi Step 3: We make a decision to use this deep breathing as a way to ground ourselves into the present moment where we are able to allow our higher power to show us that we really can care for the Self, we can Self-regulate and Self-soothe. And we say: Everything is ok, we are safe and the higher power of our understanding has a plan for our lives.

10/28/2025

Step 2: Came to believe in a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

My yogi Step 2: We come to believe that the power of our breath will restore us to sanity. And as we breathe, inhaling and exhaling long, smooth breaths, we begin to feel calmer in our prakriti (body) and we awaken to the feeling that in our breath lives purusha (infinite body), or our higher power.

10/27/2025

Awhile back I created the Yogi 12 steps. The first step is We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.

Here is another way to understand step 1:

Step 1: When we are triggered or feel powerless by a situation that usually involves another human being and we are flooded physically with uncomfortable feelings such as the four rasas, or energetic essences of fear, anger, sadness and disgust, we become fully aware that our emotions are about to become unmanageable. We touch the ground, feel safe and solid knowing our feet are under us. We surrender these reactions to our breath so that we can pause and respond, practicing ahimsa rather than reacting and causing harm.

10/26/2025

Yesterday I began my day in a women’s meeting. I sat in a church, in a circle of thirty women, and felt myself exhale as I looked into the smiling eyes around me. Each woman shared from her heart — her struggles, her triumphs, her truth.

In yoga, we call this community sangha — a gathering of souls who walk the path of awakening together. In 12-Step recovery, we call it fellowship. Both remind us that we are not meant to heal alone. Sangha and fellowship save us from the loneliness and isolation that thrive in addiction.

When we sit in a circle of truth and compassion, we remember that healing happens in connection. Together, we learn to stop hurting ourselves and others. We choose to grow better, not bitter.

Through this sacred work, we don’t just help alcoholics stay sober — we help heal the world, one honest share, one compassionate moment at a time.

How do you find healing in connection today?

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Reston, VA
20190

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+17035017476

Website

http://www.ResilientYoga4U.com/

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Our Story

This is my current biography that I am sharing so that you can get to know me: Heather Hagaman (500RYT) is a Certified Yoga Therapist with a Master’s Degree in Counseling. She is a full time Yoga therapist and is currently in training for her CSAC. Heather is A Pioneer in the new field of Yoga and Recovery, which utilizes Yoga and Meditation to help people move beyond Addiction and build fulfilling lives. Heather trained in Yogaville with Durga Leela, founder of Yoga of Recovery. There she learned the integration of Ayurveda and 12 Step tools to treat Addiction. Heather went to Kripalu to train with David Emerson E-RYT, author of Healing Trauma Through Yoga and Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, MD, pre-eminent researcher in the field. She received her Certification as a Trauma-Sensitive Yoga Instructor and is working with survivors of complex post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Heather also is a Certified Y12SR (Yoga of 12 Step Recovery) Instructor and facilitates a 12 Step based discussion group coupled with a Yoga class that weaves together the wisdom of Yoga with the practical tools of 12 Step programs. Heather sees clients individually, by appointment, for Yoga and Recovery Coaching, offers workshops on Yoga for Eating Disorders, Codependency, Anxiety and PTSD. Because of her own background in recovery, Heather brings compassion and deep understanding into her classes. She holds a safe, loving and confidential space for students to experience inner connection and a way back to wholeness. Heather believes that “the 12 Steps saved my life, and Yoga gave me a new way to go with it.”