Addiction Recovery, the Service of Bethanie Meredith
In this series on Seva, or service yoga, we will highlight people within our community using yoga as a tool to be the hands and feet of Christ. As Christians, we are called to yoga not only as a means of personal transformation, but also as a path to transform the world. Seva is one such way.
Bethanie Meredith is a R-CYAMT (Registered Christian Yoga Association Master Trainer) and trauma sensitive yoga teacher, earning her original 200 and specialty certifications through Holy Yoga and Yoga Faith. Bethanie lives and teaches in and near Canfield, Ohio. While Bethanie teaches many styles of classes, the anchor of her week, her non-negotiable twice a week appointment, is at an in-patient addiction recovery center in Youngstown, Ohio. Since beginning this work in 2014, Bethanie has made this the number one priority in her schedule. Even during this Covid quarantine, Bethanie’s work is considered an essential service, and she is grateful to continue to teach her classes in person. “Besides being a grandma, it’s my favorite thing to do!”
Bethanie first encountered this population as an adult educator and case manager for Meridian Community Care. Her job was to offer supportive services to clients in addiction and mental health crises. Yet, despite her daily interactions with dual diagnosis patients in that field, she felt completely helpless. As she stood beside people longing for healing, she recognized that they were masking and numbing pain. She had done some healing work herself -- and firmly believed that people need to “feel in order to heal”. Recovery-oriented yoga had done this for her, and she knew it could help people within her caseload.
“I understand you don’t want to be here but this may help you stay sober and stay with your family.”
At the recovery center, Bethanie is in the unenviable position of teaching yoga to clients as part of their mandated case plan, some of which are court-ordered. In order to complete their 30 - 90 day program, each person must attend at least 2 yoga classes. For many, her classes are viewed as simply a means to an end, a box to check to get to be reunited with family and get back to a “regular life”. Even as people enter into her class resistant to “mandatory yoga,” Bethanie empathizes and offers hope.
“God offers a yoke because He wants to strengthen and guide you.”
“God uses these practices to draw them to Himself. God says, “Bring me your pain”
”
Given the nature of the classes, there is no formal intake and Bethanie might only meet the same student a handful of times. Bethanie greets her students at the start of each class, looks them in the eye, gets their name (calling students by name is important to her as a way to show respect) and asks if they’ve ever done yoga. Most are true beginners and have a misguided impression of what yoga is all about. While no two classes are ever alike, Bethanie often finds that the first half of the class might be spent in discussing expectations of yoga and possible benefits. She might get out the white board and explain that yoga means yoke, as in a farm tool that offers strength to cattle or oxen. She explains that “God invites us to yoke with Him because He wants to strengthen and guide us.” She is a witness to the power of yoga, a practice that in some ways saved her own life. She teaches her students that yoga is the opportunity to connect with his or her Higher Power, and observes that many of her students don’t know they are missing this important connection in their recovery.
She tells her students, “Your connection with your Higher Power is crucial. If you don’t find it, you will fail in your recovery. Period.”
She finds a few simple postures are best, guiding students to lengthen the spine, move in all directions, and find the breath. She is sensitive to not putting her students, especially women, into positions where they may feel vulnerable or at risk. Many of her students have suffered some form of abuse. With this in mind, Bethanie rarely plans her asana practices -- she plans her theme, scripture or devotional, and cues the postures based on what she is seeing from her students. By not planning asana, she is free to keep her eye on the room, seeking out and gently addressing pain, anxiety or discomfort.
Breath is key to healing. She encourages students to think about the breath. “Think about the Giver of your breath. You didn’t earn that -- that breath was a gift. Let’s use it today instead of taking it for granted.”
God as Good Orderly Direction
At this community-based facility, patients come from all backgrounds; social, economic, religious, racial, cultural. Still, Bethanie is not shy about her own faith or encouraging her students to connect to a Higher Power in order to find the strength and will to face the difficult, daily choice of addiction recovery. Sensitive to the many possible faiths of her students, she has found success using names for God from the Old Testament, familiar to Christian, Jew and Muslim alike. She might talk of God, Lord, Higher Power, or the Spirit of God. She doesn’t use Jesus, Holy Spirit or Christ in this setting. She sometimes teaches about God as an acronym for a Higher Power guiding us in a Good Orderly Direction.
Bethanie reads devotional 49 from Sarah Young’s Jesus today after final relaxation in an addiction recovery video she privately offers as a gift to her graduated clients once they successfully complete their program and are discharged.
“Full disclosure: I get paid to do this.”
When I asked Bethanie over text if I could interview her for this post, her first response was, “Yes!” quickly followed by this, “Full disclosure: I get paid to do this.” Somehow, in the yoga world, service has been equated with an expectation of “free,” though this has started to change in the recent past.
Yoga Journal describes Right Livelihood as:
1. Doing what you are good at
2. Being of benefit to others
3. Making a living
4. Doing what you enjoy
Waylon Lewis, founder of Elephant Journal, has this to say: “It's not easy to do what you love. You'll have to swim upstream against society, sometimes, or others' expectations, often. But it's easier than a life lived without joy in service. The trick is this: what Buddhists call "natural hierarchy" implies that our dream job needn't be unrealistic—it can be ordinary, humble, even boring. I know mine is, often. But you'll wake up excited to wake up. And that makes all the difference in getting you through the hard times. And—finally—the world needs us to be of benefit, to serve, to work with integrity.”
In both these examples, “work” is something that allows one to make a living. Payment for this work allows Bethanie to offer her talents with great benefit to others. Bethanie is paid through a generous grant.
As for what is next for Bethanie, she is a lifelong learner, hoping to complete the 12 step recovery program leader for her next training.
