The 16 Steps and Meditation in RecoveryThe 16 Steps and Meditation in Recovery
Katherine Arati Maas
Katherine Arati Maas talks about Charlotte Kasl’s 16 Steps, trauma-aware recovery resources, and how meditation and yoga support women in sobriety. She shares personal reflections on fear, perfectionism, and building a recovery path that feels safe and authentic.
0:00•2 Aug 2016
The 16 Steps, Safety, and Meditation: Building Your Own Path in Recovery
Episode Overview
- Recovery does not have to follow a single model; Charlotte Kasl’s 16 Steps offer an alternative that many women may find more relatable.
- Addiction is discussed as deeply connected to cultural forces such as patriarchy and hierarchy, not just individual or family patterns.
- Meditation, breathing exercises, yoga, and yoga nidra are presented as practical ways to calm the nervous system and restore a sense of safety.
- Katherine encourages people to build their own recovery programme using resources like books, community, coaching, and spiritual practice.
- Perfectionism and fear are named as major obstacles, and she suggests embracing imperfection and reaching out to others when strong feelings arise.
“We see what we see, we know what we know, and we feel what we feel.”
Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey? Here, Katherine Arati Maas offers a relaxed yet honest look at recovery for women who are tired of hiding and ready to live more openly. This solo episode centres on Charlotte Kasl’s book *Many Roads, One Journey: Moving Beyond the 12 Steps* and Kasl’s alternative 16 Steps framework.
Katherine shares how reading the 16 Steps felt “like coming home” and reads each step aloud, highlighting their focus on power, truth, community, and cultural context, especially for women living under patriarchy and hierarchy.
One of her favourite lines sums up the spirit of the framework: “We see what we see, we know what we know, and we feel what we feel.” You’ll also hear about other recovery resources that Katherine finds helpful, including *Seeking Safety* by Lisa Najavits, Charlotte Kasl’s *Women, Sex, and Addiction*, and nonviolent communication by Marshall Rosenberg.
She stresses that recovery doesn’t have to follow just one path and that “you are in charge of your own recovery and you can create that,” drawing on community, therapy, coaching, books, and spiritual practice. Meditation and yoga run through the whole conversation. Katherine breaks down simple breathing practices like tense-and-release and measured (triangle) breathing, and makes meditation feel very accessible—no lotus pose required.
She also touches on yoga nidra and somatic work as ways to restore a sense of safety in the body after trauma, echoing her belief that “we have to work on all three levels, the physical, emotional, and spiritual.” She speaks candidly about perfectionism, fear, and the need for external approval, gently inviting anyone in recovery to consider celebrating imperfection and reaching out for support.
If you’re piecing together your own patchwork of recovery tools, this conversation might give you fresh ideas and a bit of courage: what would your recovery look like if you truly trusted your own experience?
Do you want to link to this podcast?
Get the buttons here!
More From This Show
The latest episodes from the same podcast.