Yoga, Surrender and Santosha

Yoga, Surrender and Santosha

What are the common struggles and victories in addiction recovery? This conversation with yoga teacher and sober woman Katherine Arati Maas brings those questions straight onto the mat. Speaking directly to women in recovery, Katherine links her own journey away from alcohol with a growing relationship to yoga, meditation and a much softer kind of self-care. She’s honest about years of fear, people-pleasing and trying to control everything – even her workouts.

Pushing hard in yoga, punishing herself with exercise and strict routines, she says, felt like building a “volcano” that would eventually erupt. Instead, she talks about learning to ease up: “Our body needs rest and our body needs care,” she reminds you, gently challenging the idea that grinding harder is always healthy.

From there, she moves into the idea of surrender – not as weakness, but as releasing the “death grip of control” and accepting that self-will alone often doesn’t keep addiction at bay. Katherine then introduces the yogic concept of santosha from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, often translated as contentment. She explains the difference between being satisfied because things went your way and being content even when they didn’t.

Santosha, as she frames it, is “doing one’s best and accepting the results” without wishing life were different. You’ll hear how this practice of contentment fits naturally with recovery: less grasping, more acceptance; fewer fantasies about how life ‘should’ look, more honesty about how it actually is.

She also reads from Swami Kriyananda on non-attachment, and closes with a short breathing practice and affirmation aimed at helping you feel steadier in life’s “mightiest storms.” If you’ve ever pushed yourself to breaking point in sobriety or felt terrified of letting go, this episode offers a calm, relatable reminder that you can do your best, release the outcome, and still be okay. Where might santosha fit into your own recovery today?