photo:Benjamin JastrzembskiPre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance and relapse, the stages of change were developed to guide us through major life changes. Sitting in a doctor's office recently I saw a poster that applied the stages of change model, developed by Prochaska and DiClemente, to smoking. Could this method be applied to developing a yoga practice? Students often express the desire for a self-directed personal yoga practice.
My daughter, Amanda, when queried offered, "I think one connection between this and the practice of yoga in the United States is that people develop a very structured view of all their time and their habits, and use the kind of structures you see in this model, which are probably intended to make difficult and important changes in behaviors that threaten quality of life, and apply them to hobbies, sports, minor diet changes, interests and diversions."
I suppose that is exactly what I was doing as I sat on the exam table waiting. Am I forgetting the most important motivation of all?
Upon reading advice to the relapsed, "re-asses motivation and barriers", found at a UCLA Nutritional Counseling webpage, Amanda reminds me that - "Yoga is not a chore. Get in touch with your genuine interest and the good sensations it brings. Don't objectify it into a medicine, a badge of hipness or a solution, or you risk ending up feeling forced by yourself to do it. That's one take."
Point well made. Find the glimmer of bliss in whatever stage you currently reside. "The source of the universe is bliss; this is what it says in the Taittiriya Upanishad." according to Sharon Gannon. "When yoga practices become dry, they're never going to work; they are not going to make you ultimately happy." (as quoted in American Yoga by Carrie Schneider)
Still, I am tempted to make use of the stages of change model and recognize that all of the stages have value to us, the power to move from one to the other is in our hands.
