I ran into a friend the other day who was smoking a
cigarette. As this friend was a former
smoker at our last meeting, I inquired about how quitting smoking was
going. My friend explained how difficult
the process was and how he exchanged smoking for eating, gaining over 20 pounds
in a short period of time. My immediate
thought and remedy for pretty much everything popped into my head: “You should
come to yoga with me!” It may have seemed illogical to make a statement like
that to someone who has absolutely no interest in yoga and he thought so too because
he responded by saying, “I don’t want to twist myself into a pretzel.” However,
the connection between smoking and yoga is the breath. In addition, yoga requires
us to focus on ourselves and our bodies in the present moment. This awareness and presence plants seeds in
other areas of our lives and has the potential to create change.
When supporting a family in communicating with one another
or practicing mindfulness as a self-care skill in my counseling practice, I
frame the task as practice. We practice our treatment goals in sessions
in order to more readily access the skills in our daily lives. Every action, thought, or feeling we engage
in creates or reinforces a neural pathway.
In essence, “practicing” can literally restructure our brains. Imagine the change that brings!
Yoga is also a practice.
We practice focusing on our breath and witnessing our experience in the
present. Often yoga teachers describe
the yoga mat as a mirror. The practice
of centering oneself and going through the asana can show us aspects of the
self that we may have formerly been unaware of.
Just as in counseling sessions, practicing can produce change. A component of counseling that an hour long
yoga class cannot always address is how to consciously bring our newly gained
awareness into practice in our daily lives.
We are creating physiological change in our brains simply by practicing,
but how can we continue this in our daily lives?
“Yoga in Action” is a program developed by “Off the Mat and
Into the World”, a charity that focuses on the service aspect of yoga. Leaders guide a small group of participants
in embarking on a journey of self-inquiry. The support of a small group of
peers leads to action within our community and the world at large. These 7-week groups offer an opportunity to build
community around yoga and service, develop relationships with other yogis and
activists in your area and collaborate on creating real change. I will be
running a “Yoga in Action” group this fall with Maura Manzo, a certified yoga
teacher and health coach. For more
information on participating in this group or on planting seeds of change
through counseling, please contact me at elizabethannecampbell@yahoo.com
or 610-757-8163.
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