Readiness to Change

12.29.06

I took a run this morning through the neighborhood park for the first time in years. Trying to squeeze in my exercize during school break with the kids sleeping in I ventured out early for some pavement pounding and was surprised at the number of people out. Dog walkers, slow amblers, ancient Chinese couples with placid faces, a tersely visaged Hasidic woman in her long skirt and jogging shoes, a gorgeous Russian couple smiling in the sun, a couple of youthful looking Hispanic men with wide waists, an old man walking backward with his cane, a grandpa with a tiny grandson hopping along behind him, blond hair shaking with each step, a black woman with many gadgets attached to ears and arms, a muscled man with his dog who smiled at me broadly. I take in deep breathes, feeling strong and surprised at how easy it is to use my body this way after years of spinning, stepping, dancing and Latin Grooving.

The Health Education model used by so many these days is called Readiness to Change: based on the belief that no matter what a person's professed interest in getting better, changing habits, improving health, unless they are ready to change, no amount of health education will work. We have various measures of this state of mind and encourage people to be aware of where they lie on a scale of 1-10, to get them really thinking about if this is the right time for them to expend the time and energy and often resources to turn their lives around. I look at my fellow joggers, walkers and runners and see people who somewhere decided to take care of themselves, to use their human bodies as well as they can. I think of myself and my constant effort to improve various areas of my life and wonder why is change so hard?

I work with people who want healthier bodies that don't hurt, don't embarass them, don't give them chronic diseases. They ahve lost and re-gained hundreds of pounds in their efforts, but now have given up and are resorting to surgery to shed unwanted weight. I sit with them, encourage them to look at how they got to where they are, how they will have to change their lives to maintain their new bodies, how their relationships may change, how they will see themselves in the world. My boss asked me yesterday, why I think some people don't lose their required 10% of their body weight during thier 6 months with us and I said simply, their habits serve a purpose they dont' want to give up. They are simply not ready to change.

And I wonder if this comes from simply fear of the unknown. We may not want to give up our bad habits because we love chimichangas or our cigarettes our our porno or our gambling because they make us feel good. It's pretty simple. But each of us has a wake up call one day in which we have to look at those habits because suddenly, they don't feel so good any more. So we go on a diet, quit smoking, turn off the porn or the poker and deal with the empty space the activity no longer fills. And what comes flooding into that space is the very thing that drives us back to the habit: the boredom, loneliness, depression, anxiety, fear. These feelings which are so hard to manage well drive us to want distraction, so we don't have to feel discomfort.

So what is so hard about sitting with these feelings of dis-ease? As children we embrace and express all of our emotions ranging from glee to typhoon like tantrums and we survive, well at least those of us whos parents allow us to. Now we sit with adult bodies housing many original unmet needs from childhood, or at least that's what the therapists say and we're not allowed to squeal in delight or rant with rage, tremble with fear. We keep our stoic faces (especially the men folk) and proud stances and walk around fooling everyone as we try to fool ourselves.

Then we have a heart attack, or a spouse leaves us, or a job is lost, or a child dies and we have to wake up. And we do. For a moment. The question is, do we then go back to sleep again? When fate or destiny calls, shakes up our lives, do we listen or do we turn away? Do we look at the newly developed stomach pains or spots on our legs or night terrors or morning dreads and say, "what goes on here?" Or do take a Mylanta, apply creams, swallow sleeping pills or up the caffeine content of our coffee? Do we dare look in the mirror and say "who goes there?"

I look around at the people I love dearly and wonder how they have made their changes. One has moved from continent to continent, ever seeking, never finding. One has created a child through surrogacy, a dream come true. One had an affair, left a marriage, re-mated and at 45 had her first child, is blissful. Another has moved her whole family to Africa and is raising ehr sons there. Huge changes on the outside, but are they any different inside? That's not for me to say. My experience of them is not much different than it's ever been. So what does change really mean?

Our bodies are constantly in flux, sloughing skin cells, laying down new neural pathways if we work hard at changing thoughts, re-channeling them. But do desires, hopes, dreams and fears ever change? Is it only how we manage and re-direct them that we can control our dis-comfort? When a smoker gives up cigarettes adn puts on 50 lbs, have they reallay "changed?" If he were to meditate for 20" daily, would he really different or just using other activities to occupy that space that smoking used to? He might indeed have more energy, taste foods differently, have a different social life around non-smokers, feel better for his ability to breathe freely again. They say if you smile it will make you feel happy. So if we think good thoughts, does that make us good? So much of how we feel in life is affected by our relationships, so when those are problematic all we can really do is change our relationship to the relationship. And in so doing, perhaps they change. For when one partner alters his steps in the delicate dance of courting or mating or staying intimate, the other must move, adapt or get out of the way. One foot in front of the other, over and over again until the new dance becomes routine. Ready or not.