Yoga of the Mat: Motivating Clients to Surrender to Discomfort (Cover Story‪)‬

Abstract: Inability to endure discomfort drives compulsions to eat, drink, spend, worry, and overwork. Clients come to therapists asking for relief from rage, addiction, exhaustion, frustration, and self-destructive acting out. They want skills for moving away from discomforts or strategies for moving discomforts away. Because an unquiet mind is the source of their discomfort, what is needed is a way to quiet the mind. Understanding the principles of yoga (the postures being a useful form of discomfort) without ever going to a class or practicing at home on a mat can help motivate clients to learn to hold still in the presence of discomfort. Storytelling, poetry, and the use of metaphor to demonstrate the advantages of holding still while experiencing discomfort are powerful tools to motivate clients to go deeper to touch a stillness that is there beyond the discomfort. As professionals working with people in distress, therapists are well aware of how valuable it is to help clients develop the capacity to endure discomfort. I have selected a yoga metaphor to explore this vital matter because yoga postures can be so uncomfortable. Being asked in a yoga class to fold in half over a belly still feeling full of last night's meatloaf, one asks oneself why yoga seemed so attractive that morning. You think, "This discomfort is voluntary! I am actually paying for this agony!"