December, 2013
Dear Friend,
As I write this, I am reflecting on my Thanksgiving visit from my daughter, son-in-law, and 3 grandkids, ages 10, 8 and almost 1 year old. What a whirlwind having 5 additional people in our home! I am committing to a new Thanksgiving tradition of ALWAYS spending it with them all. We gave a multitude of Chanukah gifts (Thanksgivukkah, this year), and all were received with much pleasure. It’s such a joy to give my grandkids gifts and this year I hit the jackpot in terms of selecting the right ones.
As always, I am grateful as well for the work I have in my life, which also provides me with much joy, passion and satisfaction. I truly appreciate your interest in Motivational Interviewing and the promotion of positive behavior change.
If you haven’t seen my book yet, click
here for more information and how to order my end-of-the year holiday special!
My husband, Barry and me at my brother Fred's home
for the Thanksgiving holiday!
My bountiful life!
_________________________________________________
Feature Article
Using MI to Promote Change in Yourself
Motivational Interviewing was created to enhance the
relationship between the clinician and the client. MI uses a non-judgmental, empathic approach to helping others decide if, when and how they will change their behavior about their health. I’ve been an MI trainer for 7 years, and have been focusing on relationships between health care professional and patient/client. Recently, I’ve been thinking about how the concepts, ideas and techniques of MI can be used with oneself.
I think there are a number of ideas from MI that translate well from the original to ideas about changing your relationship with yourself, in order to change your behavior. These ideas will be part of a new book I’m planning on Health At Every Size, a ‘non-diet’ approach, and MI for the lay public to begin the journey to
Peace with Food.
The first of these ideas comes from the “Stages of Change” model. This theory that describes the process people use to change something in their lives suggests that we all go through predictable stages in the course of change about anything. The stages are pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance and (possibly) relapse. Here’s a summary of these stages:
- Precontemplation: You are not considering change, so talking about it or someone nagging you is either annoying or just uninteresting. Expecting yourself to change is pointless because you are nowhere near ready for change.
- Contemplation: You are considering change, but not planning to do anything about it in the near future. At this point you are ambivalent, that is you feel two ways about the idea of change. Note that you have moved “ahead” one stage towards change. You’re no longer saying “no, never”, but “maybe”.
- Preparation: You are convinced, it’s time to make this change, but you’re not doing it just yet. You are getting ready, making plans, purchasing supplies, asking friends and family for help, or just thinking about the change for a while.
- Action: Now you are actually making the change. You are convinced, ready and willing to move, and actively doing things differently.
- Maintenance: You are continuing with the change you made, and it may be working well, or maybe not.
- Relapse: Many people relapse to a previous behavior after a while. It’s just part of the normal process of change. You can go back to any of the previous stages, and move forward again.
The reason these concepts are important is that we sometimes think we should “just do it”, get it over with, just change already! If you are in the stages before
action, that’s not likely to work well. All that gets you is guilt, an emotion that is wasted, unless you’ve really done something wrong. When it comes to changing our relationship to food, guilt doesn’t enter into it!
I assume that if I (or my client) am not making the changes I think I
should make, that I’ve set the wrong goal. The concepts in Stages of Change support this idea. If you’ve set a goal of never eating chocolate again, or always having 7 servings of fruits and veggies, or never eating after a certain time in the evening, and you find you can’t do this, consider that you’ve set the wrong goal for yourself.
