Yogamama Says
Trials With No Errors
By KATHLEEN THOMPSON

Here’s a confession: I have a sick addiction to books that promise permanent, personal change in Thirty Days. Thirty Days to a Flatter Stomach, a Simpler Life, a Job Promotion? Bring it.  Thirty Days to Learn Hindi, Master the Stock Market, and Get Over the Dork You Used to Call Your Boyfriend?  Better yet.

I don’t actually buy these books. I’m too embarrassed (because c’mon, really.)  But I do stand in Barnes & Noble and skim them. Because I am that person who can do anything for thirty days.

Examples: I was a vegan for thirty days. I meditated every day for thirty days. I took a digital picture and posted it online for thirty days in a row. I quit coffee for thirty days, and sugar, and alcohol (but not in the same thirty days.) I became a ridiculously early riser for thirty whole days. I started a conversation with a stranger every day for thirty days, which wasn’t such a good idea.

I posted an entry on my blog every day for thirty days. For thirty days, I committed to reading for an hour in a book that was not work or school related. I walked an hour a day for thirty days. I even stopped reading while I ate for thirty days.

The thing about doing these things for thirty days and only thirty days is that I am then free to go back to sleeping in, drinking coffee, and eating while reading if I want to after the thirty days are up. I don’t have to change my whole life forever, and I like that. But during these weird little thirty-day, money-back, no-obligation, risk-free “trial periods,” I can experiment with being a different kind of person—the kind of person who doesn’t eat meat, or drink coffee, or eat sugar, for instance. For thirty days I can be a little bit strange, a little bit odd, even a little bit “off” (as in the case during the no-coffee experiment).

And then, after the thirty days are up, I have thirty days worth of results to look at. I then know, with absolute certainty, how I operate when my life has more veggies, less sleep, more human interaction, or less stress. After the results are in, if I want to continue, I can re-up for another thirty days, risk-free. I found that being a vegan was too hard for me, for instance, but I did like how I felt with no meat in my diet. So, now I know.

By the time this issue of Mountain Home hits the stands, I will be into a Thirty-Day Yoga Challenge at my studio. I have challenged people to see if they can practice yoga for thirty days in a row, and I have made it financially enticing for them to do so (Thirty Days for $30). It will be interesting to see these people experimenting with being “a person who practices yoga every day” if only for thirty days. I predict the first two weeks will be the hardest as people realize that yoga feels on the inside a lot different that it looks on the outside.  But I’m one of those people who believes if you haven’t tried something for at least thirty days you simply don’t understand it. 

I predict that the challenge participants will start to become a little different, a little strange, even a tiny bit odd during their thirty days of practicing yoga, and that’s okay.  They will at least know, with absolute certainty, what it feels like to be fully human and fully alive for a brief time.  Then, if that becomes too much, they can revert back to their old ways. But at least they will be able to say that at one point in their lives they used to be a person who did yoga every day. They will have tried it for thirty days, so now they will know.

Kathleen Thompson is the owner of Main Street Yoga in Mansfield, Pennsylvania. To contact her call (570) 660-5873 or online www.yogamansfield.com or e-mail Yogamama@mountainhomemag.com.