The first time I ran across an academic model charting stages of consciousness in a particular area, I felt as if the heavens had opened.

What had previously been intangible and vague became clear.

This revelation occurred in a 2007 workshop facilitating discussions between black and white women.

We’d received a handout mapping the stages of racial consciousness that fit each of our demographics. This model provided great relief because it was speaking a truth I had felt, but could not articulate. The map gave me a sense of comfort in uncharted territory.

The following is my reflective interpretation and application of a similar analyses to be applied to the stages of awareness that many women and men experience on their path of self-development with the Westernized yoga world.

Stage 1: Reluctance

You’ve heard about yoga and thought it was too new-age. Despite your reluctance, something pushes you toward the practice. Perhaps it’s a friend’s insisting or an injury that dragged you to class. Whatever the cause, you end up on a mat, uncomfortable. Your emotional walls are up and you remain steadfast in your position as an outsider despite appreciating the relaxation you experienced.

Stage 2: Euphoria

You feel so good, you want to do this all the time, everyday. This is what you’ve been searching for! How could you have been so resistant to something so wonderful? You store your mat and extra clothes in your car just in case you have time to make it to class. You smile more, are relaxed and feel more positive than you have in a long time. The instructors and community seem angelic. This is where you want to live. You begin investing in a variety of super foods, workshops and spiritual attire.

Stage 3: Idealization and Prophetizing

If you haven’t started already, this is when your social media fills up with solely positive images and messages. You wish everyone could do yoga and realize we are all one and all connected on this beautiful journey. Synchronicity is happening. You’ve “let go” of friends and family that don’t share your view or are negative in some way.

If there are problems they can solved by yoga, mediation and positive focus. If other’s have problems it’s because they have manifested them by living in a low vibration. “You create your own reality,” “we are all one,” and “live in the moment” are the foundation of your self-mastery.

Stage 4: Full Immersion

Parts of your “old life” start falling away and are less of a priority. They are are quickly replaced with shared activities, behaviors and speaking patterns that individuals outside the group don’t fully understand.

Disseminating who’s who, which classes are best, when the next big kirtan is, what’s the most nutritious superfood and reassuring peers of the previously described foundational beliefs become the focus of conversations. Your lifestyle becomes all encompassing. You are now confident in your ability to direct your life by focusing on the positive and living the foundational practices. You may start teaching at this point as well.

Stage 5: Disillusion

Your reality has shattered. Perhaps your bank account plunged into the negative and was not replenished by the law of attraction or your guru was charged with embezzlement or sexual harassment or your new friends have abandoned you in the midst of pain. Their answer to your despair, loss, debt, illness or even assault is void of empathy and full of preachings about manifestation, attraction and everything happens for a reason.

You realize your social circle has revolved around events and classes you pay for. Replacing negative thoughts with positive ones is no longer an option as the emotional repression over the years has caused depression and extreme lack of self-knowledge exactly opposite of the previously promised bliss.

You realize you have no adult framework to cope with the darkness that lives within each of us and are more alone and broken than ever.

Stage 6: Rejection

You’ve had enough. What a sham! You begin to see through the commodification of the profit driven scene. You crave realness and down to earth people. How can “spiritual” people be so self-absorbed, lacking in empathy, understanding and compassion!

You reunite with your former friends and begin to talk to them or a qualified therapist about your life’s problems. They, the non-yoga and new age followers, understand your current life challenges and know that talking about issues is healthy. You walk away from all that you’ve lived over the past years, feeling stupid and naive. You stop practicing and start putting your life back together from the bottom up.

Stage 7: Piece by Piece Integration

Your life has been stabilized once again through pure hard work and determination—not wishing. As you move along the integration process you notice the tension in your body and start a bit of stretching each morning, then you breathe in the freshness on your hikes, show appreciation for the food on your place and are in gratitude for where you are.

Little by little your personal practice arrives, free of dogma, free from group think, free from monetary exchange. It arrives in a pattern which is unique to you. Protective of this new sprout, you keep it quiet and feel no need to preach nor share.

Stage 8: Autonomy

You are able to operate independently and autonomously. The community’s existence is nice and provides you with some beneficial aspects, but it’s not a necessity nor a guiding force in your life any longer. You are able to sort through what and who is real and invest in reasonably priced quality work, avoiding purchasing surface teachings from inexperienced instructors with expensive marketing.

You move fluidly between different lineages, your private practice, your work, life and other interests. You find tools that help you maintain a healthy balance. There is no pressure to prove you are spiritual, healthy, holistic or happy for you are authentically you and have no need to hide or highlight any parts of your being. You’ve found your rhythm that includes, family, friends, creativity, work, success, health, wellness and a spiritual practice which nourish you rather than dominate you.

You realize true wholeness includes the full spectrum of experiences both internally and externally, positively and negatively.

This is a quick snapshot of the process of development. Specific phrases, behaviors and dogma will vary depending on your local community and teachers.

 

Relephant Read:

Rock That Bindi, White Girl!

 

Author: Taryn Hughes

Editor: Emily Bartran

Photo: Wikimedia Commons