From the moment you arise in the morning until you rest your head on the pillow at night, you probably do quite a lot. We do so much that we have to consciously choose "down time” to give ourselves rest.
But what about the time in between those daily tasks? The transitions from Point A to Point B go by unnoticed, because we are busy getting to whatever is next.
Are you the owner of your body?
This is a fundamental question that reveals perspectives on the body and how yourelate to it. And depending on how you relate to your body, you will inevitably move according to the nature of that relationship. Along with your mind, this is your most intimate relationship. Yet attitudes about the physical self go largely unnoticed.
A 3-minute video about the 3 most common reasons people come for Alexander Technique lessons.
I learned a long time ago that I don't have to be afraid of fear. It's an energy, and a rather unpleasant one -- unless you're choosing a scary book or film as entertainment. It can be mild and continuous or sudden and strong, but as emotions go, it's one of the easiest to recognize. And one of the hardest to bear.
Over the years I have heard statements that rang true and woke me up to reality. These are truths that seem obvious upon hearing, but also feel familiar because they are easily verifiable by direct investigation or experience. It leaves you wondering, “how could I have forgotten this?” or amazed that you’ve never thought of it in that way before. The truths that blow your mind.
Are you the owner of your body?
This is a fundamental question that reveals perspectives on the body and how yourelate to it. And depending on how you relate to your body, you will inevitably move according to the nature of that relationship. Along with your mind, this is your most intimate relationship. Yet attitudes about the physical self go largely unnoticed.
Over the years I have heard statements that rang true and woke me up to reality. These are truths that seem obvious upon hearing, but also feel familiar because they are easily verifiable by direct investigation or experience. It leaves you wondering, “how could I have forgotten this?” or amazed that you’ve never thought of it in that way before. The truths that blow your mind.
The spring equinox brings an equal amount of daylight and darkness, and it’s a good time to explore balance. Learning to surf the waves of life requires a commitment to turn toward direct experience, to include whatever is arising with acceptance, to learn how to balance in the gap between stimulus and response. Equanimity develops as the other factors of awakening are cultivated, and mindfulness is the link between them all.
There is a difference between consciously resting and collapsing in an exhausted heap after working hard. It’s also not the same as taking a break to check your email or watch TV. Resting in awareness is restorative and rebalances everything. Really resting involves your participation.
One tried-and-true way to do this is Constructive Rest (CR).
I was 30 years old before I realized that I was disembodied. Like so many people, I walked around thinking I was living a life, and of course I was, but most of my existence played out in my head. I had almost no present moment awareness of my body.
In taking Alexander lessons, I found something better than the short-term safety provided by shutting down or numbing out. I literally learned how to feel my body once again.
I used to think I was rather damaged or deficient in this area, that normal people didn’t have to remember to be embodied.
I was wrong.
Have you ever wondered how you know you’re sitting and not, for instance, standing or lying down?
A key feature of the AT is its ability to activate kinesthetic awareness, which functions like a superpower, helping you know how you are doing anything that you might be doing. It is how you know what you’re sensing and how you sense what you’re knowing.
Includes a Bodymind Experiment
Thinking and feeling, logic and imagination, sensing and knowing -- these are not dichotomies but integrated aspects of human functioning and flow. Not only are we each an undivided entity, we are connected to all living beings: the entire biosphere is unified. And that well-known "gut feeling"? That's not just a concept, it is physiological fact.
It has been my experience over 25 years of teaching somatics and mindfulness that most people are in a state of senselessness. Almost no one is fully inhabiting their body all the time.
Learning to Pause, Sense, Repeat is an easy, practical way to more fully embody your life.
Includes a Bodymind Experiment.
Through continual practice of insight meditation and 30-plus years of Alexander awareness and teaching, I’ve become familiar with how major shifts in habitual thinking and being happen. Sometimes the experience of change feels big and nearly instantaneous, like a chunk of an iceberg breaking off and tumbling to the sea. Letting go occasionally feels like an avalanche.
Mostly though, change happens incrementally, bit by bit. Can you sense the gradual growth and changes in yourself?
Life is fluid, dynamic, and always shifting. Ultimately, this is good news, but we have been conditioned to expect reality to be solid, fixed, and predictable. The essential groundlessness of our existence frightens us, or at best, takes us by surprise, and when that happens, we react by resisting. Habitual, unconscious resistance shows up in the body-mind as contraction. It is such a basic and common response to living as a human that we don’t even notice it. Yet the moment we do, we are liberated and can transform contraction into expansion.
Includes a Bodymind Experiment.
When we choose to stop working so hard we shift our relationship to ourselves as well as to our social circles. We expect less and question what we believe is expected of us. We might end up doing exactly the same number of things as before, but "I Have To" becomes "I Get To," as we allow more spacious awareness in both body and mind. We can learn to ease up and stop trying to push the river, as they say. Letting go is one way to do less. Letting be is another.
Alexander Technique comes in handy when the snow flies. Shoveling often produces all sorts of minor injuries, aches and pains for people. If you find yourself with low back pain, twinges in your shoulders or neck, or other maladies as result of shoveling, pay attention to how you are bending and lifting when you shovel. Like vacuuming, raking, or gardening, shoveling is essentially about lunging.
One of the key components of mindfulness and somatic processes like the Alexander Technique is practicing the Pause, learning how to wait before taking action. There is a moment between stimulus and response, and in that gap is the possibility of making a fresh, perhaps different choice. When we don't do that, we often increase our own suffering.
Includes a Bodymind Experiment
Walking doesn't have to wear us down. Our ability to move upright on two legs is a miracle of evolution that we take for granted. What you can see and sense when you're right up on top of yourself is what connects you to the world around you -- and the universe inside, too. The key, however, is how you walk. Alexander Technique teaches how to recover that wonderful evolutionary miracle and walk well.
If you study and practice the Alexander Technique, it will change your life for the better.
This is a statement I can make with complete confidence and zero doubt. I can say this to absolutely everyone, no matter their condition or circumstances. With very few exceptions, there is no one who can't benefit from the principles and the process created by F. M. Alexander and developed over the past century by those who have followed his path.
That’s quite a claim. Read on.
Bringing embodied awareness to the transitions we experience — whether small everyday movements from one task to another or during larger significant life changes — can bring about deep and dynamic change. Why? Because it's the last place we show up. We are always thinking ahead, moving toward or away from something, Who brings intention to reaching for the door handle and opening the door? The point, we think, is to get to the other side of the door. The truth is, always being ahead of ourselves leads to unnecessary suffering. Luckily, we can learn that how we do what we do makes all the difference.
The Alexander Technique provides a skill set that can be applied in every situation. That's a pretty big claim. Every situation? Really? Yes, really, because Alexander work teaches a way of being, in the same way that practicing meditation creates new ways to be in relationship with reality. Still, that's rather vague, isn't it? How does the AT get applied? In what situations might it be most effective?
Here are four basic positions we all find ourselves in every day, and they are wonderful ways to use Alexander awareness.
