I was initially drawn to the Alexander Technique because of my hope of having a life in the performing arts. I wanted to be a performer, but I didn’t think I had a stand out level of talent, and I didn’t want to risk living my life forever unfulfilled. I knew the Alexander Technique was part of many performing arts curriculum. I didn’t know what it was, but my good fortune and my instincts guided me to experience it first hand. I expected to teach performing artists, who make up a portion of my practice, but what I enjoy most about teaching the Alexander Technique is the personal interactions I have with all kinds of people.
My focus in my early years as a teacher was on how my skills could help my students. My trainers, teachers and mentors all echoed Alexander’s own experience, that applying my Alexander tools on my own behalf was the mechanism to teaching well.
I taught, as many people, groups and as often as I could. I came to have a deeper capacity for observing and providing more essential, accessible and practical tools to my students; recognizing and providing more teachable moments; and knowing how much was enough. These were all things I aspired to and watched for.
But there are hidden treasures that come from living the Alexander Technique, and no one could have predicted how I would mine the gifts that I have gotten. Some of those treasure might never had come to me without living through things I never wanted and hoped would never happen.
I’ve written about my experiences with anxiety and depression, which coincided with my response to the outcome of the 2016 Presidential Election here in the US.
What it’s been like for me since Covid-19 Lockdown and the 2020 Election
It’s coming up on a year since I began physically distancing, stopped teaching in person lessons - effectively shutting my practice - and watched a not unexpected pandemic and all its concomitant fallout play out.
I have had moments where I feared for my mental health over the course of the pandemic and the 2020 election. The Alexander Technique gave me the capacity to know I was experiencing trauma, and that I was in a precarious state, and it gave me a lifeline to get to the next safe harbor. I sought help, and returned to tools that helped me before. They helped me again.
For me, Alexander Technique isn’t about my alignment or physical posture, except to the degree that those are sign posts of how I am in myself. Being, not doing, is how I experience my life more with each passing year. F. M. Alexander’s understanding that one can’t separate mind from body from psyche - and my recognition that I wouldn’t want to if I could - is more of my lived experience with each passing day.
At various periods of my life, I have been drawn to the question: Would I be willing to give up everything in order to have everything? Getting nearer to that as my personal reality is more possible with the stillness I can reach for with my Alexander Technique tools. I can quiet the inner dialogue that revs my nervous system and generates dis-ease, emotional pain, fear, and discomfort.
I am learning to reach for inner or outer narratives that ease my suffering instead of compounding it. And I am keeping a close watch on how regret shows up for me. This pause or reset in how life shows up has placed me in the center of just how uncertain everything is. It can be overwhelming to be so present to that fact. And it can be thrilling.
I had no idea when I started lessons and then trained as an Alexander Teacher that I would discover AND build capacities for meeting life’s challenges as well as I have. So far I keep finding new reserves after waves of crushing realities rain down on me. It seems as though I keep waking up to the horror and the amazing beauty of humanity and life itself over and over again.
Some of the hidden treasures I found:
Resilience
Patience
The ability to self-sooth
Living my values more of the time
Not feeling defensive
Solving problems more easily and quickly
Feeling more empathy for myself and others
Leaving and avoiding unhealthy relationships
Better listening skills
Taking more pleasure in daily life
Greater creativity
Improved intellectual capacity
Seeing the bigger picture
Kinder self-talk
Better self-esteem
More satisfying and meaningful relationships with family, friends and others
Joy in movement
Appreciating what I have
Practical How To:
I go back to the step by step process I learned over 37 years ago. I pause, come to inner stillness, give myself time to find more inner space and wait for a shift inside. Sometimes the shift is significant, sometimes it’s barely noticeable, but something changes. I engage in this throughout my day, sometimes without such a systematic sequence, but just an awareness to expand.
Would I be willing to give up everything in order to have everything? More and less. How much of a choice do I have? It depends. When I have a choice, what do I choose?