Change Up Ahead!
Coming to the Alexander Technique, it helps to know that you will tap into emotional and mental habits. . . if you allow it. Yes, you can come to Alexander Technique for an obvious physical issue or postural concerns. . .but you will experience many other benefits. Indeed, you will expand how you think and what you think about!
It’s up to you how deep you want to allow, but I’ve been honored to facilitate students’ old wounds to emerge, and through the lessons and the process, they experience positive and irrevocable change. Old misunderstandings are released by becoming aware of the tension habits in the muscles; a new understanding of themselves awakens and empowerment results.
Remember, every one of us is a single, indivisible unit, a compete entity, that gets divided, because that is the nature of the mind. That unconsciously self-directed division can be dissolved, and the self revealed and united, if we allow it.
Talk therapy absolutely has its healing benefits, and going to the source of the mental construct embedded in the physical tissue is in my experience, a more permanent approach. When I was most intensely working on healing my scoliosis, I sought therapies, approaches and techniques that were body-based. Besides the benefit of how it helps you feel like you are more in your body, it helped unearth the trauma that had stored itself in my tissue — but at the time of the events, was too much for my mind to process. I know the difference now: This healing process, when given time, allows you to see your hidden fears. When you do, you find they’re like chimeras, thought bubbles, trapped in the tissue, that now easily release from the realization.
We all go through a distortion of our natural-born intelligence — the process of understanding this place or reality. How we handle what happens to us and how we misunderstand it, becomes the base of our later psychophysical habits. This determines life’s directions, and when the person is ready, can be released and a new path realized.
I see the perceptions in muscular patterns. Take for example, two siblings experiencing the same parental arguments, each will perceive the problem differently, and manifest different responses, along with different strategies for survival. Children are vulnerable to these stimuli, and develop tensions that later become the basis for unhealthy habits. Our early responses to muscular holding against painful experiences, creates the tension underlying our mental perceptions. When we address the physical tension directly, the mental narrative can be seen and let go, sometimes called an ‘epiphany’.
I encourage all students to engage fully in the process by doing ‘lie down’s’, and other procedures per their readiness, but of course doing home-work is always up to them. Some prefer the kind of bodywork that doesn’t require participation, like a massage, and that’s ok. One needs to be ready to allow a deeper process to occur and usually, pain is the prompt, that is human nature also.
I was a massage therapist for 22 years and was certified in many adjunct techniques. When I came to Alexander Technique teacher training, I finally found a technique whose principle design is awareness, psychophysical movement and the direction to change!
It may be subtle and gradual, but one cannot mistake its power and depth. I am not a teacher of the Alexander Technique to further enable stubborn habits their comfy resting place and outdated perception; I’m here to softly and gently unsettle it and show it a new direction, so that the pain can be released and reveal a new moment, a new. . .everything.
I facilitate — it’s always up to you. So…if you’re looking for a process that can help you reveal your true self to yourself, heal psychophysical complaints, find more delightful ease in your movement, take responsibility and spark curiosity, then you’re ready for an extra-ordinary journey.
