It’s August, and ‘everyone’ is away on holiday and all classes have stopped. It’s the month for whiling away the hours in lazy sunshine…
Except that I can’t afford to do that, and besides, it seems that Yorkshire was not made aware that ‘lazy sunshine’ was supposed to be the order of the day.
So I am giving notice to anyone who happens to read my blog, that I have made a covenant with myself to put in some sort of thought for the day for the next month – whether that be one of mine, or just one that inspires me.
I would be delighted if this helps/interests/entertains anyone else, but I just want to make it clear that this is something I am doing for myself:
To face down my morning demons
To practise my 20 minute rule of keeping at things steadily, rather than hoping for the grand inspiration (am much in need of this practice)
To practise gratitude
To find the lessons in situations I might otherwise be tempted to call problematic
To allow myself to write without feeling that I have to be saying something original, important, erudite or anything else deeply meaningful, because I realise that I decided 20 years ago I wanted to write every morning, and I have allowed all these reasons (and more) to stop me, and that seems very sad
Because I know in my heart that if I keep paying attention to inspiration and creative thought, that eventually all those little somethings will help me to experience meaning and purpose and that’s something I have been struggling with and allowing me to give free reign to my inner critic.
My parents, though British, have lived all my life in Africa. I am the divorced mother of an only daughter. Her father’s family have always got together at Christmas and celebrated lavishly. If I loved my daughter, it seemed obvious to let her spend Christmas Day with them, and I learned to hold the day lightly, and to celebrate whenever I was able to get together with what family I had here in the UK. But I also learned to dread the familiar question (as early as September) –‘What are you doing for Christmas?’
Today, having the gift of a daughter here, but a mother on the other side of the world, I have been aware both of the joy of having a child, and the sadness of those who do not have, or are not able to be, a mother; of those who have had a child but no longer are with them for whatever reason, for those who are not able to be with their mothers.
These days of supposed celebration, much touted by the media, are often for many, a reason to feel disenfranchised, on the periphery, lonely and not part of something which feels important.
Because I know that pain, I wanted to write something to let those people know that they are being thought of, and reached out to, even if only in writing.
My training in Alexander Technique taught me the importance of peripheral vision. On days like this, this translates for me into being aware of those of our friends and acquaintances who may be feeling isolated, and finding ways to connect with them.
As someone who faced the very real threat of losing a child in the process of divorce, I also wish to encourage everyone who knows of someone in that situation to do as much as they can for any parent (mother or father) to help them bear that excruciating loss, and further to help prevent it if at all possible.
I have been pondering what it means to be a mother:
• Motherhood is a lifelong commitment, whether one outlives one’s offspring or not
• It is a gift that demands one’s utmost – in creativity, resolve, patience, selflessness, energy, time, fierceness, and longevity of commitment.
• It is way of loving which transcends dislike, exhaustion, frustration and pain
• One can leave country, city, town, village, job, lover or husband, but for me the bond with my daughter is the one constant that it would be unthinkable or impossible to sever. Even as I write this, I am aware that for some, because of fear, illness, pain, or addiction, this may not be true, and the children of those mothers carry the excruciating pain of rejection – whether or not that rejection was deliberate or unconscious.
And those who have not been granted the gift of motherhood have to find other ways to express their creativity, resolve, patience, energy, time and commitment without the daily reminder that children offer. It is therefore a harder task, and I honour those who manage it.
So while I rejoice in this ‘Mothers’ Day, for what it is worth, I send love and good wishes to all those women for whom this day would otherwise be one of sadness, loss or isolation. And to those who have chosen otherwise, I wish them a very happy ‘un-Mothers’ Day!
Seven years ago (!) some of my necklaces got seriously entangled. My parents were staying with me at the time, and I handed them to my father, who loved to sit in a chair…but after an hour, he gave up, and so did I.
Five years ago I moved city and house, taking with me my bundle of necklaces. Since then, they have ‘adorned’ a bowl in my room, gathering dust and being otherwise useless.
Earlier this year, I read Marie Kondo’s Book, ‘The Magic of Tidying”, and am happy to say, have been putting some of her suggestions into practice. I disagree with her suggestion that one should sort by type, rather than location. If I had nothing else to do for about two weeks, that might have worked, but I have worked systematically through my house, room by room, following her most excellent suggestion of handling every piece of ‘stuff”. Anything that does not give joy and/or is useful, goes.
I am a hoarder by nature, and being self employed, am also obliged to hoard a certain amount of paperwork. But I have been through every piece of paper I have kept for the last 30 odd years, every piece of clothing, every drawer, cupboard, nook and cranny, and boy does it feel wonderful to clear!
My room was the last in the house, and I had been through everything and was on the last leg of the tidy up when a friend, who disappears for months on end, rang. I had been procrastinating about this last effort, and had only two hours available, and when he calls, he talks! So I confess I multi tasked by taking the nearest thing to hand – my necklaces, to work on while listening.
By the time we finished, I felt as though I was getting somewhere, and it felt imperative to finish the job. As I sat on the floor, patiently picking and weaving, getting to dead ends and having to start again elsewhere, my mind began writing this blog.
Our qualities and gifts are like beautiful, precious Wooden Rings by Urban Designer that are given to us to adorn, to sparkle, to catch the light, to beautify us. Yet often we allow them to get enmeshed, to gather dust, to become unfit for purpose. Then not only we, but those with whom we come in contact are impoverished.
It feels very significant to me that I have managed to untangle these jewels of mine. It took me a long time, and I had to keep looking for different strands, and approach the problem from different perspectives (necklaces). But how lovely to once again have eight necklaces that I can use and enjoy! Interestingly one or two don’t really go with what I wear any more and I am giving them away so someone else can enjoy them.
Colour has always been really important to me, and I was interested that all these necklaces were either purple or orange. In the energy meditations I studied, these colours have to do with spirituality, (purple) and self esteem, creativity and sexuality (orange).
Now here I venture into the realms of things I experience but don’t fully understand. Moreover, I know that some of my friends who are steeped in Christianity will feel I am heading off on a path of the devil! Some of my intelligent, left brained friends and colleagues may feel I have gone ‘too mystical’. For a very long time I have drawn these things into my life and work in a practical way, but have not owned up to them publicly for fear of censure. I do feel though, that they form part of my jewels that I have to share.
One of the things on my bucket list is to find a way to understand and articulate what I know and experience about energy in such a way as to make it understandable to those who espouse Christianity and scientific enquiry (my background – fundamental, evangelical Christianity and a Maths Degree). So feel free to challenge or engage me further on this!
Interestingly, many people I know go to Yoga classes or have acupuncture. I wonder if they realise that they are essentially espousing some of the concepts I am going to address…. next time! Or this blog will be too long…
EXAM TIPS FROM MY DAUGHTER’S VERY BRILLIANT AUNT WHO IS NOW A VERY SUCCESSFUL LAWYER
(Reproduced with her permission)
It is exam time in our household (can you tell??) My daughter is currently managing her stress remarkably well and working hard. The only stress I currently have is that at the weekend, she asked if she could video me doing my warm up ‘dance’ as she calls it that I do with my music students, because her boyfriend was tired and she thought it would help him. I obliged, dressed in one of my oldest fleeces and not explaining anything much because she gave me no chance. Apparently the video is going viral (well, in very localised terms), and my daughter and all her friends were to be seen on the school playing fields practising this, much to the amusement of the boys looking on unseen.
Actually of course, I am secretly proud that my daughter thinks enough of something I find meaningful to share it with her friends. The following are things I was not much good at myself, and when her aunt took the trouble to write all these things down, I thought them too good to miss, so here is some more help in enjoying exams.
Coming up next…. Power Postures – 2 minutes to de-stress.
ENJOY!
1. Be Prepared!
2. Organise your revision so that by the day before your exams you have reduced everything you know about a subject to notes on just one side of A4. Those notes should be able to spark your memory on all the host of other things you know about the subject. Like someone giving a speech has a card with maybe 5 or 6 headings but knows what to say around those headings.
3. In the exam, take stock. You will have worked out how many questions you have to answer and how long you should allow for each question.
4. You must read the whole paper carefully (always turning to over to check you don’t miss anything)
5. Take a gulp (calm breath, my words) and read each question again.
6. When you can choose questions, read through each question you choose to check you can answer each part, not just what you think it is about.
7. I (she) used to underline every word in a question to ensure I know that every word required consideration.
8. Spend some time doing an essay plan in notes – I used to spend a good 5+ minutes of a 30 minute answer doing this. You can them be more relaxed as you write the 25 minute answer.
9. Some questions are not suited to this eg calculations, précis etc but all questions need careful consideration before you start to answer.
10. When you have a choice, eg to answer 4 questions, I found a good technique was to answer my second favourite first, then my favourite, then my 3rd and then my 4th. That way you build up your own confidence.
11. Aways check and double check that you answer everything the question is asking. MORE POINTS ARE LOST THROUGH PANIC AND CARELESSNESS THAN IN NOT KNOWING THE ANSWER!
12. Do stick to the time allotted for each question come what may. Not to do so is fatal.
13. Never run out of time!
14. Try to enjoy exams. There is something satisfying about finally putting revision to good use and being able to prove yourself.
15. TREAT IT AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO SHINE, NOT AN ORDEAL.
HOW 20 MINUTES A DAY CAN CREATE MIRACLES/HOW TO STAY SANE IN THE RUN UP TO EXAMS
What lights your fire and what makes you feel overwhelmed? I am really brave about some things, and yet apparently simple things floor me.
I actually like things to be clean and tidy, but my mother always used to say that I could reduce a room to chaos within five minutes of entry, and that is certainly true of my cooking practices, sadly.
So something as simple as a chaotic kitchen could make me feel utterly incapable and for an astonishing number of years, I would feel an overwhelming urge to sit down and ‘rest’ before tackling the mess. Multiply that by all the rooms in the house, and something that many people would deal with without thinking, and before they started what they would call ‘work’, became a mountain in my mind and stopped me from doing all sorts of interesting things because I had to ‘sort the house’. Even as I write this, I can hardly believe I am saying it, but it’s true, unfortunately.
My point though, is that I found the solution, and it is one that works for a myriad of other things that might feel initially overwhelming, so it falls very neatly into the KISS principle: –
KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID.
20 minutes seems to be a magical number. I have noticed that two very trendy techniques – Mindfulness, and CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) work on the assumption that participants will spend 20 minutes a day practising.
So I decided to apply this principle to house tidying and found it worked a treat. I put my alarm on and decided to see what I could get done in 20 minutes, feeling that was manageable. Amazingly, clearing a kitchen after dinner took only about 3-6 minutes on an ordinary evening.
The other way that daily 20 minutes works miracles, is that once you have started, and see how much you can accomplish in 20 minutes, you often feel inspired to do more. I keep putting the alarm on for another 20 minutes, and now I often practise my piano for up to an hour, where before I just wouldn’t even start.
APPLYING THIS PRINCIPLE TO STUDYING
Studying for exams, especially in ‘big swot’ topics like history and science, can seem overwhelming and I know there are times when my daughter doesn’t know where to start, so she doesn’t. There is a verse in the Bible (sorry but I grew up as a fundamentalist evangelical Christian and some things just stick) that says ‘A Prophet has no honour in his own country’, which in this case means that I haven’t really been able to persuade my daughter to apply this principle to her studies. If any of you try it out and find it works, please tell her!!
Anyway, next time you are feeling overwhelmed and don’t want to do anything, I challenge you to just allow yourself 20 minutes, and just study something – anything. Even if you don’t carry on and do more, I’m betting that if you keep practising that principle every time you feel like that, you will have done a shed load more than you would otherwise have done by the time it gets to exams.
Me, I decided there were three things that I needed to give 20 minutes to in order to stay sane – that’s still only one hour out of 24. These are my three –
MEDITATION: I can’t maintain the level of sensitivity I need to do the work I do without taking care of energy.
HOUSEWORK: Well I have said it already
PIANO PRACTISE: Because that is something I really want to learn but have spent years just not getting on with…
What I am observing is that when I don’t manage all three, I quickly notice how things are getting out of hand, but it prompts me to get back to my daily rhythm and stops me spiralling out of control. And believe me, I know what out of control feels like and it’s not something I enjoy or recommend!
So good luck with making some miracles and actually enjoying your learning and studying rather than feeling you have to be mega stressed.
If any of you dare, I would love to hear what things benefit from the 20 minute daily treatment for you.
Recently I have been made aware that I am acquiring a teenage readership.
So I thought I might as well give you all something to get your teeth into, and what more exciting than sex and spirituality, particularly as there is so much information on ‘what to do and how to do it’ and yet very little on either love, or the impact of having sex.
These days I understand life, not through a lens of morality, but of energy. I realise that this leads me into immediate potential difficulty, as I only have ‘A’ Level physics, and even my brief reading of the correlation of energy and matter (eg Einstein’s equation E=mc2)makes me realise that I am unable to explain many of my ideas in strictly scientific terms. The scientist part of me (I have a degree in Maths, for those of you who don’t know me), balks at being fluffy. However, as this is merely a blog and not a scientific treatise, and is intended to provoke thought and discussion, I will continue.
So I will own at the outset that these are observations based on my experience, both of life and working with people and meditations learned over a period of 25 years.
I have been spring cleaning, and came across my old meditation notebooks, which I have been re-reading. I came across one of my many mind maps from a winter meditation of 1997.
It stated that Sexuality and Spirituality needed to be the same – viz. an expression of finer energy, leading to blend and nourishment: that a split causes problems, that sexuality is often fantasy and emotional release.
So I have been thinking about that, and how I could explain it in a way that might make sense to 16 year olds. In my generation and slightly younger, when people start talking about energy in relation to people, others almost instantly label them as ‘sandals brigade new agers’, but that is probably meaningless to the generations of the noughties, as I think it is rather 80’s or 90’s.
Interestingly we live in a world today that takes energy for granted – wifi, bluetooth, Facetime. Snapchat etc are all part of daily life that we absolutely take for granted unless they are not available, when it becomes extremely annoying. Personally I still find it mindbogglingly extraordinary that I can hold a tiny piece of kit in my hand, press a button, and both see and hear my mother SIX THOUSAND MILES AWAY on the other side of the planet. Please just stop and think about it for a moment, and what that means in terms of the speed of transfer of all that energy which is organised into picture and sound.
I find that I need to go back to basic Physics when I am thinking about how we embody and transfer energy through ourselves, rather than through electronic devices. In our ‘O’ Level physics (GCSE to you), we did an experiment which involved magnetising a knitting needle. So if you stroke a knitting needle with a magnet enough times, the knitting needle itself becomes a magnet. If you put the needle on a piece of paper and pour iron filings around it, the iron filings will form themselves into a pattern around the needle.
I have included a link below on how to make a compass from a sewing needle for those of you brave enough to venture where there is no GPS.
The point is, that the molecules of this supposedly solid object actually rearrange themselves and align up in a particular way, creating a magnet that is capable of attracting and/or repelling other things.
We know that water can exist as a solid, liquid or gas depending on temperature. When the temperature is low enough, or the molecules are vibrating slowly, water exists as ice. As the temperature, or speed of vibration increases, the ice melts and forms a liquid, and as the temperature and speed increase, they turn to steam. Heat emitted from a radiator is not visible unless there is sunlight falling on dust particles near the radiator, at which point the heat is visible as a shimmer of the dust particles. But just because we can’t see energy, doesn’t mean that it is not present. I sometimes have a minor freak out at all the wifi energy passing through me!
Feelings and emotions carry energy. If someone says something particularly cruel or hurtful, we can experience it as a thump to the stomach area, and feel physically winded. Equally experiencing kindness and love can make us feel warm and soft, or excited and aroused.
I understand spirituality energetically. People use the term ‘Higher Energy’ sometimes to describe spirituality. This is because, as I understand it, we can channel energy that is either quite dense, such as anger, or we can channel love, which is a finer, fast moving energy. Love is a particularly powerful energy – diffuse but deeply penetrating. There have been scientific experiments done with buddhist monks, which have demonstrated that after 10,000 hours of meditation, there is a change in the structure of the brain (exciting topic of neuroplasticity) in much the same way as continual stroking of a needle with a magnet creates a change in the molecular structure of a needle. This is one of the reasons why the practice of mindfulness has become so popular, and is even being introduced into schools. Taking time to meditate or pray regularly, in my understanding, is a way of aligning our energy so that we are clear and can trust our bodies and intuition. In my teaching of Alexander Technique, I have noticed over 25 years, that the body does not lie. If someone tells me something that their body is strongly contradicting, I will usually give more credence to the body because we are sometimes past masters at fooling our own minds, but not our bodies.
Sex, and particularly penetrative sex, is a very powerful transfer of energy between people and my point is that it is not possible to have sex with someone without it having an impact, depending on the energy that is present in the two people at the time. Just as the air temperature will have an impact on us, so will sex. It is also true that depending on the individual’s sensitivity, the air temperature will have a greater or lesser impact. I think the same is true of sexual intercourse, but the impact will be present, to a greater or lesser degree.
Back to basic physics and resonance. Resonance occurs in two objects when the first object is vibrating at the natural frequency of the second object. In terms of sound, this is experienced in an increase in amplitude of the sound wave, and increased sound.(Link for further study of resonance below)
In sexual terms, it seems to me that when two people are able to blend their energies harmoniously, resonance occurs and the experience is a fulfilling, nourishing one. Sadly, the prevalence of porn on the internet as a way of understanding and learning about sex, means that any understanding of blend and harmony is often absent, and at best sex seems to be about emotional release, and at worst, all kinds of dominance, bullying and power.
True blending can only take place when two people are willing to be vulnerable to one another. One of the many reasons for sexual infidelity within relationships is that people find it too difficult to be vulnerable with the person with whom they are deeply emotionally involved. They then try to separate the arousal and excitement they experience in sex (particularly with a relatively unknown person) from the vulnerability that comes from sharing this most intimate of experiences with someone who knows them and all their weaknesses.
But in the same way as you would be unlikely to put yourself in the way of someone who was going to beat you physically, be wary of putting yourself in the way of someone who would energetically beat you up through the medium of sex. In the same way that convected heat can only be seen when sunlight and dust particles are present, the damage from the abuse of energy in sex is often (at least initially) invisible but nonetheless powerful. Learn to pay attention to your body and your energy – if you feel a ‘nagging anxiety’ or physical pain when contemplating sex, pause, listen to it and follow it. It has much wisdom, and particularly when you regularly pay attention to yourself in aligning and clearing your energy.
The law of energy conservation states that energy can be neither created nor destroyed, but only changed from one form to another and transferred from one object to another. So without going into morality, right/wrong, good/bad, when you decide to engage in sex, take some time to think about what energy you are giving or receiving, for there is no getting away from it and it will impact on you either positively or negatively……
This weekend I led a meditation on the word ‘Purpose’ as a way of beginning this New Year.
As a preparation for meditation, we allowed a symbol to come to mind that in some way represented Purpose. Over the many years that I worked with the teacher who taught me this meditation, she continually emphasized the importance of accepting the first symbol that came, whether or not it seemed wacky, or we understood its meaning or significance.
The last time I did this meditation, the image that came to me was of an acorn, for which I was most grateful. I first learnt this meditation when my University students were in their cradles, and I often feel that I have not learnt the lessons with which I was wrestling at the time. Oak trees are of course, extremely slow growing, but they are also very long lasting, and I was reminded to be patient with myself, and to value the process instead of looking for dramatic results.
This weekend the image that came was that of a Scarab Beetle. I was intrigued, knowing that the scarab beetle has some significance in Egyptian mythology, but not what, and also that beetles are not usually the most likeable of creatures! The ‘not knowing’ allowed me just to relax with the overall concept of Purpose, and not to get into my analytical mind, which has a habit of intruding on my meditations.
Afterwards I looked up Scarab Beetles. There are many types of scarabs, but perhaps the best known (and of interest to me) is the Dung Beetle.
‘Dung beetles have a keen sense of smell that allows them to hone in on their favourite food and use specialized mouth parts to draw out moisture and nutrients from the waste. Some species simply live in the dung, while others form perfectly spherical dung balls, which they roll with their hind legs, often over large distances, to a place where they can bury it. Females plant a single egg in a dung ball where it matures from larva to fully formed beetle, feeding off the waste. Because they move so much waste underground, dung beetles are considered essential to controlling disease and pests among livestock.’ National Geographic
I was pretty astonished at the symbolic references – for anyone interested, there is a fairly exhaustive article that begins in the Paleolithic era referencing shamans, and the ability of the beetles to both fly (address issues in the celestial world) and dive into the earth (acting as mediators between infernal powers and ordinary men.) Perhaps the best known is the Egyptian mythology which associates the scarab with the rising sun god Khepri – the association being of the god rolling the ball of the sun through the sky.
The symbol of the scarab was also used in burials – A large (3-10cm) “heart scarab” was suspended from the mummy’s neck with a gold wire or chain, not only as a token of resurrection, but as an advocate to help the deceased to present his defence before the tribunal. These scarabs were often made with green stone (basalt, schist, jade, etc.), for green was an auspicious colour.
The article ends in the 17th century, with references to German Jesuits and alchemists who associated the scarab with Christ, resuscitated from the dead; a promise of resurrection for all human beings!
http://www.insects.org/ced1/beetles_rel_sym.html
Apart from anything else, this research demonstrates to me power of symbol, and the depth and breadth of meaning associated in one image.
But what stands out for me most of all, is that the scarab beetle takes shit, does something with it, and enables it to nourish and form new life. That sounds about what I do, and is a good enough purpose for me!
I began this Year at my favourite place in York – down by the river, near the Millenium Bridge.
I had spent the previous half hour taking part in a meditation shared by others around the country, reflecting on 2014, starting at the end and going back to the beginning. I have had a number of years that in many ways had been pretty challenging, and it was a joy to me to allow my mind to take me wherever it would, and to find for the most part, joy and gratitude.
Then each of us paused to see in the New Year as we wished, and followed that with another short meditation, finding our way into the New Year, and finding a word that connected us to the Year.
I had been thinking about this beforehand, and had been thinking about the word Balance (more on which in a later post), but two words came to me, and they were YES, and EMBRACE.
Yes
I have seen firsthand in my own life what it means to say YES, even when it seems frightening and there are many unknowns. It took me a couple of years of fear and vascillation before I I could say YES to moving to York, and now in just three years, I have a wonderful stockpile of memories and and experiences for which I am enormously grateful, and which would not be there without that initial YES.
Now you…
What is it that you would like to say YES to in this coming year? Give yourself some time and space to write.
Write down whatever it is that you would like to say YES to, and then keep writing until all your fears and worries and logical reasonings as to why you should not/could not do that are all on paper, and you find that you have written to plan of how to get to that YES
Now go out and do it! Better still, at the end of the Year, write down what it was, and how you got there, and send it to me! I want to start a Treasure chest of Triumphs!
Embrace
verb(usedwithobject), embraced,embracing.
1.totakeorclaspinthearms;presstothebosom;hug.
2.totakeorreceivegladlyoreagerly;acceptwillingly:
toembraceanidea.
3.toavailoneselfof:
toembraceanopportunity.
4.toadopt(aprofession,areligion,etc.):
toembraceBuddhism.
5.totakeinwiththeeyeorthemind.
6.toencircle;surround;enclose.
7.toincludeorcontain:
Anencyclopediaembracesagreatnumberofsubjects.
What immediately came to me, sitting on a plastic bag on a bench by the river at 00.05, 1/1/15 (floods over Christmas meant the benches were really muddy and I was well prepared!), was to EMBRACE those aspects of life which I normally spurned/criticised/feared, and see what I had been missing! Also, to EMBRACE myself – those aspects of myself which I daily spurn/criticise/fear.
Now You….
Allow yourself to acknowledge those things which scare/annoy/frustrate you, and to wonder (preferably in writing) what it would be like to embrace them? And as Henrietta Klausner(author of Write it Down, Make it Happen) says, what might be the outcome of the outcome, and the outcome of that outcome….
Ask yourself the question “And because of that… then’ and keep asking, until you arrive at what, at depth, is important to you in Embracing whatever it is you are writing about. I am sure that in the process of this process, you will find the motivation to overcome your objection…
Wishing you a wonderful New Year, in which you Dare Greatly, say YES, and EMBRACE, and create a Treasure Chest of extraordinary memories for which to be thankful this time next Year!
USING ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE AND COACHING PRINCIPLES AS STRATEGIES FOR STRESS MANAGEMENT.
Alexander Technique principles are very simple, yet very profound when diligently applied.
The Principles in Everyday Language are these:
INCREASE AWARENESS (FORM A CLEAR INTENTION TO DO THIS!)
PAUSE
USE CONSCIOUS DIRECTION/INTENTION
PAY ATTENTION TO THE PROCESS
REPEAT UNTIL NEW HABIT IS FORMED.
INTENTION
INTENTION is my all time favourite word! Learn to develop a clear intention for your life, for your term, for your week, for your day. Then when you get discombobulated, you can remind yourself of your intention about anything in general or specific. You can notice whether what you are thinking or doing aligns with your intention, and the stronger you can hold your intention, the easier it becomes to align your actions. Truly powerful people, I believe, are those whose actions are most closely aligned with their intentions. Scarily, that applies in the negative sense as well as the positive, so take care in developing your intention!
BREATHE!
In one sense, breathing is an enormously complex activity, in that once again, it often reflects anxieties, fears and difficulties – and research has shown that this also includes difficulties that your mother had in pregnancy before her pelvic physiotherapy! That explains why we don’t always find it easy to breathe freely and deeply. However, once again we can go back to the word INTENTION, and have the intention to breathe deeply and freely (even when we encounter our deep/old fears, which can sometimes be the cause for the feelings of faintness when we begin to release tension and breathe).
So have the intention to notice your breathing, and how, very often, when you are concentrating hard, or you are tense/anxious, you will find you are hardly breathing. It is impossible to breathe deeply when you holding extreme tension in your body, but equally, it is impossible to retain that tension when breathing deeply. So noticing shallow breath/held breath and deciding to breathe deeply (and freely) at each point of your noticing, helps break the cycle of tension and allows something different to happen, even if momentarily. Over time, this can make a huge difference in your level of pain or tension.
So the answer is to FEEL THE FEAR AND DO IT ANYWAY. Don’t repress your pain/fear/anger, but keep breathing, and breathe into that pain and through it. Amazing what this ‘simple’ thing can achieve!
AWARENESS – BODILY AND OTHERWISE
Learn to use your awareness as you would use peripheral vision. So make that an intention, and then see if you can allow yourself to be more aware of your body while doing other things. I believe that the body doesn’t lie, and it can become your best friend. When you are confused as to what you are thinking/feeling, your body will usually hold the answer. If you try and repress/suppress your feelings, your body will usually at some stage flag up what you are repressing by demonstrating to you your emotional pain in some physical way that makes you stop and pay attention.
CHOOSING YOUR THOUGHTS/ DEALING WITH OBSESSIVE THOUGHTS
We have +/- 40,000 thoughts a day and how many are under our control? Not very many is often the answer! This is the problem of the Pink Elephant – the more you tell yourself not to think of it, the bigger the image becomes in your mind! So we need to choose our thoughts, and once again we come back to the work INTENTION. If you have the intention to truly take care of yourself, then you will be more able to choose what to think, if you know that your obsessive thinking is not helping you.
PRACTICAL STRATEGIES FOR ACHIEVING THIS:
1. Bring your attention to your body by simply placing a hand/hands on your centre of gravity (few fingers below your navel). Remind yourself of your stability and strength and
2. Breathe!
3. Keep taking your attention outside yourself – I find it hugely helpful to notice nature – light, colour, water, wind, and particularly combining walking with noticing nature.
4. Create Boundaries. Notice whether talking about problems makes you feel better/feeds the obsession/makes you feel tense. Choose carefully to whom you speak/interact so that again, your INTENTION is to support yourself. Try and create time boundaries for dealing with/thinking about/talking about your problem, and if you are struggling with that, ask the other person to hold the time boundary for you. This way, you will still get to feel heard, which is very important, but will not be tempted to obsess.
5. Gratitude Diary – your Homework, should you choose to accept it.
Find at least 3 things each day, for which you are grateful.
The danger is that difficult issues can consume you, and of course there is so much else in your life about which you can choose to think and to which you can give your energy, which will nourish you, bring you joy and also support your INTENTION for a full and happy life. Our thoughts create a DIRECTION for our lives, and to some extent, create our life itself, so what we choose to focus on, and to think about, is HUGELY important. Have the INTENTION to bring to mind one or more of those things for which you are grateful, whenever you start feeling anxious/angry.
I fully realise that while all these things are pretty simple, that is not to say that they are easy.
Neuroscience research tells us it takes 3,000 repetitions(!) to break old neural pathways, so this will not be sorted in a day, and can seem tedious if you feel that you are getting somewhere with it, and then the old thoughts and habits kick in.
Again, INTENTION will help you stick with it
Neuroscientists also tell us that our thoughts create our reality – we are processing a staggering 400 billion actions per second in our brain, and every thought that we build actually changes the structure of the brain and impacts on the health of the body. (Dr Caroline Leaf, Neuroscientist).
So Science is now able to confirm the basis of the Alexander Technique, where we use conscious thoughts, intentions and directions to alter the way we respond to our everyday situations. And we can better understand that even if our situation does not change, we can alter our reality by our response to that situation, and choose health and well being over stress.
APPENDIX
Most people do not really relate to the Language used by Alexander Technique, particularly as it was developed in the late 1800s! Hence my initial translation into everyday language.
But for those who do know the language, and who want to see how I arrived at my ‘version’, here it is!
In ‘Alexander Technique Language’ these would be expressed as follows:
REALISE YOU HAVE FAULTY SENSORY AWARENESS
INHIBIT
USE CONSCIOUS CONTROL TO PROJECT NEW DIRECTIONS
PREVENT END GAINING AND PAY ATTENTION TO THE MEANS WHEREBY
REPEAT UNTIL OLD UNHELPFUL HABIT IS REPLACED BY NEW HABIT
In ‘Coaching Language’ these would be expressed as follows:
BECOME MORE AWARE SO THAT ‘CONSCIOUS INCOMPETENCE’ BECOMES ‘CONSCIOUS INCOMPETENCE’
PRACTICE NEW HABITS TO CHANGE ‘CONSCIOUS INCOMPETENCE’ TO ‘CONSCIOUS COMPETENCE’
REPEAT UNTIL ‘CONSCIOUS COMPETENCE’ BECOMES ‘UNCONSCIOUS COMPETENCE’
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