Showing posts with label Change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Change. Show all posts
Sunday, 4 June 2017
The Blessing and the Curse of Movement Habits
Habits are learned and stereotyped responses: set movements that once triggered get replayed verbatim regardless of context or appropriateness.
Habits are necessary; they save us from wasting time and energy in preparing new responses to the ever-changing, kaleidoscopic circumstances we exist in. Habits allow us to anticipate changes and be ready to respond accordingly.
And herein lays their problem.
Some of my now set-responses were originally new responses. They were successful responses at the time, so I chose to repeat them again and again, each new success convincing my system that this was a real keeper. Since it appeared like I’d be using these patterns repeatedly, I let them fall into my subconscious so they could become my automatic responses in all similar situations. The habituation of certain responses was a smart time and energy saving strategy.
Once a response becomes automatic I stop consciously observing and calibrating its efficiency (and sometimes even its effectiveness) vis-à-vis my ever-changing circumstances. What began as a good idea, a clever response, or a quick fix to a specific event, has morphed into the be-all-and-end-all of my response repertoire. The habit has become embedded in my neural repertoire in the form of trigger-happy synapses. The constant repetition of certain movements shape my body according to their logic; I embody my habits with my muscles, my bones and all my connective tissues.
These automatic responses thus become not only the hidden framework upon which I build my actions, reactions, and routines, but also upon which my shape is modelled and portrayed to the world. As the world responds and reacts to my self-projection, I receive feedback that confirms this is who I am, and voilà my self-definition begins to get set.
Moveo ergo sum. I move, therefore I am.
Hidden becomes the key word here. As the saying goes: out of sight, out of mind. Automatism makes me blind to my habits, I become dominated by them, I start confusing them with my self-definition: this is the way I do things. The problem with my habits is that they limit my freedom of choice, they default me to act always in the same way, whether I want to or not.
Can I be any other way?
I want to believe so. The framework of my habits is hidden only as long as I don’t start the process of discovering and uncovering them. My habits are the only option until I realize there are other options. I could perhaps learn to choose and build new responses...
Thursday, 19 March 2015
.jpg)
Beginnings
are tough for me. I’m all about order, but beginnings tend to be for me all
about chaos.
Most of the
chaos stems from the fact that I haven’t fully closed the previous actions. I’m
dragging the dregs of yesterday into today and tomorrow, and getting them all
jumbled up with the new stuff that wants to emerge.
What to do
about it?
If I
followed my own advice, I would quit doing stuff about it. I would find a bit
of space on the floor to lie down on my back, with my head supported on a few
books and my knees up. If I did this every day, morning and evening, I’d be making
space for change to happen.
It’s hard to
believe that just lying down like that and doing nothing will make space for
things to sort themselves out. But it does. It’s a cascade of space creation: I
make space in my day to stop doing; that leads to making space to lie down;
lying down makes space in my body to release accumulated tension; as body
tension releases, mind tension lets go too and voilá! I have created space
in my mind.
It’s all about
space: time-space, environmental-space, body-space, mind-space.
There’s
absolutely nothing else required but to take the time to rest in that space. Time
itself will take care of the rest.
When I ask myself
to start a new action, I have to allow time before saying or doing anything
more. Why? Because as soon as I ask myself to do something, I start up my
habitual response to any order (in my case too many frantic thoughts and
thoughtless actions) and it takes a little time for me to realize this and to
stop.
And it’s
only when I have remembered and stopped, created space and given myself time, it’s
only when the dust of the previous actions has settled and the waves have
quieted in the mind-pool, that the next phase can operate.
What’s the
next phase? Listening, with my whole being, for a clear and true direction.
Tuesday, 13 January 2015
It’s difficult to change what we don’t know exists. To change we need to know “what” to change,
and for that we need to have an experience that contrasts with our habit: the experience of another possibility.
But
once we have that new experience, how to we make it into a new habit? In
general, the sole experience of a new possibility
does not establish the change. It is necessary to record in your brain
the new option as a stronger neurological connection than your old habit.
For
that we need three tools: desire, inhibition, and
memory.
The tool of desire moves
us to recreate the new experience,
even when it would be “easier and more comfortable” to indulge in our habit.
Change is destabilizing. Therefore we need to become familiar with this power
of “I want”: What do I want? Why do I want it? How do I achieve what I want?
What consequences would come with getting what I want?
The tool of inhibition
allows us to choose which actions to allow manifestation and which to deny said
permission. Inhibition is intrinsically linked to
desire, for it implies “saying no to” that which we don’t wish for anymore, and
being able to “say yes to” to the new wish. You need to know “what things” to
inhibit. Therefore we need to know: What elements make up my habit?
The tool of memory
allows us to remember what we want and what we don’t want when it really
matters. The ability to recruit your desire
and your power of inhibition to change your habits rests on your ability to
remember. F.M. Alexander once said that our greatest problem when it comes to
changing habits is that “we forget to remember.”
Remembering what we want
depends, above all, on 2 factors: the strength of our wish and external
conditions that help us to remember our wish.
How can I be more mindful of my wish throughout the day? How can I make it
easier for me to satisfy my wish instead of my habit?
To sum up, the first step to being
successful in changing habits is to become familiar with your three basic
tools: Desire, Inhibition and Memory.
Saturday, 1 November 2014
Hi. I’m here.
I wasn’t sure about being here today.
I was bored and un-inspired. What could I possibly offer you of value today?
But Life
is about showing-up, even (and perhaps especially) when it’s not all
fireworks.
Some things you build
one little step at a time.
Sometimes it’s the same step over and over again.
Changing habits works
like that. It’s not
something instantaneous. It’s something you build up by “saying no” to the old
and “saying yes” to the new, over and over and over again.
And it all starts with showing up for
the work. Even if we don’t apparently succeed. Even if habit seems to win most
of the times.
You still show up,
because by showing up, habit has not won by default. By showing up, you’ve exercised your power to choose.
If you show up,
anything can happen.
Anything includes your habit. But it also includes every other possibility,
which gain strength with every time you show up.
So, if you are thinking of giving up,
if you are too bored, tired, or depressed to care anymore… show up anyway. Just BE there, OPEN to anything that might come.
That’s why I’m here today. No
expectations. Just here… for me… and for you…
Victoria
Friday, 5 September 2014
Hello! You’ve arrived at the blog.
Take a
moment to fully arrive.
Allow your body to arrive: let go of the muscular effort you used to arrive here... no need
to use that much effort and tension to read.
Allow your mind to arrive: is your attention
here, on what you’re reading? Or are you still thinking about what you
read a moment ago or of what you have to do after reading this blog?
Allow your emotional state to arrive: your emotions will tell
you what your gut feeling this blog is, but only if you react to the present stimulus. If you’re still reacting to what
happened before, or you’re anticipating a reaction to what will happen next,
how will you know what your true reaction to the present situation really is?
Have
you arrived? Good. Welcome to the blog.
This blog is
about the sequence used in the Alexander
Technique to foster a process of changing
habits. The purpose of this blog is to clarify the sequence of overlapping
steps involved in a process of conscious change.
As teacher
and student of the Alexander Technique I see this sequence develop in my own
process and in that of my students. However, since the
sequence is not always self-evident, our change
process may appear chaotic.
Learning
to recognize the inherent direction within the chaos gives us a measure of
peace… and a certain degree of control: we are able to then stop interfering with the natural order
of things.
I’d like to
show you one possible natural sequence in a process
of change in the hopes that you’ll be able to recognize
at what stage you are today and which is your next logical step to allow.
But first, you must choose your question about your process.
You are going to receive a lot of information, both external (from this blog,
from your surroundings) and internal (thoughts, emotions, muscular reactions). Having a clear question will help you organize this information,
keeping what’s useful to you today, and letting the rest go.
Remember
to check periodically your reactions (physical, mental, emotional) to what you’re reading. Your
reaction provides you most of the data you need to process and organize. Also, take note of where your attention goes, since your
reaction and the focus of your attention are intimately linked.
The
structure of this blog follows the structure of an Alexander Technique lesson,
and therefore of a process of change.
1)
We arrive. We arrive because we have a
question to which we seek and answer. But in order to receive that
answer, we need to honor the place where we came
looking for it, we need to open up to listen to what is happening in the present moment.
2) We clarify
our purpose. This implies coming into
contact with our need, but also adjusting
our request to what the context is able to provide. In other words, it’s
no use asking for a vegan dish at the butcher’s.
3) We dive
into the process. This part has two main components. One of them is
provided by the seeker: his attention. The
other is provided by the person in charge of the practice space: the practice proposal.
The
nature of the proposal will depend on the stage of the process which the seeker is at.
First: We
establish a common language. We need to familiarize ourselves with the
tool before starting to use it.
Second:
We apply
the language to a simple action. Once we are familiar with the tool we can start using it for simple and
controlled tasks.
Third:
We apply
the language to a more complex action. As we become more familiar and adept at using the tool, we
start adding variables, experimenting with combinations that gradually look
more and more like “real life” situations, where the stimuli are varied and
unpredicatable.
Fourth:
We apply
the language in “real life”. Real life is where we find out how much we’ve advanced down the path of
change; it will throw light on the areas where we’re still in the dark. It is
therefore the best field in which to harvest our next question to feed our
process.
And
every so often, in
between stages, or within each stage itself, we
stop to rest, to allow the information to settle, to go “click!”. These resting stops are essential, do not skip
them. Use them to: a) evaluate your progrees; and to b) decide your next step. But most of all, use them
to: c) celebrate your victories, however
small they may seem.
So,
which stage are You at?
See you next time.
Victoria
Sunday, 31 August 2014
Hello! Welcome to the blog. How are you?
I mean it, and the answer should be important to you. Take a few seconds of outer and inner stillness to check how you are right now
(physically, mentally, emotionally) and to decide if you’re well disposed to
reading this blog.
This
is a blog about the Alexander Technique in its relation to changing
habitual reactions (physical, mental, emotional).
The purpose
of this blog is for you to experiment with different ideas about how to do
things differently, o how not to do them entirely.
My name is Victoria Stanham, and I’m a teacher of the Alexander Technique. I
spend most of my days investigating and experimenting with the ideas I share in
this blog.
My
objective for today is for you to have a new
experience with attention management. I’d also like to offer you at
least one new idea of how to organize your thoughts
that is directly applicable to changing habits with the hopes that it
may answer a question you have on the subject.
If you’re
interested, take a minute to clarify your question. Make it concise and clear.
As
you continue reading, check regularly what effect it is having on your degree
of physical, mental or emotional tension. Try to note if what you’re reading makes you nervous, angry,
calm, confused, or whatever.
Take
also note if you’re attention wanders off topic, and you start reading in automatic mode, without
processing the new information. If this happens to you, stop, breathe and bring
your attention back to the present action. If your attention insists on
wandering to another topic, re-evaluate if it’s worthwhile to keep reading or
if perhaps you should be taking care of that nagging business on your mind.
The ability to monitor
our attention and our bodily reactions to stimuli in our surroundings is at the
foundation for our success (or lack thereof) in any attempt to change a habit.
A
habitual reaction follows this sequence:
1.
I perceive a stimulus (conscious or subconsciously).
2.
I respond with an automatic action that requires no conscious thought.
Sometimes
this is good and useful. Thank goodness we don’t have to reason our way through
every single action we undertake daily. That would be exhausting and very
inefficient!
But
sometimes, we realize that our way of reacting is causing us trouble, and we
may want to change it. This, we soon realize, is not easy because habits are
strong and “comfortable” (however detrimental they may be to our wellbeing).
So, in order
to be successful in our enterprise, we need to learn
to stop before we react, and thus give ourselves time to decide what
response we truly want to give.
The problem is
that we are not always aware of the stimuli that trigger our automatic reactions,
and we only realize we’re reacting in our undesired way when we’re already more
than half-way down the road.
The solution
to this problem is to learn to perceive the signals
that indicate we’re already preparing a response.
Our
responses to stimuli start way before we become consciously aware of them. Our
brains are constantly anticipating, building our responses based on previous
experiences of similar stimuli.
Anticipation
manifests itself as a state that is simultaneously physical, mental and
emotional. It is perhaps easier for us to note this preparatory response in our
bodies (changes in heart-rate, breathing rate, muscle tension, skin or gut
sensations, etc.).
As
we learn to become aware of these anticipatory reactions, we start to have the
possibility of changing them.
And in order
to become aware of these anticipatory responses, we
need to become more aware of our bodies.
How does one go about doing that?
This is where the help of a guide becomes invaluable. If you’ll accompany me, I’ll be
happy to show you the roads I’ve already walked.
So,
in brief, the new reaction that we want to establish would follow this
sequence:
1.
I perceive the stimulus (consciously or subconsciously).
2.
I perceive my anticipatory reaction… and let it go.
3. I remember my purpose.
4.
I re-evaluate my response options.
5.
I decide on one response.
6.
I execute my choice, all the time keeping my greater purpose present and
monitoring my response.
You’ve
reached the end of today’s blog. It’s now your time to evaluate.
Has
your quesiton been answered?
See you next time.
Victoria
Wednesday, 20 August 2014
You’ve
arrived at the blog. Welcome.
Before we begin, let us
take a minute to come to internal and external stillness.
Sit down as
comfortably upright as you’re able. Relax your eyes and your jaw.
Become aware
of your breathing. Allow the air to go in and out without trying to directly
control it, allowing your breathing to be just the way it is right now.
Little by
little we’re going to let go of what we were doing before arriving here: the
previous webpage, what we were reading, what we were thinking.
Every action has a
certain degree of inertia.
We are like
a bucket full of water. We thrust our bodies and minds to and fro, and all our
internal environment (physical, mental and emotional) becomes agitated, like
waves in a storm.
Now we want
to start something new, we’re going to read a new blog, it’s a new action,
distinct from the one that preceded it.
Stopping before
starting something new allows us to give the new action its due space
(physical, mental and emotional)… or to simply realize that we don’t want to or
don’t need to undertake it at all.
Do you
really want to read this blog? You won’t know until you stop, allow the storm
of residual activity inside of you to quiet down, and take a moment to listen
to yourself.
That is why
we bring out bodies to stillness for a moment, and we bring our senses to our
inner environment for a check in. Even though we have brought the bucket to a
standstill, the water inside it takes a tad longer to quiet down and pool.
Bring your
attention to the sounds around you, those at no more than arms length, and then
those a bit further. Take your attention to furthest sound you can perceive.
Let go of that sound and bring your attention back to the space around you. Now
take it into your inner space. Listen for the sounds of your heart, your
breathing, your guts.
Without losing that connection to your inner sounds,
expand your attention up to where you find it adequate and comfortable in order
to read the rest of this blog.
With this act of
stopping and coming back to your senses, you are preparing yourself for
receiving, opening up for perceiving, for taking note of how you are right now
and how you feel about what you’re reading.
You are
already reacting to the stimulus of these words.
If the water
in your bucket is still, you’ll be able to notice what that reaction is.
What wave is
stirring your water? Is it the response you want to give? Is your response appropriate for your desired objective, for achieving that which you came here to achieve?
No response is correct
of incorrect. All are possible and valid. The question is not one of right or
wrong, but one of useful or not for achieving your goal. Does your response
help you or hinder you?
Perhaps your
response is taking energy away from your objective, funneling it instead
towards other needs. Perhaps those needs are valid and deserve to be listened
to and heeded. Or maybe they are just part of an old habit, an automatic
response whose expiration date has long passed.
If you are able to ‘see’
your response to the stimulus, you’re ready to let it go and give way to the
next logical, organic action that is in line with your objective.
Working with the
Alexander Technique is based on this premise. We cannot change what we cannot ‘see’.
We cannot change what we don’t understand. And the first step to changing
something isn’t doing something new. The first step is recognizing what we’re
doing and choosing to not do it any longer, and thus give way for the next
action.
Some day
perhaps, we’ll be able to match the inside with the outside. Bucket and water
will move in such harmony that there will be no separation, no storm. We won’t
need to stop our bodies first in order to stop the water. Stillness will be
part of our movement, and harmonious movement will be present in our stillness.
But we’re
not there yet. Today we’re at step one. Today we quiet the external, to give a
chance to the internal to come to stillness too. And that’s
alright. That’s the first step. All journeys start here.
So go back to your
breathing for a moment. Allow the air to come freely in and freely out.
You’re ready for your
next action. You’ve prepared the ground, you’ve quieted the internal and
external waters. You’ve given yourself time. You have given yourself time and space to decide.
What
do you want to do? What do you need to
stop doing to allow yourself to go in that direction?
See you next time.
Victoria
--
Victoria Stanham, Alexander Technique teacher and Pilates instructor.
I study developmental movement, taking great inspiration from the organic and free movement of the animal kingdom.
My goal is to achieve comfort, efficiency, elegance and balance, both in movement and in stillness, according to our physical, mental and emotional design.Friday, 25 April 2014
[In my last blog I reviewed the 4 great teachers we can have when it comes to learning
something new. Today I’m starting a new series of blogs on how to take advantage
of teachers 3 and 4: personal practice and ‘real life’.]
When
you decide to learn something new or change a habit, you need to experiment with
and practice using the techniques and tools learned in class, before using them
in ‘real life’ situations.
Experimentation and practice allow you
discover three crucial things: see how the techniques actually work when you’re
on your own, discover how much you actually understood of their use and which
bits are still unclear, and to own
the techniques, start making them yours, adapting them to you and your life.
For example, many of my students come to me for lessons
to learn how to improve their posture and general body-mind coordination. In each
lesson we see how to maintain a comfortable upwards attitude – both stable and
flexible – during their daily activities of sitting, standing, working at the
computer, playing tennis, etc. The students who make the fastest progress are
those who ‘do their homework’ so to speak: they play with the tools, techniques
and concepts learnt in class, testing them, trying to prove or disprove them…
and they arrive to their next lesson with new doubts, questions, complaints and
discoveries. All this is wonderful fodder to propel their next set of
discoveries in class.
The
problem for most students, however is that they can’t find the time and space
to practice. Once the day starts, it seems difficult to
stop their daily chores and activities in order to give themselves a few
minutes of formal practice… there always seems to be something else to do, one
more issue to solve, and at the end of the day they’re too tired physically,
mentally and emotionally to practice something that requires their full
attention.
This seems to be a universal problem for a lot of people
(yours truly included): it’s not that we’re lazy or that we lack the will or
desire to change our habits… it’s just that it doesn’t seem possible to insert
a new practice in the middle of our already hectic and overflowing days.
My
personal solution to this problema has been to consciously create a space for practice using three simple
parameters: safe place, safe time, and safe context.
The first and most important thing is to create this time-space-context
for practice consciously, that is
deliberately. It’s really no use to tell yourself, “Tomorrow I’ll practice when
I find a free moment”. You need to know exactly when, where and what you’ll
practice, so that you’re not leaving things up to chance.
Safe
place: Choose a place to practice where you’ll privacy and
you’ll be free of interruptions. The idea is that you feel free, safe and
comfortable, without any fear that you’ll be seen and judged on your performance.
Safe
time: You must schedule your practice time in advance. Best
time is whenever you have the energy and privacy to practice for the amount of
time you’re roping off. I have found that my best times are very early in the morning,
since I tend to lose focus, energy and willpower as the day progresses and I’m
sucked into the issues of daily living and working.
Safe
context: Finally you need to know exactly what you’ll
practice, and make it something that’s meaningful to you. The best tactic for
this is to “dress the new in old clothes”, that is, practice your new
coordination or your new idea in an activity you need to do anyway. This way
you are keeping your commitment to practice, while at the same time silencing
that nagging voice in your head that only wants to do ‘useful’ things and not
waste time on ‘superfluous’ activities.
Allow
me to give you an illustration. I have discovered that in
my own case the bathroom in my house
fits all the above paratmeters. It’s a
safe place: as unorthodox as it may seem to practice stuff in the bathroom,
it is a place where I’m alone and unseen, uninterrupted, and I have full-body
mirror. It’s a safe time: every
morning I prepare for my day in the bathroom (shower, get dressed, comb my
hair, brush my teeth, etc.) which means two things, (1) I don’t need to carve
out a special time for practice (it’s already happening every morning), and (2)
all the activities I do in preparation for my day give me ample opportunities
for practice.
For example, if I’m practicing not gripping my feet, I
can think of the space between my toes while I shower, remembering that my toes
begin halfway down my foot and releasing them from there to the very tips. Or
if I’m playing with my coordination and investigating movement patterns and unnecessary
tension in my arms, I can brush my teeth or comb my hair, or do any other
precision activity with my non-dominant hand (although I do not recommend putting
on mascara or eyeliner with your non-dominant hand if you’re in a hurry).
The
important thing is not to determine if I am doing it ‘right’ or ‘wrong’; what
matters is that fact that every day I’m practicing this habit of ‘observing
myself’ and being ‘mindful’ of my actions. Little by little,
this self-observation habit starts to percolate to other times and activities,
until I find myself naturally ‘practicing’ self-observation throughout my day.
To
sum up, in order to make progress in what matters to us, we
need to take the time, make the space, and create the context to practice it
daily, if even for only a few minutes. It
is this daily reminder of what really
matters to us that will turn the new behavior or new way we want to do
things into a habit. Only then will we start seeing real, lasting changes.
This
week
I invite you to find a time, space and context for your practice. Tell me about
it in the comments box below. How or what do you do to practice the things that
matter to you?
See you next week.
Victoria
Friday, 4 April 2014
Have you
ever taken a lesson with a teacher (or session with a therapist) and, though
you go through huge shifts during the lesson, you then find it difficult to
translate those insights into your ‘real’ life?
It’s like your lesson belongs to one world, and
your ‘real’ life to another… and they
are so different, and you are so
different in one and the other, that they appear to be different realities
altogether… making communication between them all the more difficult.
A lesson is a ‘constructed’ situation with the aim
of connecting you to certain knowledge. But the ‘real’ world isn’t
constructed along the same lines; in it, it is you who has to activate the newly acquired perspective on your own.
This isn’t always easy nor self-evident: what was obvious during the lesson
might seem inaccessible or inapplicable in your ‘real’ life.
How is it
that we can make this translation of knowledge and resources from one situation
to the next?
There are 4
ways of relating to the process of learning new things. Distinguishing between
them can help you generate and integrate changes. Each way serves a specific purpose, and
facilitates the process in its own manner.
These 4 great teachers are:
1.
Learning in an individual lesson (the guide)
2.
Playing and experimenting in a group (your peers)
3.
Rehearsing and practicing at home (you)
4.
Real-life application (Life)
Let’s look at each in turn.
1. Individual lesson: The purpose of your lesson with a teacher or therapist is
pushing the limits of what you know further into the unknown; i.e. learning new
things. This is challenging in itself and may throw you into a panic at
times. That is why it’s so important to choose your guide wisely. The more at ease and safe your feel in the learning
situation, the faster you’ll make progress, the more you’ll learn, and the more
involved and enthusiastic you’ll be about uncovering all your latent potential.
In each lesson you may look at concrete ways of translating the
newly acquired knowledge to ‘real’ life situations. However, knowing the theory
does not equate to being able to apply it. Sometimes the stimuli in your ‘real’
life are too strong and erratic for you to be able to act in the newly learned
way. The easiest thing to do then is to fall back into your old, well-known, ‘safe’
and ‘comfortable’ ways. If this happens again and again, your process of
transformation becomes arrested, and you, frustrated.
This is where the second way of relating to new material comes in
handy.
2. The practice group: A practice group can be a formal (a study group or therapy group) or
informal affair (a friend or partner who shares your interest). The purpose of
being in a group is to practice the use of the tools and resources you learned
in your individual lesson, but doing so in a safe context where the agreements
are clear between participants. These practice moments are also ‘constructed’
situations, but they are nearer to what goes on in ‘real’ life because you have
to relate to peers, respond to their stimuli, and manage your own reactions.
Sometimes practice groups are created specifically for the purpose
of training in the use of certain tools (i.e. a study group). But this isn’t
necessarily requisite. For example, if you are taking individual lessons to
correct your postural faults and coordination, you might join a Pilates or Yoga
group where you can practice the use of the tools you acquired in your
individual lesson. The Pilates or Yoga groups wasn’t built specifically for
that, but their structural characteristics are such that make them ideal places
to train yourself in the use of your psychophysical re-coordinating tools.
3. Individual practice time: In the safety of your home, away from peeping
eyes, you can practice and experiment with details (securing what was integrated
and revealing what wasn’t). This practice time is analogous to a musicians solo
practice time, when he/she takes the time to get to know his/her instrument,
and himself/herself in relation to it.
Individual practice time is paramount for polishing off rough
areas, to experiment with variations on a theme, to elaborate interesting questions for future
experimentation with group and/or guide. Your time in your individual lesson with
your teacher is going to be a lot more profitable if you have done your
homework… we all know that from our school days… it’s what we tell our kids and
students… and yet, do we follow our own advice?
4.
The role of applying the knowledge in ‘real’ life:
Finally you have to take the risk of trying out your theories in the world-out-there,
in order to prove, disprove or amend them. However, you don’t need to do your
first tests in the most stressful conditions you encounter in your daily life.
Much like you do in the other 3 learning ways, you can start simple, safe and
controlled, and progress onto more emotionally complex situations as you master
each step.
For instance, if you are
experimenting with a new way of reacting and relating to food, trying to eat
more consciously, perhaps it’s not the best idea to start your experiment in
the middle of a noisy family dinner or at a friend’s birthday party, when your main
focus of attention is on other things. Start with going out on your own (or
with your study-buddy) for a cup of coffee or tea, move on to consciously eating
your packed-lunch at work while relatively undisturbed, and little by little
add other dining situations when there are more stimuli to manage. Get the picture?
You
won’t always have a guide or group readily available.
Sometimes you have to, or prefer to, start by learning from a book, video, or
blog. That way you also get a chance to study the material and decide if you
really want to take the plunge into its serious practice and application. If
you do, you’ll eventually want to go deeper, to really commit to change, and
then a guide and group will become indispensable.
But
remember that you always have your individual practice and your ‘real’ life
experimentation available to you. Even when you do have a guide and group you are not excused from not taking the
acquired knowledge and making it yours, embodying it. If you really mean to
change, this is your responsibility.
Next
week, we’ll look into some concrete ways of translating kinaesthetic knowledge
from a lesson to daily living. I’ll start by sharing
with you the practice and observation exercises I give my individual pupils. I
invite you to try them out, play with them, ask me questions, and give me
feedback on them.
Friday, 28 March 2014
When you
embark on a process of change
(that is, in any learning process) you’re
taking a step into the unknown. You entering new territory, where there’s
no trodden path to follow.
The problem
here is that, quite often, this is scary. Where do I start? Which way do I go? What’s the shortest path to my
goal? And the safest? What monsters and dragons will I find down this road?
Although you may have a compass & map to navigate, it is never the same as
actually knowing the territory. And
sometimes, the mere fact of being alone in that vast and desolate place can
discourage you from taking the next step… so you turn round and return to where
you came from; only to live eternally with the question “Who would I be today
if I had taken the leap of faith and walked the path of change?”
Do not despair. You are always on time to take up
the road again and start walking. What
you need is a guide; someone who already knows the place and can walk with you
a while and show you the main features of the territory and introduce you to
its inhabitants… Until you feel confident enough in the new place to blaze a
trail on your own, courageously fathoming the unknown.
So, the question now is: how do I choose a good guide?
Sometimes you don’t have much to choose from, for
you know only one inhabitant of this new place, and all you can do is accept
his guidance or walk alone (and sometimes it’s better to walk alone).
Other times, there are so many available guides
that you don’t know which one to choose, nor which criteria to use to make your
choice. All offer something of interest and value. Which is the best fit for
you?
Choosing a
good guide can make all the difference when it comes to actually enjoying the
process of change. The best guide
for you might not necessarily be the most versed in the new territory, but the
one who knows how to adapt the best to changing circumstances in the new
territory, and can therefore show and model the process of adaptation that you
need to undergo.
Although it is imposible to be infalible when
making your choice, I venture to give you the 8 tips that I use to recognize a good guide. Use them as a
checklist for when you’re choosing a teacher, guru, leader, mentor,
facilitator, coach or therapist; that is, when choosing any person who’ll show
you how to start your journey through the new territory.
1) Around
him/her you feel safe. If you’re in any way worried about protecting or
defending yourself against the behavior of your guide you are in no place to
absorb new information: all your focus is directed towards survival. Feeling
safe is a direct result of your ability to self-regulate, and a good guide can
help you with that when he/she had developed that ability in themselves.
This is the MOST IMPORTANT point; all the following
tips are useless if this first point is not satisfied. Moreover, all following
tips are just different variables that allow you to feel safe around your
guide.
2) Knows
how to listen. A guide may
know the whole breadth, width and depth of the territory and every available
road within it, but if he/she can’t listen to what you’re asking, he/she might
lead you astray. Of course, it’s your responsibility to ask a clear question to get a clear answer. However, the best
guides are also able to help you clarify your question if you’re not even sure
what that is in the first place.
3) Knows a little
bit more than you about the territory. He/She does not need to be an expert
in the matter. Sometimes all he/she needs to be is a step ahead of you, so that
he/she may leave a footprint that shows you the next step on your journey.
4) Gives clear
explanations. It is important that your guide is able to explain to you the
next step in a way that you can understand and that captures your attention. We
all learn in different ways, and a good guide knows how to adapt his/her
explanation to suit yours.
5) You
share principles. Every guide
bases his/her work on certain key principles or fundamental beliefs about ‘how
things are’, which underlie his/her explanations and concrete methodology. If
you want to enjoy the journey he/she invites you on, it is important that you
resonate with his/her philosophy.
6) Walks
the talk. You want a guide that acts
and lives in coherence with what he/she teaches. A guide who only knows the
theory of the problem and solution is useless for all practical purposes. Only
a guide who walks the talk will be able to understand the obstacles your face
at each stage of the journey.
7) Takes
responsibility for his/her role.
This means that he/she is conscious of his role in your life and acts in
consequence, accepting the responsibilities that come with the role, and never
misusing the power that comes with it too. His/her idea of what this implies
will be based on his/her principles (see item 4).
8) Is
flexible and humble. As you advance
in your journey through the unknown, you’ll become confident enough to
elaborate your own ideas as to where you’d like to go and how you’d like to get
there. A flexible guide allows you to freely express your burgeoning curiosity
and supports you in your forays into the unknown. A humble guide knows when
your questions, interest, or needs go beyond his/her resources or would be
better satisfied by another guide. The best guide is he/she who will then bless
you and allow you to fly free to look for another guide, happy that his/her
mission in your life has been successfully completed.
Tu sum up, when you
choose your guide make sure that at his/her side you feel that you can unfold
your full potential, the whole span of your wings. We are all different and
different things make us feel safe; therefore there is no one guide who is the best
for all. The supreme guide is within you,
it’s that voice that tells you, “Follow this person for a while, he/she has the next piece of the puzzle to your journey.”
Nevertheless, a great guide can’t ensure your success.
If you don’t take the chance to walk a
bit on your own, at least in those stretches of road that you have already
walked with your guide, in order to habituate the new patterns, you’ll never be
truly free in the new territory. A guide is not meant to be a crutch for
life, he/she is meant to be a trampoline into it!
How is it
that we achieve this freedom in the new territory?
Next blog we’ll explore the 3 basic tools you need
to make the new territory your new home:
1. The role
of the guide (pushing the
limits of the unknown)
2. The role
of the practice group (practicing the
tools to successfully live within the new conquered territory)
3. The role
of your personal practice (securing
the conquered territory and giving birth to new questions that will take you
onto new discoveries)
--
Image credit: pixabay
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Top 50 Alexander Technique Blog
.jpg)
