Becoming Strong with the Alexander Technique

Learning how to be strong....from the inside out.

I used to think I didn't "have" muscles.  I thought I was weak.  Do you know what those thoughts can do to a person?  What you think is what you get.  I wasn't weak, and I definitely had muscles, but I did not experience strength because I told myself those things, and I believed those thoughts.

Do you believe that you are weak?  Do you want to feel strong?

First, you must realize the thoughts you are feeding to yourself, and you need to realize that your body is innocent - it wants you to be right, so it gives you the experience of what you believe, to make it true.  If the body were to talk to you, it might say, "Oh! You believe that you are weak? That you don't have muscles?  Well, I love you so much that I want you to have the pleasure of being right!  I'm going to prove to you that you are weak, and make it true.  I will use my muscles less so that you get a sense of lack of movement and start forgetting the natural range of motion available to the joints...maybe the muscles will even atrophy someday so that you can feel really justified in your beliefs."  And the body will do this, because you are not sending messages to it to counter this process.

You are feeding the body false thoughts, and the body is giving you an experience to "prove" to you that you're right in believing those thoughts.  And then, you FEEL lack of movement and lack of energy and lack of power....so your beliefs are reinforced, and you continue to think the same thoughts - which are becoming true, little by little.

Is that what you want?  What DO you want?  To be and feel strong?

If that's what you want, don't believe your limiting thoughts!  Stop taking for granted that your thoughts about yourself are true.  Question them.  And stop thinking the ones that you don't want to be true. Don't trust how you feel in your body and rely on that.  Rely on your THINKING, and CHOOSE what you want to think!

What you think IS what you get!

1. Become aware of what you are thinking  ("I am weak, I don't have muscles")
2. Decide what you don't want, and what you want (I don't want to be weak, and I want to feel that I have muscles that work and have full range of motion, and strength; I want to be and feel strong)
3. Remember that you are FREE TO CHOOSE what to think and what to stop thinking (you are free to continue thinking those thoughts, or to stop thinking "I am weak, I don't have muscles"; and also free to think "I have muscles; I am strong!")
4. Don't pay attention to feelings in your body that are trying to convince you otherwise
5. Stick to your intention; stop what is unhelpful, and direct your thinking towards what you want, with meaning
6. TRUST your mind-body connection, and have the PATIENCE to keep this up.  In good time, you will start to feel strong, but mostly because strength begins in the MIND, and you are making your mind very strong by practicing this conscious, constructive, self-control.

If you actually do this, you are likely to be amazed by the results.  More and more, you will have opportunities to see that, indeed, you ARE much stronger than you ever thought.  Enjoy!

Image courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Finding My Voice with the Alexander Technique & Podcast

One of the many things that the Alexander Technique is extremely helpful for is meeting and overcoming challenges, so that at times it seems we are achieving "the impossible".  I wrote a blogpost recently about some of the personal milestones I've achieved in my life with the Technique, and I'd like to write about another milestone I achieved just a couple days ago, which means a great deal to me.

I was extremely shy as a child, always preferring to stay on the outside of a group, observing for quite a long time before daring to join in.  I didn't feel understood by other children, and I didn't feel that they really listened when I spoke to them, so after awhile I didn't bother to speak much anymore.  I knew that I could express myself fully through playing the violin, so I spoke through that instrument instead of through my voice.  Which was great for my music-making, but not so good for developing my speaking skills!  

Realizing that deficit, I took a speech class in college, hoping to overcome what had turned into an unpleasant fear of speaking in public - but I quickly dropped the class when I drew a complete blank on a poem I was supposed to recite from memory.  When I won an award for my violin playing a couple years later from TIME magazine, I needed to give an acceptance speech in NYC; I don't think I spoke more than three sentences, deferring instead to the expression of my recorded music playing in the background.

So....a very surprising and completely unintended benefit from learning the Alexander Technique has been that I can now feel quite comfortable speaking in front of an audience.  I now enjoy teaching group classes (oh, how nervous I was the first time!), and I even speak with ease to audiences about my baroque violin during concerts.  

The latest milestone in this regard has been a podcast interview that I recorded a couple days ago for Body Learning, a comprehensive online resources for the Alexander Technique.  These recordings are listened to by teachers and students of the Technique alike.  Yes, I still experienced some performance anxiety before the recording began, but I thoroughly enjoyed taping the conversation.  

Sometimes I wonder....who is this new person emerging with a confidence and abilities I never knew I had before?  Yes...little by little....I am at last finding a way to express mySelf through my vocal mechanism in addition to the violin.  What a wondrous gift this Technique is!!

Here's a link to the podcast interview, if you're interested.  It's about making good use of our innate free will, but it will probably only make sense to you if you are already a teacher or student of the Technique.  Enjoy!

http://bodylearning.buzzsprout.com/382/112493-an-interesting-new-development-in-alexander-technique-directing

*Image courtesy of Vlado / FreeDigitalPhotos.net