mindfulness
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Are you busy? No, and I don’t want to be. The Alexander Technique and getting jobs done.
I know I am not on my own in often feeling like I need to get a job done as quickly as possible. When I need to rest, I don’t, and I tell myself “I’ve started so I’ll finish”. Even when I’m tired or aching and I know I should stop, I keep going. Often it is so that I get it over with and can do things I’d rather be doing. I’m pressurising myself to go faster, do it quicker, get it finished. I promise myself I will have a break afterwards or do the thing I really want to do later. I do this far less nowadays, but the habit, the possibility, is always there. My clients nod when I talk about it. It has become almost universal. Plus, no one has ever said to me “are you chilling out and relaxing?” No, they say “are you busy?” to which I say (nowadays), “No, and I don’t want to be.” I often get a rather strange look when I say that because it’s going against what is normally acceptable! However, I think we need to do things differently.
This pushing ourselves beyond tired and feeling like it’s important to cram in as much as possible is taking us away from ourselves. It’s become a bit too engrained and we humans are suffering for it. We are losing touch with the present moment, the joy of doing a task mindfully and discovering the ease with which our bodies can do things if we give it the opportunity. There’s no noticeable change in the speed with which the task is completed either, and all things become enjoyable.
There’s a simple Alexander principle which stops all of that pressure in its tracks. This process is so simple and so profound and all it requires is stopping! Stop your usual habit of rushing through a task and instead make a choice to regularly take time out from it! There’s more layers to it than that, but this is a way into it.
When I do this, the job becomes so much more joyful, richer and fulfilling. Recently, when I was washing the pots, I stopped and stood with my hands in the hot water, looking out at dawn breaking over my garden. I gave my body permission to release all the unnecessary effort I was making to wash the pots as quickly as possible and I just stood there with no agenda. Firstly I experienced that joyful effortless “physical” experience of releasing my habitual muscular tensions but secondly I got to experience the most fantastic dawn breaking across my garden and watched an Acer tree become a ball of fire.
I know I would have missed that moment had I been in my usual mode of “starting so I’ll finish” and instead I witnessed a breath taking event! I continued washing the pots with far more ease as I wasn’t trying to finish the job but take pleasure in every moment.
With practising the Alexander Technique I continue to experience these mindful events much of the time and it enhances my experience of life. I often see things I would otherwise miss in “rush” mode. I experience much more ease of movement and overall life is much more enjoyable and all I need to do is STOP. Why not book a lesson to learn how to bring these kinds of experiences into your life? Contact me?
Jane Clappison
Alexander Technique Teacher
01759 307282
www.janeclappison.co.uk
Birthday presents & doing less with the Alexander Technique
Pandemic focus purchasing: Order completed over the phone. Smart walk into town, mask on, quick flash of my card to buy the flowers and a swift hand over of two huge bouquets.
I hadn’t expected them to be so big.
After about 5 minutes of brisk walking I realised I needed to carry these bouquets for at least another 10-15 minutes and I predicted my arms would probably ache. I was tightly gripping them in front of me, elbows at 90 degrees. I had hoped to put them in a large carrier bag I had brought with me. They were far too big to fit into it. I remembered I had studied the Alexander Technique for over 30 years and smiled.
What if these bouquets were actually two huge balloons and they weighed nothing, in fact they were holding my arms up? Immediately I let go of the strangled grip I had on all the flower stems. My hands felt so much better! My wrists and arms released, my neck and jaw released. I looked around me as I walked. I had a spring in my step. I enjoyed the mass of colour in those bouquets in front of me. I revelled in the late autumn air. The walk was a pleasure.
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Home cooked food & agenda-less days.
An earthenware vintage bowl
My place of refuge, for many years, was snuggled up on my grandparent’s high backed two seater sofa between nanny and either the dog, Tiny (who wasn’t that tiny) or my granddad Joe (when he was home from sea).
The sofa would be pulled in front of the glowing fire on these occasions. We would be waiting for bread dough to do it’s magic. It’s receptacle, the wide mouthed red clay earthenware pot, would be sat on the hearth. The inner yellow glaze hidden by a damp white tea towel. I still have that vintage pot and I have made bread with it many times.
Nanny always gently patted the yeasty white mound, as if that sealed a secret agreement to rise, just before covering it in the towel. The memory is extremely clear in my mind, as are her gnarled hands which she believed resulted from stretching material over wings of planes during the first world war.
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Calm is where you make space for it (even if you feel life is completely upside down)
As you know I write a blog a couple of times a month.
The first blog this month was a project on “knees” and the Alexander Technique.
It has been very difficult to find the appropriate words for the second one of the month. So I did a video and wrote some of my thoughts around why I did a video:
I can’t say it will be alright due to the coronavirus. I can’t say I am coping amazingly well despite all my expertise of relaxation, meditation, Alexander Technique and so on.
What I can say is that I have been anxious, distressed, frightened, calm, peaceful, happy and every other emotion possible. It feels my life was thrown up in the air like confetti and it’s falling down around me. I’m watching it land. Some bits are blowing away. Some bits I have already picked up again and hold close. Some bits I hope I find even though they are out of sight.
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Festive overwhelm and a moment of calm with the Alexander Technique
Santa didn’t leave a sack at the end of my bed! He had always left the sack at the end of the bed. Was I that bad this year? I was panic stricken and so was my sister who I shared the room with. We rushed out of the bedroom, meeting our brother on the way towards “the front bedroom” i.e. Mummy & Daddy’s room. The tsunami of us anxious kids shot into their room and almost all at once we began a traumatised chorus of “Santa hasn’t been”. Fortunately panic was soon over when we discovered he had “been” and left our sacks with Mummy and Daddy.
We were not the only one’s affected as years later my Mum still tells us about that day and the “hasn’t been” chorus which happened because they wanted to see us opening our presents. She doesn’t recount or remember my other traumatic experience on the same day which was the Land Rover.
One of the presents in my sack was a toy Land Rover. I was over the moon. It would pull an imaginary horse box for my herd of plastic horses. I can remember the tyres to this day. Big, knobbly, black tyres, white centres and the grey and green paint job. I zoomed it round my other presents and our slowly emptying sacks…until my Mum & Dad realised the toy I was playing with actually belonged to my brother, who was looking on enviously. I don’t remember how they explained it to me, or the way I parted company with it. I am fairly certain I won’t have given it up without a fight and it would have involved tears, and most likely not all mine. I have never forgotten the toy that I wasn’t actually given.
Christmas and the festive season can be overwhelming for many reasons, for all ages and all walks of life. It can be overwhelming in a pleasurable way as well as painful. A mixture of emotions, highs and lows and challenges of all kinds. From what I have heard in the last couple of days, food shopping is currently high on the list of people’s challenges, for those lucky enough to be able to afford that.
This year has held quite a number of challenges for me, especially latterly. Sometimes with all the wisdom I imagine I must have gathered over the years, including my Alexander Technique skills, I struggle to hold onto what might bring some calm and peace. Latterly, all I can offer myself, and perhaps you, is to come into the present moment by focussing on one thing. Hands, jaw, breathing, whatever takes your attention. My feet are often my “go to” place for that. I reconnect with my feet and the earth. I notice everything I can about the sensations coming from them. They ground me. Maybe they will you too? A moment of centering in the whirlwind of life events.
Jane Clappison MSTAT
Alexander Technique Teacher
www.janeclappison.co.uk
Alexander Technique and standing still
Stand Still
Recently, I rediscovered a poem called Lost by David Wagoner. When I came across it, I remembered that I had read it out to a group of my students when we were thinking about being in the present moment, something that is an essential part of the Alexander Technique. I am so glad I found the poem again:
Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
David Wagoner
(1999)
This time as I read it, I thought it would make a perfect subject for my AT topic this month. The bits that stood out when I read it were:
Stand still.
The forest knows where you are.
Let it find you.
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Alexander Technique: Endgaining or present moment?
The bottom half of my parent’s enormous garden was always looked after by my Dad, and since he passed away it has gradually become neglected. The clematis took over the lilac tree and pulled it down, the saplings, brambles and bind weed invaded everywhere. It became a wildlife haven. However, it had to be tamed as it was invading the neighbours gardens too. We also had to tame a lot of the saplings before they became trees too wide and high to manage.
So, my husband, sister and I all converged on the unruly garden last Sunday. We started at different points and hacked our way towards each other. It reminded me a lot of the Sleeping beauty story. Eventually we began to see glimpses of each other through the undergrowth and despite the rain, we kept going and met in the middle. We were surrounded by devastation, sweaty and wet, but had a great feeling of achievement.
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