Mirror, Mirror...

Our habits of movement come from our habits of thinking which we remember according to how they feel. Whenever we access a picture of who we are, a big part of the image that pops into our heads is the way things usually feel to us when we do them. But that picture is not the whole truth any more than our wardrobe is the whole truth of what we look like. That's why it's important to be able to see yourself outside of what's familiar to you. That way, when you want to know who you are and what's possible, the answer you get is more than just a fashion statement

The Temporary and Workable Habits of the Mind

"The essence of bravery is being without self-deception. However, it is not so easy to take a straight look at what we do. Seeing ourselves clearly is initially uncomfortable and embarrassing. As we train in clarity and steadfastness we see things we'd prefer to deny-- judgementalness, pettiness, arrogance. These are not sins but temporary and workable habits of the mind. The more we get to know them, the more they lose their power. This is how we come to trust that our basic nature is utterly simple, free of the struggle between good and bad."

Pema Chodron
The Places That Scare You

Just Do It?

The effects of the Alexander Technique can be dramatic, but most of the time they are gradual and inconspicuous. Although not always striking, these effects are often more enduring and complete. For that to happen you have to have a clearly defined but open-ended goal: you have to find out the truth of how you're using yourself. You need to know whether or not your enthusiasm for getting things done is actually interfering with the very mechanisms that do the doing. The act of Noticing helps because it brings a spontaneous orderliness and efficiency to anything you. It's penetrating yet gentle influence distills out unecessary movement and leaves you doing only what needs to be done. You don't "Just Do it", you do just it.

Habit

Noticing is a way catch yourself hardening into habits. We use habits to make ourselves solid and fixed in order to brace ourselves against the uncertainty we encounter in our daily activities. Unfortunately {or fortunately} life is fluid. If we approach it by stiffening and shutting down we don't experience how fully able we are to adapt to its changes. Use Noticing to counteract that shutting down. As you go through the day observe how you greet each new situation. If you can enagage in something new and Notice at the same time then that activity has increased your adaptibility. You open and soften in the face of uncertainty instead of getting harder and more resistent. That way, habits don't need to be broken, they just need to be neatly folded and put away.

Ease Happens

Noticing is a process that can circumvent our habits and uncover our natural sense of ease. When our habits dominate, they can masquerade as an underlying instinct so that what seems natural is just a form of over-doing that we have become accustomed to. Moving with ease is not something that you do as much as it is something that happens when you stop over-doing. It is something that is available to us any time we are willing to explore the possibility of exchanging knowing for learning.

Out of Habit

It's hard to stop doing what you do and wanting what you want, but if you keep your eyes open and for a split second make the SEEING of what you are wanting more important than the satisfying or denying of it, other choices may appear that, at some point, may enable you to go in a brand new direction.

Now and Again

When asked how often I Notice during the day I usually answer now and again. "Now" meaning: as soon as you remember {forget} and "Again" meaning: as soon as you forget {remember}.

Flow

Noticing induces a kind of profound easiness that is a wonderful balance of activity and stillness where the fulfillment of one activity becomes the exact preparation needed for the next, gracefully allowing the present to move into the future as a deeply satisfying flow.

The Natural Way

The sage follows the natural way,
doing what is required of him.
Like an experienced tracker,
he leaves no tracks;
like a good speaker, his speech is fluent;
He makes no error, so needs no tally;
like a good door, which needs no lock,
he is open when it is required of him,
and closed at other times;
like a good binding, he is secure,
without the need of borders.
Knowing that virtue may grow from example,
this is the way in which the sage teaches,
abandoning no one who stops to listen.
Thus, from experience of the sage,
all might learn, and so might gain.
There is mutual respect twixt teacher and pupil,
for, without respect, there would be confusion.

Tao Te Ching
Lao Tsu

Happy Birthday To You

There is a beauty in simply "doing" things that is much more enjoyable and effective than "getting things done". When you just do something it's possible to lose oneself in the doing and find that your achievements have taken on a life of their own and somehow have far exceeded anything that you could have reasonably expected .

Trying to Jump Over Your Own Knees

The spiritual teacher G.I. Gurdjieff characterized his over-zealous students as people "trying with all their might to jump over their own knees". In the Alexander Technique this can happen whenever you place too much emphasis on improving and not enough on seeing what you are actually doing moment by moment. When you see what's happening right now, you free yourself up by allowing things to work as they were designed to. That seeing eliminates trying because instead of attempting to enact your preconceptions, you're watching yourself as your mechanisms adapt the movement of your body to the actual demands of the activity. It sometimes feels as if "someone else" is doing the movement. Once you get used to this experience of distance, you relax and movement flows through you allowing you to enjoy yourself doing things in wonderful new ways that come as a pleasant surprise to both you and your knees.

Unconditioned Listening

Here is one of the best definitions of Noticing that I have ever come across. It comes from "The Ease of Being" by Jean Klein. It really speaks to how important it is to Notice without any expectations; without an agenda.

“Whenever listening is intentional, tension arises because a result is anticipated, and this result is a product a projection of memory. Unconditioned listening has no end in mind and in this openess all the senses are receptive. Hearing is no longer confined to the ears, instead the whole body listens with an ever-expanding sensitivity until you feel yourself in listening itself...you no longer listen because you are the listening”

Excess Effort Detector

One of the most useful things about Noticing is that you can use it as an "excess effort detector." If you start an activity by Noticing the moment you try to use more effort than is necessary you stop Noticing. This means that you can use Noticing to experiment with different approaches to the same activity. It allows you to test out different ideas and get objective feedback as to their usefulness. It's a great way to refine your understanding and application of ideas such as: "Allow your neck to be free", "back to lengthen and widen" and "head forward and up".

Doing and Non-Doing

An important aspect of Noticing is finding a balance between doing and non-doing. The changes that happen in you when you Notice are initiated by your thinking but the changes themselves are not controlled by your conscious mind. You Notice and then you have to allow. Noticing is active but allowing is simply observing the flow of change. When you allow you are letting things unfold of their own accord but at the same time you're actively monitoring whether or not you are currently Noticing. By Noticing first, you start this process with your thinking then, as you move your body, you are simultaneously allowing it to be moved.

Stuck?

"It's not possible to stand still or be stuck because energy and therefore life is always in motion. Things are always changing but, the reason it may feel to you as if you are stuck is because while you are continuing to think the same thoughts things are changing but they're changing into the same thing over and over. If you want things to change into different things you must think different thoughts and that simply requires finding unfamiliar ways of approaching familiar subjects."

Abraham/Hicks
The Law of Attraction

Non Habit-Forming

Don't assume

Stay curious

Don't be an expert

Except at being a beginner

Let it be new

Let it be strange

Let it be unfamiliar

Let it be out of control

You are open by Nature

All is fluid, especially you

Enjoy the change of seasons

There's a new one every breath

Be surprised

Be surprising

Give it your all

However much that may be at the time

Have the courage to face the pain that comes from not being too sure

AND THEN...

Have a laugh watching someone
who's mostly made out of water
pretend to be a rock

Let's Not and See We Didn't

"If you find it to hard to enter the now directly, start by observing the habitual tendency of your mind to want to escape from the now. Through self-observation more presence comes into your life automatically. The moment you realize you are not present, you are present."

Eckhart Tolle
The Power of Now

You'll Miss The Whisper If You're Waiting For A Shout

The purpose of Noticing is not to break habits. Trying to break a habit is like trying to pry open a clenched fist with your free hand. Even if you manage to do it, you have wasted a lot of energy and as soon as you get the fist open it is likely to clench right back up when you're not looking. Noticing is a quiet kind of attentive openess that nutures your intrinsic openess so that it can expand. That expanded non-judgmental stance allows you insight into how the whole process of trying culminates in those things we call our bad habits. That information, however, does not usually arrive as a resounding revelation but rather as a gentle release. It's a little like a whisper escaping suddenly from inside a soap bubble. ShhhPop.

Self-Science II

Notice

Move

Leave Yourself Alone

See What Happens

Less is All

Re-establishing our capacity to move with ease is a process of letting go of interference and uncovering the underlying grace that is the foundation of all movement. The progression toward this responsive and natural flexibility is not a building up of positive aspects but instead a process of distilling out those things we habitually create which complicate the translation of our intentions into our actions.

The Powerless Past

"Nothing ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now. And if the past cannot prevent you from being present now what power does it have?

Eckhart Tolle
A New Earth

But Just Right Now

In terms of change, it's not how much but rather, which way.

Don't think so much, use your intelligence.

The two main offending approaches are jumping in too fast and working too hard. Noticing solves both.

There is a deeper intelligence available to you but first you have to give up your water-wings and break the surface.

Your habits are how you think you move, what you think you need and who you think you are.

Think of yourself a crack investigative reporter rather than a drama critic.

All you are doing is creating a few gaps in your habits so that something more useful can peek through.

You are already feeling what there is to feel but to you it doesn't feel like much, so you exagerate it until it's big enough for you to feel like you're really feeling something.

We know that we are doing the moving but how much do we know about what the moving is doing to us.

All forms of sense perception are self-perception.

Underneath all our bad habits is perfect use.

Excess tension is really just over-thinking and a big part of that is trying to feel what we are already feeling.

You can either see your habits or be your habits.

Our habits are just a bunch of things we have invented that we don’t actually need.

Nothing stays the same. You are either improving or getting worse and you do have a choice, but just right now.

Cure-iosity

"When your aspiration is to lighten up, you begin to have a sense of humor. Things just keep popping your serious state of mind. In addition to a sense of humor, a basic support for a joyful mind is curiosity, paying attention, taking an interest in the world around you. You don't actually have to be happy. But being curious without a heavy judgmental attitude helps. If you are judgmental, you can even be curious about that. Notice everything. Appreciate everything, including the ordinary. That's how to click in with joyfulness or cheerfulness. Curiosity encourages cheering up. So does simply remembering to do something different."

Pema Chodron
Start Where You Are

Inhibition

"It is impossible to be inspired when all you do is exhale."

Anon