Alexander-Technique-Albuquerque-NM-actor

Acting (Actors) – Running from Pain (Musicians)(Psychology)(Pain)(Strain)(Injuries)(Posture)(Alexander Technique)

This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Acting (Actors’) Technique, is published in a PDF format. It is very detailed and practical. It will give you the physical tools you need to take the limits off of your ability to create the acting technique you want without sacrificing your body.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (Movement Therapy)

(PART ONE OF A TWO PART ESSAY)

This morning I got up really early and almost acknowledged I wasn’t in a good place. I was feeling tired and depressed and fearful for my future. I was semi-conscious of my despair for hours, before I said to myself, “What the hell am I doing to myself?”

Why did it take hours for me to stop putzing around in fear – drinking coffee, running around the internet, and not addressing physical aches and pains and tensions caused by my fear?

BECAUSE THIS IS HOW I’VE CHOSEN TO BE ALL OF MY LIFE, AND I CHOSE TO FORGET OVER THE YEARS THAT I CHOSE TO BE THIS WAY!

At a very early age, I believe we choose 100% of what we experience, and we FORGET what we chose to believe about ourselves and the world what ISN’T true, and it runs us. Most of the time we’re on automatic pilot, living by what we chose to believe, having FORGOTTEN a long ago we ever made the choices we made.

(What I just said is traditionally labeled in psychology what’s in the subconscious.)

Returning to my steady state of fretting this morning, why did I not interrupt the pain I was causing myself through despair and worry about now and my future? There are three reasons.

The first is I have been a worrier, a fretter, and a ruminator all of my life, so when I do nothing to inhibit these habits, they instantly become my DEFAULT state of being.

I want to make a point here, that I have done a ton of great psychotherapy and self analysis, and intense physical/emotional release work. But for all of this self work I’ve done, my default state of dreading the future keeps biting me in the butt.

Second, I have been a fretter, and a ruminator and a worrier for most of my life, so these feelings have been central to my persona, and were put in place very very early on in my life by me. I chose to forget these feelings were a choice, and drove them into my subconscious forgetting I made them, so they now feel as if they’re a permanent immutable part of me, running me.

Third, thoughts always precede all of my feelings of angst, but I don’t experience them anymore, if I ever did. What do I mean?

I believe that when we experience feelings of joy, that we are well aware of the thoughts that precede these loving feelings and embrace them.

But when we experience feelings of fear and anger and rage and dread and despair, we instantly want to get away from the pain they cause us, and we are so panicked by these feelings, that we forget instantly they were triggered by our own attack thoughts on ourselves.

These COMPRESSED thoughts of despair and fear and rage flash through at such a high rate of speed in our minds, that it truly feels as if we are thrown into turmoil against our wills for NO valid reason. And we don’t fight these feelings, because we NEVER DID growing up.

So, every intolerable feeling becomes a permanent part of who we are, because we don’t remember our decisions made to protect ourselves at any cost. They were too overwhelming/threatening to remember, so we forgot we chose to not confront and accept these feelings. We bury them, and they don’t go away.

What happened this morning was me being overwhelmed by fears I had forgotten I had chosen to believe were real as a child.

Let me restate this more clearly.

I WAS OVERWHELMED THIS MORNING BY THOUGHTS I CHOSE TO FORGET, NOT BY FEELINGS I CHOSE TO FORGET!

It is so so easy to speak only in terms of intolerable feelings, because the feelings paralyze us or make us run around crazy, or drink lots of coffee to suppress the fears. The feelings go on and on and feel oh so real hurting us so much, that we’ll do anything to stop hurting in the now.

WHAT KEEPS US FROM FROM DOING WHAT ENDS THE HURTING IS WE DON’T REMEMBER WHY WE’RE HURTING. What do I mean?

This morning I was sitting in my comfortable chair with a cup of coffee worrying, and fretting, and in despair. I was not acknowledging what was going on in me, but it was so familiar, that I did nothing except slap at it, like it was a pesky horsefly biting me.

It was so familiar, and I had slapped at it so so many times before, that I did what I always do – unconsciously wish it would go away.

What was I doing that wasn’t working?

I WAS UNCONSCIOUSLY TRYING TO CHASE OFF THE PAINFUL THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS, AND BRING THEM TO CONSCIOUSNESS AT THE SAME TIME, WHICH CANCELLED BOTH ACTIONS OUT.

I’M NOT AN UNAWARE BEING ANYMORE, AND I “ALMOST” KNEW I WAS SCREWING MYSELF WITH MY CONTRADICTORY ACTIONS. I WOULDN’T REMEMBER OR WANTED TO REMEMBER WHAT THE THOUGHTS WERE I WAS BEATING MYSELF UP WITH!

The thoughts that preceded my suffering were so COMPRESSED, that they blinded me in a fraction of a second, and I experienced myself as a permanently hurting, immutably damaged person. This I’ve done a lot over the years.

What do I do with this new found awareness?

When you live with a way of being for long time, feeling that life is inherently doing bad stuff to you, that you are a victim of circumstances, then you’re choosing to be unaware you’re causing the problem. You tolerate fearful feelings. This means when you start suffering, you feel as if you can’t do anything about it, so you don’t, and you muddle through.

YOUR EGO TELLS YOU YOU ARE IMMUTABLY FLAWED! LIVE WITH IT! AND DON’T YOU EVER CHALLENGE YOUR ASSUMPTION THAT SUFFERING IS AN IMMUTABLE PART OF WHO YOU ARE.