Excerpt – The Release of Habit and Fear: The Alexander Technique as a Means to Letting Go of the Physical and Emotional Habits that Block Spiritual Growth (Albuquerque)
This ebook is published on this website in a PDF format. It looks at doing the Alexander Technique with love.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
Suppose an Alexander Technique teacher has cleared away so many layers of self-judgment, that something else comes through their words and hands in a lesson. The depth of the teacher’s intention to help create ease in movement may then move to a more profound level, which is still the essence of the Alexander Technique.
Doing the minimum amount of work as a healer with the highest intention to help, means we don’t block our ability to heal from the core of our being. If we stop holding in our bodies and stop holding in our minds, then what would come through our words and our hands would be divine healing.
It is possible to be clear psychologically and spiritually, but integration can be blocked by our physical habits. Our physical habits were created by us to protect ourselves from ourselves and others, but these habits separate us from others in ways that create isolation, if they are too strong. The greatest intention to help another, or just simply to communicate who we are, may not come through because of our bodies’ habitual postures.
Many times our bodies communicate our true feelings. We may say how much we want to be with another person while, at the same time, we’re backing up so far physically, that we’re in another county. This is an example of a body that is being stressed by denial.
There is a word for doing something as a gift for another or as an aspiration to God, and that word is cantillation. To put hands on someone in a cantillatory fashion is to work from the heart, and this raises the life energy of everyone involved. This raised energy is the result of offering the Alexander Technique with love. I’ve been talking about healing from the heart as something that happens by default.
I implied that love would come through us, if we cleared enough of our psycho-physical habits. In other words, that if we do less, love just bubbles right up. Doing less, which is synonymous with moving less habitually, could help us realize our divine, loving natures, but a balance is usually required of us between acting or being, creating or eliminating; to activate our divine love.
The Alexander Technique teaches that the head instinctively wants to balance on the tip of the spine when we’re standing or seated, and that the neck wants to release and lengthen when we walk or run or stand up. This is a beautiful metaphor for being (available) or acting. The head initiates movement (acting), and the head is poised to initiate movement on the release of the neck (being).
My intention is for students to find balance in their bodies and have their bodies be available for acting (creating) or being (allowing). Over time the line between creating and allowing becomes difficult to differentiate. As we drop away our habits, the line between us and God and each other begins to dissolve, leaving us loving every part of ourselves and others, as Mary Magdalene said of Jesus in Khalil Gibran’s book.