Releasing a Cold

Two days ago, I brought my mother back from the hospital, where she'd been admitted for investigation into a fever which wasn't responding to anything -
She's better, but a friendly bug must have latched on to me there, because I've been sniffling dismally through my days, and feeling a marked disinclination for any effort, even the mental kind.
Of course, Alexander junkie that I am, I felt that this was a situation that called for even more determined directing than usual. After all, if it can't be used when I am uncomfortable or ill, then what good is it?
So there I was, heroically directing away, with the ache and tickle in my throat refusing to go away, but me refusing to give up, saying to myself - 'Release, release! Go on, release!'
It must have been sheer exhaustion which made me stop for a bit - and which gave me the space for a uniquely physical realisation that my throat was really tight and that was why it was hurting so much. With that realisation I was suddenly able to let go, and immediately I felt a sense of rushing warmth and comfort which came as an immense relief.
I'd like to be able to say that that also got rid of my sniffles, but it didn't. However, it is allowing me to enjoy my frequent doses of milky tea laced with honey, cardamom, crushed pepper and dried ginger which is my favourite medicine for a cold and sore throat. And I don't want, quite so much, to curl up in a corner and die. My head still feels heavy, and I am conscious that I have a throat, but the over-riding misery is gone.
I can do things - witness this post. And that's good enough for me.

Fitting Into Your Skin

I remember reading about how people often had to remake their clothes after having Alexander lessons because their bodies had changed - become straighter, more poised - and their clothes no longer fit in the old way.

But I have realised another thing - I am beginning to fit better into my own skin after lessons. I realise how cramped and contracted I'd been, as if I had been shrinking into myself, not expanding to take up all the space I had available in myself. And I didn't even regard me as particularly lacking in confidence!

Joanna Field, in her book A Life of One's Own, describes how she allowed her awareness to expand so that it filled all of herself. She called this 'that fat feeling', and found that if she used this when she was feeling tired, in a very short while, she felt refreshed with a new sense of energy.

I'm also reminded of Marjorie Barlow's statement in her Alexander Memorial Lecture - 'It is as if each of us is trying to take up the least possible amount of room in the Universe.' (Marjorie Barlow incidentally, was Alexander's niece, pupil and then assistant teacher for a number of years.)

But it is so true that that most of us are continually trying to make ourselves small, to reduce the amount of space we occupy, and the more diffident we are, the smaller we try to make ourselves. Often, in a blind reaction to that, and with a vague feeling that something is wrong, we force ourselves into the opposite - we push aggressively forward, quick to lose our tempers, and insistent on our stand that 'I'll take no nonsense from anyone.' Which actually doesn't fool anybody.

And when we're comfortable in our own skins, we lose that frightened feeling that we need to be protecting ourselves all the time. We can be calm and collected, but we can also have the confidence to be wrong sometimes, to look a bit foolish without feeling that the world has ended.

Taking my blog for a walk

I'm realising that starting a blog is a bit like having a virtual pet - you have to feed it and water it, and take it for walks, or it will languish and die.
Hopefully my spiral monkeys haven't gone so far, or if they have, will revive very soon.
Amazing how quickly time passes - I can't believe my last post was in March, and here we are in the second half of the year - Time doesn't seem to be doing much inhibiting here!
I was away for six weeks in Brighton for a much needed refresher course. Had the time of my life meeting old friends and teachers, working with them and catching up on all that had happened. Walked around noticing changes - favourite shops that had moved or closed down, a couple of lovely old houses that have been demolished to make way for a block of flats...
The work really helped me. I realised that I had spent two years telling people to allow release but had almost forgotten how it works for me! That was a revelation - noticing how subtly I was holding tension in my arms and legs - and a good reminder that I need to be eternally vigilant, not just for my clients, but for myself as well.
Still, the best part is being back and starting work again, with a feeling of having a whole lot of new ideas I can use with people to start them on this fascinating journey of balance and release.
Just got a high today - when my client finished his lesson this morning, he remarked that all along he had thought that the emotions controlled the body and there was nothing he could do about it, but now he was realising that the body too had its own influence on the emotions, and that was an area he could do something about! Great!