I was working with a client this afternoon, a specialist nurse who’s gone from strength to strength. She now has no back pain, and she’s enjoying being able to sleep, uninterrupted, on her back again after so many years of pain and discomfort.
A good night’s sleep. Priceless, and just one of the many benefits of increasing your self-awareness.
Whilst I hear this all the time (or at least a lot of the time), it’s always really refreshing to hear my Alexander pupils talk about the benefits they’ve gained. So I asked the question “What’s been the biggest change for you?”
She told me this:
“Awareness! It’s like an attitude change. I’m now aware of my body again, and what I’m doing with it. And even if things go wrong, now I know what to do about it.”
Great! Well done you, I’m really pleased! There was a survey some time ago, by the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique, of Alexander pupils, asking them what the biggest change was. And the most common answer was the same. Awareness.
It’s by becoming more aware of ourselves that we can avoid all those bad habits, the bad sitting, the bad typing, the bad grumpy same-old responses to the same-old problems.
I always put it down to my Rule Number One.
Rule Number One: You’re the boss. Not the computer, not the car, not the chair, nor the tv. Not the relatives, not the tension, nor the pain. You. You are the boss of you.
Which means you get to choose how you react to things. You get to choose how you sit at the computer, or how you hold your phone or tablet. Not the computer. Not the phone. Not the tablet.
By becoming much more aware of your body, you’re much, much more likely to handle it in a better way.
So the question I have to ask of you today, as you’re there staring into this screen, is this…
“Who’s the boss of you?”