To feel great in your own skin –
Improving your relationship with your body brings many positive changes. Loving, and feeling appreciation for it can be profound. If you can love your body, you’re less likely to want to fill it with poisons or ignore its little messages to you (those grumbles, aches, and pains). We take care of the things we love. Improving your body awareness and connection can be the beginning of the journey to love yourself.
Autonomy over your body –
As my wise little nana got older, she said “It’s wonderful Gemma! When my hip is starting to get stiff and tighten up, I can do something about it”. In those last 10 years of her life from when she started her Alexander Technique lessons with me, aged 84 to the end. So much of daily life was becoming a struggle and increasingly out of her control, SHE was still in control of her body. What a gift!
To improve all movement based activities……and all non-movement based activities –
The way you’re using your body will be the same, when that body use is born of unconscious habits. It doesn’t matter if you’re lying on the sofa, standing in a queue, or running a marathon, the patterns of use are the same. So, learning to become aware of how you use your body, gives you the skill and choice to improve EVERYTHING that you do.
To get the internal space back in your body –
If you’re squeezing your body with muscular tension and/or habitually falling into collapse, you’ll have lost your internal space; essential space for organs, and air! Striving to hold yourself up against years of habitual collapse feels like holding back the tide. Gently changing those habits of a lifetime, that’s the start of getting back that internal support and space. Essential space for your lungs to fill and your digestive system to digest!
To manage your pain relief –
Ok, so this isn’t on tap opiates, it’s not like that. And if we’re being honest here, pain is an area where science is still very much working on understanding the whys and how’s, especially chronic pain. However, what we’ve got available to us are ways to manage the pain, and the nervous system calming skills within the Alexander Technique are invaluable for this.
So really, the question is, why wouldn’t you learn the Alexander Technique?