An Uncovered Assumption Feels Weird...

Rather than replacing a "bad" conditioning with a "good" one, practicing Alexander Technique on oneself removes conditioning. This requires learning or cultivating a willingness to tolerate and utilize unknown or unexplained results. It also involves how to apply discretion and judgment while selecting for results that will help you. Other than selling effortlessness as a means, goals are usually left to the student.

It has similar benefits to uncovering assumptions of thought which is a goal while in Dialogue. Only with Alexander Technique, you're also studying the ways how you carry out intentions, as well as how you respond and react to what comes at you.

Everyone has built up kinesthetic assumptions about how they should move to direct their actions to answer an intention. These assumptions, expressed in moving, are often quite unnecessarily heavy-handed or outdated. If you train yourself well, habit become innate. This means habits disappear and run automatically without you even noticing. If you has gotten used to being heavy-handed while training yourself - or you forgot what you already are doing, you can be habituated to simultaneously moving in opposing directions. That's why people feel all bound up - because they are.

New discoveries can be applied selectively, in theory. But sometimes in the dismantling process, you can disorient even your self-image or balance. Or you may feel as if you cannot speak or move. What you are getting is weird feelings about experiencing too much freedom. Some people decide this is alarming; all their self-preservation convictions freak out, so the teacher or situation must reassure them that nothing dangerous is happening - when really, the unfamiliar is exceptionally dangerous. The AT teacher knows ways to make it quite safe so that anyone can feel just a little weird - and their habit is always available for retreat. To want to experiment takes some daring and fearlessness, which some people lack, so often that must be trained. But that would be training a new skill of dealing with feeling unfamilarity, rather than returning to a former state that was more essential. Being able to dare to speak or move easier anyway, despite not feeling like yourself, is a new skill that can be "conditioned."

The sensation of effortlessness and weirdness is the signal you're heading into new territory. If it has a characteristic of more freedom, you might be able to make a discovery - but that's a challenge because the state often doesn't have words to formulate the new information. You cannot decide beforehand what the unknown will be "like." Each time you're heading out into new territory.

In my case, my earlier form of conditioning concerning ways concerning the way I learned to walk as a toddler was not "more cohererent." But for most people the way they learned to walk as toddlers was an excellent use of energy. Another common comment would be that more freedom feels like "coming home." So this person would agree with you - they're uncovering a more essential state of coordination that was cultivated and conditioning as a child.

My Decision Making Style

Thought that I'd talk about how I entertain different conclusions about what I might do while in a decision making process for my own life. I know everyone does it differently, so I thought I would tell you how I make decisions. What is your style of decision-making, if you could describe some of it?

I might reorder different facts, prioritizing them alternately, and then given the selected ones, make the obvious decision that follows. Then I would go back and select other factual priorities and see the obvious decisions that come from those alternate particular sequences. By doing this, I'm able to trace back how long preparations will have to be made so I can be in the position to be able to make this decision at the time it may be possible to choose. Because opportunities come from both the ability to see them coming before they are ripe, and the ability to be ready to recognize what they mean and grab them when they fly by on the merry-go-round.

So often I get a sort of flow-chart such as, if this happens, this will be the result, and if this other possibility is happening, then I will be able to put into action this other decision will this other result...etc. In this way, I can see what possibilities mean after they unfold, even though they are now in a very small 'seed' form.

What all this often tells me is how long I can put off making the decision, in order to determine what events can tell me more fact before I act. Putting off making the decision also tells me when is the last cusp of action in which a default will occur if I refuse to alter events by redirecting them by choosing to act. I've also learned that, without experience, sometimes I cannot forsee the situation adequately until I take the step that puts me up into the perspective of being able to understand what the next best step can be toward my purposes. So this is why I would want to put off making the decision as long as possible, but not so long that I'd lose possible options.

Here - I'll give an example of how I used some of these ideas of mine about how to make wishes come true. One time I needed a place to rent, and I don't enjoy moving regularly. I was living in a location where people often rented their houses before they sold them. Also, landlords often wanted top dollar for their rentals which I could not afford. However, I could afford to wait for the right place.

So I thought of my situation as being an advantage to a very unusual person that I needed to put some effort into imagining. I listed my needs as characteristics, and then imagined who might want what I had to offer, rather than only noticing what I would be getting from my own benefit.

So I realized that, though I couldn't afford much money, I could stay indefinitely in their house. I could fix or take care of maintaining the house while paying my measly rent on time if they paid for the more expensive materials. I decided that this next landlord of mine was someone who had trouble communicating with people and would want me to talk for them to arrange upkeep on their house. Perhaps this person lived on a fixed income that would be decreased if I gave them more money than the cost of taxes, etc. and also they wanted to keep the house indefinitely for some reason.

Then I waited for this landlord to appear, now that I knew how to recognize them. When I saw that situation, even taking a temporary place to wait for the place to possibly become available was not too much trouble. I could forsee that the carpenter who was living in that house I had my eye on was commuting too far to his other jobs, and it was only a matter of time until he moved out. After waiting four months, I rented this house at an incredible bargain rate for 13 years. The landlord only raised the rent once, thirty dollars when the taxes increased.

So, this is an example of how some creative thinking on my part after assumming the point of view of someone completely different from myself paid off immensely. Not only do you need to wish for what you want, but it helps to recognize the wish so you can have it.