The practice of letting go… July 15, 2011

For my chronic back pain, I have tried Alexander Techniques in the past. I really enjoy and believe in it’s practice and theory. The lady, Amira Alvarez, I saw has recently wrote an e-book on the practice, as well as sent weekly updates and short lessons on continued practice and improving self-awareness. This one made me think of the things I try to work on these days and reminds of a conversation I had with a girlfriend recently. Although the article mainly talks about the physical letting go of trying, I also find using the same analogy on the psychological trying of doing too much very helpful. Anyhow, thought I’d share it here for anyone reading, as well as future reminder for myself. With all that’s going on in our lives now and the expected future ahead, I think we can all benefit more from a little letting go and allow ourselves to a bit more vacation in our everyday lives

Details below

July 7, 2011, Volume 3, Issue 14

Hi Niki,

One of the concepts I talk about all the time with my students is letting go of trying. And since I’m in Martha’s Vineyard, doing a lot of lounging and loafing and certainly not trying very hard to do much of anything, I thought this would be a good theme for this week’s newsletter.

When we’re on vacation, is super easy to let go of the trying. We have different expectations for ourselves and our bodies and minds quiet down. What if you could bring that experience into your daily life, not just when you’re on vacation?

When we do less trying, we can experience more “vacation” everyday.

One person who recently read my book Improve Your Posture, Relieve Your Pain wrote to say: “The thing that grabbed me in your book is where it said I have to not try… that’s the first time I heard that and it made so much sense.

My trying so hard to do the right thing is preventing me from being able to do the right thing. So I am experimenting with just noticing stuff and asking myself if I can change it.”

That’s exactly it!

I hope you enjoy this week’s feature article, Letting Go Of Trying, and I hope it helps you experience a little more vacation every day.

Enjoy,

Letting Go Of Trying

One of the things I often say to my students is “let go of trying to get it right.” This is usually met with some version of confusion in the beginning. Here they are coming to me to learn something and I’m telling them not to try. Huh? Let me explain.

For most of us there is a strong relationship between trying to get something right and excess muscular tension. When we try to do something, whether it be getting to an appointment on time, crafting an important email, or even learning the Alexander Technique, most people automatically over-tense their muscles.

You may not be aware of this tendency, but check it out. Almost everyone I work with has this pattern.

The next time you’re trying hard to get something right see if you’re tightening your back or neck, clenching your jaw, tensing the muscles around your eyes, or holding your breath? These are some of the many ways “trying” manifests in the body.

The Alexander Technique recognizes that most people sacrifice their physical well-being in order to achieve their goals. This concept is so central to the work, we use a special term to describe it: end-gaining. This means going for your goals at the expense of the means or how you do it.

We go for our goal and ignore the unnecessary tension we’re putting into it. Over time, we think we need this much tension. This becomes our automatic way of trying to get life right. It becomes our habit.

And to make matters worse, we tend to use this tensing-trying pattern to solve the problem of tensing, which as you can see is a vicious circle.

The great thing is that freeing yourself of this habit can really free up your whole approach to life. There is a different approach that gets you out of the vicious circle and into constructive change.

Here are some tips to get you started:

1. Notice when you’re trying. You might be surprised at how often you go into a trying pattern. I still notice all my trying ways! I’m still on the path too and still noticing. Noticing is definitely the first step. Without noticing we don’t don’t even recognize the opportunity to change.

2. Observe, witness, recognize. Don’t try to change or fix yourself just yet. Continue noticing and articulate for yourself what’s actually happening. What is actually happening? What’s tightening? What’s tensing? What’s heavy, locked, or compressed?

3. Ask: Is it helping? Ask yourself, is what’s actually happening, helping or hurting yourself? Is what you’re actually doing making the situation better? Or is it hurting you?

4. Ask again: Would you like to keep doing it? Or would you like to let it go? Asking these questions forces your mind to see the disconnect between what you’re actually doing, the tensing for instance, and what you actually want, which, let’s just say, is freedom, lightness, and ease. When this is abundantly clear, our minds (us) choose to let go of the unhelpful reactions because we see so clearly that it’s not helping.

5. Repeat. Keep approaching your trying pattern with a gentleness and understanding that this trying habit is long standing and deeply held. Trying hard to fix it just gets you sucked back into the detrimental trying pattern. Try trying differently – with a kind, open, curious mind. That will give you different results!

Let me know how it goes for you on. If you’re stuck, let me know on facebook or come in for a lesson to get hands-on instruction.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE?

Please do! Just be sure to include this complete blurb with it:

Amira Alvarez is an Alexander Technique teacher dedicated to creating programs designed to teach you how to have less pain, less pressure, better posture and much more happiness! Her weekly Knowledge is Power newsletter goes out to subscribers across the country and world. If you are ready to Create The Life You Want, you can sign up for a F.R.E.E. subscription at http://amiraalvarez.com.

WANT TO SEE MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE?

See Amira’s blog at AmiraAlvarez.com.

Sleepless Gibber from a Waiting Mother… January 2, 2011

The clock in the bedroom had just flashed from 4:19 to 4:20… to 4:21… I am surrounded by silence and darkness.  Yet I don’t know if it’s the sound of the rain or the traffic in my head that’s keeping me wide awake.  What is it with these quiet nights that keep the restless awake?   I have been carrying Oliver for 36.5 weeks now, five more days, he is medically ready to meet the world.  Perhaps it’s the knowledge of these countable quiet nights that unconsciously keep the waiting mother counting.  Life is about to change forever in days, let’s hope not weeks.  How can anyone sleep, despite what the birthing instructor advises?

The last 2 weeks have been physically challenging.  Flipping from side to side in bed is becoming a little old and a little more painful to do with my recently acquired joint aches.  At last, pregnancy is catching up with me, physically, and unfortunately psychologically. Everyone says the last weeks are the toughest weeks, I really shouldn’t complain considering the past seven and a half months sneaked by without much disabling effects, but perhaps this is the same reason for why suddenly the changes are hitting me by surprise.

Becoming a mother has been a complex process.  I am anxious to meet my baby.  I am excited and scared for the changes and the unknowns.  I am emotional about everything.  I am afraid of loosing myself.  I feel ready.  I don’t feel ready. I fantasize about the most profound love from a parent toward a child, as this will be the most important role anyone can ever hold in life.  For the first time, a life depends solely on me, no second guessing, no questioning if it will love me back.  No need to question, because I will be it’s world, and therefore, it will become mine!

I can also imagine, in ten or twelve years, as this little life gets bigger and stronger, it’s world will also expand bigger and wider, and I will eventually become fractionalized.  This may be the tough moment, we have all heard about, when the parents transform from heroes to human, both in the eyes of our ‘babies’ and the image of ourselves.  The desire to hold on to the precious and developing real estate in our ‘baby’s’ world will inevitably bring out the sad, the jealous, the possessive emotions that all other relationships go through when the very essence of our sense of security in that relationship becomes uncertain.  These emotions may not existed before in this parent/child relationship, it didn’t have to.  The baby and the parent can do no wrong to each other. What difference does it make? If the baby peed on your hand by accident, didn’t say ‘mama’ until 2 years old, or if the mommy fell asleep while feeding the baby,let the baby scratch his knee or didn’t know the answer to one of the ‘but why…’ questions, do we really get mad at each other, loose fate in each other and have to regain the trust in our love? I can’t imagine so.  But then again, nothing stays constant forever without adjustments.  There will come a time when finally we have used all of our tricks and hopes to show the little one how to see and feel the world for himself, he will want to explore his world on his own, without all of our crutches and concerns. This is when I have to, against all natural instincts, learn to let go, so that my little human can learn to walk in his own shoes.  I will have to force myself to re-explore my world all over again with and through his experiences.  Even if it rationally makes sense now, this will surely still be difficult to do. We are human after all.  It is in our nature to possess and hoard.  It is only when we can’t fight our instincts,  that this once most profound love between a parent and a child can quickly pick up the resemblance of all the other kinds of love affairs that can easily be trimmed with doubts and jealousy. Suddenly this world’s most intense and giving love that I’m imagining can sound so predictable and gloomy. Not my typical take.  But not everything has to be sunny and bright all the time.  Perhaps, it takes the darkness of night to appreciate the vibrance of day.  The good news is, aside from my current sleep deprivation, I still have a couple more days to wait, and then, a long way to travel in the valley of unquestionable love, before having to prepare for the battle against my humanly instincts… Besides, isn’t knowing better than not knowing, and thinking better than not thinking anyway?

The rain has stopped by now. The darkness has creeped away. I must sleep and find my sanity again…

Pre-Motherhood, Motherhood Confession September 8, 2010

It is now 19 weeks and 5 days since Tiny’s being growing inside my emerging belly. Being pregnant is an interesting experience. It can be both the most incredible experience, and at the same time, have the most frustrating and helpless moments.

For the most part, I consider myself very lucky for having a smooth pregnancy, no sickness, no major energy lost, and not even unhealthy cravings. Tiny’s been good to mama As I write this sentence, I’ve already had my second fill of yogurt with raspberry. I think Tiny has officially entered the stage of bone-growth 2 weeks ago, it’s been craving for anything milk.

Before the first bowl of yogurt, I had already decided I should write this post today. I decided this on my jog to the store 30 minutes ago. Keeping a regular exercising routine is one of my major goals through this pregnancy. But it is not always easy to keep. Coming from a regular intensive workout routine, I had to make many changes since Tiny moved in. From boxing, sprinting and my all time favorite Total Athletic Conditioning class, I now bike around town, try to do yoga 3 times a week and hopefully squeeze in a short jog at least once a week. Now, only if life is always as rosy as we envision it.

My body has sped up the change two weeks ago. My sister-in-law had put it best, I was literally growing right in front of her eyes. On a rational level, I completely understand and even appreciate the changes I’m going through and that every mother must go through, but emotionally and psychologically, there is nothing rational about watching the process of yourself turning into a little whale, and then a bigger whale each day onwards for the next 4.5 months. Physically, I do have less energy, that or I have mentally told myself that I should have less energy. The mind is a powerful force! It’s like giving myself a 9-month lazy pass for whenever I feel lazy. While it is definitely convenient at times, the problem comes when I get into a lazy funk, like yesterday. I had a late start for yoga, then decided to take the day off, ended up spending most of it sitting in front of my laptop doing mostly unproductive things, and then moved lazy a$$ to the sofa and watched 3 episodes of the Amazing Race, China Rush. OK, I don’t really watch TV normally, let alone a ‘reality’ show, so the qualifier is that a big part of watching this was due to my friends being on it, so again I had a justifiable reason to watch this. The worst part though is as I was watching the show, I started craving for the McDonald’s curly fries and lemon honey glazed chicken wings and KFC’s breakfast sandwiches being advertised on the Chinese channel. I clearly knew that these were not even offered in the US, so then the urge became to rush to the nearest Jack in the Box, so I can chow down my all time favorite Spicy Crispy Chicken Sandwich, and I wasn’t even hungry. Can you just imagine the vicious cycle here, the lazier we allow us to get, the less productive we become, the more junk TV we might watch and the more unhealthy food we may start to crave from watching the beautifully photographed commercials during the break. Ohhh, I was really lingering on a scary edge of slipping down the slippery slope of loserville, wasn’t I?

Don’t worry, I didn’t go down that slope. That’s what I mean by lazy funk though. I can get lazy and even use the baby as an excuse to justify it, but ultimately my body and mind do not like to stay in that funk for too long. It craves for fresh air, it wants to break a sweat, feel the wind, and watch the fall leaves drift from the tree… Tiny, autumn is upon us!

Tiny @ 12 weeks

MIA for too long… July 27, 2010

Its been a while now since I’ve been kicking myself for not writing. I have no excuse except that I have not felt inspired to write anything meaningful. Although there seemed to have been plenty important and interesting events happening in my life, I simply cannot bring myself to this point of writing. What is wrong with me? Does this mean I have lost my sunny lens on life? I certainly hope not!

After a long time of denial, today I finally came to visit this little space again for nostalgic measures, and this act has reconfirmed, again, one of the major reasons why I love writing here. Emotions and meaningful moments get captured and frozen in time forever once it is written down. Reading back what I have written, sometimes I don’t even remember or can’t believe that I have felt that way about certain things, but I must have since I’ve written about it. In the same way that diaries are always truthful glances back in history, as long as it was truthfully written, this place records the fragments of my thoughts. This is why it has been slightly annoying to me that I have not recorded much the past year or so. Can this be simply an act of laziness, or a much more alarming result from a lack of thoughtfulness? Concerning!

By the way, regarding meaningful moments, usually moments only become meaningful when they are remembered. Exactly why, we should, I SHOULD, stop being lazy and start remembering them!

Cecile April 20, 2010

In memory of Cecile Tabone.

Coucou Cecile,

My Sweet Cecile! You have no idea how much I miss you!  Every sunny day, every stroll along College Ave, every coffee shop visit, every walk in nature, they are all filled with happy memories of our past time.

My silly Cecile!  You have no idea how mad I am at you!  How could you have left without a word, without giving those who care the slightest hint and a chance to help?  What happen to our plans for driving through France and meeting your Vietnamese family in L.A. together?  And your assignment for me to learn the best San Francisco has to offer?  I want to keep these promises!  I want my Cecile back!

My beautiful Cecile!  You have no idea how much you have given me!

You will forever be the sunny, the happy, the swimmy, the cheerful, the biking, the bread-loving, the loyal, the excitable, the Beautiful Cecile that I have known!

Gros Gros GROS Bisoussssss!!!

Niki

What is Consciousness??? What is Mind? February 25, 2010

My latest fascination is driving me a little insane…

What is consciousness?  What does consciousness really mean?  Most answers I’ve gotten back so far involve awareness of self, and that only human, and possibly animals can have consciousness…. From a high level perspective, I can agree that there’s truth in that.  But somewhere inside, I don’t think consciousness, at least not my interpretation of this word, is exclusive to man and animals… At the risk of sounding crazy, I must say, I think there is some kind of low level consciousness taking place through our technology today.  I know, the moment I say that, most people, and I mean 99%, think I’m insane to think computers have consciousness. To me, it is not a fair game we’ve played here.  Computers are only as smart, intelligent, or conscious as humans can make it.  We make them based on the premise and limitations of our understanding of our brian, mind or both, depending on who you ask.  And since we do not fully understand even how our brains/minds work, can we really fully deny any consciousness to the by-products of our intelligence that are created to mimic our brain?

Due to this topic, I’ve already had hours of ‘arguments’ with Alex, clearly he is one of the 99% population that disagrees with my mentality.  Usually his ration, his thorough reasoning, his persistence and  his desire to win eventually brings me on board or makes me fall completely off the wagon and take the easier route to agree to disagree… But this time, for whatever the reason, something inside me do not agree and do not want to drop the topic… so here I am, on the journey of searching, for exactly what is it that makes me feel a computer can have consciousness.  The search for clarity.

Since the first mental excursion, I’ve talked very briefly to a few more people, one friend mentioned the Chinese Room argument by John Searle.  Fascinating, but difficult to read!  I’m still reading it… Actually, I just printed it out, so I can read it slower and write notes on it as I read.  Kinda feel like I’m back to student life again…  But that is fascinating too, gotta give the mind something to chew on from time to time….

The Power of Collective Interest February 25, 2010

http://www.groupon.com/san-francisco/

Long Time Coming, Madame Bovary. November 9, 2009

It has been much longer than I had hoped to be back here. There has been many times that I wished to be writing, but for whatever reason, I am back now, at last.

After a very prolonged 3 months, I finally finished reading Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.  Contrary to its fame, I found the book difficult to finish.  Despite Flaubert’s success at transcending the boredom of provincial life, I found some of the recurring details repetitive and drawn out.  Perhaps he was trying to install Emma Bovary’s anxiousness for readers through this style of writing, in which case he was masterful.

The character development of Emma Bovary was very effective, as I have never been more frustrated with any character than herself.  My annoyance with Emma Bovary was so strong that I think it effected my enjoyment with reading the book.  Madame Bovary is the perfect example of so much of what I don’t believe. Not because of her societal frowned upon adulteries, they are more like symptoms from her sickness, rather of her never-satisfying nature.  She is someone who never looks at what she has and constantly blaming those who love her most for what she doesn’t have.  Such people, such sentiment can never find happiness no matter what they gain, because the hollowness comes from within, and the hunger for more never dies.  It was a true, true tragedy of greedy, but its one that was long time coming….

And I am glad to be done with such darkness.

There’re always two sides to a coin, I choose the sunny side. March 4, 2009

It is not so often that we come across inspirational words that actually inspire and do not sound like a desperation attempt to maintain false calmness before announcing bankruptcy the very next morning in a crisis time like now.  Fortunately, however infrequent it may occur, such small pockets of light do sprout out in our what appears to be the current state of greyness.


“The Power of Less

We do some of our best work when we’re constrained: by budgets, by headcount, by technology, by the economy. These are the times when bureaucracy and waste die by necessity. What’s left are ideas, and the muscle to make them real.”

I’m not a complete romanticist and have serious concerns about how much bureaucracy and corruption are actually being killed by necessity in the recent and current bailout situations, but time doesn’t stop for us because people make mistakes.  We’ve got to keep our sight of the sunny side of our spirit so we can walk out of darkness.

* The passage was taken from Web 2.0 Expo’s site, which is not involved in any bailouts, as far as I know.

To Whales February 19, 2009

“We saw a number of whales but none so close up as that first one.  I would be alerted to their presence by their spouting.  They would emerge a short distance away, sometimes three or four of them, a short-lived archipelago of volcanic islands.  These gentle behemoths always lifted my spirits.  I was convinced that they understood my condition, that at the sight of me one of them exclaimed, “Oh! It’s that castaway with the pussy cat Bamphoo was telling me about.  Poor boy.  Hope he has enough plankton.  I must tell Mumphoo and Tomphoo and Stimphoo about him.  I wonder if there isn’t a ship around I could alert.  his mother would be very happy to see him again.  Goodbye, my boy.  I’ll try to help.  My name’s Pimphoo.”  And so, through the grapevine, every whale of the Pacific knew of me, and I would have been saved long ago if Pimphoo hadn’t sought help from a Japanese ship whose dastardly crew harpooned her, the same fate as befell Lamphoo at the hands of a Norwegian ship.  The hunting of whales is a heinous crime.” (Life of Pi, 230)