It can take a little while, when learning the Alexander Technique, to begin to believe that such huge potential can be opened up by simply becoming more present in oneself and taking a tiny moment before responding to life’s myriad stimuli. When we don’t go down the usual immediate reaction route, then we gain the opportunity to be curious, to ask questions and allow new possibilities to emerge: ‘Do I really need to scrunch up my shoulders to reach for my cup of tea’?, ‘Can I find more ease and calm while sitting here?’, or ‘Are my beliefs and opinions stuck, or can they respond to changing circumstances within a shifting world’?
What would FM Alexander have made of the current state of the world? He was born well before the welfare state came into being and he lived through two world wars. In his lifetime he noted a: ‘…growing tendency towards disunion instead of unity, towards dissatisfaction instead of satisfaction, towards enmity and discord instead of good-fellowship and peace’.1 It would seem that little has changed! His writing of more than 70 years ago remains just as relevant to today’s politics; he observed: ‘Under the present plan, politics and deception are interdependent. The individual seeking re-election will resort to forms of deception to which he would not stoop in other walks of life, particularly in the matter of making promises which he has not the least hope of fulfilling…’ Alexander suggested that we don’t always give ourselves time to question and that we can easily be ‘carried away by ‘…oratory or personality or both.’1
So, what was Alexander’s solution to this unsatisfactory state of affairs? He was clear that the foundations of the state (political, social, educational, industrial and moral/religious systems) ultimately rest on the condition of all the people who constitute it. The implication is that if we want to make far-reaching changes at the community/national/global level, we need to start by first reflecting on and be willing to change ourselves. FM Alexander’s method provides an extremely effective means for personal change. We can discover how we can have more choice over how we act and react moment by moment, and how we connect with others and the world around us. We learn to pay more attention to the means by which we achieve our aims, rather than just fixating narrowly on the desired goal (endgaining). This clarity of intention and more holistic (mind-body-environment) view makes it more likely that we will ultimately be successful, whether the goal is a personal or a wider one.
The Alexander Technique gives us a practice with which to engage more profoundly and productively with the world. At its very heart lies self-awareness situated within the context of one’s surroundings and fellow humans, together with the ability to choose for oneself rather than being stuck in habitual ways of thinking and doing. Such self-determination at the individual level might ultimately enable change in the bigger picture.
So looking more widely, the people of Scotland and England appear to be going in very different directions. In Scotland the avaricious, self-interested narrative of Thatcher did not take hold nor, more recently, have the lies and misconduct of Johnson/Cummings been disregarded. Here it seems that individual responsibility does not mean ‘everyone for themselves’, instead there is a greater sense of the importance of the wider community within which an individual co-exists. So I for one, now have a very different stance towards independence than I did the first time I lived here over 30 years ago. Perhaps in the coming year there will be time to question, to be curious, to openly engage…and to choose our future?
1Footnote: FM Alexander Constructive conscious control of the individual. Second edition, 1946. Mouritz p182–185.