In a Funk? Move from Patient to Pupil

I was wondering what my next advertising line should be to arouse interest in my work. In a lesson, one day, this topic arose with a student of mine. In our discussion I emphasized how important I felt it was for people to understand that the solution lay not in therapy or remedy but in constructive education.

Reflecting upon our own journey towards finding the work of F.M. Alexander we commented on how hard it can be to see the wood for the trees. Very slowly and then suddenly with a flash a tag line emerged out of our mutual discussion - it was the title I have used for this blog. I liked it immediately; it reminded me of the title of the first chapter in Alexander’s book – Man’s Supreme Inheritance. The title was: From Primitive Conditions to Present Needs.

What do we need right now in our world? It is obvious to all of us that we are going wrong in our attempts to live a civilized life. We are all suffering from the “complexities of modern living”. We seem to be getting worse and worse and the solution that we are all fixated upon for our personal and social redemption is therapy or remedy. Pills, potions, rubs, remedies and surgery abound in all its glorious and gory detail.

I too was once amongst those lost souls seeking help in terms of healing. It never ever occurred to me that the solution might lie elsewhere why should it everyone thought the same way so there was a kind of mind conditioning going on. I stumbled like most people into Alexander work as a therapeutic solution and only slowly and dimly awoke to the fact that Alexander’s solution lying else where. It was only when I began to teach the work myself that I started to think and to read Alexander’s books with more attention and with a greater interest for I was at a loss as to what my role was and how to go about teaching Alexander’s discoveries to others. My time on the training program was one of “healing” myself against the odds. My life’s troubles seemed to be relentless. It felt as if the whole world was against me improving my lot in life. It seemed at times that the Universe was plotting against my efforts to get to school and heal myself.

Throughout my life as an AT teacher (and later as an AT iPAC teacher) I was continually working through a blur wondering what the obstacle was that prevented people from finding this amazing work for it certainly was the solution to living life well where I was concerned even though the odds seems to be stacked against me succeeding.

After nearly 30 years studying and teaching this work the scales finally fell from my eyes over the last couple of years. It culminated as always with another failure to get through to a student who left probably thinking I was no good. However, my success with many others students lead me to ask an important question what was the difference between the students who succeeded and positively enjoyed my work and those who positively hated it. It is an old cliché but this is quite true my last failure was the last straw that broke the camel’s back.

I had a kind of revelation; those students who stopped coming had come to me with the idea that the Alexander Technique was a therapy a mind body therapy and that it was a remedy instead of the correct concept which is that it is a constructive teaching method.

I am not a therapist I thought clearer for the first time in my career. I can get miraculous therapeutic results but it was as a result of my teaching those who were open to learning. I was so relieved at this insight. I never wanted to be a therapist; I was always uncomfortable with this role primarily because having gone through the process of therapy myself I don’t believe the answer lies there in fact I positively think that it is hindering our advancement.

However, the fashion for therapy abounds. We have insidiously become saturated with this erroneous idea that we all need therapy. We need to wake up and out of our seduction then and only then will we be able to see what is really going on and set ourselves free from the “brain washing” that is going on in our society today by powerful vested interests namely the pharmaceutical companies and all the other associated health and fitness businesses. These businesses make big money from us by keeping us locked into a passive “patient” mind-set. They do not want to lose us because that would mean losing billions of dollars

What is the most obvious difference between being a “patient” and a “pupil”? It is POWER! One robs you of your power the other gives power back to you. I believe (as a result of my own personal and professional experiences over the last 30 years) you can never resolve your problems in living life well if you do not fully engage in the creative act of living YOUR life with knowledge and skill! Once you are made aware of this fact – that YOU need to take possession of YOUR self and YOUR life - then the next step is to find a teaching tool that will teach you the HOW to do this. It is the same as driving a car: no amount of therapy or remedy is going to help you drive the car to the place you need to get to. What you need is to find a teacher to help you learn how to drive the car so that you can get to your destination.

This is exactly the same where we are concerned. We need to learn how to “drive” our selves first before we can move ourselves around safely in the world. After all, learning how to gain conscious control of the mechanisms involved in using ourselves is fundamental to everything else. We are the first instrument in living and we need to learn how to use ourselves first and then apply ourselves to learning how to work with other tools in order to succeed in living life well. We cannot become a creative agent in living our lives more consciously and constructively with out this knowledge and skill. No therapy can give you this knowledge or skill except in a piecemeal way.

John Dewey the famous American educationalist saw in Alexander’s work the agency necessary for the creative advance of the individual and humanity as a collective of individuals. He demonstrated his full support of Alexander by writing an introduction to three of Alexander’s four books. John Dewy puts it like this:

“But the method (Alexander’s) is not one of remedy; it is one of constructive education. Its proper field of application is with the young, with the growing generation, in order that they may come to posses as early as possible in life a correct standard of sensory appreciation and self-judgement. When once a reasonably adequate part of a new generation has become properly co-ordinated, we shall have assurance for the first time that men and women in the future will be able to stand on their won feet, equipped with satisfactory psycho-physical equilibrium, to meet with readiness, confidence and happiness instead of with fear, confusion and discontent, the buffetings and contingencies of their surroundings.”

One of the most vicious pernicious acts both of self and others which befouls the noble act of self empowerment is SELF PITY! Alexander warns us against this pernicious act of self pity or pitying someone else. He compels us to change this dis-empowering act to the more empowering act of self accusation. We should ask the question as Alexander did – what is it that I am doing to bring this situation about? And, how can I learn to identify what it is that I am doing that is bringing about the problem about? And, what can I do to STOP doing this wrong thing so that the right can come about.

This sounds harsh but in practice it is not. We must never confuse empathy and sympathy with pity. Pity dis-empowers the pitied! We can only empower ourselves when we are able to put the locus of control within ourselves. Then and only then will we be able to set ourselves free to gain conscious constructive control in the use of our selves in living life well. This then brings me back to those who are ready and will to take possession of the challenging task of ownership in becoming stake holders in living their lives and helping to create a healthier and happier world.

If you are ready and willing to work hard at this final frontier – the frontier of the “use of your self” as the primary instrument through which you must live your life then please give us a ring. We would love to hear from you and introduce you to a unique psycho-physical educational model for healthy living. I emphasize the psycho-physical because there isn’t a model on the planet right now that can in practice and method demonstrate itself to be such a model. If you have to divide yourself into parts and “treat” those parts specifically and separately then you will never function as a whole. A person functions as a whole and therefore can only learn how to change as a whole.

This is your opportunity to pick up the challenge I place before you – to take possession of your inheritance (your life) and gain the power (through your conscious mind) to learn how to live your life well and bring joy instead of suffering into the world you live in. I will leave you with a quote to help you face this truth:

“Our contemporaries of this and the rising generation appear to be hardly aware that we are witnessing the last act of a long drama, a tragedy and comedy in one, which is being silently played, with no fanfare of trumpets or roll of drums, before our eyes on the stage of history. Whatever becomes of the savages, the curtain must soon descend on savagery forever.”
- J. G. Frazer


Warmly,
Tasha