Know yourself, and take control of your life

Do you have clarity in how you go about things, in your daily tasks, your movements, your thinking? Or are you like most people at the mercy of your reactions, a prisoner of your habits. These can be habits of thought, of posture, and of personality. They are more honestly called your idiosyncrasies or eccentricities. And not all of them are endearing or helpful. You may like to think that this is what makes you you, but actually these habits hide you from yourself.

We seldom see our own quirks; though they are obvious to others. They can see our walk, our way of talking, our habitual phrases and ways of thinking. But we are mostly blind to ourselves and the causes behind our actions. They are elusive because they have become too familiar for us to notice. As a result, we fail to notice all the stumbling blocks to our happiness, ones we have ourselves created. These get in the way of our making the changes we wish for ourselves.

“Know thyself”

Alexander Technique opens up an avenue to gaining clarity into your functioning.  It offers a tool to “know thyself”. This tool helps you be in control of your own reactions, giving you the ability to monitor, prevent, moderate or change your functioning – moment by moment. This develops real self-control, meaning that you learn to do what you choose and only what you choose to be doing.

The result will be that your self-confidence grows, giving you gravitas and sincerity. It will help you to be real with yourself, and offer you real choices, a freedom few of us understand and can exercise.

Without this skill, we are compelled to live half-blind to our present reality, to the self who should be in control of our life. We have little choice to be who we really can be, and are captive to our past and our emotions. Without this rational skill, we are overwhelmed, our happiness frustrated, our lives undirected and unlived.

Alexander Technique teaches a way out of this conundrum, bringing our lives and ourselves back into our own hands.

© 2017 Barry Kantor

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