Fifth Post: Alexander Technique

Anthony de Mello 1) The most important thing you can do when no one can help you is self observation. No one can help you there and no one can show you a technique. 2) The difference between self observation and self absorption is that help absorption is preoccupation, when you are worried about yourself. Self observation means to watch everything in you and around you as if it was happening to someone else. Meaning that we do not personalize what is happening to you. 3) We suffer from our depressions and anxieties because we identify with them. By telling ourselves that we are depressed, instead of saying we are experiencing a depression right now. 4)Anthony de Mello defines the self/"I" as we are the sky and we are observing all the different clouds. We are a passive detached observer. 5)If we understand things they would change. 6)"What you judge you cannot understand." Reflection 7) I believe that "I am not my depression, I am not my joy." Means that although you may feel depressed or feel joy you are not depression. This is something that is happening that you, you are experiencing it. It does not define you. Seductive, charismatic, ditzy, and oblivious. These characteristics account for everything that I experience about myself. Because these characteristics do not define me. I am just being a passive detached observer of what I am experiencing. The Alexander Technique 1) When we experience fear, stress, and anxiety we shorten in stature, we narrow in size, we pull our heads back and down and compress ourselves. Because its our survival mechanism kicking in. 2)The Alexander Technique enables us to choose a different response and makes conscious how we are using our body. 3) "Nature would prefer to be in balance, she would prefer that we are sharing our body weight evenly between both feet." 4)Three points of contact on your foot is the base of the big toe, base of the little toe, and the heel. 5)The three hinges in our legs are the ankles, hips, and knees. 6)The hip joints are on the crest of your pelvis. 7)Allow the pelvis to be heavy like an anchor. 8)The top of the spine is between the ears and behind the eyes. Reflection 9)The mind is about the mental processes, thought and consciousness. The body deals with how the brain is structured. The mind and body become one and work with one another to create a balance.

Getting Out of Your Own Way

1) Our society tells children what the rules are so that they will know their way around so that when they are older they will be able to invent better rules. 2) Our societies preparation for life is a system of schooling that starts with grades, from grade school to college, to grad school, to life. 3)One often feels cheated because life feels the same as its always felt and they are conditioned to be in desperate need of a future. 4)The final goal of our society is retirement. 5)The goody that was lying at the end of the line never turns up. Making plans for the future is of use only for people living completely in the present. 1)The Chinese word for nature is Da ziran ,that which happens of itself. 2)If you tell nature you must do it you stop the spontaneous flowering. 3)Human beings are simply the fabric and structure of existence itself. 4)The secret of life is to be completely engaged in what your doing here and now and instead of calling it work, call it play. 1)Dr. Brewers experience of flow was bike riding on a trail in an event and once finishing saying woah! When can I do that again? 2)We get caught up thinking 50% of the time 3)A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. 4)During meditation the brain gets really quiet. 5)The test subject learned the difference between getting caught up and getting out of his own way. Response: The way this section of gotten out of your own way relates to yoga is because when doing yoga you should be getting out of your own way. What Dr. Brewer was speaking about has a lot to do with yoga, because it is a form of meditation and one of the most important parts of yoga is focusing on your breathing. Not focusing on it so much that your thinking about it, but just enough to know that you are breathing and getting out of your own way so you won't block yourself from the full experience.

Third Post

1)Mindfulness is a way of connecting with your life. 2)Our life depends upon mindfulness because attention is the faculty that allows us to navigate our lives in one way or another, and to actually know whats happening, or know that we don't know whats happening. 3)It does not matter what you are paying attention to. 4)Mindfulness is not a technique it is a way of being. 1)Andy suggest we take 10 minutes to do exactly nothing each day. 2)Almost 47% of the time our minds are lost in thought. 3)No. Mindfulness is about stepping back seeing the thought clearly witnessing it coming and going with a relaxed and focused mind. 4)The way juggling the balls relates with our balancing the stick exercise is that if we are we a calm and mindfulness setting we will do better balancing the stick but if we focus too hard we become stressed over it and begin to lose the balance. This exercise was very relaxing. Before I started the exercise I had a headache and once I finished the exercise my headache was relieved.