One-Minute Practices from Constance

One-Minute Practice: Ease Jaw Tension

Bring your awareness to your face as you read this. Can you allow the muscles to soften? As you think to yourself that you’d like to soften your eyes, you don’t need to do anything. Just the intention will be enough for your nervous system to make a change.

Now think to yourself that you’d like to allow the cheek muscles to un-do whatever tension is held in them.

Bringing your attention to your jaw, think of letting the jaw rest easily. There is no need to hold it up toward your face. Let your lips rest together as you allow your teeth to slightly separate and the jaw to release muscular tension. Notice that your jaw muscles go way up toward your ears and think of allowing space in the temporo-mandibular joints (TMJ’s) near your ears.

You’d like to let your tongue rest easily in your mouth. Notice that the base of your tongue is way back toward the throat. Visualize, imagine or sense the throat having plenty of room. Allow your awareness to come into the layers of your neck muscles. Your neck goes from the base of the skull at the top all the way to the collarbones at the bottom. The muscles are varied, larger and smaller, some go on a diagonal, some go almost straight up and down. There are ligaments, tendons and tissues as well as muscle. Invite all of this to un-do any excess tension.

Now allow your breath to release with an soft Aah sound as you let your jaw to hinge open from that joint near your ears. Let the breath rebound in. Repeat a few times as you notice the ease of movement and sense of internal space just through your clear intention.

One-Minute Practice: Sensory Awareness

Take a moment to notice your senses.

First, bring your sense of sight into your awareness. Let your eyes soften as you look away from the screen and see around the room or outside. Notice something you haven’t seen before. Observe the particularities.

Now tune into your sense of hearing. Allow the sounds around you to come to the forefront of your consciousness. Notice sounds that are usually out of your awareness. Perhaps close your eyes for a moment and let your hearing be the main thing.

Now turn to your sense of touch. Allow sight and sound to drift out of the forefront of your awareness and attend to what the clothes on your body feel like. What about the air touching your skin? Your fingers on the mouse? Your feet in your shoes on the floor?

If you like, add smell and taste in this mindful way.

Now you will add your kinesthetic and proprioceptive senses, your sense of where you are in space and what you feel within your own body. As you notice if you are balancing easily and what your muscles and joints feel like, invite a little space into your head/neck joint and into your spine. Allow your bones to hold you up as you continue to release unnecessary effort in your muscles.

As you go back to your day with a bit more conscious awareness of your self in your environment, continue to let yourself use less effort. Enjoy the sense of a little more ease.

One-Minute Practice: Breathe with Ease

Bring your breath into your awareness. Notice your breathing pattern. Do your ribs move? Or do they feel constricted? Are you breathing through your nose or mouth? What does it feel like in your chest? Your back? Your belly? Your jaw?

Now, as you slowly blow out through your mouth, exhale gently until you feel you’ve reached the natural end of your exhalation. As you do this, allow let your neck to be free of tension and your head to float upwards. Simply let the breath to return in through your nose. Just alllow the rebound of the breath fill you up—you don’t have to do anything to pull it in.

On your next exhale, blow again gently out through your mouth, extending the exhale to it’s end without pushing. Then allow the in-breath to rebound. Repeat another time or two, extending your exhale gently and noticing that your inhale may become fuller.

As you breathe, allow your ribs to move easily in a three-dimensional way—to the front, the back and the sides. Your ribs expand in your back as well as in the front. They also move to the sides, all the way up to the underarm. Allow your back and sides to be included in the rib mobility. Feel the support that gives your torso to balance easily.

Now breathe normally and notice your sensations again. Can you feel your breath moving through your torso? What do you notice in your jaw and neck? Your face? Do you notice any difference in your overall state of being? If you’re like me, you probably feel lighter, more integrated, and more connected to Self. You can do this simple practice anywhere, anytime.

One-Minute Practice: Inner Spaciousness

Whatever you are doing right now, pause and take a snapshot of your physical, mental, and emotional state, including your breath. Don’t try to change anything. Just notice what is happening within you.

Now notice the weight and form of your body. Begin to allow yourself to de-compress by letting your musculature lighten and lengthen. Bring attention to your head/neck joint—way up high, almost between the ears—and think about allowing this joint to have a little more space. Think about your head balancing easily and delicately. You do not have to hold your head up with your neck muscles if you allow your skull to balance. Allow your spine to gently follow your head upwards, as if you had something heavy resting on you that was just removed.

You may shift in your chair as you allow your bones to move and release away from one another in response. Allow a little more fullness into your back and sides, and under your arms, letting your ribs move with breath. As you observe your breath, invite a long, soft exhale, so that your lungs are emptied of most of the air. Allow your breath to return easily, filling your whole torso. If you notice any areas in your body where your breathing seems limited or impeded, think about softening there, releasing whatever holding you may unconsciously be doing.

Bring your awareness to your skin. See if you can notice the sensations of your clothes touching you, and the air around you. Allow just a little more sensation of aliveness. Let your eyes take in your environment. Look away from the computer for a few seconds and allow something into your vision that you haven’t noticed before.

As you come back, notice again your easy breathing and think of allowing a bit more room for all that’s inside you—your organs, fluids, veins, nerves, tendons, connective tissue. Has your mental state shifted? Does your emotional state feel a bit easier? Allow this soft, enjoyable expansion to influence your whole self as you go about the rest of your day.

Feeling Integrated

One great effect from Alexander lessons is the experience of feeling integrated. When we say we feel integrated, what do we mean? We can describe it as the opposite from feeling scattered or disconnected with ourselves. Rather, we feel “rightness” or fullness, a sense of presence. We feel connected to our Selves in a deeper way than normal.

In lessons, the teacher is guiding or facilitating a coordination or equilibrium between the postural state, movement, breath and attention. Perhaps more, perhaps less, depending on where the student is in her study.

But how can an Alexander student bring this about on his own?

We have access to our experience of our selves in every moment. We can choose to pay attention to particular aspects, like our sense of balance, or our sense of weightedness, or if our skin feels warm or cool or enjoys the soft cotton of our shirt. These are examples of sensation that are often outside our usual perception. Sometimes the sensations are pleasant, and feeling them brings a more integrated quality to us. If they are unpleasant, our Alexander practice can influence them.

If for instance, I bring awareness to my sense of balance, and I notice a tiny falling backward in my chair, which causes me to tighten my back muscles, I can re-direct myself up and slightly forward, until I notice that I am balanced over my central axis (just in front of my spine, from the pelvis to the skull) with my head floating delicately. I may then notice that I can allow a lively ease of my musculature and a little more spaciousness to my breath.

When we bring awareness to any of the vast possibilities of sensation, we often discover we have a choice. Being a little curious about what is happening within us helps with the process of deepening awareness and sensory perception. Being gentle and inviting rather than pushing or trying hard to change something helps allow changes to take effect.
If for instance, I bring awareness to my sense of balance, and I notice a tiny falling backward in my chair, which causes me to tighten my back muscles, I can re-direct myself up and slightly forward, until I notice that I am balanced over my central axis (just in front of my spine, from the pelvis to the skull) with my head floating delicately. I may then notice that I can allow a lively ease of my musculature and a little more spaciousness to my breath.