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1] I have the week off work so I have arranged about 15 1:1 Zoom sessions with curious folks. The key thing I need people to *get* early on is what expanded awareness is like. It doesn't need to be strong, but there has to be a sense of "oh yeah, *that*." So here's a thread.
2] Right now the best tools I have are to use exercises and examples. We can explore what expanded awareness is in relation to what it is not. What it is: 'just being aware' of the space around you. What it is not: thinking about the space around you. https://t.co/TVJ3gKz3FK
3] If you're struggling to get what this means, don't worry, it's common. But I know already that your habitual way of being is 'thinky' / analytical. This is how I used to be: - I was disconnected from my body - I studied physics at university - I work in energy innovation
4] There's a fundamental difference between directly experiencing the sensory input from the world and experiencing your thoughts describing them. The experience of a tree ≠the thought "there is a tree." This is also the experience that Zen points at. https://t.co/ZKS6Jy7P65
@meekaale @xuenay @nosilverv Nice! I don't like saying this too much because it risks idea conflation, but Alexander Technique basically points at all the same things that Zen does. AT leads to the exactly same kind of kensho experiences I describe here, just with different ways in. https://t.co/BvbapZdVEb https://t.co/zVDXABzpec
5] If you get this different already then – right now, in a singe moment – become aware of the space above and behind you. You don't need to look at it. You don't need to try, in fact you shouldn't *try*. Once the idea occurs to you, it just happens.
6] Maybe none of this is making any sense, so let's play some games. Have you ever had the experience of being absorbed in something, like scrolling on your phone, and then *all of a sudden* you come back to yourself, look away from the phone and take in the world around you?
7] There's a sense of "woah', where was I?" And that's a good question. Where were you? You certainly weren't in the room. Your awareness was collapsed to a shape the size of the screen. The exact moment where you come back to the room – that's the experience I'm pointing at.
8] No? Let's try another one. How about when you're walking through a narrow corridor with a low ceiling and it suddenly opens up into a vast atrium with a high ceiling. There's a brief rush before thoughts kick in. I describe this experience here. https://t.co/Wi9M1KWrXM
9] One more. Right now, without taking your attention away from these words, allow the furthest thing you can hear to enter your awareness. You can allow yourself to see more of your peripheral vision. You don't need muscle to do this, by the way. https://t.co/Ww6LKhsPcL
10/ Two examples. One – You're a child at school. A teacher yells at you to 'pay attention'. What do you do? You respond with muscles. You furrow your brow, you sit up more straight. You're anxious so your breathing becomes shallow. What do muscles have to do with attention?
10] There's another route into this via my chronic pain video. Pain makes our awareness collapse to the size of the pain. While we may not be able to reduce the pain, we can reduce the proportion of the world that we experience that the pain takes up. https://t.co/wRocsQq2rA
11] If we were in person, I would be able to make a small adjustment to the relationship between your skull and your spine and take you directly into this experience. This is where Alexander Technique differs from Zen and all other practices, from what I can tell.
12] I don't know fully understand *why* it works, but I know *that* it works. It's called the "Primary Control", if you want to read about it. In the absence of touch, I have to use to the same "using words to point at a wordless experience" approach that other traditions use.
13] So the best I can do is point at it and look for an experiential resonance in you. Normally at some point, someone I'm working with will say "oh yes, it's like when I..." and then they'll share something from their own life where they've accessed it.
14] I'll ask you to do the same. From reading my examples above, are there any moments in your life where you've had an experience like this? What was it like? And now, we make a switch. Rather than waiting for it to happen, you can consciously choose to bring it about.
15] Remember such a moment. Experience in your memory what it was like, vividly. Remember, we're going for that experience of expansion, not describing with words what you were doing, seeing or feeling. Experience it again.
16] Now let that experience diffuse through the permeable membrane between your memory and the real word in the here and now. No describing, no analysing. Just being fully available to whatever is happening right now in relationship with the entirety of your environment.
17] And if this is the first time you've come across me on Twitter and want more, then start here. https://t.co/pppidMHSzH
Meta] Also, if you want to dive much deeper into this stuff, I have built what I believe is the only asynchronous online course that explores Alexander Technique from a first principles perspective. You can find out more and stay up to date by going here: https://t.co/GHzsyr4ILq