Being Obedient

It can happen that a passing remark cuts deep into our psyche. 

And the comment stays. The words echo decades into our future, helping to shape a new identity. This once happened to me after I delivered an Alexander class. The comment was casual enough, not at all earth-shattering:

“You are often quoting other people when you teach - I want to know what you think.”

I was defensive at first. 

“What’s wrong with that?!” I thought to myself. “Am I supposed to have this big ego that obeys only my ideas?!”

But the comment came back to haunt me in every class when I quoted other teachers. I started to see how often I did. I hadn’t known. I started playing around with not quoting, but giving an opinion in my words. Slowly I realised how obedient I was being to the ideas of other people.

A lot of different people inhabited my core, just not me.

I dared not question their fundamentals. Like a little boy in a classroom with a powerful adult looking over him - I was too scared to disaggree. I walked in their world and felt all the safer because of it.

Deep inside me, I discovered I was obedient to the beliefs I had absorbed from others. To dismantle their ideas was to dismantle my life. I finally became fully awake to this when my father died.

As much as I believed I was on a mission, it turned out my mission was to win love from dad. When he died, so did my desire to be a great teacher. The light on “Alexander is important” dimmed and I was a lost boy looking for love.

The led to a long period of questioning and a leap off a mountain.

Was I going to continue with Alexander, or was going to give it up?