How You Think About Stress Matters!

As my loyal readers know, at the moment Chancer is babbling on about Bespoke Movement Plans (as part of BodyThinking Online) and Alexander's Discovery.

Why should you care?

Because how you think matters!

It matters to your health, your relationships, your productivity and your ability to accomplish the things you want to accomplish. It is a big deal.

Marj – my wonderful teacher God bless her – left me with a simple but profound piece of advice:

"We don't always know what we are feeling.
We do always know what we are thinking."

Unless you consider that sentence, it doesn't leap out at you as being very profound.

Until you realise that we are all "feeling" junkies.

Feelings dominate you every day: they decide, they crush, or they enliven you. We determine how we are, not based on any factual basis, but purely on the way we feel.

Yes, I could diverge into a lot of brain science here – mainly how the availability of feelings influences how we think. Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman, in his book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" details an idea that Alexander was also fond of. 

Alexander was not so kind. He put it this way:

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All the darned fools in the world believe they are actually doing what they think they are doing.

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Notice that FM didn't say you don't know what you're thinking, he just said that your thinking is up the creek without a paddle. Kahneman agrees.

He puts it a kinder way: he says when you are asked a question like - "How have you been feeling these last three months?" – you will answer another question that you were not asked which is - "How am I feeling right now?"

If we catch you on a good day, then the last three months have been fantastic.

If we catch you on a bad day, then the last three months have been terrible.

Both are right, neither is true.

We spend our whole life in this diaspora of unreliability, scurrying away from reality.

We live with a large unrecognised gap between our thinking and feeling, and it gets us into all sorts of trouble. This is one of the undisputed conclusions of Kahneman and modern psychologists. We are masters at fooling ourselves.

Alexander's discovered that the place where this incongruity originates from – and causes you the most grief - is in the way you coordinate your movements every day.

A simple example: when you ask an untrained person where their arm begins, they will point to the tip of their shoulder. Based on this thinking, they then think it reasonable to start doing ridiculous things like: "Keep my shoulders down while I raise my arm." When you do that – and the majority of people try – you're going to end up in a lot of pain. You're feelings start complaining - yet you have no idea how your suffering originated in your thinking.

Common discomforts like this slowly lead to psychological distress. Psychological distress gradually leads to souring relationships, poor motivation and finally, depression.

That's why – over several years – members of an Alexander training school – slowly find their lives improving in all sorts of unexpected ways. Thinking and feeling come into a constructive, healthy relationship. 

You are not born with this conscious understanding - every person must acquire it on their own.

BodyThinking Online – together with Alexander's Discovery – is one way this to acquire this understanding and slowly watch your life being transformed by it. By renewing your relationship with your arms, your legs and most importantly, your head/spinal coordination, you experience daily well-being.

It seems ordinary, yet over time the effect is profound.

And you don't just do it once – it is a lifetime's journey. In the last year – after 50 years of Alexander – I am still discovering profound truths about my legs, and how they operate from my mind.

Physical harmony between how you think about how you move generates not only feelings of ease, comfort and well-being., but also profound realisations that go to the core of your identity.

Keep this going daily over many years, and your life is continuously transformed for the better.

And you need tools to support you continuing with this unstoppable display of kinaesthetic fireworks.

Some people may think they have finished that journey, that they already know these things. I feel sorry for them – there is so much more to discover. Once your identity clamps down on renewal, you are the definition of "getting old." 

One of the remarkable traits about FM is that he kept "getting younger." The video of him in his twilight years shows a man full of sparkle and mischief. 

Nor is everyone is ready for this journey. They do not have the motivation and energy to pursue this. Active teachers – of any kind – are usually motivated to improve their skills but do not undertake it lightly – you will be wasting your money.

But if you are motivated, then starting with BodyThinking Online - including three live online coaching groups with me over the next three months - is a sure-fire way to energise your thinking, and led you to renewal in areas you can hardly imagine now.

My 50% discount – plus a bunch of bonus reference material – will end December 31st. I do this promotion about once a year, so this is the time to join if you are interested. The coaching sessions are designed to motivate and guide you to make your investment worthwhile.

$140 is all you pay today.

It allows you immediate access.

The link below will explain what is on offer, how much it costs, and how you can purchase it.

https://bodychance.mykajabi.com/store/oTZvjLye