The end-of-year holiday season is a time to enjoy family and friends and to reflect on the year gone by. For many people, it really is "the most wonderful time of the year".
But at the same time, many find the holiday season filled with stress and anxiety. With all the hurly-burly - the shopping, the cooking, the parties, not to mention wrapping up loose ends at work to make way for downtime - anyone could find themselves over-extended and frazzled.
So with that in mind, SR Seminars would like to offer a simple practice that will help you manage stress, a technique for Staying Together in the face of turmoil.
A Practice of Staying Together
We stay together, or come together, by engaging (this in Alexander Technique terms) two things: Sensory Appreciation and Direction.
The first step is Sensory Appreciation.
Here I am.
I am sitting in my chair.
I sense my feet on the floor.
I sense my sit-bones on the chair.
I sense the base of my spine against the chair back.
I sense my spine connecting my pelvis to my head.
I sense my head balanced on the top of my spine.
The next step is Direction.
I begin to acknowledge - or if I can't sense this, to simply wish for - a flow of life and reflexive activity within my body.
I wish that my thighs will release out from my hips along their natural length.
That my lower legs and feet will release out from my knees and that my feet will rest gently upon the floor.
That my elbows will flow naturally out and down from my shoulders.
That my wrists - via my lower arms - will flow out and away from my elbows.
That my hands and fingers - following the natural form of their long and delicate bones and muscles - will flow out and away from my wrists.
I wish for my limbs to direct out of holding me in and gripping me.
I wish for fluidity and freedom in my structure, in a general way and in these specific ways.
Now my spine (helped along by another wish) may release lightly and easily up out of my pelvis.
I wish to inhabit the natural breadth and depth of my torso all the way from my sit-bones and hip joints to the top of my head.
I wish for my head to balance freely in a gentle, delicate, nodding, looking-about-spontaneously kind of way, up and over the top vertebra of my spine.
I wish to see with my eyes and open my awareness into the world around me.
This exercise takes moments to do, and may be done many times each day. ESPECIALLY at this time of year!
|
