Discovery needs celebration.

Without it, the physiology required to imprint insight fails to energize. Celebration is physiology - it facilitates oligodendroglial* cells to myelinate the axon pathways ignited by your discovery. The result is the ability to act faster.

Yesterday, I nearly yelled at one of my students.

Metaphorically, I certainly did. These days I have stopped being middle-class nice – what a wasted life! - instead telling it how I see it. My trainee was a robust, heavy-set man with a problem. He could handle it.

And I thought it was all over. Is it ever finished?

There I am, sobbing on my green couch this morning like a 5 year old, after reading these words from Byron Katie:

"Life on the other side of inquiry is so simple and obvious that it can't be imagined. Everything is seen to be at its best, just the way it is. Hope and faith aren't needed in this place. Earth turned out to be the heaven I was longing for. This is the unimaginable life that I live, that we all live."

Desmond Morris, in his 1971 book Intimate Behaviour writes:

"If the monkey is a male, it will never again, as an adult, know the total intimacy of a loving bond. Until the day it dies, it will continue to exist in a loveless world of rivalries and partnerships, of competition and co-operation."

Isn't that the life of an increasing number of people today?

Reflecting on an end of intimacy I experienced recently, I wrote to a dear friend that I was mourning the loss of

Being successful over a long period is the sign of an intelligence at work - luck or special circumstances play only a minor role.

There's no moment where I can just coast along - no matter what it is I am doing. Of course I can, and for few years it will be OK, but eventually little signs of decay will appear, blemishes on what was previously incorruptible.

Yes, now it's official.

An Australian doctor entered my name into Medibank's database as a "Chronic Back Pain Sufferer". She wanted me to benefit from the "5 funded sessions" that Medicare will grant me.

I didn't have the heart to tell the doctor that:

My recent dispatch declaiming the sacred sheen of Alexandrian inhibition brought forth some solid affirmations. Phew!

From Jane Buhler comes this nice summary of the original post, throwing in a declaim of another AT sacred cow…

***

I don’t mean to downplay Alexandrian inhibition – it is a critical piece, and fundamental to any enduring change process, no question. It’s also counter intuitive to many people, so fascinating.

Yes to all THAT.

Except there’s nothing particularly “Alexanderian” about inhibition.

I have a regular to do list which I sometimes ferociously watch, and most times studiously ignore.

Which way works best?

David Allen is famous for debuting his philosophy in Getting Things Done (GTB), then going on to make a fortune from it. Poor guy - he really has to live his biz like me. 24/7.

David's primary insight was this: when making a To Do list, put every "necessary" into your system, without exception. Once you have downloaded every single item you want to do, think about or plan - you can TRUST your system.

You write to engage.

You write to your audience; to the people who might become your students.

You write so they can understand how they can benefit.

THEN they want to know who you are, what you do and how that helps them.

Alexander's discovery remains a mystery to many people, even after studying it.

It can be easily explained, yet comparing that explanation to your proposed results – the two seem out of all proportion with each other!

Student thinks:

“Banned” is a little hyperbole. Thrown out is a tad closer.

And I like getting thrown out of things. It’s become a habit.

Usually it’s because I won’t conform, or behave in an “expected” way. In the FB group AT Global, I kept asking people to try my services. I behave normally for a business, but they don’t like it.

It all started with STAT – doesn’t everything?

There is a secret to BodyChance's Golden Week residential, and I am going to reveal it.

Anyone who follows my feed on Facebook knows there is a frenzy of activity every May.

During the Japanese holidays of Golden Week (what a great name!) BodyChance holds its annual residential. We started it in 1999, and still going strong.

Back in the 70s, when I first arrived in London to train, the big scandal was group teaching.

Of course, EVERYONE KNEW you could not teach Alexander's discovery in groups. It was almost a heresy back then, a betrayal of principle. What are you thinking!?

Except that "unreasonable" teachers started to teach in groups.

The story I heard - back then - was of an infuriated Dr Wilfred Barlow, at the last STAT AGM he ever attended, pointing a finger quivering in anger at Walter Carrington:

"It is because of you!"

What a weird day.

I got just what I had been asking for, as I often ask in class:

"Does anyone have any questions, comments or complaints?"

It was inspired by my daughter Grace. When she was little, we used to play a game. She would complain to me. I would look outraged. I would puff and blow my Self up to over- size, then bellow in a loud voice:

"Grace! How dare you behave this way!!

Stop behaving like a 5 year old!!!"

And then Grace - with a little sparkle on her face - would quickly reply: