When I first started my school in Japan, I once wanted to die.

Not suicide, but almost. Because something happened…

And I reacted badly to it.

I was washed away by a tsunami of emotions so brutal that, for a moment, I wanted to drown. I wanted to escape from a darkness so overwhelming, it took my breath away.

I was co-teaching a workshop in Kyoto, in 2001.

Talking about secrets.

Last night I “outed” my Self – I exposed my secret life. Did you?

It was invigorating, uplifting and liberating.

***

The day started with a trainee in tears in my ATSuccess class, sharing her secret fear. She admitted to being frightened of joining Facebook because “I might be attacked”. As she shared her ‘secret’ with us, she got freer.

“Secrets” will cause head/spinal dysfunction.

I recently had a friend compare me to Donald Trump - that was new!

For me it was a “he said-she said” dialogue, and for her I was distorting the “facts”. I was rewriting history to make my world happy again: “Sorry, but the latter sounds like Donald Trump’s thinking.” she wrote to me.

Better question – who writes a blog on Xmas day?!

I do. Why? Well, why not?

The day is to celebrate the things that make life worthwhile: love, compassion, friendship, family, giving, receiving.

Xmas a great time to practise generosity of spirit.

Basil is a remarkable BodyChance teacher, famous throughout Japan in the classical music world (“It’s very small.” Basil assures me) yet virtually unknown to the wider Alexander community. Totally fluent in English, Basil is an American citizen born in Hong Kong, who grew up in Japan from the age of one.

Basil is a delightful experience here: American on the outside, Japanese on the inside.

Recently I was staring at my Mac’s screen, listening to a distressed man wonder if he had got it all wrong for the last 10 months. He had joined ATSuccess Pro to discover how he could share the work with an aged community living in close proximity to his home.

It took a while for me to recognize the fact that this man was himself in his 80’s!

Have you ever noticed how often FM’s work is “discovered” in other methods?

Haven’t you ever wondered about that?

Of course (speaking from my own experience) it can be intensely irritating to explain…

“No, AT isn’t really like Yoga. Not at all.”

…because not only is the listener nonplussed by your response, they also become slightly irritated and defensive too.

It’s like two 5 year olds on a playground: “My daddy’s better than your daddy. There!”

Right now I am in the process of ripping apart my past to find a way to my future.

Contained within my past is a modus operandi that I conceive holds back my ability to act effectively and efficiently. To get to the future, I think I need to understand my past.

Maybe you identify this same tendency in you? I am certainly not alone in this…

Recently I posted on Facebook, and got quite a response.

It was an insight I’d had into my own behaviour – which I am posting to Facebook all the time so what’s new? Yet this one hit a chord with a lot of folks! I was surprised by the rich reaction it garnered. Many people commented, I got unsolicited emails privately, and now I’m reading a book about it!*

What did you feel when you woke up today?

How did you make sense of it?

You don’t need to make sense of your positive experiences – they are wonderful! It is the negative experiences you want to examine. When you experience a strong negative emotion, what do you do?

My guess is that you give this negative experience a name.

You call it “tired” or “worried” or “depressed” or “sad” – whatever. Words are called forth to give your experience a name.