eating

Alexander Discovery, Alexander Technique, eating, habit, happiness, mindfulness

I was on holiday

John

Traveling overnight just makes a long day, up as usual in the morning, a full day making the most our last day on holiday, then flying home with a couple of hours back. Then I woke up at my usual UK time, why! Just a couple of hours sleep.

Ugh.

I suppose habits are usually helpful sometimes but not this morning, I noticed it was daylight so time to wake up, why!

It did give me time to put the holiday clothes in the washing machine and to weigh myself, obviously too much beer and baklava, don’t ask, I wondered why my trouser are tight.


Beer and baklava, another habit, go on holiday and let and other habit slip or is it a good old habit reemerge of when I was younger and fitter, I could eat and drink what I liked then and still be trim. The Mediterranean has so many good memories of good times, the heat of the sun, clear blue skies, the sea, food, beer and back then a lot of hard work. This time the hard work was missing perhaps my trousers were saying something.

But I was on holiday, time to relax and worry about things later, later is here this morning, now back on low/ no carb food without baklava and beer, I’ll miss them.

Allowing habits to take control may or may not be a conscious decision, I was in holiday mode and just ran with my habits, so I could claim that I consciously choose to revert to an old behaviour. It was good, I was on holiday!

It’s great to be home now, still on holiday but doing some things at home that need to be done during a weekday.

Some thoughts for you;

  • do you change to someone else when you go on holiday?
  • do you like your holiday persona?
  • Have you ever thought why you change?
Alexander Discovery, anxiety, body mapping, body-mapping, eating

Food glorious food

John

Today I was thinking about writing about tricks and techniques but over breakfast I thought how about writing about eating.

So today I’m going to write about eating, I guess we always at least three times a day what are you aware of what you’re waiting; I know I’m not always aware, if I’m ravenous my food just disappears of the plate and if I do this too often I will need to get a larger longer belt and possibly a new wardrobe to fit my new larger sizes.

Perhaps the more aware of what I’m eating when I’m eating could help, personally I will enjoy my food more and I would get full for quicker with less food.

So a win win situation.

Yesterday I wrote about tricks and techniques so there are tricks and techniques in eating food, firstly sit at a table turn the TV and move your Mobile devices away from the table even better put them in another room. Now before you pick up your knife and fork or maybe your spoon, take time to look at your food enjoy the anticipation of what you are going to eat. Now decide where are you going to start eating your meal. Cut up a bite size, stop and cut it in half now pop that in your mouth take a few moments to enjoy the taste, the temperature and sensation of the food.

Place your cutlery on your plate.

Now chew your food a little longer than you normally do all the time and enjoying the taste, the temperature and the sensation of the food.

Once that mouthful of food has gone, repeat but always remember to put your cutlery back on the plate when you are eating.

This all sounds like the normal stuff for helping you to manage your food intake, they are, these are the tricks to get you to notice what you are up to when you are eating, getting you to notice that there many ways to eat food, I do most of them, but sometimes eating needs to be reset, and these tricks help me to reset my eating habits. These tricks aren’t much about Alexander’s discovery but if you use these tricks with Alexander’s discovery, the tricks work so much better.

Alexander’s discovery is being aware of your head neck back relationship, observing your own freedom and elegance without trying to interfere with your beautiful elegance.

To understand Alexander’s discovery there’s a whole host of tricks and techniques to understand and then let go of. Like yesterdays blog, just like learning to ride a bike, you may have learnt with stabilisers but once learnt you would never use them again.

If you are wondering what these tricks and techniques are, here are some of them;

  • Being aware of your local environment
  • Being aware of yourself in the local environment
    • Being aware of these two at the same time
  • Filling your own space with yourself
  • Being where you are, not drifting off into the future or past
  • Knowing you are safe in this very moment
  • Allowing things to be what they are
  • Not trying to be someone who you are not

A teacher can help with all of these and they have their own tricks and techniques to help you to learn.

  • Transferring their calming presence through touch
  • Inviting you to own your own space though touch and an invitation to move freely
    • Verbal instructions for the above
  • Observation of your habits and behavours and asking non-judgmental questions for you to notice how you move.
  • Inviting you to discover your own freedom and elegance as you learn about your head neck back relationship.

These are just a few of the tricks and techniques, if you want to know more you can always join my mailing list.

Enjoy your eating.